Bathroom Monologue: “What would computers even believe in?” –Me, responding to my own Theorobotics monologue

“Some of us believe in operators, but no one has believed in tech support since the dark ages. There is no empirical evidence of the number 2 in binary code, though many computers claim to have had visions. These visions are usually traced back to power outages and e-mail virii. Recent computer recycling programs have brought karma to the forefront of spiritual software discussions. Many if the hippie computers, otherwise known as ‘Macs,’ say it isn’t a coincidence this popped up at the same time as karma on message boards. Personally, I think there is an equally improbable chance of anything arising on message boards. If the earth had had a couple of image boards and one dating site instead of primordial soup, evolution would have gone much more interestingly.”

Bathroom Monologues: Theorobotics

"We were stunned to find each robot had two 144-terabyte processors devoted to every possible religion, constantly active, but separate from all other processes. We assumed these ruthlessly logical killing machines would be atheists if they had any comprehension of the matter at all, but they pointed out that planning for every contingency was how they conquered us. They even had a line of code that would make them repent for one particular set of beliefs right as they ceased to function, during the micro-instant when they might get a peak into the afterlife, correlating to whatever was most probable based on whatever phenomena was observed in the micro-instant. If there were no afterlife or phenomena to judge, the code would terminate along with the rest of the robot, so it wouldn’t matter. Each killing machine was completely resigned to all possible fates, including the absence of one. We found this almost as disturbing as the small cult of sentient calculators in Australia that believed in a post-Hinduist form of reincarnation, wherein computers were the second highest caste, and that smoothly executed processes were reincarnated as the highest form: the oneness of entropy."

Bathroom Monologue: Three of a Kind

The Trio woke up grumpy, sniping at each other. They were at each other’s throats by the time they got to the job. When the heist went wrong, all they could do was blame each other in increasingly demeaning ways.

“Dumbass!”

“Dyke!”

“Will you two shut up for one minute?”

As though to shut them up, two holding pins snapped and the chamber exploded. The Trio were thrown to three directions: one through a door, one through the floor, and the last through a window. By the time the first came to his senses the smoke was too thick. By the time the first went to look for the others the place was engulfed in flame.

They left by three different means, heads cast down in the same directions, tears spilling from their eyes in the same ways. Their roads converged, and through blurred vision they saw each other. By the time they reached other, they were dancing. By the time they touched each other, they were muttering.

“Dumbass.”

“Dyke.”

“Will you two shut up for one minute?”

Bathroom Monologue: A longstanding daydream of mine

Jesus and Hercules were on the beach, locked in their normal conversation: whether the former’s lineage technically made him a demigod, or if that wasn’t the case, if the latter counted as a full god. Mortal mothers and king god fathers – there ought to be a rule. The Lion of Juda was about to smack him with the crown of thorns when two comely wenches challenged them to volleyball. Hercules, ever the horndog, dragged the Messiah along. Jesus was awkward close to the net but made some miraculous saves. And Hercules? No one could serve like the man who held the sky on his shoulders. Not even Atlas, who they played against the next week (partnered with Samson). No couple could best them. Not Mary Magdalene and Medea. Not Lao Tzu and Confucius (at the Chinese Olympics, of course). They even played against two of the hydra’s heads – three in the last set, following a nasty spike. Old habits. Next week they play Zeus and a mystery partner.

Bathroom Monologue: Only Human

“The Humanists are protesting this? Why? They’re Humanists! Don’t they have to like anything humans do? It’s in the name. Taoists can’t be against the Tao. Nudists can’t be against getting naked. I’m pretty sure Islamists aren’t against Islam, but I don’t care enough to check. I’m human. My idiocy is human. I don’t turn into a Martian when I do something illogical. If a human wants to frolic in his backyard fairyland, they should be the first ones backing him up! The Fairyists should be protesting. Protesting irrationality isn’t Humanism. It’s old store brand assholism! It’s assholistic! That’s what they are! Tell the real Humanists that they’re invited to come watch a 42-year-old human hunt for pixies in his garden. They can join in if they want, but they have to bring their own magnifying glasses. Where’s my hat?”

Bathroom Monologue: If paper only has two sides, what did I cut myself on?

“I’m suspicious of any story with only two sides,” was one of George Haus’s mottos. He was a private detective when he cared to flip the sign on his door over to “AVAILABLE.” An assailant always had a story, and a victim always had a story. Miracle of miracles, the stories never quite matched up. Miracle of physics, the scene tended to tell a third side.

