Chapter 154: Joe
Pokey Oaks County. Pokey Oaks Woodland Reserve
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 2236.
Lumpkins led the Girls back out and around the cottage. Leading the way with his oil lamp once more, he brought them back to where the wooden tombstone was, the one with the straw hat hung on it.
Kneeling down before it, he laid the remains of his shattered banjo down on the mount of dirt that covered whoever was lying below.
The Girls stared at the tombstone. There were words carved into it. Jagged corners poked out of the knife-edged 'handwriting'. Blossom was able to read it best:
HERE LIES
JOE LUMPKINS
13 SEPTEMBER 1923 - 1988
HE WAS A GOOD MAN
GOOD MEN DON'T JUDGE
The Girls had seen their fair share of tombstones before. They had visited the graves of those they couldn't save… as well as those they killed by accident.
There was something off with the writing on the wooden tombstone, other than the fact that it was made of wood.
"Mister Lumpkins, what happened to the date of Mister Joe's death?" Blossom asked. She tried her best to sound as non-intrusive as she could; she had gotten good at that from the number of funerals she had attended.
"I don't even know the date when he died. I ain't smart enough ter tell," Lumpkins said, for once non-threatening. He removed his own hat and pressed it against his chest in a moment of respect. "Spent ma time grievin' 'stead of layin' 'im to rest good an' proper… 'Ow stupid of me…"
"But Mister Lumpkins, if he's Mister Lumpkins, then who are you?" Bubbles asked. "I'm confused…"
"Yeah, did you steal his name or something? You know, after murdering him?" Buttercup accused, only to get an elbow-jab from Blossom and a quick glare to signal to her to knock it off. Thankfully, Mister Lumpkins wasn't in the mood for a fight or an argument.
"What happened, Mister Lumpkins?" Blossom asked respectfully.
It was as if Mister Lumpkins didn't hear at first. He continued to bow his head to the wooden tombstone, hat still on his chest. The Girls remained silent; they knew what he was doing.
"Story time later, I need te' git you three settled in," he said before going back to his cottage, with the Girls following him, to get blankets for them. He led them back to the chicken coop after that, shooing them into it as if he was herding chickens before tossing their blankets in after them.
The Girls looked around; the chicken coop was dismal. It smelled, they were surrounded by some of the laziest chickens that wouldn't even try to run away from them like normal chickens would, and there was a rooster in there - come morning, there would be a rude awakening.
"Mister Lumpkins, can we not sleep in the chicken coop?" Blossom asked.
"It's really smelly in here…" Bubbles added.
"And really crowded! Stupid chickens!" Buttercup said.
Mister Lumpkins was steered back into his usual temper by the Girls' additional request - one of what he thought would be an endless number of them. He frowned once more, which appeared to be his default facial expression.
"Please? It's really uncomfortable here…" Blossom added. Lumpkins grumbled under his breath.
"Fine!" he finally agreed, "But ya'll bet'er pick yer own haystacks and blankies up!" He grumbled about something under his breath, something which Buttercup could secretly hear loud and clear: "At least I won't hafta worry 'bout 'em eatin' my chick'ns…"
And so the Girls were out of the chicken coop and brought into his cottage. Inside, Lumpkins got them to set up in his bedroom - which was also his living room, kitchen, dining room and workshop. The cottage was just one big room in the middle of nowhere. The only room that it wasn't was the toilet - there was an outhouse for that, which Lumpkins told them about. None of the Girls were thrilled about using it after seeing the rickety little shed from a window.
Lumpkins was even more particular and strict with the Girls in his cottage. When they decided to set up by the fireplace, he yelled at them to move further away from it, and when they went a little too close to the stove, he yelled at them to move further away from that too. They would get a tongue-lashing each time they got too close to anything, until they were able to move to a spot that was sufficiently far away from everything but him and his bed. It seemed that the only thing Lumpkins could trust them not to destroy was himself and the bed - and only the bed because he would be sleeping on it.
"You know, you're really fussy, Mister Lumpkins," Blossom said as she moved her haystack to the exact spot Lumpkins want it.
"And fuzzy," Bubbles added and giggled. She thought it was funny how those two rhymed.
