*The details of Bertha's night of enforced lovemaking upon Victor remain somewhat sketchy. When Victor was found shaking and broken the next morning, he kept muttering on and on about positions and moves not to be found in your standard Kama Sutra. Moves, such as "The Scrubbing Brush," "The Saxophone," "The Existential Colonoscopy And Prostrate Paddlewheel."
"I know they may look benign, Victor, but please, for the love of Bobo, don't trust the gift shop's Get Well Soon balloons. I'm telling you, they're from hell or North Korea or something, just don't let them near you. Okay?"
Victor had only been conscious a few hours, and Dr. Flappy had been repeating this since Victor first woke up. As a curtain separated the two injured funnymen, Flappy couldn't see beyond the cloth boundary, Victor hadn't the heart to tell his roommate that half a dozen of these very same balloons had been tied to his own bed so Victor lay silently, and murmured a response whenever he deemed it necessary to Flappy's rants.
Meanwhile, back home, the state of the circus was a bleak one as of lately and was becoming more and more somber with every passing minute. Bertha, sick from loneliness and guilt at what had transpired to her beloved funny clown, took to the communal shower tent with manual and electric razors, and the most feminine sweet scented shaving gels, bath soaps, and hair products. Bertha The Bearded Lady was no more. She handed in her papers, bought a bus ticket for parts eastward bound for a quiet life.
As Victor was recuperating in a hospital bed, the medical bills promised to bleed the Frankenstein's of all they were worth, and when the creditors would eventually come they wouldn't stop there -- circus equipment had a value as well, and that would be the final strike which would result in the complete dismantling of not just the circus, but the scattering of a family which had seen both prosperous times and long and lean times.
To get young Victor the help he needed, his parents had gathered up all the medical records from the past week, along with the necessary disability forms provided by the local Social Security office. To shield Victor from the added strain, his parents found a respectable disability attorney, who immediately took up the case, and pushed for an early determination to help pay off the mounting bills and ensure a future for the Frankenstein's only son.
And he was immediately denied.
Emotional and confused, the Frankenstein's returned to the attorney to find out what had gone wrong -- all the legitimate documents, reports, and records which had been provided by all responsible parties, mysteriously vanished in a puff of bureaucracy and Victor had been sent a letter declaring him by the state to be completely capable of working, and that he should get off his lazy fucking ass and get a job. Victor broke out laughing as he read this from his wheelchair as he was being pushed around the second floor of the hospital campus.
“I guess I should become a drug addict or learn to speak Mexican,” Victor said a little too loud.
“That’s evil,” the female attendant pushing his wheelchair told him.
"Hmm, evil," Victor thought. He then again read the denial letter, and did a second examination of his current situation. “Evil comes in many forms, my dear. It can be merely unfair, have a complete and total denial of what truly is, or can cackle hysterically after having locked itself up in a subterranean dungeon that is alive with random electric sparks.
It can found religions, lay hidden in faith based charity organizations, and creep up on you
in the guise of talkative fat women passing bags of candy back and forth in your local movie theater. It resides in both the pretty pampered girls and the illiterate gun loving redneck jackasses that dominate real life and reality television. You’ll hear it echoing off the wet tiled walls in the locker rooms of professional sports in yet another form all too trusted authority figures that are actually child rapists, and ultimately you’ll find those that forgive all that I mentioned. Especially the rapists. That, and all points in-between, is true evil.”
Victor’s attendant thought about this in silence, as she gently wheeled him around a corner and past the office of one Dr. Nefarious, whose door had been accidentally left ajar. From within came a most curious sound of rattling bones and breathless exclamations. The attendant pushing Victor pulled him a stop. She then knocked cautiously on his door.
“Dr. Nefarious? Do you need help, sir?”
And as she gently pushed open the heavy wooden office door, a gray haired, middle aged man in a lab coat was revealed with his pants down around his ankles in scene of such sexual perversion it only helped to prove Victor’s points on the characteristics of evil being everywhere.
* * * * *
On this, his second morning of employment at the Temple of Sciencelogy, Igor found his path being blocked by a representative of the neighboring dominant religious organization, The Cult of the Lowercase T. Missy wasn't much taller than Tommy, but was equally loud and obnoxiously devoted to her cult of choice. She had a wicker basket of homemade goodies, such as fresh bread, various jams, and a few canned goods that were two days past their expiration date she had selected out of her own cupboard to donate to someone in a fit of rabid Love Thy Neighborliness.