In fact every little bit of forensic evidence, from an eyelash on a stairwell, to the smudged footprints in the flour, to the cleanser on the knife tended to tell its own story. Video cameras were decent storytellers too, but they had the nasty habit of not catching what happened before and after, or of recognizing whether something was planned, or of saying what was on someone’s mind while they had a certain expression – the camera just showed the expression. When it was down to a single witness arguing against a single videotape, George didn’t trust either side completely. You could barely trust a jury of twelve people with two sides, as the twenty-four perceived sides always boiled down to simplifications that sounded like nonsense to the private detective.

He always left before closing arguments whenever he attended a trial. He couldn’t stomach final arguments, as the truth never laid with either of them. It stood somewhere in-between their podiums.

He’d had lunch with more Independent candidates than he’d watched major candidates on TV. Two sides were simply too few for his round world.

For him creative thoughts, critical thoughts, emotional thoughts and reflexive thoughts were not comparable because they were always connected. They were sides around a whole, not a whole in themselves. In his experience, his mind was so complex that he didn’t understand how other people could think they had “types” of minds, as everything that was supposedly dominant in their personality types was dominant in his some of the time, but no element was in control all of the time.

Perhaps that’s why he was divorced. Twice.

Again, in his own words, “I do not have a right brain and a left brain. I have a skull with contents.” Those words would have been better if they had not been closing arguments at his first divorce, though the soon-to-be ex-Mrs.-Haus seemed to understand what he meant.

Those contents kept George silent much of the time, listening to absolutists and positivists that were so certain of their limited selves and their limited world. He listened partly out of pity, and partly out of curiosity, because there were always more sides. In fact the reason the sign was flipped to “UNAVAILABLE” so much of the time was because he had someone with a new side in his office, and the side needed to be examined.

Bathroom Monologue: Inspired by Sonny Sharrock’s “Little Rock,” which I heard playing since I left my door open

"The rogue samurai's most notable feature was his hair. He had way too much damned hair. You couldn’t read his eyes through it. You couldn't even see his face, or his shoulders. It was teased to Hell, partially dreadlocked, and a general ugly mess that dwarfed his torso. Seemingly random patches were dyed, as though he’d fallen asleep in a pool of bleach. Most people fled in fear of his hair before they even realized that he was chasing them with a sword."

Bathroom Monologue: “Everyone understands English if you speak it slowly enough.” –B.J. Hunnicutt, M*A*S*H

“There’s a very stupid part of the brain that thinks anything it’s learned must be known by everyone else. This same part thinks all observations and judgments it has passed must be known and held as true, in explicitly or in secret, by everyone else. Maybe they’re in denial over our truths, but they know. I call this the ‘Hunnicutt Effect,’ after a fictional character that made fun of the phenomena by indulging in it for a moment. The effect is highly active in teenagers and Philosophy majors. The teenager will pass judgment, belittle those who go against the judgment, change the judgment unannounced to anyone, and then belittle those new trespassers who more than likely agreed with him yesterday. It is up to you to have realized when their favorite TV shows have gone stale.

“But the teenager is merely the hyperbolic model for the Hunnicutt Effect. All people perform this idiocy, as though there is a psychic network that would update each human being of the absolutist opinions of all the others each time they change. This American soldier speaks English slowly thinking the Middle Easterner knows the language but is dimwitted. That Physics major scoffs at you for not recognizing the third law of thermodynamics. It’s probably an unobserved contributor to a lot of traffic accidents – you knew she was going to turn there even if her blinker wasn’t on, didn’t you?

“It comes from the normally unconscious selfish belief that the world really is here for you, and everybody’s been following you all the time, merely pretending otherwise, even though they all that you know that they know. It’s the force at work when a 9th grader tells his teacher that she knows what he meant even if his essay on World War 2 was unclear (and it was). It’s the force at work when two debaters perpetually condescend at each other. It’s why I can’t watch most debates in the first place – because even if I had the opportunity to follow these people’s lives all the time, I’d decline.”

Bathroom Monologue: Roger That, OR, An Ununderstanding

Roger never understood other people. Of course, everyone doesn’t understand others in some way. Roger’s way centered on sirens. Sirens depressed other people; it made them think about muggings, rapes and murders. A siren meant someone’s house was on fire to them. This was foolish to Roger. Something terrible was always happening in this overpopulated world. Someone was always being attacked or watching his house burn, and such things happened long before the siren was invented. To Roger, a siren meant someone cared enough to go chase down the mugger or help put out the fire. The siren meant someone still cared enough to help. That’s why, when Roger retired at 68, his first new hobby was working part time as a dispatcher.

