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| HEAD IN A HELLO KITTY BAG Text & Collages By Walter Cessna Ah, the sweet smell of K in the morning. It takes me back to places I’m not sure I should have visited in the first place. I always start drifting back into time and instantly remember the first time I actually got high. Not buzzed, high. Rocket to the moon, shit in yer pants high. I was about fourteen and had just entered the world of public high school, quite a departure from the sheltered Lutheran school I had just graduated from. My new set of friends enticed me with the sheer thrill of doing things I had never dared to before. I mean stealing money out of your moms purse is hardly a precursor to more destructive behavior (or is it)? Yet, I dove head first into a series of events that would somehow end up shaping the rest of my life whether I liked or not. About five of us, the usual crew had cut school after homeroom and were heading towards Chrocheron Park which was conveniently only about five blocks away. There was Eileen, kind of our unspoken leader and the loosest screw in the bunch, Jimmy and his sister Patty, who looked like twins but were actually one year apart, George, the son of a Greek plumber and Helen, my first girlfriend who just happened to be Puerto Rican and Caroline, the biggest Bruce Springsteen freak on the planet. I had stolen a bottle of blackberry brandy from my parents liquor cabinet and we settled down smack in the middle of a grassy meadow to chug it down. After we had downed about half the bottle and the warm fuzzy feeling of the booze started to creep up from our toes, Jimmy pulled out a tube of model airplane glue and emptied a brown paper bag that his sister had been carrying her lunch in (which pissed her off, until George swiped the sandwich and wolfed it down, which pissed her off even more and she left). He squeezed the tube contents into the bag and then rolled down its sides, carefully cupping it up to his mouth. Then he sucked, hard, inhaling & exhaling deeply at least five times before he passed the bag to Eileen who repeated his performance just as expertly. Not wanting to look stupid (which is pretty smart, right?), I took the bag next and bent my face forward into it, repulsed immediately by the stench of chemicals and other people’s blackberry brandy breath. I huffed and I puffed until I nearly blew myself down, then passed the bag to Helen, who politely declined. It hit me immediately and at first I sort of liked it. As I lay back on the soft grass I stared straight into the sun and let the toxins flow through my body until it seemed my head might explode. I looked over at Caroline, who was having her huff finally and realized that I had never felt quite like this before. This soft, oozy, floating feeling. I liked it. A lot. Before I realized what was happening, our posse was up and heading towards the diner on Bell Blvd. where my warped senses convinced me that a plate of fries was the answer to everything plaguing my particular galaxy. It wasn’t. I barely made it to the bathroom where I proceeded to hurl into the sink, slip back on the smooth tiled floor and pass out for a good ten minutes. When I came to, the cash register girl was standing above me and a little old man had pinned himself against the wall in sheer fright from the sight of a spasing fourteen year old glue huffer fucked up in the john. My name is Jefferson Alley Katz and I tend to lose myself in thought more often than I’d like. It can be distracting. Like right now for instance. Here I am, my head hovering over a line of K and all I can do is sink into some demented daydream about days long gone by. I lower my head down and suck up the line in one swift Hoover like swish. I looked up and smiled at no one in particular. I could have smiled at any of the several assorted lost freaks surrounding me, but why waste it on the living dead. I got up and left the blackened room that seemed to be the most popular spot at the club. I can’t for the fuck of me remember the name, but it was full of all those people you read about in magazines, yet resembled nothing your imagination could ever conjure up. I’m fourteen times two these days and four times more fucked up. I had been on my own pretty much since my fifteenth birthday. That was when I got my first of many tattoo’s and a severe smack upside my head by my father. After a few too many nights missing in action and then showing up with one more tattoo (usually, self inflicted) after another, my dad had enough and kicked my ass out of the house, “his house god damnit!” My obsession with tattoos is something I have never quite figured out. What started out as a dare while out on a lark with a bunch of drunken skater friends steadily escalated into a lifetime passion that leaves me as I am today. A completely tattooed man. Head to mother fucking toe. The early ones are pretty crude, but by the time I got to my face I made sure that I didn’t have some fucked up white trash troll leave his mark on me. Once you tattoo your face there’s pretty much no going back. You are estranged from normal reality, at least in