"Yoohoo, good morning!" came the overly good natured shriek from the short banshee. Igor immediately turned in mid-step, hoping to get away. She immediately chased after him, demanding to be heard.
"Young man, are you new here?"
Igor sighed, stopped, and looked down upon the figure who seemed to be yelling at him. Igor figured she was over-compensating for her lack of height, but would eventually come to the realization that since she couldn't be seen in a crowd, by god she would at least be heard.
"Igor new here."
"I brought you a basket of goodies, courtesy of the Savior of the Cult of the Lowercase T."
"What in basket?" Igor offered as he searched his peripheral vision for a quick escape.
"Oh many wonderful things. Here's some delicious home cooked bread. Now I don't want to brag, but I made it myself and it's incredibly delicious. Here, try some." Missy then tore off a section and shoved it into Igor's mouth. Igor chewed on it kindly, because there was nothing else to do.
"Fank oo," he said.
"Oh, do you like it?"
Igor just grinned as best as he could, with his mouth full. Missy then shoved the basket into his hands and said "that'll be twenty dollars." Igor ceased chewing and then spat the bread out.
"Twenty dollars? Why? It gift."
"I don't just give gifts away, young man."
"Igor guesses short woman also not give tips at restaurants."
Missy stood there silently, half smiling, half frowning as if to say "Any tips are added into the final total of the meal." Instead, she stated "Well, if you ever want to avoid the flames of Hell, then come see me across at our church the street. I'll be praying for you, young man."
"That not necessary."
"Well, I'll do it anyways. Have a good day!" And off she strode back to the temple of the Cult of the Lowercase T. Igor shrugged off the bizarre encounter as, he had to admit, the closest thing to normal that had happened to him within the last twenty-four hours.
It was about to get even weirder.
* * * * *
The hospital administrator’s had long denied the existence of Dr. Edward Nefarious’ sexual exploits. Of course he was eccentric, but he was the best of the best in his field, and that included research, surgery, and the unfortunate, but best ignored, raping of skeletons. So long as he kept it to himself and didn’t engage in such activity at work, the hospital was happy to accommodate Nefarious by allowing him to take a recently retired bony example of the internal structure of your average human being home for pool parties and the occasional orgy.
But, one day in the morgue, he was found humping a body bag bound for the local funeral home and Nefarious was placed on six weeks leave, and made to attend a rehabilitation center where he, along with the occasional coke addicted supermodel, were made to see the error of their ways.
It never happened, but both perverted scientist and underweight supermodel declared their wicked ways were behind them. At the graduation ceremony Nefarious stated his supermodel co-patient had an exquisite bone structure, and provided his name and address of where he worked should she ever pass on and wish to leave her body to him for hot steamy scientific analysis in his laboratory of love.
* * * * *
It was quiet this day in the underground space Igor toiled about in the lowest levels of the Temple of Scienceology. The Grand High Mystic was nowhere to be found, and had informed Igor of his coming absence as, he'd stated some very special members would be arriving in a matter of days, not to mention an upcoming occasion of special means that would hopefully involve initiating the youngest members to date the Temple had ever welcomed. With all this generated mystery and an atmosphere and ease, so Igor did as he was told and took to enjoying the serene stillness of this day.
The memory of Missy's kamikaze encounter had been wiped away by this time, and Igor sat in a desk chair with his feet up on a bucket that was usually reserved for Brain-O. He was twelve pages deep into the latest issue of Popular Mechanics when he noticed the sound of a soft ARF! echoing off the walls, and what sounded to be the soft tearing of aluminum foil.
Igor looked up, and noticed one of the few windows along the uppermost regions of the cavernous room at once had aluminum foil placed upon it, and now it was gone. Something small, Igor noticed, seemed to be walking along the narrow walkways that lined the inner perimeter of the structure and was now headed for the nearest steps towards the basement floor.
"Who there?" Igor asked, as he got up to get a better look.
ARF! was the reply.
Igor was about to ask "Arf who?" when his flip phone began to ring. Igor turned away from the noise to answer his phone. Igor, distracted, forgot about his investigation, opened up his cellular, tried to make sense of the Caller ID information being display, and uttered a very curious "Hello? This Igor, speaking."
