Creepo Bungus and the Formaldehyde Man

“Woke up in the bath water of midnight (all tepidly and drenched),

Dreaming my high voltage dreams of sunsets. Sunsets are really just backdrops for pretty women in sunglasses and red muscle cars. But on my muscles and in my eyes, it’s all part of an orange sunrise; or neon lemon. The pulsing resentment of night life was my purpose, before. What happened; what’s happening to me is still conjecture and mystery.” The gray man sat in his black briefs on the wingback arm chair, all upholstered in a pastel and beige floral design. The funeral parlor didn’t open for another three hours. The weird hunchback sitting in the matching armchair a few feet across from him, legs folded, chewed his cigar.

“That’s gorgeous. You’ve a way with words, you know. And the mystery of what’s happened to you, your body; that’s a true mystery. The conjecture, I can always fill you in on; but a mystery is something that cannot ever be truly known or understood. Understand?

The deadpan eyes remained on the gray face of the ‘Formaldehyde Man,’ but his brows did crease in mild curiosity. “Suppose one sees in his eyes-both the orbs and of the unseen-to cut with jigsaw jerks and cuts, the mystery? Couldn’t a solution be deduced, with approximate properties like a glass of orange juice, or a vat of glutaraldehyde?” Nonplussed, the hunchback, still chewing his cigar, folded a strand of his long gray hair behind his bulbous right ear. Calmly he replied “you’re thinking of the word wrongly; the way Westerners think. We all think, but Westerners think they can think their way out of anything. A true mystery is not discernable. No logic will be able to satisfy why you, Abel Adams, are still here in the land of the living.”

“That’ll be fine. Giving, or care, that’s damnably separated from any conceivable effort. But! But, before what’s happened, and what’s happening now; that’s a pertinent element to know. What was going on with me, before; in my days of sunsets?” There were twitches about his gray cheeks and in his dead eyes as he cogitated. The hunchback abruptly repositioned himself on the wingback armchair, leaning forward. “Abel,” he began, but was suddenly cut off-

“Abel, Abel Adams-that wasn’t the name he went by, Uncle.” A vortex of obsession gleamed in the old hunchback’s gray eyes as he lit his cigar anew. “It is true, Abel Adams was not your name before, in the ‘sunset days.’ My given family name, as I’ve told you, was Adams. I named you Abel; but what your name before you became this was, I do not know. You might remember it in some future point. But-Abel-you are this close,” the aged hunchback held his index finger and thumb in front of him, displaying hardly a centimeter of space, “you’re so, so close to saying that word!”

“You’d love me to say it, and you love when it’s said, the word, ‘I.’”

“You’re even saying it, as applied to yourself, my nephew, when you say ‘me,’ and ‘mine,’ -you’re almost there!”

“But it’s not the same word, is it?”

At this, the hunchback leaned back in his chair, puffing on the short, thick cigar in the corner of his chapped lips. Neither spoke for several moments; the gray-skinned specimen of physique statuesque in the stillness of the rising dawn of the funeral parlor. Morning light was softly breaking through the lavender drapes of the parlor’s bay window. “Would remembering the before-name help you to say ‘I’ in application to yourself?” asked the hunchback at last. The gray man closed his eyes, and then he nodded.

“I will find the name,” said the hunchback after some seconds of silence. The gray man then asked “why are you called Creepo?”

If a single syllable of muted noise counted for a chuckle, it was a hearty one. “I didn’t give myself that name, the name you refer to-”

“Creepo Bungus?” cut in the gray man, looking with his own onyx eyes at him. The hunchback nodded.

“It was given to me by a…” he thought, looking at the thinly carpeted mauve on the ground before him before continuing, “a convocation of people; of bloggers and reporters, it was what’s termed a ‘viral’ online phenomenon; because of my abilities. I was considered a ‘creep.’”

“Because of your clairvoyance and telepathy?”

Creepo nodded, exhaling a great plume of silvery-gray smoke. He looked presently at the strong specimen before him. “And you’ll remember Abel, clairvoyance is a sense I cannot help, I can’t ‘turn it off,’ so to speak. Hence I urge you to speak of yourself, saying ‘I.’”