Lumpkins wasn't exactly tickled by their statements. He was in no mood for criticisms, nor for puns. It was getting late. After finally putting the Powerpuff Girls at the exact place he wanted them, Lumpkins set down his oil lamp on a table by his bed. He sat down on his bed, which creaked as if it had just been wounded. The huge purple-furred beast moaned in delight. Rest at last.
The Girls, however, were still sitting on their haystacks, wide awake.
"Nighty-night," he said.
"Aren't you going to tell us about the real Mister Lumpkins?" Blossom reminded the purple man.
"You said you would…" Bubbles added. Buttercup, on the other hand, lay down on her haystack, content to just leave things be as she was tired.
Lumpkins seemed contemplative, having been brought to that state of mind by the Girls' request. He gave a sigh before obliging: "Fine, but you Girls'll turn in after that, a'right?"
The Girls covered themselves with their blankets as they listened to Lumpkins tell his story:
"I 'membered only bits and pieces o' the beginnin'..."
Location Unknown
Date Unknown
Lumpkins could remember only bits and pieces of the beginning. He remembered driving a semi-truck. He remembered, vaguely, stopping at some gas station and opening and seeing the cargo he was transporting. He remembered seeing black liquid.
Finally, he remembered falling into the liquid. It was all dark after that.
Next thing he knew, he was different, naked except for the fur, and cold. He remembered looking for help when he saw a car with red-and-blue bar lights and getting shot at by a couple of men in khaki uniforms. He remembered retaliating and killing them with bare hands, realizing then that he was really, really different - different from how he was, he knew, and different from other people.
But he understood that killing people was bad, even if he couldn't remember anything about his past. So he ran, ran deep into the woods and never looked back. It was cold then, and raining hard.
For days, he lived as little more than an animal, dressing himself in leaves, eating wild berries and hunting - sometimes getting tummy aches from poisonous fruits and mostly failing in the latter as he had no talent in the matter. Any other man - any normal man - would have died multiple times over with the same mistakes, but not Lumpkins. He realized, further, the true extent of his change. What would normally kill a man could barely touch him.
He went deeper into the woods, following the trail of berries and deer. Days passed, yet he wasn't getting much better at foraging and hunting. Hunger was a constant companion, alongside the cold, fresh memories of rejection and loneliness, and that would have been true for longer had he not met another living soul in the woods.
Lumpkins had been stalking a deer, getting closer to it with a crude spear he fashioned out of a branch. The deer had stopped to graze in a small clearing illuminated by moonlight as if it was some God-given prize. He was going to get the kill this time, he knew for sure. He had to learn how to move in his own body over the week - he didn't know how he knew, but he knew that his amnesia had robbed him of his mastery over his own body, as if it was never his own. But this time - this time - he was getting better at moving. He had been clumsy previously, but he could sneak around now without making a sound.
Then there was a gunshot. The deer he had been tracking fell and slumped over, dead. A man walked out, dressed in pelt, beanie and a tall pair of boots, wielding an old-fashioned shotgun. He had a long, white beard. He was old. And he was stealing his deer.
Lumpkins roared in fiery frustration. He knew that this was supposed to be his moment, and it had been taken away from him!
Charging at the pelt-wearing hunter, Lumpkins tackled the bearded man, taking him clean off his feet and throwing him into a tree.
The man cried, his voice old and raspy. Something had snapped like a rotten twig. Lumpkins would have gone on to pound the man into pulp had he not seen who he had just wounded.
The man's beanie had fallen off. He'd turned out to be a frail old man, his hair so thin Lumpkins could see his scalp. The old man coughed drily.
"Who- Who's there?" the old man said, his voice raspy, like the rustle of yellow leaves in the autumn wind. It was dark in the forest, and it seemed that the old man's vision couldn't adapt to it.
Lumpkins did not say anything. Nothing came to mind, just the horror of what he had done.
"I didn't know that deer was your mark!" the old man cried. "Tis a mistake, honest! Ain't no one here this deep in the woods but a park ranger on occasion!"
Lumpkins made a move to leave, and he would have left entirely had the old man kept quiet from here onwards. But he didn't.
"Please, I know you was a good man, don't leave me here!" the old man said.
"Why don't you just limp on home?" Lumpkins growled at the old man. He would have taken the deer, too, had the conversation ended here.
"Please, good sir, my arm! I think it's broke. I think something's snapped in my leg too, I can't feel nothing there!"
