The Fat Bulbous

"Godamnit" Ed Gein flopped the screen out of his hand and smacked the table.

"I'm sick of this" Ed said

But before we start with all that, maybe I should explain myself a bit. I'm Ed's brother, my names Jericho Steven Gein, and I'm a meter cop. Well, more of a journalist/secretary really. I don't write parking citations for the fancy cars that people used to drive or anything like that. I manage the day the day to grievances of what people need to talk about and discuss for the development of the town. I set the agenda, and time limit, of each possible idea point, or idea bulletins, according to the metered out estimate of it's full life potential and effectiveness. From the well of what people can manage to represent or come up with organically in the town. I'm the secretary of the full potential of an idea that grows organically out of the environment of the town. I measure the advantages and disadvantages with full access to the resources that are available for the public in the town that the idea comes from.

"Good morning Ms. Lowry. School get out early again?" Ed had a date, and she just came in to meet him at the library. The coincidence struck me, Ed's frustration with the new sewer line being re-routed nearby, my interview with the school super-intendent, and Ed going on a date with Suzie Lowry, now 7th grade English teacher at the middle school. The fact that we were all meeting here again, at the same table where we used to get into all those impassioned literary and political discussions. Suzie hasn't talked to me directly in years.

Leaning back in the library chair with my feet, the front of my black loafers slipped and the heel hit with a loud thud against the dense carpet. I was slightly dozing off. Ed and Suzie left a long time ago and my legs were getting stiff. Why is the super-intendent making me wait so long? I realized something of a sequential frustrated occurrence had been set off to now create this episode of general disorder. Someone outside of any of my expected affairs must be angry at me, I guessed.

"Hi Rita" I returned home to my wife. The majority of the rest of this story will now take place in my house, almost as if it was being recorded at the time. I feel like everything important of that sequential comeuppance happened in that house on that night, when I was living in that town. The action happened long after. But that night was the beginning of anxious realizations, one after another, some too specific to record with accuracy, the cause of this restlessness that is leading me to record these events now.

That house was small and square. A brick bungalow without a porch, but a sloped roof leading down to a charming bay window in the front. The wallpaper inside was yellow but looked fresh. I spent most of my time in my living room, on my miniature laptop. The living room was rectangular, facing sideways from the door. The other rooms were branched off with thin framed portals. I had a green suede couch and a cheap wood coffee table, and a Vizio with the news constantly playing. I married Rita at 23

"I'll show you who gives a damn" Ed was yelling at someone, on a video that I'm watching on my phone screen. Ed's got in a good amount of trouble recently with some big timers but a lot of spirited people are behind him. I'll try to break the idea tables down, but first I should explain that the 'big timer' Ed's mad at is actually my boss, Mayor Hart. Mayor Hart is a great man, a real hero of the town. He wrote a couple acclaimed artful novels, rich and innovative essays, and became something of an international force when it comes to self development and aggrandizement of all the best personal ideas that the world could feel to muster itself enough to respect. Grant Hart, the mayor and my boss, is also me and Ed's dad, but obviously we don't have the same last name. Mr. Gein, my moms late husband, was the family butler. Rumors and domestic tensions led to Mr. Gein having a long talk with my dad, and somehow they came to some understanding. My dad even supposedly shed 'genuine tears' during this meeting. And afterwards, Mr. Gein, my moms lifelong ward after her family was exiled, gave the responsibility of her care over to him, all but in name only. He died in the capital when I was 10. Grant then officially married my mom and they had a daughter, a real Hart by name, Adelaide Hart. If I learned one thing from Mr. Gein, my formal father, it's that old and worn out ideas always gain an official apex of value and purpose. To ward the path for new ideas.

The new idea in this case was something Ed proposed and was currently screeching about out of my phone speakers. Rita managed to explain what I couldn't

"Your brother, specifically, wants to break the convention that construction for necessities of the town must take place in the fall. The rule in place as the idea represented by the tone of the beginning of somberness in the seasons creates the greatest intensity of focus on projects of the most importance. Mayor Hart agrees the convention does seem entirely unhygienic, but is still unwilling to argue further in it's defense, citing 'the idea of hygienic secrecy."

The protracted debate was hitting a repeated standstill

"Ed, the time allotted for the speech is almost up" Someone was talking to Ed off camera in between his exclamations. A thin balloon then shot up like a fire work with a flabby, wispy sound. In the air it snagged on a sort of pocketed tension arc, reverted back in on itself, and floated back down unenthusiastically. Rita started questioning about the practices of the production company used to set up the venue in the comment section. Ed always used commercial venues for his speeches as it helps promote public participation.