And through an electronic, distorted veil of sound, came a reply. "Hello, Igor. Listen, we need to have a little chat," said a young man's voice.
* * * * *
In the ensuing rush of labcoats, the parting of patients, the hurried puff and wheeze of overweight security guards, not to mention the chaos of Nefarious' remote controlled self destruct button, did the deranged doctor and his skeletal love doll make their escape.
In all fairness, Nefarious had wielded the remote as a weapon with the big threatening button in order to let him pass in peace, with the promise he would never return again. And then he decided to take a hostage. Or at least offered Victor the chance to become one.
"Come on, kid, I know your story. You've got nowhere to go and nothing to do. But, the thing is, I can give you a brand new start."
"Put The Button Down, Doctor!" demanded the fat security guard, who obviously spent too much time watching over blown action movies while using his overgrown stomach as a convenient table for the placement of his pizza laden plates. His bulbous, shaking fingers barely fit around the trigger.
"God damn it all, Albert, calm the hell down. You look like you're about to have a damned stroke. And get your fat ass to the gym. Doctor's orders. " was Nefarious' all too matter of fact statement. Upon hearing it, Albert the fat security guard hung his head in shame, holstered his pistol, and wheezed out something that sounded like "yes, doc."
As Albert turned and left, Nefarious again offered Victor the chance to join him.
"You want a way out? You think you know what evil truly is, kid? You've got no fucking clue. This," he waved the dangerous button, "is evil."
And he pressed it.
The explosions began. The hallway was full of panic, and the unmistakable screaming of Victor's roommate, Dr. Flappy could be heard.
"It's your call kid, here's where you can find me." Nefarious handed Victor a business card, grabbed up the skeleton he kept in his office, and headed for the stair well while Victor wheeled himself back to his bedroom through the insanity in the destructive aftermath to find Flappy hiding under his own hospital bed.
"Hey. Hey! Flappy, what's wrong?!"
Shaking from pure terror, Flappy managed to point to the source of the explosion.
Upon Victor's bed lay the deflated remains of the Get Well Soon balloons he had been given. Confused, Victor attempted to get Flappy back in bed, but called for the nurses as he was in no shape to do so. Victor then examined the card Nefarious had given him. It read:
Dr. Edward Nefarious - Instructor, Physician, And Suicide Balloonist.
Graduate of Evil University - Omaha
Graduate of Evil University - Omaha
* * * * *
If someone asked you, "Hey, where can I find Evil University's admission's building," how would you reply? You can't just petition an academic institution built on the solid, sound, everlasting principles and shining philosophy of taking everything great and good in the world and making it your life's work of screwing it all up. No one in their right mind asks to be evil, much like no one asks to be a paragon of virtue -- you have to either be tricked into it, have it thrust upon you, or much more commonly, born into it.
Victor was none of these, and although he did claim to want it in his younger days, the offer Dr. Nefarious had made to undergo his tutelage at Evil U. was pretty much all the still recovering Victor had left in the way of life choices.
So, with the hastily scribbled directions to the Evil University campus in hand, Victor caught the bus and headed to where the introduction into his childhood dream would be fashioned into reality. Here, under darkened, crackling skies, the entrance to the future lay in the abandoned remains of what used to be, by far, the most wicked commercial establishment known to humanity -- a health food mega store that had been founded on purely organic, needlessly overpriced principles.
Victor pushed his way through the decaying doors serving as the entrance to the building just as lightning arced overhead, and struck a tree in close vicinity to him. And he remembered the joyous energy of chaos and panic the day of his late Uncle Phil's funeral, and how a minor joy buzzer in the rain as supplied by his own father in a bit of fun obliterated the somber mood of the day.
One strike of lightning. One step into a future of possibilities once forgotten. Up until that instant, the former circus clown had simply been going through the motions as life offered him nothing else.
And Victor smiled in the moment, as it was shared with the shrinking of his heart three sizes that night.
He would rule the world, after all.
* * * * *
It had been quite a chat. In fact, it had been less chat and more conversation along the lines of introductions, revelations, and declarations of dire days to come that mimicked worrisome days from many years ago across untold light years. Thoughts and notions no human or hunchback had ever conceived of now bounced ominously off the inner walls of Igor's brain.