"Just limp on home," Lumpkins repeated himself unsympathetically and threw down his crude spear next to the old man. " 'Ere! Use this godamn stick or somethin'!"
"I can't – I can't just leave even if I can- the deer!" the old man rasped.
"Ain't that a little greedy even for a forest man like you?" Lumpkins barked, still angry that he was denied the kill, and now the old man was trying to deny his meal.
"You from a city or somethin'?" the old man yelled, his voice giving a little. "I need that hunk of venison, man. Just came out of a fever and I've had nothing to eat for a good few days. I'll starve like this without a good pair of hands and legs. Please!"
Lumpkins sighed. The old man was nothing like the ones who had shot him on the highway. Those men on the highway were in uniform, young and certainly not desperate from the looks of their shaved faces and healthy frames. This old man, however, looked like he was made of sticks and mud, and he'd broken him.
"Argh, fine!" Lumpkins roared finally. "You know the way to yer place?" He came up to the old man so that they wouldn't need to shout at each other to communicate.
"I'm old but I ain't retarded, y'know," the old man said. For some reason, he laughed. It was stupid, but Lumpkins laughed alongside him.
With that, Lumpkins picked up the old man AND the dead deer. Under the old man's direction, Lumpkins carried both to the old man's cottage.
"Y'know, you're really strong for a city boy," the old man said. "They don't tend to do the hard work like the folks 'round here, or other places like here. Where are you from?"
"I don't know," Lumpkins answered. "I don't know my own name either." He brought the old man into the cottage and lit an oil lamp under his guidance. It was dark, but not too dark for Lumpkins, whose vision was, for some reason, really good in the dark. Even he could only wonder if it had always been like this.
"You hit your head on a rock or somethin'?" the old man said. "Anyway, light the lamp and let me take a good look at you."
Lumpkins paused. While he hadn't looked at himself in the mirror yet, he knew he didn't look normal when he saw how his body looked like. He couldn't remember his past but he knew how a normal human being looked like, and they didn't have purple fur, giant hands ending with claws and a stature that would scare a grizzly bear away with its short, stumpy tail stuck between its legs. How would the old man react to his appearance?
In the end, it didn't matter, Lumpkins decided. The old man was in no position to do anything about him even if he still had a good pair of hands and legs, even if he had his old-fashioned shotgun in his arms. The sheriffs on the highway couldn't do jack to him even with their six-shooters.
After lighting up the oil lamp, Lumpkins turned around and returned to the old man's side.
The old man's eyesight was better than he expected. He was able to tell that something was wrong the moment Lumpkins lit up the oil lamp.
"Jumpin' jellybeans! I knew you were stronger than everythin' but I didn't expect this!" the old man exclaimed. Lumpkins didn't like his reaction. It'd sparked something inside him. Deep down, he knew he wasn't always like this. Despite his deep amnesia, he knew a thing or two about how people were born, and they certainly weren't born bigger than a basketball player, covered in purple fur and on a highway unless they were abandoned by a drug-fueled mother.
Rushing towards the old man, Lumpkins roared, saliva sputtering out, strings of them dripping. He stopped short of ripping the old man to shreds, his hands held out, forming fists as he resisted the urge to strangle the old man.
"Whew! You got a mouth on you, that's for sure," the old man joked calmly. "I don't think you'd wanna kill me or all your efforts to save me'll be wasted."
Lumpkins gave a growl-sigh. "What's yer name?" He asked.
"I go by Joe Lumpkins, howdy do?" the old man said. "Can you recall your name yet?"
The purple man tried his hardest to work his brains, but he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out who he even was. The old man looked at him as if he was a lost puppy. It wasn't lost on the purple man that he was being pitied, and he didn't like that.
"How 'bout if you borrow my name fer the time being, if you're inclined," Joe Lumpkins said. "By 'if you're inclined', I mean that you'll be stayin' and helpin' me out, 'cause it looks to me that I'd still be starving even with that whole deer. My arm's broke and my leg…"
"What about your leg?" Lumpkins asked.
