Forum
Part VIII: 1896- Hate's Consequence
"Oh, we must investigate!" Joseephus was bubbling with excitement. "You stay here, Stoh-Gee! You're to be examined at noon!"
"Oh, I can't wait." Stogie rolled his eyes. "Well, look, you guys enjoy yourself. I've been holding a piss for, like, -120 years, now. And it's been killing me all day." But they were already gone, so Stogie took his chance to look for an outhouse or a bush.
But he only found exhibits and showcases. Tigers with painted stripes, a live Eskimo (who looked Italian?), some kind of "Oriental Flying Machine" that was probably constructed in someone's backyard--these idiots were being ripped off. Scammed, flimflammed. If they considered this shit was legit, what would they do to him, an actual Asian guy?
He couldn't dwell on that now. His bladder didn't have long. Fortunately, the rare stand that had no spectators came into sight. He rushed over there and did his business, relieved nobody could possibly be watching him.
-Joseephus and Stogie
"Watch out now, boy! You'll douse the fumes!"
For, indeed, Stogie had been about to relieve himself into a pit of hot sulfur!
-????
Stogie instinctively cried, "Galdamez!" but for once, it was just some guy with a handlebar moustache and top hat...whom he accidentally doused with his urine. "Oh, crap, sorry, man!"
"Never mind, never mind that now!" declared the stranger, "Simply tuck your urinary meatus back into your shorts, boy, lest you disrupt my demonstration!"
The firepit Stogie had almost defecated into was positioned beneath a huge mechanical apparatus: pipes and funnels and gutters all crisscrossing in an alarming grid around and above a huge vat of boiling water, above which was suspended a little birdcage, and all connected to an outsize bicycle adorned with helium balloons.
-????
Stogie was quick to put away his urinary meatus (?) and would have apologized further if he were not in awe of the mighty machine that stood before him. "Whoa...what is this, some kind of flying machine?"
"Nonsense, boy, nonsense!" the stranger waved his hand dismissively.
An excited crowd was beginning to gather to ogle at the spectacle. The stranger, clearly appreciating the attention, picked up a rosewood walking staff, and gestured to Stogie with it as if challenging him to a duel, "Tell me now, young man...do you love the taste of a good, hard-boiled, American egg?"
-????
Stogie struggled to respond, taken off guard by the amassing crowd and the guy's question. "I mean, uh...it's alright, like...if you salt it."
The crowd exploded in murmuring, saying the likes of, "The Chinaman likes eggs!" "With salt, mind you, with salt!" "Yes, yes, take note!" Joseephus in particular was writing this down religiously, while his son pouted that Stogie was taking up all their attention once again.
-Stogie, Joseephus, and Timothy
"Ah, yes!" the stranger twirled his stick in the air, catching it deftly in his other hand, "And I am sure, as well, that you all love your hard boiled eggs just as well!"
A chorus of general enthusiasm.
"And so all of us here have experienced the exquisite agony, the titanic yearning, that comes with waiting for our eggs to be well and truly boiled."
More cheers, "Yes, yes! My experience exactly!", "Someone ought to do something about that, I declare!"
"Indeed, indeed, my friends," the host, the inventor, the magician took on the role of a master of ceremonies, holding his stick horizontally in both hands as he appealed to the crowd, "We live in an industrial age! With electricity, steam power, the telegraph, the telephone, the mighty railway that connects us as no men have been connected since the days of lost Rome! So advanced are we, indeed, and yet we still toil half the morning to boil our eggs! Well, I say no more! With the help of my not-yet-patented 'Eggstractor'," he pointed at the device with his stick, "We shall enter the 20th century as no other society in the history of man has! With eggs boiled in moments!"
With his stick, he whacked a bronze bell, which rang prettily, signaling to a mechanical piano to start playing a jaunty tune.
"Have an egg!" he began singing, swaying back and forth on his feet, "Have an egg! All the world loves an egg!/Over easy, scrambled well/Some breakfast would be quite swell!"
He produced an egg from his waistcoat.
"A pot of water on the stove/Bubbles and steams a mighty trove/Rat and tat the pot will go/And tick and tock the clock so slow!/By the time it's done, you've got more mope than your yolk/Have an egg, have an egg, have an egg!"
