Spike Henry was captain of the Frannie’s Bar and Grill bowling team. Spike was called that because he had a spike jutting out of his head. Had for years. It was some sort of, in his words, “industrial accident.” No one thought he did it on purpose but no one would bet against it either.

“Be just like the crazy goof to ram a spike into his head”, one friend said.

“Yea, even sober”, another added.

Spike complained a lot about it.

“We can send a man to the moon; we can replace hearts and other innards. We can’t remove a spike from my head?”

His doctor’s answer was always the same. “Yes, but it would kill you.” Lately the doctor had been more and more tempted to do it. One ethical boo boo wasn’t so bad.

Spike didn’t mind when he picked up cell phone conversations. Some of them were pretty interesting. He didn’t mind the radio reception although he had to turn his head sometimes to tune it in okay. He hated getting the country stations. He had his own whining and crying to do.

Spike didn’t appreciate his buddies opening their beer bottles on his spike. He thought that was demeaning. He didn’t mind the ladies doing it. He thought that was an opening. It never was but he felt he might get lucky just once.

Spike got mugged one night. The mugger ended up with forty stitches. Spike took the mugger’s wallet too. It wasn’t really the mugger wallet but to Spike, “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” The judge got him for the other tenth and Spike did ten.

For a while Spike tried to hide the spike. He grew his hair real long and combed it over the spike. Thing was, the spike was nine inched long and that took a lot of hair and combing. He stopped that the night one of the barflys told him he looked like Conway Twitty with a spike in his head.

Driving was a problem. Spike just didn’t have enough head room. Well, spike room. He had to drive with his head tilted. He was rear-ended once and the fire department had to use the “jaws of life” to cut him free.

The biggest pain in the butt was waking up in the morning. He’s wake up, stretch and jam the spike into the headboard. Spike kept a claw hammer on his nightstand.

Having a spike in your head isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.