"I'm goin' to need your help to check," Joe said. And so Lumpkins helped. With Joe's instructions, Lumpkins tried moving the old man's leg, only to discover that it was still mobile, which meant that there were no broken bones. There was just a dislocation between the pelvis and thigh. Under Joe's instruction, Lumpkins helped set it right, too, but it would be near half an hour before Joe could appraise his work as the pain was too much for him to remain conscious. It was during this time that Joe discovered that his arm was already splinted, wrapped in bandages and put in a sling.
"Well, I'll be, how did you know how t'do that?" Joe asked.
"I don't know, it just came to me," Lumpkins said. It'd come out of nowhere, and it served as a link to his forgotten past.
That night, Joe and Lumpkins became friends. They worked together to cook themselves a proper meal – Venison on Forest Stew – and chatted until they slept.
From then on, they would work together to survive, with Joe doing the teaching and Lumpkins doing the learning. Joe was the brain and Lumpkins was the brawn. Lumpkins would handle the rifle while Joe would hobble along and teach him the finer points of hunting. Lumpkins would prepare carcasses and meals with Joe as the head chef, build and repair parts of the cottage with Joe as the foreman.
Days gave way to weeks. Autumn gave way to winter. Months passed. It took time, but eventually Joe's arm was healed. Joe and Lumpkins became close. As soon as he was able, the old man would make proper clothing for Lumpkins to wear, and it took numerous sheets of denim to fix up, which was considered a fortune in these parts. The only way Joe was able to get them was through trade with a remote town hosting an old-fashioned trading post.
They became close, the very best of friends, as neither of them had any, not Lumpkins since the beginning of his new life, and not Joe since the beginning of his isolation. Joe would even go on to teach Lumpkins how to play his banjo as Lumpkins had taken a liking to it.
It took some coaxing and patience, but Lumpkins was able to get Joe to tell him his story. As it turned out, they weren't so different after all.
Before his life in the forest, Joe was cast out of his society. World War 2 had made Joe a cynical and melancholic man. He became many things: a journalist, a writer, a businessman, a philanthropist and finally, an activist and agitator. He was targeted for his last two roles. His business had wound up from both bad press and bad company smashing windows and goods, which meant that he could no longer help the needy. The mob tried to silence him as an activist, possibly with the backing of politicians or coppers. He sold everything he had and moved into the forest, building his cottage little by little, stocking up and eventually having to find his own supplies. He'd been there ever since, for the past two decades or so.
During the winter, Joe had fantasized about the next year with Lumpkins, since there was nothing to do in between hunts and chores. Lumpkins had decided to stay for the long term, which meant that there were many thing he could do that he previously could not. Joe had kept a small vegetable garden behind his cottage for many years now, but the harvest had always been pitiful because he was just one person; add to that the fact that there would always be crop failures due to scavenging animals, weeds, disease and his old age. With Lumpkins, the harvest would be far more bountiful than it'd ever be.
Except that Joe would not live to see his vegetable garden expanded into an actual farm. Too much time spent in the cold and too many years spent in winter had caused Joe to come down with some severe illness the two friends had no way of identifying. Bed rest and herbs did not stave off the disease. Desperate, Lumpkins would attempt to buy food and medicine from a gas station on the highway, only to be turned away, forcing him to resort to violence to get what he wanted.
By the time he returned, however, it was too late. He had Joe's food and medicine, but Joe was dead, and he died alone. The only thing left to do for Joe Lumpkins was to bury him out back, close to his cottage. It took time for Lumpkins to fashion a tombstone for Joe, but by the time he got around to putting the dates on the tombstone, he had already forgotten the dates in a haze of grieving and remembrance.
Since then, there was only one thing left to do for Lumpkins. He would take up Joe's boomstick and banjo, live the same life as Joe had lived and perhaps unearth his past, if it was at all possible. He would live, and perhaps thrive, in memory of Joe.
Pokey Oaks County. Pokey Oaks Woodland Reserve
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 2253.
"That's… that's really sad, Mister Lumpkins," Blossom said. For the first time ever, she felt pity for the purple beast.
"I would have liked to meet your friend…" Bubbles added.
Buttercup, on the other hand, was already snoring. A haystack, as it turned out, was good enough for a fugitive.
Lumpkins gave a growl-sigh. He didn't know what to feel. He didn't like to be pitied, least of all by a pair of little city girls, but at the same time, he actually appreciated their company. He loved recounting the tale of Joe Lumpkins, but at the same time, being reminded of what he had lost was hurtful that he might smash the Girls through the floor! And then there was the third kid, the green-clothed ravenette, who slept through his story halfway.