Abel was silent, though his eyes darted about in stoic rumination. “I will never invade your thoughts, but I can’t help but sense your resentment of that pivotal pronoun.” Abel’s eyes fixated presently in Creepo’s. “You’re afraid that my psyche could be splitting.”

”You did not die, Abel. This is crucial, understand?!”

“Understood,” said Abel, ever-deadpan, sitting ever-erect.

“‘Brain-dead’ is a bullshit term invented by the…the purveyors of Western rationalism-you are my firstborn proof of this!” Ever so subtly Abel nodded with a wash of understanding in his features.

“Woke up like the transmission of a jump-started hot rod-”

“You, Abel-you woke up; yes, this is not the hurdle you have to overcome. Your metaphors are wonderful, they’re as amazing as your physical qualities; but you must take ownership of the ‘I.’

Silence elapsed. Then, “Why?”

Tears flooded Creepo’s eyes then. “Did you wake up last month, Abel, in the embalming room?”

“Yes.”

“Can you repeat my question as a statement please?”

He cleared his throat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, resting his clean-shaven chin on his folded hands. His gaze would not meet Creepo’s. “Woke up to the currents of my clairvoyant chemist uncle-”

“You’re saying it!” Screamed the hunchback Creepo Bungus suddenly. “You’ve used all the pronouns, Abel-’my’!? You’re fine saying ‘me’ and ‘my’ and ‘mine;’ you just have one more pronoun to say! Goddamnit! Say it!”

Nonplussed, Abel Adams’ dark eyes studied the chrysanthemums printed on Creepo’s armchair. “That assumes a thing,” he said after a second of chrysanthemum-studying, and as he slowly searched for the next words, a rarity in his five weeks of being revived from his coma. Creepo interrupted, “What does it assume, Abel?”

“The ownership of this-my body.”

“It does,” said Creepo flatly, leaning back in his chair, puffing constantly on the stub of cigar squeezed between his boil-laden fingers.

“My body is mine, and the experiences of this body are mine.”

“Such as hunger, or thirst?”

“This body doesn’t get thirsty or hungry,” replied Abel without a pause. Creepo pursed his bearded lips in quiet frustration. “True,” he conceded between cigar puffs.

“Sentimentality, nostalgia is experienced, with desperation, too. Like desperately seeking to recall specifics of a fantastic dream or a distant memory; memories are well stored in the history of this soul,” Abel said, with an ere of finality, as he leaned back from his philosophizing pose. “The soul and the body are one person,” pointed out Creepo.

“Yes, that’s true. This soul was in a state of dormition or stasis, perhaps; when this body was comatose.”

“It’s been my theory, for a long time now, that humankind is supposed to be a hibernating species, much like a good deal of our mammalian cousins. Because we can’t do so, because of the imbecilic lives we live, our physiology looks for opportunities such as traumatic and tragic events. Sleep is the answer to so many ailments, Abel.”

“Agreed. Even in an altered state.”

“You sleep, Abel, because it is pleasurable, and good. It’s good to rest the mind, even if the body doesn’t need it.”

“This body never gets sick,” began Abel with a sudden new tone; thoughtful, his onyx eyes flashing. “Yet this body gets enervated with each sunset, and sunrise. Never tired but, sleep is welcome; is this because my mind-even my brain, filled with formaldehyde, needs a break from sleeping?” Creepo Bungus nodded. “It’s why we have to practice intentionally falling asleep; because you’d never get physically tired otherwise.And the alarm clock rouses your senses and you awake, with not a hint of fatigue. But your mind needs rest-not your brain; your inner person.”

As the blueish light cut through the still dust in the parlor, Creepo Bungus glanced at his wristwatch: 6:22 A.M. He’d try one final mid-court free throw today. “Abel, you and I have talked about your dual identity, and how we both know it’s the same person; you are you, whether donned in your tights as ‘the Formaldehyde Man,’ standing atop a building in the city, or as Abel Adams, mowing the front lawn outside. You know this, I know this.” Abel nodded knowingly.

“Referring to yourself, in the first person; it’s very important. You are you. If you are hesitant to refer to yourself as, well, as “I” in the first person-”

Suddenly Creepo Bungus was cut off by a jarring blast of sound, the slamming sort. He jerked his head in the direction: down the hall, beyond the foyer-to the outside doors of the funeral home. Abel Adams stood to his feet, alert but ever-stoic.