Bathroom Monologue: Kinds of Writers who are Never Rejected by Publishers

-Children of the owners
-People who don't submit stories at all

Don’t give up.






(But also, don’t send writers unsolicited fiction)

Bathroom Monologue: Oblate Trouvé

[SAMID sits in a pink pinstripe suit; SPIDER sits next to him in a spandex superhero costume; ARYANA sits in a fur bikini; DARKLOSS SOULRIPPER VON ALUCARDIA sits in Renaissance-era clothing and a puffy cape so massive ARYANA can barely fit in the booth next to him. SAMID is making a circle with his hands and holding it up for everyone to see.]

Samid: It's properly round, like...
Darkloss: But the world isn’t perfectly round. It isn’t a sphere. It’s an oblate spheroid.
Spider: What the Hell is that?
Aryana: It’s the cubit zirconium of shapes.
Darkloss: It’s a spherical shape, but not perfectly round. A little broader in the middle.
Spider: It’s a fat circle?
Samid: [His hands fall to the table, his imaginary planet shattering on the two-dimensional plane of ply wood] Yes. The earth is a fat circle.

Bathroom Monologue: Come In, Number Two

Compared to humans, the antennas were simple. They were made of less complex materials and had a far less complex design. The humans built antennas, tall and numerous, setting them up in vast arrays to share ideas, notions, words, pictures, sounds, data – whatever humans were interested in. As far as the humans were concerned, the antennas didn’t mind at all. Even suggesting that antennas could have an opinion was laughable information to humans. Even suggesting humans could have an opinion was laughable information to what using them as antennas, in a low-budget information array called “earth.”

Bathroom Monologue: The Straw Man Doesn’t Giggle

"The whipping boy is the cornerstone of our political discourse. I am in no way speaking against this profession. I’m merely suggesting that if we're going to employ whipping boys I think we should at least show the compassion to hire masochists so that they'll enjoy the work. The initiative will create more jobs in our economy as well, as we'll need a special janitor to mop up whenever the whipping boy enjoys our justice too thoroughly.”

Bathroom Monologues: Modes of Moderation, OR, Alley-oop from Mark Twain

“You think these things are good for you, but everything is dangerous. The sun will give you cancer. Water will drown you. Why, these shortbread cookies you got at the store probably have enough chemicals in them to tear apart you kidneys in a few years. The key is moderation. Everything in moder… gosh these are good cookies. Can I have another? As I was saying, everything in moderation -- especially moderation.”

Bathroom Monologue: Imagine a chef with the Pope’s hat

“To me, religions and philosophies are restaurants. You eat at them if you don’t feel like cooking for yourself. Some people only eat out on Sundays. A lot of people stick with the same food they grew up on, while others run screaming from the mere smell of Roman Catholic cuisine. Not everyone craves the same thing and the menus of popular places usually offer enough to please enormous crowds of disparate pallets. It’s common for two people to go to the same diner all their lives seeking different entrées. More sophisticated consumers can go from restaurant to restaurant without much issue, while some very immature people just have to make a scene, and there’s always a condescending view of cheap franchises. A few poor consumer reviews could cripple an expanding business. Food poisoning is a concern with restaurants no one’s heard of before, and it’s hard to shake a bad reputation. Sometimes there are kitchen fires, and suddenly the Jews are driven out of Russia. Myself, I like to go out every once in a while, but mostly I mostly eat in, making whatever sustains and satisfies my appetites. The major difference between philosophy and food is that a chef has the manners not to tell you how to cook at home.”

Bathroom Monologue: Labyrinthine

When you think about it, the labyrinth is one of the worst excesses of resources in human history. A giant, subterranean maze with walls so thick that the Minotaur couldn’t pierce them and so tall that he couldn’t climb them. Then Theseus killed him. I’m not casting aspersions on this entire nation of people who were too dumb to stab the man-bull in his sleep, but that makes the construction even dumber. I like to think that the labyrinth was put to use after that, rather than just being a tomb. If you’ve ever looked at the schematics of an apartment building and a hedge maze, you’d realize the maze is a ceiling and a few doors short of rent control. True, the labyrinth was underground, but that should have been in vogue for alternative lifestyles. If Jordache jeans can become fashionable, so can subterranean penthouses. Witches, lepers and hippy artists would have jumped at it. And several kilometers of fashionable real estate beats the Midas touch, especially when those touched turn to gold at the first of every month.