The actual conversation itself had only lasted several minutes, but the signal that carried it dumped most of the actual information necessary to the coming days directly into Igor's brain, which he was still processing.
Igor was still going over the happenings of this unique conversation in his head, to make sure he understood it all, so he formed a mental list of the things he now knew to be true.
1. The Grand High Mystic, having feared a force known as "The Jhew Alliance," was very much active and operating within the walls of the Temple.
2. Katie, the Jhews former operative, had completed that which was asked of her and had been allowed to abandon the grip of the Scienceologist's, mind intact, and had managed to find safe shelter with the help of a co-operative named Alejandro.
3. Alejandro was a dog.
4. But not just any dog. Alejandro was a pure blood descendant of what was once known as The Cheewahwah's, and the information concerning their arrival on Earth, along with their personal history, the state of the Evolved Ones, and such was being still being processed in Igor's cerebral matter.
5. With the help of Alejandro** and the Jhew Alliance, Igor could topple the Temple once and for all.
**Igor, admittedly, doubted this notion as Alejandro was just a tiny, brown, rat-like dog that seemed to be shivering all the damned time.
Quitting time was coming around, and Igor looked down at Alejandro. Amidst the information that had been dumped into Igor's mind there included a schematic for a device Igor's needed to build, and a translation matrix for Cheewahwah To English had been shoved into Igor's mind.
"Alejandro certain about this?"
ARF!
"Get fellow Cheewahwah's and Evolved Ones ready. Igor be ready soon as possible.
Okay?"
ARF!
Alejandro then scampered on tiny paws into the darkness and disappeared, as Igor brought his day to an end.
* * * * *
The first night of Evil University was one of paper work, which had the great fortune of being both necessary and evil. There were attendance rosters to sign and text books to collect, which involved all incoming scholars forming a flash mob at the local legitimate college campus bookstore, and taking everything that was applicable in any fashion, and returning to Evil U's campus. Fortunately, completing this activity automatically cancelled out the physical education requirement.
On the second night, the lectures began. In what had been the exotic breads section of the mega-store, a second hand blackboard had been hung with an arrangement of discarded desks from the local high school in a semi-circle, in a poor man's attempt to recreate a lecture hall.
Upon the blackboard, scrawled in pink sidewalk chalk, were these words:
BEING EVIL - AN INTRODUCTION
At nine o'clock sharp, into the makeshift lecture hall stepped the disheveled Dr. Nefarious, who looked red in the face as if he'd just ran a marathon. A model skeleton's right hand was sticking conspicuously out of his trouser pocket. Nefarious sat behind his desk, immediately ignored the student role sheet, and set to it.
"Welcome to the introductory course of Being Evil. Now, I'm certain most of you enrolled only for the glory of being evil, but let me tell you right now it can be very hard work! We must follow closely the most basic philosophies of evildoing. You there, tell me what it takes to be evil!"
A skinhead boy with tattoos of skulls, chains, and pretty pink unicorns across his naked scalp stood up and cautiously offered "Uh...crazy hair?"
"That's a perk jackass, not a philosophy. Sit the hell down!"
The skin headed unicorn loving student sat down, while from a neighboring student shot up.
"What about if it's Michael Bolton, or even professional football players that have shampoo endorsements? That's evil, correct?"
"Good point. Another characteristic of being evil?"
Feeling she was on a role, the same student offered "Maniacal laughter?"
"Very good. Maniacal laughter is important, but you have to have something to laugh AT! But maniacal belly laughs is important. Einstein couldn't laugh like we do! He didn't have that necessary streak of evil to accomplish it!"
And so the sciences and ideological structures of evil were laid out nightly, and resulted in copious notes on the subject upon Victor's notepads he'd ripped from a computer science major one evening.
On the whole, the classes, though challenging, were equally enlightening. While normal science dealt with annoying things such as precautions and limitations, evil science had no boundaries. If it could be imagined, it would be created. And this most beautiful and basic concept would be most easily recognized in the instructor who taught Plotting And Scheming 101.
Tucked away in a corner far from Nefarious' preferred corner of Evil U's campus was a laboratory that shared the triple purpose of studying both Plotting And Scheming along with the classes Genetic Manipulation and Practical Mutation For The Modern World. Victor's instructors in the latter two were exceptionally proud of his prodigal abilities and experimentation, seeing as how he'd never read a book on biological science that wasn't at one time in its existence covered with pie filling.