“Ah, criminy!” Nearly forgetting his scrunched cigar, Creepo hobbled out of his armchair and glanced up at his stout nephew. The two met eyes knowingly.

BLAM! BOOM!

“Suiting up,” said Abel. Creepo nodded.

“Think about what we’ve been talking about!” Creepo Bungus ran to the office just outside the parlor room. Tapping the black monitors atop his desk, he also strummed on the keyboard to awaken the computer. From the proximity cameras, it was clear that the thrashing on the front entrance to the funeral home was no mere human; it was a superhuman doubtless, though Creepo couldn’t identify exactly who it was. The funeral home’s entrance was a military grade hypersonic ballistic and bulletproof glass, and the alloy frame of the door was an ornately patterned tungsten steel. This intruder clearly hadn’t counted on such resistance, though the sound of his fist slamming against the locked door was of a deeper, more dangerous thud than any battering hammer in any human hands.

“I’ve never seen this freak outside before,” yelled Creepo Bungus as he checked to see that his quad-barreled shotgun was loaded. As he came into the exited the office, Abel Adams, the ‘Formaldehyde Man,’ approached from behind the ‘Staff Only’ door, in his teal, yellow and black costume, the emblazoned elemental symbol in yellow, CH₂O, over his chest. A slam down the hallway at the main entrance was chimed through with the unmistakable crackling of failing plexiglass-ballistic and bulletproof or no. As Creepo Bungus looked at Formaldehyde Man, all suited up, his anxiety flared, and his worries of the man Abel Adams and the hero Formaldehyde Man would split in twain were evinced in his creased eyes. Formaldehyde Man knew this, and Creepo Bungus knew that he knew this. And the oddly-muscled hunchback could feel the maelstrom in Abel’s mind, the sheer fear of that word, ‘I.’”

As the two turned the corner from the foyer and walked down the hallway towards the main entrance, Creepo behind Abel, the arm of the masked and costumed intruder was fumbling inside the door, feeling for a deadbolt. In a flash, Creepo Bungus lunged forward, ahead of Formaldehyde Man, and, holding the weapon out in front of him, fired all four chambers at once; a cacophonous eruption of hateful sound and sparks. The superhuman intruder swore and jerked his buckshot-riddled arm back outside. Outside the funeral home, the two heard him wail in an enraged litany of curses and blasphemies.

“Ground birds like chickens-even ostriches, have the appearance of flight.” He looked at Creepo Bungus, managing an atypical smile. “Don’t worry.” In an eyeblink, the Formaldehyde Man had raced to the end of the hallway, kicking open the tungsten-plated doors. The intruder wasn’t close enough to be knocked over, but he was staggered and surprised at the brutal force. Creepo Bungus, his contorted and warty fingers fumbling to place new shells in the smoking barrels, looked at this bizarrely costumed attacker: A slim suit of turquoise and bright crimson, fully enclosing its wearer, with a hot pink horsehair-looking plume streaming from atop the full face mask. The eyes and mouth design were grotesquely huge and jagged. But most curiously was the emblem-if indeed that’s what it was, on the belly of the costume: an accurate picture of the small intestine placed over, well, the likely location of this intruder’s small intestine!

But Creepo Bungus could verbalize the fiendishly-costumed villain’s intentions, even as he understood the visceral ‘emblem’ on the costume. ‘This promethean powerhouse is stiff and frail as a pyramid of dirt clods-and this must be his Doctor Frankenstein!’

“That’s ten thousand bones you owe for the door, ya jerk! Whoever in the hell you’re supposed to be!” With this, Creepo had shoved the fourth shell into the chamber and locked the barrels. “Call me-Threshold,” said the supervillain. “And you must be the creep’s creation that’s been causing such a ruckus throughout Appalachia City!” The voice came coolly, bordering on a cackle. “God created all of us,” replied Formaldehyde Man emotionlessly, standing in a serious stance. The phlegm of fear rising in Creepo’s throat was flooding: this Threshold could not find out any more about Abel’s ‘I’-avoiding speech.