"Rita, everyone seems to be avoiding me now. Even the mail-man snubbed me earlier. He knew I had to sign for a package, but the thought of the opportunity occurred to him to take revenge against me by leaving early, a couple seconds before I was to arrive at the exact spot where he knew I was going to be. Some of the people that still drive utility trucks are angry at me for unfairly representing their idea case on the public tv court-day. And the worst part is, they're right, I don't even remember what the idea debate was. I've become more cooled off on everything lately. And the more cooled off I become, the more the arguments I'm supposed to consider appear as nonsensical. This invokes wrath and disappointment in the people I'm supposed to represent as responsible for, drawing me into these strained personal encounters that have been happening in increasing frequency. The less I become involved businessly, or cleanly and clinically, the more I seem to fall into it all personally. I've become involved religiously with these people. Now I'm starting to resent them. As the objects of worship, the rituals and necessities of it, come to be more intertwined with a feeling of intense opposition, since it's all now focused on myself, but out of my control. We all don't agree on who's supposed to be god in the religion of myself, which I would hope would be me in this case. Since the public 'problems' though the capacity of my job. Think about it this way, if you have two opposing ideas you can theoretically break them down into exact parameters, but the more the ideas become involved directly with people, the more you have to take 'leaps of faith', these leaps create static, gaps in points of resolution. Now, it's religious. It's only taking the form that way, only because it takes on the form of intimacy. The more cool I become to something, the more I resent it, the more I develop this scab relation to it, the more I become personally involved in it, the bigger the scab grows. This scab is now becoming my new robustness, out of dependence for any sort of tool. My 'hygienic secrecy'" Rita giggled

"Steven" (My wife always called me by my middle name) She started playing her weird Hebrew tambourine, the one Sarah would play for Abraham in their tent. I stretched out flat on top of the couch cushions, resting my head on the armrest. Puffing hookah and resting my eyes, I fell asleep

And awoke from the sound of the railway nearby, I left my window open. Rita passed out in the main bed in some surplus pediatrician nurses scrubs with a old dvd playing. I went to close my window. "Hey Jericho!, Jerichoooooo!" I peeped out towards my laurels and saw my secretary standing there, Garey Busey, dressed for the chill. Next to him I noticed Ed, rummaging around in his pockets and throwing what wasn't needed on the ground. We started talking in my front doorway

"Something happened to Ms. Lowry, the school teacher, a real nasty slight, she's been accused of mercenary reasonings in whispers spoken at the teachers union. For her connection to Ed. They say Ed is obviously more in link with the parental idea. Which is simply opposite to the goals of the teacher-ship, and you know how ambitious they've been lately. Surprised to say a lot of their efforts have supposedly been working. And Suzie's going against those buffed Jesuits, by siding with Ed. At least that's the point of intrusion, the wound of paranoia."

"I just don't give a damn!" Ed barked, almost at the top of his lungs. And gained the attention of a patrolling cop nearby, who also noticed the axe Ed mindlessly picked up from my neighbors wood-scrap pile

"What's the matter? What are you doing? Don't you know we've been in discussion about having the idea of a public curfew in the area around the bakeries nearby?"

"Is that so? Why haven't I heard of it?" I wondered to myself

Just then, the 'opposition' to this idea appeared to come parading out of the north street of a nearby tri-section. My house was situation in the south row, moving east. As soon as they spied this particular policeman, apparently the face and main charismatic of the bakery curfew idea, they came rushing over in a jumble and snatched ahold of the stuggling officer. Finally someone recognized me

"Hey, hey guys let go of him. That's Jericho Gein standing there, the ideas man. He'll set our personal protestations straight in no time. That's the profression he's been educated in since early high school. I know, because we both went to St. Xavier's". The man speaking was an old classmate of mine, Justice Prudence.

"All right, all right. Let us inside" The noisy crowd started a synchronized rumbling. "It's freezing out here"

We all packed inside my bungalow, and I stood in front of my bay window. Rita awoke some minutes ago and was already preparing everyone coffee

Someone pulled up a video on the screen, of the daily operations of a bakery, what time they come in and start and what it looks like in the morning

"It needs to be quiet earlier in areas around bakeries, as the bakers live in the shop. They need to be up early and efficiently working in order to prepare bread for everybody. That's why there's no bars built nearby. The problem has been coming from the new party idea. During the months of fall to spring, we need to be holding not just holidays in the day time, but increase the idea of how to have parties and festivals at night, to prepare people for the coming limited daylight. The festivals at night are waking the bakers in this area. The baking inefficiency is leading to a 2% increase of malnutrition in the general populace and an increased strain of the general feeling of starvation"

But someone was pointing out something in the video where it appears the bakers are now doing shift work to supply the night festivals with bread. The bakers all live in the same building, and it appears the early shift workers were actually being woken up by the late shift workers. The person pointing at the screen revealed the cause of inefficiency and starvation to be a completely internal problem

With both sides laid out, I was about to speak, I typed a good amount of evidence on my miniature laptop, when I'd go to move to it from standing in front of my bay window, after each person spoke. I was now about to give my conclusion and end the idea debate. But just then, Grant Hart walked in

"The whole town is celebrating, everyone's having a party! Someone just had a new grand idea to solve this crisis! When we eat grain, we should separate a little bit to be left out, or usually there's a natural little bit that's left. Sacrifice that little bit during each meal, and everyone pool it together to be crushed into a mash with one of our train cars. It's the sacrifice idea! And it will be devoted to that 2% of malnutrition that's been developing lately. We already named the initiative after a person that recently died of starvation"

Well, I guess my job is finished. The thing I've been working for my whole life. I've lost my passion for it. But that's okay, we all jumped up and down in my bungalow. Practically shaking the whole thing. Then we went out to a big party where the whole town was at. What a fun night

When morning came and the sun was coming up. Me and Rita were walking on home. We took the scenic way, and somehow hit the nothernmost road. Right there as the sun was coming up, we clasped hands together and decided to leave. We never looked back. I'm a mechanic now.

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Pub: 20 Jan 2025 23:00 UTC

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