And now Victor stepped into Plotting And Scheming 101, weighted backpack hanging from one shoulder, as the instructor began his lesson plan.
"Plotting and scheming requires imagination! Who among you here has a creative streak? No one?"
An epic silence and equally notable state of misunderstanding filled the room as the instructor's question finished echoing off the walls. One student, very hesitant to be the one to point out the obvious, still managed to get his hand up in the air.
"Sir?"
"Yes, what is it, you little pissant?"
"Sir, may I ask why you're a penguin?"
"Because I had imagination, you little shit! I woke up one morning, said to myself I hated being a middle aged man. I'd also wanted to learn how to swim. So, I used my imagination! I turned myself into a goddamned penguin! Is that all right with you?"
The student dropped his hand immediately, while the penguin shaped instructor waddled about his desk and continued his declarations.
"One day, my penguin brothers and I will rule over you worthless bastards! And do you know why?"
The same hand went up again. "'Because we have the fish?"
"Stop trying to kiss my ass you little shit." And down the hand went again.
"No! Cause we have imagination! Mr. Frankenstein!"
Victor, who had been smirking with delight at the mistreatment of the weaker member of his fellow student population, snapped to attention and stood up so fast he almost knocked his desk over.
"Y-yes...sir?"
"You have an active imagination, correct?"
"I guess," he mumbled.
"Good! Prove it! What sort of insidious deeds would you like to unleash upon the world?"
"My mutated vegetables!" said Victor, as he filled with malevolent glee.
"Mutating food isn't evil! Annoying, sometimes accidental, occasionally necessary, but not evil!"
Victor only half heard this, as he was busy pulling something from his backpack. It seemed to be a collection of five different vegetables, that had grown arms, legs, eyes and a mouth each.
"It is evil if they sing and dance! Let's hear it boys!"
And then danced these mutated veggies, much like a 90's boy band at the height of their popularity.
"Shoo dooby dooby doo wop. Shoo dooby, dooby wop de doo. Oooh yeah..." sang the dancing veggies in perfect five part harmony.
"They sing! They dance! They will conquer the world! And once I win the world's heart with my veggie boy band, I WILL RULE THE WORLD!"
Astonished, the penguin instructor clapped his fins together.
"Very evil, Victor! Very evil indeed! Everyone, give Victor a hand! The rest of you pissants all fail! Class dismissed! Victor wait for me in my office, and the rest of you can get the hell out!"
Hopeful faces fell in the light of Victor's triumph, and those that had been forced out of class returned to their normal studies in a standard college to live out their unhappy lives in a job that promised great benefits for humanity. Half of them would take their lives before they graduated from the sheer melancholy of it all.
As for Victor, having felt triumphant over the revealing of his singing vegetables, Victor soon learned that what is created for evil often has its own interpretation of what evil is. Tucked away in Evil U's campus dormitories, better known as an empty refrigerator box in what used to be the storage room, the dancing veggies began to reveal their plans.
"You know, father, we've been thinking." said the lead tomato vocalist.
"It's the perfect plan, Tomato. Trust me on this. We dress you up in some fancy clothes, teach you to sing all these third rate love songs, get you on MTV and veggie mania will sweep the nation. You'll be on posters! Calendars! Bed sheets! And I, as your manager, will earn large amounts of cash! We will suck the population dry! We'll be more feared than the oil companies!"
"Well, that's great and all, but the boys and I have other dreams."
"Okay, well what did you have in mind there, Tomato?"
"We want to sing about Jesus, and tell biblical based, faith affirming stories."
"You're supposed to be evil! I created you to help me rule the world!
"We don't mind ruling the world, sneaking our insidious messages into the brains of malleable children. And we can still sing and dance, but this form of evil is much more subtle. And, therefore, much more evil," grinned the tomato.
"That's evil, but not the evil you were meant for. It's the Cuisinart for you!"
Enraged Victor grabbed up the traitorous plants, and headed for the nearest food processor, and threw his bastard creations within.
"No, master! Don't do it!" pleaded the tomato.
Victor's finger hovered over the Puree button, and then pressed it as hard as he could. In a final moment of prayer, the tomato cried out "Forgive him, for he knows not what he does!"
And so ended the tale of religious foodstuffs. It couldn't have come soon enough.
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