the perception of most of the world. Everyone looks at you and most aren’t afraid to voice their opinion, disapproving or otherwise. It used to bother me when I was in my early twenties, but that probably had more to do with the fact that in my tweaked out state of mind, I was most likely more paranoid than I should be. I mean it’s not like old ladies or babies scream when they see me. Well, maybe once or twice, but who counts that shit. I’ve lived on the street pretty much my whole life. I zip around on my skateboard all day and usually all night, hustling up the dinero any way possible so I can afford a hotel room for the evening and avoid flopping out on the street, or worse, the shelter. I spent most of late teens and early twenties living in New York City, but after roughing it one winter too many, I hopped a Greyhound and headed out to sunny Hell A. It was everything I had expected and nothing I prayed for, yet I was happy to be there amidst the dying palm trees, leather like tans and apocalyptic skies that erupted into smog saturated mornings that melted away to dusty pink sunsets and the uneven calm of neon nights spent skating on the strip. I hung out a lot at places where a totally tattooed man doesn’t get too much crap. This revolved around an aptly named hustler bar called Hunters on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood and the Spotlight, another dive located a little further down on Cahuenga off Selma. I live a life that I find comfortable even if others don’t. People may think I look strange, but that doesn’t mean I’m some fucked up weirdo. I’m just a dude who had to fend for himself early, any way he could. I’ve done things that would repulse some people even though they brought someone else a lot of pleasure. That’s the contradiction I’ve faced my entire life. What freaks you out might not freak out somebody else. So anyway, back to the story. I’m wandering through the dark holes of this club when I realize that I have left Sawa Wakazawa, my new Japanese plaything alone in the car outside for almost two hours now. Let’s just say she wasn’t exactly thrilled when I came out and hopped back in the car. She was clutching her Hello Kitty knapsack and looking at me as if I had committed some unbearable treason against her. Rabid little Japanese bitches turn me fucking on and I could hardly wait to take her sweet little San Rio loving ass home, stick it up in the air and fuck her hard for the better portion of the night. Yeah, sure. Sawa was about seventeen and had long honey blonde dyed hair that went all the way down to the back of her knees. Like most kids her age she was obsessed with retro and dressed like a missing cast member from Welcome Back Kotter. Raggedy, patchwork suede jeans exploded into elephant flares at her feet, which were perilously perched on top of five-inch cork plat- formed metallic sandals. She had on a tube top that said “Fuck Me I’m Famous” in rhinestones and was wearing a vintage dyed baby blue YSL chubby jacket that she had scored from an unknowledgeable thrift store salesman. Her makeup was, as mannequin like as possible. Sawa had eyes like saucers, huge, deep expanses of vision that I wasn’t sure even she was aware of. “I want a burrito.” It was a simple request, but when you’re peeking on K and about to drive a car through Los Angeles traffic at the height of rush hour, even simple requests become magnanimous. “We have to get home. Someone’s meeting me to score the rest of this K.” “K, K, K. All you fucking think about is fucking K.” “Well I don’t really care what you fucking think. I’m not hanging out with you because I value your opinion. I just like fucking your ass.” Sawa was crying now and I realized I had gone too far. Not only was I in jeopardy of having to deal with a whining piece of pussy, but I might not get any either and that would be truly tragic. “I’m sorry…”, I blurted out but Sawa started to bawl even louder and I knew the only thing that would shut her up was a big fat greasy Del Taco steak burrito with extra cheese, no guacamole, one squirt of sour cream, not two and extra hot sauce on the side. Please. Yeah, sure. We pull up to the joint, of which there are so many in L.A. you could practically trip over them and I try to swing my car into the take-out lane, but Sawa has other plans. She gives me the look. You know the one. The lick my lips and bat my eyes and readjust my crotch once over and I’m instant cheese, an open tuna melt with out conviction. I park the car and hop out, forgetting to get the door for Sawa who sighs under her breath and lets herself out. As she teeter totters into the Del Taco, I zoom in on her chunky little butt and lick my lips as I start to think about how sweet her asshole tastes, especially after she uses that strawberry flavored douche I got her for Valentines day. Once were inside and bathed in the surreal white fluorescent light that pours from the ceiling, I realize that the K is kicking in big time and before I know it, everything is slick and oily, like margarine rain in a Fluffer Nutter typhoon. I looked at Sawa and her head grew to the size of a Macy’s Thanksgiving