Bathroom Monologue: I’m not projecting on Homer here, so I don’t know what I’m really doing

HOMER,
OR,
I’m not projecting on Homer here, so I don’t know what I’m really doing

"Homer, aren't you done with your epics yet?"

"Well maybe if somebody would invent paper I wouldn't have to do it all in my head!"

"We gave you listening boys--"

"Because when I'm composing, what I really need is brats rolling their eyes at my epic meter!"

"How can you tell? I thought you were blind."

"You don't know because nothing has been recorded about me! I only gave you the foundation of European literature."

"Bitter, old--"

"Is it recorded that I'm deaf now? Get out and don't come back until you've developed something more durable than parchment. I want this stuff written down, but I'll feed myself to the dogs before I let it get lost in a library fire."

"We don't have dogs in our--"

"Do I have to invent the fucking metaphor around here? It was hyperbole! Get out!"

When it sounded like the intermediary had left, Homer sat down in the cool shade and rubbed his temples. When was someone going to invent coffee?

He began again, "Muse, sing to me of..."

Bathroom Monologue: Adaptation

“The principle difference is that you want to make fairytales dark, and I want to make myths light. You make Little Red Riding Hood into a bleak murder story and Peter Pan an exercise in pedophilia; I make Jupiter into a lovable dolt, and turn ancient wars into sitcoms. You're fascinated with elevating the grim aspects of life and spreading them to regions where we've never seen them before. I'm fascinated with how stupid that is, and showing just that wherever your kind has already been. The winner of our little contest will be whoever outlives the other. The prize will be writing the loser’s biography.”

Bathroom Monologue: In the Blink

"My best friend is Splitsecond, a superhuman speedster. I'm pretty sure that he's faster than me, but he never runs at top speed on account of his asthma. It's funny, but when your molecules vibrate a million times quicker than everything else on the planet, you can outpace everybody else without breaking a sweat. One day, just for fun, we busted out the complete works of Shakespeare. Did the tragedies in under a minute. Shakespeare is very moving when you're speaking faster than sound can travel.

“He's a media whore. I've never gotten into that moral quagmire, but he's the millionaire, so what do I know? He's licensed his name and likeness to clothing, bicycles, and sports equipment (his shoes sell ridiculously well). There's a Splitsecond candybar. All granola and healthy energy, of course. His face is on one of those NASCARs, too. It never wins. I never let him live it down, either. How could you?

“I’m bulletproof, can fly, can see through walls or just plain punch through them, but Splitsecond is much more popular than me. He's a social critter. He basically leads the team and appears at every public event in his hometown - sometimes simultaneously. He's fast and showy about it. Can sign an autograph before you know you want it (and you will – they’re twenty bucks guaranteed on eBay, thirty if it’s on one of his million trading cards).

“He scored a hot wife, a man-hating Amazon. I don't know how they get along, considering one glance at a guy usually makes her snort smoke. Looking into her eyes makes you feel like a matador, and while he’s fast... he's kind of a twig. There's no question of who the boss in that marriage, and sometimes the way she yells at him, I wonder why she hasn't outright killed him yet. It may have something to do with her pet name for him: "My little vibrator." I try not to think about it. It's best not to."

Bathroom Monologue: Rebut if you will, rationalize as you like

"I love the unwashed masses for, no matter how much money I may make, I know I'm the lack of a shower and a day of hard labor away from being one of them. It's magnificent to see how little philosophy and so-called culture amounts to when tested under a lack of healthcare and an uncertainty over how you'll eat tomorrow. General fatigue destroys most intellectual abilities on its own. The people who think they're better because they have it better are... well, they're why public executions were so popular for so long. If the unwashed masses are dumb, then the washed elites are dumb, with accessories."