“Two seconds, scumwad! Get back up to the sidewalk or eat this!” Threshold lulled his head around to Creepo’s direction, like a nauseously ill patient. “Then you won’t be able to get me to pay up for all this property damage!” The villain suddenly, in a brutal eyeblink, kicked the brick side of the funeral home, and on instinct, Creepo Bungus pulled the two triggers. The blast flung Threshold six feet back into a copse of boxwoods by the funeral home, in an instant. Immediate chuckling emanated from the downed tights-donning villain as he rose, slowly. Formaldehyde Man leapt forward, landing a sickening fist-crack into Threshold’s head. “Stay down. Son of a whore,” commanded Formaldehyde Man, stoically. It appeared that, for the moment, Threshold would.

Across the five-lane highway, a tall brick building stood. The ground level was a bakery, but these were apartment buildings. It was nigh on 7 o’clock, and the door to the apartments had opened; residents were now watching. Creepo saw that all the aproned bakery workers were staring at them from their great wide windows.

“Ooooh, you’re a case study in screwball memory swipes, aren’t ya?!” The mockingly cool voice was louder.

“A mouth with dentures isn’t for candy; it’s for eating.” A delayed chuckle erupted from Threshold, just before Formaldehyde Man threw a second swing. “You’re all sorts of mentally screwed, aren’t ya!”

Creepo Bungus watched as the two superhumans threw themselves at each other brutally, horridly; amazingly. The lawn had become a labyrinthine mess of mud as the two sparred, eventually out into the parking lot. The flower van was soon smashed into violently, as the two bodies grappled for dominance.

‘The freak doesn’t know who-or what-he is! A haphazardly resurrected biofreak ego-vanity project a biofreak! A robot of flesh and guts!’ Suddenly Creepo Bungus began hobbling like Hephaestus towards the totalled van, reloading with shaking hands. The bakery patrons and employees, the tenants of the apartments-even motorists on the highway-had all stopped and were amassing in front of the funeral home. The costumed superhumans galloped towards each other and interlocked in deathgrip grappling again and again, wretchedly; mystically, like a stop motion film about the cherubim or seraphim. But as Creepo began pulling out the hot spent shells, he saw the vicious tactics of Threshold come to the fore: grabbing for the groin, and biting. Threshold was on top of Abel, landing terrifying slugs of fists and knees into him!

“What’re you bringing here now?” demanded terrified and angry voices from across the highway. Distantly, Creepo Bungus heard the cycling wail of sirens. His furrowed eyes beheld Threshold overtaking his nephew. He knew Abel wasn’t as capable of violence, as barbarism, as this wretch Threshold; for such violence must be taught, learned. Amber colored fluids geysered onto the black asphalt in the morning, as Threshold flung his fists, again and again, into Formaldehyde Man’s unmasked jaw. As the bystanders saw, a woman’s scream erupted. ‘He’s not even a proper human soul!’ Creepo rapidly stuffed new shells into the barrels.

“Who are you!? Huh?! What are you?” Threshold, smeared in the blood of his wounds, apparently impervious to pain, kept pounding Formaldehyde Man, sitting across his torso. He saw Abel’s masked eyes look up towards him. “I enforce these streets, y’hear! Now who in the hell are you?!”

Shadows of the bystanders, many wearing suits, some wearing aprons, most wearing hats, cast themselves over the sidewalks, over the funeral home lawn. They were going to work, to start the new day. Flat statues of shadow, slender in the light of the morning’s cast, stood slanted on the lawn like italics; each its own soul and body.

“A Frankenstein freak project?!” taunted Threshold. Panicked approximations and declarations erupted like volcanic ash from the bystanders all about.

“Never died,” Creepo heard the quiet voice of Formaldehyde Man reply, through a bludgeoned mouth. “Woke up, cruising.” A soft thud of his gloved fist striking the throat of Threshold splashed across soundwaves to Creepo’s ears. Continued socks and thrashes from Abel knocked Threshold backwards, and the tights-wearing superhumans stared feet away from each other. “Just tell me, tell me-who are you? Tell me that, and I’ll leave!”

Formaldehyde Man looked suddenly up on the lawn, to Creepo Bungus; to all the slanted I’s shadowing themselves across the lawn and into the parking lot.

“Tell him who you are!” Creepo shouted desperately. Formaldehyde Man looked at the wretched visage of Threshold’s face.

“Well?..”