dr. crack frightens me slightly, his hyper talk leads nowhere, his extremity seems to meet in a strange collision of neo nihilistic philosophies, his friends are fringe dwellers, oddities, freaks and quite possibly criminally insane and on the other hand he mixes with the upper establishment, a cabal of international high financiers, surgeons, technologists, artists and glamourous women who look like they belong in james bond movies, he whispers conspiracy theories and spins fabrications that often are seeded with truth, his eyes burn with some divine holy chaos yet his edward lear logic makes perfect sense. how have i become entangled in his spider web of characters i am yet to fathom, he says it's autobiography but it's more horror fiction. 
today he pulls up in a new car, it's a black sporty thing with two seats, probably some italian type of design, it does look impressive although i am not impressed by these trinkets. it attracts a lot of attention from my neighbours, who are already nervous of the strange dark skinned guy in black who walks his dog at midnight and looks at the space between the stars. 
dr.crack smiles and waves for me to jump in, i do, the seat is sunken low, it's like we are hovering on the road as we spin around corners at a velocity that i know are illegal and dangerous. the car is noiseless and elegant, it plays opera and i close my eyes until we stop. there's something peaceful about this movement, otherworldly almost, like an isolation tank i float in a void, aware of only motion and the expanse of some dramatic love affair going wrong as a voice carries me on a wave of italian madness towards zen detachment. 
we stop and a door opens automatically, dr. crack jumps out, 'come on mission, i want you to meet someone.'
inside i step walking along a long dark corridor i turn a hidden corner and wander into a strange looking room where a very short man, a dwarf or midget stands on a crate and waves a pair of scissors around, as though conducting a secret orchestra.
i try to hide my irrational fear of disproportioned people, i look around nervously trying not to look nervous, scanning for a newspaper of something to hide behind. it's one of those rare moments where i am not carrying a book.
crack shakes hands with the small man, 'lou i want you to meet a dear friend of mine, captain mission, mission this is lou the blade.'
'nice to meet you captain, sit sit, make yourself comfortable, i can cut your hair after i finish with the dr.'
'no no, it's fine thank you, i have a friend who does mine, she shaves it once a fortnight,' i lie. i actually go to a guy in babylon, he's been doing it for years.
lou and crack assume their positions, crack puts the scissors down and picks up a blade, it glints every now and then as tough pulsing with some sort of inner light.
a radio tuned into talkback blurts out angry post budget blues, a man phones in and is complaining demanding an election although it's about john howard and a war, i flick through a newspaper, the headline is about an economic meltdown in america and europe, some riots in southern europe, something about russian scientists developing a cure for ageing by discovering a super antioxidant SKQ1, there's a photograph of a celebrity who has come out of the closet and an advertisement for jetstar, i notice the date of the paper is four years old. i scan through it, it may as well be four days old. 
it's hard to read the print as the whole room is illuminated by a single light bulb which is swinging, throwing out a pulsating radius of light, when it swings near i can read for a few seconds, as it moves away it becomes impossible.
lou and the doctor are discussing some kind of medical procedure, occasionally they slip into a kind of russian or eastern european language, it's hard for me to distinguish and i don't want to draw attention to myself by asking. the radio starts playing frank sinatra and lou begins singing the words, 'fly me to the moon, let me swing among the stars, let me see what spring is like, on jupiter and mars.' 
his voice is incredibly deep, much deeper than i would assume given his height, he dances around on the box, singing and shaving crack's head.
i'm about to return to the old newspaper but i notice this big mark on the top of dr. cracks head. i try to look a little more without being obvious, lou is working around it, a dark shadowy patch, what is that, i strain to look. 
it hits me in the chest, like being punched on the solar plexus. am i in some sort of shock i think.
i wonder how i didn't notice it before, i'd never seen it despite it's obvious location. it was a freaking hole, right in the centre of cracks head.
lou twirls and jumps off his box,'finished' he holds up a mirror at the shaved head although there's no way the dr. can see it, still, dr. crack nods his approval. i'm dazzled by the gleam, did they polish it with some kind of bald mans wax, it's so bright. the hole is there though right in the middle, just like the black hole at the centre of the universe. i can't take my eyes off it, i wonder if it possesses the power of a black hole sucking my sight into its centre because i can't shift my gaze.
dr.crack hands over some cash and we all say goodbye. to be honest i'm glad to get out of there.
we head over to the post office, dr. crack has seven different po box numbers, he gets me to carry a bundle of mail and packages. 
i can't help myself, i have to know what the hell is going on with this hole in his head.
'crack, did you know you have a hole in the centre of your head?'
he looks at me as though i have asked the most ridiculous question, 'off course i do, i put it there myself.'
to say i was stunned would be an understatement. 'what the hell did you do that for?'
'i'm dr. crack, that's my name, dr. of trepanation, what did you think, i was a heart surgeon, maybe a dr of philosophy?'
on the way back dr. crack explains the history of trepanation, i listen and don't say a word.