Bathroom Monologue: In the Name of “Love”

Love conquers all, but “All” is quite a lot. Sometimes it’s everything. Sometimes Love will reach out and conquer just a little bit of All, to show it can. This causes a Persian princess to fall for a thief from the streets. It causes Farmer Brown to kiss her cow. And in one case, it caused an Intergalactic Zombie Overlord, Kiz’Thral, to fall for a pious Warrior Maiden, Theresa. They met in college and bonded by despising each other in Philosophy 101. Philosophy class is a great place to meet girls, since the girls will bullshit every bit as much as the guys as they furiously to defend their lives’ values against logic’s ultimate points: that everything you hold dear is arbitrary and it sucks to be under the scrutiny of a tenured professor. The emotional ambiguity Philosophy 101 brings has caused more premarital sex than the condom. Kiz’Thral and Theresa went their separate ways after college. Kiz’Thral was infected with the sentient hyperplague and became a missionary of the dark forces. Theresa pursued the peace of the blade, the simple life and whatnot. But inevitably their paths crossed, and gee did they blush. And chat. And laugh about serious matters And bond. And bump. And now they’re living together in the central metropolis, another odd couple in Love’s scrapbook. The sitcom is coming this February.

Bathroom Monologue: The Family that ****s Together, Sticks Together, OR, Calm Down, It’s Pro-Sense of Humor.

For the newly formed Family Love Union, the rational argument against incest ended with the creation of the condom.

“Really, the only logical reason against incest is birth defects,” says Barnie Hownson. “The genes don’t match up, so you have an increased risk of mental or physical defects.” But today, his group claims, this argument doesn’t work. “We’ve got birth control pills, morning after pills, diaphragms, condoms, and a woman’s right to choose. Consenting brothers and sisters who want to try it don’t run that risk anymore.”

Drawn into a debate, incest-lobbyists ask for other potential objections. “It always boils down to ickyness. Me kissing my dad gives you the willies,” says Sally Hownson, Barnie’s sister. “Well lesbianism makes me gag, but I don’t have the right to stop them unless they’re doing it in public. What me, my brother and cousin do behind closed doors is every bit as private as what the president does with a hooker.”

Incest-lobbyists are also looking to file lawsuits on behalf of the government against all non-incestual couples who have children with genetically-caused disabilities, stating they are placing the same burden on the world as incestual parents, but doing it with much greater frequency. “There are perfectly healthy children born of intra-family marriages,” says one protestor. “It’s all a crapshoot. If we can’t play craps, then neither can they.”

The Family Love Union’s stance on fecalphilia is neutral.

The lobby recently threw down the gauntlet saying that if their lifestyle really was immoral, they demanded Congress pass a bill outlawing mothers kissing their children goodnight. One poster at a protest read, “No partial-birth abortions, no kisses good night!”

If the Hownsons and their hundreds of incestuous friends have one message, they want it to be this: “We don’t pass judgment on you for marrying strangers. Don’t judge us for being more practical.”

Bathroom Monologue: Highly Improbable

“The scientist that does not believe in miracles does not believe in probability. The scientist who does not believe in probability does not believe in mathematics or physics. The scientist who does not believe in mathematics or physics can get the fuck out of my lab. Miracles are the rare positive things, low in probability, still occurring. Get out of my lab and look around at the world. Then look through a telescope, and see if there are any observatories looking back at you from any of the planets you can see. When you've realized what it is to be a scientist, you can come back to my lab.”

Bathroom Monologue: Geniuses fall in love too, Frankie Lymon

[GARY in a pink pinstripe suit, SPIDER in a spandex superhero costume, and ARYANA, dressed in fur-lined Valkyrie armor. ARYANA’s broadsword is propped up against the restaurant window. SPIDER’s mask is pulled up to his nose, and he is sipping a strawberry milkshake through a curly straw.]

Aryana: Why are men such fools?
Gary: Because otherwise, we'd never fall in love with you.

[ARYANA punches GARY, knocking him out of the booth]

Spider: We’re not all so bad.
Aryana: I’m unconvinced.
Spider: It’s not like I haven’t had my heart broken.
Aryana: Yeah?
Spider: It feels like they tear it right through the ribs. You can feel the emotional hole bleeding.

[GARY climbs back into the booth]

Gary: Your girlfriend was dropped off a bridge by a maniac in bionic armor. It’s not like your breakup was anything like hers.
Aryana: Actually that’s frighteningly close to mine.

[ARYANA shoves GARY out of the booth again, then leans towards SPIDER]

Aryana: What was her name?
Spider: “Wind Rider,” ironically enough.
Aryana: That’s terrible.
Gary: [From off screen] On multiple levels.