He threw a dozen eggs out into the crowd with a single flourish, executing a softshoe dance as the music continued, "Now, you're probably wondering how this fine machine of mine works!"
He fixed Stogie with an almost manic eye.
"That's Mr. Jasper Leroy!" Evangeline gasped scandalized in the crowd, "The Republican!"
-Mr. Jasper Leroy, Evangeline, Chorus
Stogie did a quadruple-take. "What?!" But the musical number went on as planned.
"Why, I will show you!" Leroy continued, though nobody had asked, "Hydraulic propulsion!" he leaped onto the bicycle attached to the rig, and began peddling madly. Bellows began working, puffing steam to power little lamps that inflated the balloons, "This energy sends steam into those bellows, which cause the gearshifts to start turning, and...aha!"
The bike levitated a few inches from the ground, tethered by heavy cords. Leroy didn't seem phased, "Yes, yes! Now to launch the egg!"
He dropped his egg into one sleeve, watching it come out the other, shooting into a funnel attached to the apparatus. As it rattled around through the labyrinth of pipes and spouts, he resumed his song, never ceasing his peddling.
"Have an egg, have an egg/All the world loves an egg!/Boil it well, make it hard/Crack the shell/Taste it swell!"
He stood up on the bike, skipping to make the peddles work, suspended half a foot about the ground, "Why sup on bacon with its grease and its fat?/Why flap a jack just to see it splat/When some water and steam can go rat-a-tat-tat..."
The machine began roaring and spitting. Leroy's egg had been dropped into the birdcage at the top, which was now struck by a rubber mallet, sending soaring from its prison and...
Right onto the point of Leroy's staff, which speared it as easily as if it were a sword.
"Have an egg, have an egg, have an egg! Come, everyone, launch your own eggs at the device!"
-Leroy
"How about you have an egg!" The crowd gasped, as it was none other than mayoral candidate Ellis Maddox!!!!!
People parted, leaving the way open between Ellis and Leroy, who dismounted from the bike, tripping over his tailcoats, and balanced himself awkwardly on his staff, "Mr. Maddox," he doffed his top hat, "Perhaps, you would like to test the Eggstractor?"
He flipped his hat, launching an egg at his opponent.
-Leroy
And Ellis effortlessly caught the egg! "Behold, good people of Lakewood, the perfect metaphor of the upcoming election between me and this charlatan!"
Stogie blinked. "The egg?"
Ellis didn't notice the time traveler's interruption, though, as he stepped closer to his opponent. "Whereas Mr. LeRoy here will approach your concerns with fantastical flights of fancy, extracting eggs with convoluted technology and song and dance, I will face your issues directly..." He smashed the egg against LeRoy's face. "...for that is the best way to crack an egg!"
The crowd applauded at the humiliation of Mr. LeRoy. Stogie was compelled to protest but considering how last night went with the mutant kid and all, he held his tongue.
-Ellis and Stogie
Leroy stood there, egg (quite literally) on his face, making a sort of low braying noise. Tittering, the crowd began to disperse.
"Who needs eggs anyways!", "An egg won't lower my taxes none!", "The song wasn't even very good!"
"Partisans!" Leroy wailed through the egg guck, "Partisans, all of you! Have you any freedom of sight? Of sound? Or shall you follow wherever the loudest man points? Oh, woe is us! Oh, woe is us!"
-Leroy
As everybody else began to leave, Stogie rushed to the misbegotten inventor's stand, an idea sparking in his great mind. "Hey, you OK, man?"
"I have been defeated and demoralized," Leroy said hollowly, "Crushed in spirit and in the hearts and minds of those I would have served. I am as far from 'oll korrect' as the poles," without turning to Stogie, he asked, "And a hard boiled egg is a thing far too civilized for the appetites of this fallen world."
-Leroy
"Yeah, man...that's rough," was all Stogie could say. He barely knew how to console his real-life friends when they were distraught. This weird egg inventor guy from the 19th century was no easy conversation. "I mean, if it means anything, I think your invention is pretty cool."
"Cool?" Leroy repeated, as though scandalized, "My dear boy, must you make mock of me further?" his mustaches trembled with rage, sending drops of egg yolk down onto the pavement and, worse, into his mouth, which he seemed quite miserable about, "This device runs on steam power! It is hot, hot as as Vulcan's pits, as was so clearly demonstrated! How else, I ask you, would the balloons inflate? Heavens!"
