Thu, 19 May 2005

Owen and Rissa and Dwayne the Necromancer
The next time humanity has a need for absolute evil, Dwayne thought, they’ll have to come to me, as I have the one and only Brain of Hitler in a jar down in the root cellar, and with some Popular Mechanics-style fripjiggery I can make that thing talk and give orders and generally be loathsome and evil. Only it was much later after Jim hit that deer and ended up in the hospital that Dwayne actually found out that the pickled brain he swapped for a half-broken table saw is actually not the brain of Hitler at all, which (as we all know) was burned up in the Reich Chancellery after being splattered via application of gun to mouth, which left Dwayne feeling somewhat less important in a cosmic sense but prodded his interest as to whose brain he was caretaking, which (as you can’t very well go around asking in polite company) led him to the unarguable conclusion (unarguable from someone who hasn’t yet learned the horrible downsides to necromancy)that he would have to resurect the brain and find a way to ask its identity, because what other use does a brain in a jar actually have besides freaking out the grandkids?

Lou and Carla down at Supply Depot set Dwayne up with a line of credit and free use of the forklift, realizing that being able to add their byline to Dwayne’s possible cracking of the metaphysical wall would make them the one-stop source for every do-it-yourselfer. Dwayne was trying ot explain to Julie’s kids how a brain could a) get itself out of a sealed jar and b) eat off the fingers of children without a mouth when Carla called to tell him the Feds were asking her why they needed to order two metric tons of lawn fertilizer. Fortunately Dwayne had a plan and told Carla to hold them off long enough for him to get his shotgun loaded and the truck running. The kids, who thought this was all terribly exciting, started running around the house screaming and waving their hands, which freaked out the Feds, which led to a lengthy standoff while Dwayne drove out to the barn to get the Revitalizing Tonic, which tastes an awful lot like lime vodka and sweetarts. With the brain under one arm and the tonic under the other, Dwayne only had two people he could call for the kind of help he’d need.

“Yeah!”

“Triple-yeah, motherfucker! This is Rissa the benificent!”

“And this is Owen the hydroephalytic!”

“What you need, Dwayne?”

At which pont Dwayne unloaded the scoop on our heroes, hipping them to the potential miraculous breakthroughs science had in store if only he could find a safe house for a couple hours where the fuzz wouldn’t find him.

“It should go without saying that coming here is out of the question. However, for a small cut of the profits arranged through your resurrection trick, we can arrange for you to stay with an associate for up to three days.”

“Perfect. Perrrrrfect. Where to go?”

“We’re going to put you in Dave(1)’s basement. He will object. Do not worry.

But Dwayne did worry, worry and take hits off the bottle of Revitalizing Tonic.

There is a house in a row of houses which all look the same. It makes buying furniture easier, as the move from one house to the next requires the most marginal of rearrangements. This is the appeal of these houses; what they lack in personality and warmth they gain in simplicity and an instant-home feeling of great comfort to people who move often. More hotels than homes, the cheapness of the contracting and supplies are nowhere reflected in the rental price, bolstered by the nearness of schools and churches and grocers with the same interchangable demeanor and layout. While we can argue all night over the sort of psychic effects such a non-place can have on its inhabitants, there is no question of it being an ideal place to hide mad scientists, as our old friends at The Museum for Questionable History will attest. Dwayne, neither being that mad nor that scientify, didn’t need flight out to Columbia or Brazil; anonymous suburbs were much closer at hand for Owen and Rissa.

Dave(1) was on very thin ice with his wife, at this time; not long hence they would be divorced after his genetic failure to keep the children’s wear buisness out at the mall open. He would then move back in with Dave(2) and Seth in the trailer in the hills. But this is all in the future, and of marginal interest to the narrative; it is mentioned only insofar as to explain the dialogue between husband and wife upcoming.

“No. This man is not staying here. Not even in the basement.”

Listen, it’s just a day or two, it’s not even.”

“You don’t even know him!”

“Oh, that’s not true, Dwayne and I met that one time at Sheyllah’s party back in ‘89 when Eco-Safe Lobotomy played, only they weren’t called that then, they were, like, Tissue Damage Monthly, or something, because that’s when.”

“Shut up about you and your fucking high school friends. It’s been nearly a decade and you’re still talking the same stupid shit about you and your old sories and expecting me to care. And even more than care, to say it’s okay for people you don’t know to come in here and do God only knows what and pray he doesn’t leave any stains. What the fuck, Dave?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, this isn’t about Dwayne at all, is it? This is about me fucking up being assistant manager, that’s just, that’s fucking great, I can’t do anything.”

This went on for the better part of an hour, when Dave finally realized the simple way out, and told dwayne he could stay in the minivan for a couple days, which placated his wife and gave dwayne enough space to bring the brain back to life. So score one for yuppie compromise. There was no way for the brain to communicate without a mouth, or at least an appendage of some sort, so the hunt was now on around campus to see if anybody had a skull they could borrow. This took all of two hours, including an extended break at the bookstore for necessary medical texts and ephedrine on Rissa’s u-bill. Dr. Sela, who at the best of times can be said to have rather shaky ground from which to practice medicine, not only had a skull for use, but an entire debrained head available from the Scott Moore Cloning Project (‘97), which was pretty creepy but certainly perfect for the evening’s needs. I have been advised not to speak overmuch of the actual rebraining and reanimating process which took place in the back of Dave(1)’s minivan, due to the dicey legal attributes and due to the just general ickines of the process and also due to the fact that no reader worth their eyes could suspend the kind of disbelief this process instils in even the most angelbelieving alien-worshipping audience. So we’ll just say it happened, and go on to the big reveal, wherein -

“IT LIVES!”

“No, that’s just me, I’ve got my fingers in there.”

“Put it down! You’ll infect it with your fecal fingers!”

“Illness is the last thing this poor bastard has to worry about. Turn the pump on.”

“Is this an aquarium pump? Did you get this from my house?”

“What I steal of yours is none of your business! Give me the hose!”

“Is it supposed to bubble likethat?”

“Stop touching it! Leave it alone!”

At which point, the head says “Could you please stop touching me, please?”, and that’s how Owen, Rissa and Dwayne the Necromancer first met Paul Apostrophes.
(12:09.05.19.2005) [/alpha/owenrissa] #