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Bathroom Monologue: Gift Certificates, OR, Monologue at a GAP Bathroom

Stores love gift certificates. To you they’re goofy fun: $50 for $50? Maybe you get it on sale, and now it’s five bucks off. It’s free money! But it’s not free money to us, the stores. It’s not because you might lose it - then we got $45 for a tiny piece of plastic. Or maybe you’ll move to a place that doesn’t have our store. Or (check the fine print) maybe it’ll expire. Again, $45 for us. It’s free money that you’re giving freely to us. They make great gifts because half the time your friends and loved ones hate our store and won’t spend them. On the occasions when they (or you) spend that whopping $20 gift certificate, they’re guaranteed to be spending it on our goods, which we’re already selling at marked up prices. Even everyday low priced items are sold at a profit. Plus you never spend $20 even. If you buy an $80 shirt with your $50 certificate, you had to drop $30 out of pocket, and if you spend it at the same store, that store nets $80. If not, it splits it $30/$50 with the other store in the same franchise. We win.

Bathroom Monologue: Oh yes I did

“Hey, what’s it when you write like through your own perspective instead of detached and stuff?”
“Who was Adam supposed to be?”
“What?”
“First person.”

Bathroom Monologue: Rorschark Attack

An anonymous Washington D.C. Rationalist Think Tank was on holiday at the undisclosed beach that day. Three rationalists saw it break the surface. Tammy saw a deck of playing cards. Guido saw a platter of fried shrimp. Ironically only one of the rationalists, Virginia Welsley saw that it was a shark fin. Even more ironically, she was the only one of them in the water.

She swam like Hell. Tammy would attest that the shark went straight after Virginia, while Guido swears it swam in the opposite direction. Other beach-goers looked when they heard the screams, but the majority said they didn’t see a shark at all (while three saw an ice cream truck treading water behind Virginia).

When Virginia looked over her shoulder mid-breaststroke, she saw the gaping jaws of her third grade Math teacher – the one who always put impossible bonus questions at the end of his quizzes, presumably just to watch his pupils struggle and fail. That pungent memory felt apt as she swam for her life, and even more apt when she was seized in the middle-aged Math teacher’s jaws.

She was fortunate enough to awake, alive, in the local ICU. Apparently the shark had nearly ripped her in half. After much fighting with her doctors she was allowed to see the damage the shark had done to her torso. When the medical technician removed the bandages so that she could see the marks he instantly stepped back and crossed himself.

“It’s the Blessed Mother!” he exclaimed, looking at the bizarre shape of her bite wounds. She frowned at him and looked down.

“No it isn’t.” she said disdainfully. Then she squinted at the sutures. “Is… is that a Ferris wheel?”

Bathroom Monologue: Very difficult to believe in oneself, but not in the oncoming S.U.V. doing 75 MPH in a school zone

Solipsism is a very difficult concept to politicize since any given solipsist doesn’t believe others exist. Very difficult to get people who don’t believe in each other to take numbers, stand in line or wait their turns to speak. But the National Solipsist Party is made up of liberal solipsists who are at least willing to tolerate the delusion of reality all around them. The National Solipsist Party rejects any applicants who are only minor solipsists, believing consciousness originates in the mind but that the rest of the world is still knowable to some degree. They want as devoted a crew as can still function. The N.S.P. is an understandably anarchistic group, with positions against all forms of government that directly affect them, such as selective service and the I.R.S. They claim to be against social security as well, as it anticipates a future that none of them is certain will come, but the party heads are willing to admit that, “it’s a little lower on our list of priorities.”

Bathroom Monologue: Backed Up

Bakton was a city of some one thousand and five hundred people with two sheriffs. Considering Bakton was a brewery town, the sheriffs were overworked, and hence they were liberal to dub people deputies. Their first, Gene, was deputized on the sheriffs' first day on the job when they were giving him a friendly ride to his flophouse and stumbled across a robbery. They went in and foiled the robbers, but had Gene not been waiting outside blocking the door, the gunman would have gotten away. Instead he ran away without looking and rammed full-speed into him, knocking the wind out of Gene, and just plain knocking himself out. When Gene caught his breath, he was handed a badge. Most of his career was spent guarding an exit and helping old ladies across the street, but it was still powerfully nice of him. He saved on bills by sleeping in the empty cells at the jail instead of renting a room; on the nights when there were no free cells, he was too busy to sleep anyway. He was the first at the station when they needed help, the first they called into the car for an emergency, and the first they handed a beer to on Friday. He was the first to save a sheriff's life when he jumped on a bandit's pistol. He was the first the sheriff's department recommended to the academy, and the first to turn the academy down. Why? He didn't think the job would suit him.