-Leroy
"Hey, hey, watch it, chief!" Stogie snapped back, pursuing him around the other side of the exhibit. "I'm the only guy here who's giving your egg machine a break. The least you could do is play nice with me!"
"Well," Leroy sighed heavily, "I suppose that's just so. I must admit, I suspect the tremendous crowd we drew in was on account of you being a Chinaman," he sighed, "Would you like a fresh egg? I've two dozen, and it doesn't seem I'll be getting any use for them."
-Leroy
"No, no, I'm good, man." As Stogie calmed down, he realized this was a good opportunity for a sort of test. "By the way...I'm actually not Chinese. I'm..." He gulped. "...Filipino." Instinctively, Stogie winced, anticipating a patronizing response much like what he had ad nauseum in his mere 24 hours here.
"Oh," Leroy blinked, "Alright then. Dreadfully sorry, my mistake."
-Leroy
"OH MY GOD, YOU'RE ALRIGHT!" Stogie cried in relief, pulling the whacky, egg-peeling Republican in for an embrace. "I've been kidnapped by these rich eccentric Klan people for a day! They dressed me up and made me perform for them and they assaulted me with pastries and desserts. And don't get me started about what they did to me in the basement. You need to, like, call the cops or something and get me the hell out of there!" He shook Leroy by almost every word, emphasizing the urgency of his situation.
"Glory!" Leroy gasped at the embrace, patting Stogie awkwardly on the shoulder, "There, there, now. You know, I suspected the Lennoxes...for surely, they are who you mean...had a hand in your so-sudden disappearance last evening. You must know the arrival of the free-wheeling Oriental has been the talk of the town! Superseded all talk of the election, I must say, but then, we'd given up debating policy yonks ago, as I'm sure you've guessed."
He paused to readjust his lapels, "The Lennoxes are powerful people, I will say. My opponent isn't the only man lining his pockets with their favors. I regret to say you'll be getting no assistance from the police, more's the pity. The damnable society the Lennoxes belong to has its roots deep in the soil of this town. There's nary a soul not compromised by their base hatreds. Resentment, young man, is a powerful incentive."
His mouth set into a firm line, "But rest assured, I do not mean to see you languishing in those bigots' care for long. We must make arrangements. Indeed, young man," he had suddenly become very excited, "it is a moral imperative! We must secure your release, expose those vile cretins for the low gawkers they are. It is a calling no less than the Emancipation of the Slave! By God and glory, boy, your rescue is redemption! Lakewood's redemption, I do declare! And I, liberator of eggs from their shells, shall liberate you from that house!"
He put his hand on his chin, "But how?"
-Leroy
Stogie was rendered speechless by this new ally of his. All he could say at first was, "...sweet." Realizing they needed a plan, though, Stogie got right back to business. "Well, I dunno, man. You're an inventor! Don't you have some sort of gadget that can get me out of there?"
"Oh, I'm hardly an inventor," Leroy nodded, "The Eggstractor is the only device I've ever cobbled together that works, and it took me 20 years to put it together after I choked on that first badly boiled egg so long ago."
-Leroy
"Aw, crap..." Suddenly, another bright idea illuminated Stogie's noggin! "Wait! What if you modified your Eggstractor to 'egg-stract'...a person?" He raised his eyebrows twice, suggestively.
"You mean from your flesh?" Leroy was studying Stogie with a new zeal.
-Leroy
"What? No, no," Stogie waved him off, getting back to the point. "What if I was lifted out of the house, by your device? That way, they and their Klan friends won't be able to chase me down on foot!" Then, realizing the angle here with what little and obvious history he did know, Stogie added, "Imagine that, Jasper! Your work, responsible for the world's first flying man!"
"You mean...to fly away upon the Eggstractor?" he studied the bicycle, "The balloons, indeed, do give it some lift. But the amount required to sustain that...to attain flight...well, it would be tremendous. Like something out of one of Mr. Jules Verne's stories!"
He twitched his mustaches, "We shall need supplies. A great deal of supplies! Naturally, we couldn't bring the Eggstractor into the Lennox house, it would draw too much attention. We would have to construct a new one, independent of the safety tether...and with appendages, to enable steerage, and a sustained glide. Oh, where is my pen and paper..."
-Leroy