day float, all big face, little arms and teeny tiny legs. Shit, I was fucked the fuckety fuck fuckin up. Sawa runs off to the bathroom, grabbing at her snatch like she’s ready to take a leak all over the floor, so I saunter up to the check out line and attempt to make a quick stop behind a large headed black boy that towered before me. Grace, never being one my best features, once again let me down and I not only smack right into him, but practically groped him whole in the embarrassing entanglement we soon found ourselves in. I’m literally in a tailspin as I flip around and try to pull myself back up on my feet, But homey don’t play that, and before I know it, this dude has me by the neck, choking me like I’m a doll. It seems to be going on for fucking ever and the K has me completely looped and suspended in animation, leaving me no course of defense against this very large and menacing boy. Just before I pass out, I see Sawa from the corner of my eye. She’s racing towards my perpetrator at break neck speed, screaming like a banshee. In her hands is gun that I usually hide under the front seat of my car and then the cracking sound of the pistol breaks the boy’ s grip on my now passed out on the floor being. When I finally open my eyes I am faced with the intimidating sight of a crazed Islamic man in a Del Taco uniform holding a meat cleaver above his head and screaming something I wasn’t quite sure was even an actual language. I look for Sawa and start to freak when she doesn’t immediately come to my attention. Then I spy her, squatting over the kid she just shot a few feet from my friggin face, fumbling with the gun and looking like she had no fucking idea what the hell was going on. If I had bothered to look back up the Del Taco dude I might have seen it coming, but I was too entranced by Sawa as she lifted the gun up and aimed it at cleaver McBeaver. The whisk of the blade cut into my neck as if my skin was day old left in the sun butter and the pop of Sawa’s shot pierced into my conscience like a meteor crashing onto the earth. That was about three days ago. I came to a couple of hours later, but found myself in the dark. I couldn’t see a fucking thing. Something else was weird. I had no feeling or sensation in my arms or legs. Or hands and feet. In fact, I felt nothing below the neck and it felt as I was floating in some vacuous space devoid of any physical connection to myself. Even stranger, after awhile I seemed to be moving even though I couldn’t really feel myself going anywhere. This would go on for hours, the sound of muffled voices constantly emanating from some place I couldn’t see echoing through the black void I seemed to be trapped in. What the fuck was going on and where the fuck was I? About an hour later I seemed to be moving again. Then the sound of what seemed like a car trunk opening startled me as I realized I had been put down and heard the slam of the trunk being closed. Somebody had thrown my lifeless, unfeeling body into the trunk of their car and was now getting behind the drivers seat and starting the motor. I was trapped, unable to free myself and not even sure that the screams rushing from my mouth were audible to anyone else but me. We drove for hours and I had given up screaming when I felt my dry throat closing up on itself and sucking whatever I had left in me out. At least I could feel my throat. I stuck my tongue out and licked my hard, cracked lips with my sandpaper like tongue. Then I closed my eyes and fell into yet another depth of darkness, silently falling asleep as my mind raced with ideas as to how I had gotten here and what exactly had happened to me. Was I blind? Was I paralyzed? Nothing made sense but the heavy heaves of my forced breath. The sunlight hit my eyes like a nail plunging into a wall and after squinting for a few seconds I realized that my head was encased in some sort of bag, of which I could slightly look up and out of. All I could see was the roaring sun and endless miles of blue sky. I was still in a car, only I must be out of the trunk. I tried to force my head to look up, but it was useless. The only things I could move were my mouth and eyes. I could puff out my cheeks like a bizarre blowfish, but I couldn’t for the fucking life of me lift my arms up to touch this strange thing that engulfed my head. Sawa’s huge, moon like face suddenly came into my view as I felt something grab my hair and felt as if I was being lifted up. The thing around my head was gone and the sight of Sawa holding me by the hair and laughing took over. I looked down and saw the car seat instead of my body. This was very strange. Where was I? My body to be exact. Before I could utter a word I felt her grip on my hair release and was once again entrapped within what I figured must be a bag of some sort. Before the light was zippered out of my view I heard Sawa talking to someone on her cell phone. At first I couldn’t believe what she was talking about, but when the phrase “his head is in my Hello Kitty bag” came up, I woke up to the fact that I was a head in a Hello Kitty bag. |
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