He No Here

“Memory is not the opposite of forgetting but its lining.” Sans Soleil, Chris Marker, 1983

SO - in typical UHH DIRT style, we diving the fuck in - no intros, no preambular ad-libs that become the song ODB style – nah. One programming note - if ya looking for weed content – click the “IS IT GOOD?” tab floating on the side of the page.

Back to the program:

Word on the mean streets of West Windsoropolis circa 1998 was that our man Little Head had a seizure in karate class, and possibly one in gym class. He supposedly - in the moment before his body’s involuntary movements overtook him - was asked, “Little head, are you ok?”. His alleged reply, just before collapsing into a frightening fit was, “Me No Here”.

Or was it “He No Here”, as someone else attested? Possibly.

I use “possibly” with intention because anything in the mind of 8th graders carries the signature combination of elemental truth and utter fabrication.

Hazy recollections abound - but the one thing that is factual is that our man Dave Ellis, illustrious creator of UHH DIRT, drew a crude MS Paint animation of our boy with his body contorted in evident confusion and savage vulnerability. It was then featured in a comic.

Looking at it then – it was rough. But I think we all - except Little Head, I’m sure - chuckled.

Looking at it now - that OG drawing is foul. Mean. Unnecessary. In need of reconstitution, re-indexing and perhaps - if Issue 001 is in any way a success - redefinition.

The reality is, when thinking back on this childhood cast of folks, some who I still talk to, some who I don’t - the first person that came to my mind wasn’t Dave - it was Little Head.

He came into my life in elementary school having moved from the UK with his family - his father, mother and older brother Big Head. As the years went on, the household grew to include a younger sister and with their mom taking on the full parenting burden of raising a family on her own in our little intact-marriage-is-social-capital-ass suburban community.

As is the spirit of UHH DIRT 2.0, the questions here are simple - what happens when you grow up and look back? What holds together and what falls apart?

What holds together, most concretely, was that the best thing about Little Head and why I considered him among my best friends for years, was that he was the same gentle, compassionate guy he was at age 10 as he was at age ~22-23 or so - the last time I saw him.

My memories of the last few years of our connection are scattered, looser than the years before Dave’s death when we were 20 years old and younger.

I remember talking to Little Head at his house the summer after Dave passed when I finally came home from studying in Europe.

On the one hand, shit hadn’t changed: we smoked an L at his place and shot the shit in his childhood bedroom several nights a week that summer. He had a girlfriend at the time. There was talk of moving out of New Jersey.

However, what I recall most vividly is that something was broken.

There was a distance between us, and to me - a distance between Little Head and his own life unfolding. I later put two and two together and realized there was a lot more to the story.

It wasn’t the first time I had felt this though - and those recollections come back in involuntary flashes, scattered memory fragments peeling off from the whole and floating into the wind.

Like when, on our high school senior trip to the Baudrillardian mecca that is Disney, Florida – Little Head’s entire mouth and tongue were stained purple, his eyes utterly adrift as he downed a heroic amount of Robitussin on the way to the airport.

I was nervous but I covered for him, blocking him off with my body in our bus seats so he could continue sipping, seeking whatever it was he was looking for. Other classmates stared.

I turned at one point, earnestly concerned because truthfully I had no fucking idea what would happen to someone doing something that I would never even think to do, and said, “Yo, why you doing that?”

Swaying-in-place, Tussin’ completely dusted off - empties thrown into a brown paper bag that his breakfast was likely carried in - Little Head shrugged, “I dunno.”

The awkward bus ride to the airport carried on. I was completely oblivious to the hundred+ other kids on it. But I didn’t fill the air, I just… sat and thought and watched. Eventually as we pulled into the airport and had to deboard –

“What does it feel like?” I asked. Little Head, purple-lipped and cemented in a mix of nausea and a vacant smile, replied something to the effect of “Relaxing. Like I’m not even here.” …

The last time the entire UHH DIRT crew was in one place, was in theory, at Dave’s funeral. Except I wasn’t there.

I was overseas, unable to come back - and thus the presumptive second image flash I would have at the ready to explain to y’all is not one that I can truly picture.

But from what I’ve been told, the ashen looks on everyone’s face that day lowering Dave into the dirt; Little Head especially - shoulders slumped and body defeated, something completely shifted that day.

A reliable chorus of presence, camaraderie, years of intimate friendship - seemingly no longer present. Absence reigned.

But did that drift really start in our 20s? As the revitalized and recontextualized art on our jar reveals - truthfully, I wonder.

Regardless, in the case of Little Head and I - it’s been ~20 years and we’ve never talked again.