"Ya'll go to sleep, I'mma head out and sit for a minute," Lumpkins simply said. It was the best he could do. Excusing himself from them to cool off was far more than what he would give to anyone else. After snuffing out the oil lamp, he left the Girls in the cottage and went out to sit on his rocking chair, just like he said.
Unknown to the Girls, they had gotten to Lumpkins more than he'd let on. There was much to think about, and so he sank into his chair, rocking it, thinking.
Talking to the Girls had brought back memories, more than before. He hadn't told his story to anyone before, but he was remembering more of it, more of the beginning, in fact.
He remembered driving a semi-truck, sure, and opening his cargo out of curiosity, sure. He then remembered that he might have been hit in the head, but now, as he closed his eyes to think back to his hazy past, he remembered more.
A gas station. He'd driven his rig into one to top up the gas tank. He'd gotten a burger and some soda, yes.
But what stuck out to him was the fact that he was always alone, even before he'd become… this, this purple-furred thing that even he himself couldn't like.
No. He wasn't alone. It'd hit him like a truck all of a sudden. Someone was in the cab of the semi-truck with him.
A strange woman in a fedora and trench coat. He even remembered how weird some city folks dressed themselves. That woman was even wearing sunglasses at night, and there was a strange glow to her eyes.
Yes, he remembered now. It was all slowly coming back to him.
He was assigned by a company which he couldn't remember the name of to transport some cargo he was kept from knowing about.
Yes, it was all coming back to him now! He had gotten only a look at the container. It was a liquid tank no different from those used to transport petroleum products, or milk and orange juice.
Lumpkins remembered being pissed about everything being kept away from him that he had threatened to go to the… to the… what was it? Truckers. He was a trucker, that much he knew. The Truckers' Union, yes!
And now he remembered why he didn't – it was a memory tied to a strong desire, so he was able to bring it back after some unexpected and unintended coaxing from Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup.
Money. That was all it came down to. His supervisor and manager was paid to look the other way, and they'd made sure he was paid to look the other way too. Apparently, whatever was inside the liquid tank was worth a fortune and a half, such that he was offered ten times the usual pay for a transport job that wouldn't have been out of place except for the mystery cargo.
He remembered now. There was a chaperone who was clandestinely assigned to him at the very last minute, but by who he did not know. The woman in the trenchcoat.
Halfway there, he stopped at the gas station, bought his burger and soda and topped his gas tank up. What happened next? Lumpkins strained his mind to get to the next part.
He got curious. And worried. His wife and boy came first – wait. Wife and boy?
The worst part was that he couldn't remember past the fact that he had a family. No wonder Blossom reminded him of a boy before; his subconscious had been waking up.
But the worries he had. What was it? Terrorism. Yes, terrorism. It wasn't lost on him that his destination was in the warehousing district of Townsville, and that city was synonymous with crime. A liquid tank the size of a normal truck could carry enough explosives to level a city block. The whole charade he was induced to be a part of wasn't exactly usual either.
He remembered his final moments as a man now. The gas station was largely deserted since it was late at night, so he thought that he wouldn't look like he was pilfering his own job since no one would be looking. He remembered climbing up onto the liquid tank he was transporting.
He remembered opening the hatch, expecting to see explosives inside, only to see a thickset, middle-aged man in a jacket, denim jeans, and trucker's hat. Himself, reflected by a dark liquid unlike anything he'd seen before, from the way it moved and shimmered on its own. It sure wasn't petroleum, he remembered thinking.
He'd turned around, ready to bring his cargo to the police, only to find the Trenchcoat Lady right next to him. He tried to fight back, sensing that she was armed and ready to silence him, but she was stronger than he anticipated.
He remembered landing a blow to her face, only for her to take it like it was nothing, and he remembered taking her blows as if she could beat Mike Tyson himself – and he'd boxed in his free time too! He remembered struggling, accidentally pulling off her trenchcoat as he tried to go around her, only to find yet more horror lying beneath.
Four arms. The woman had four arms. Her eyes! He'd taken out her sunglasses with his punch too! Her eyes – those were eyes like that of a viper!
He remembered the very last seconds now. He remembered getting tossed close to the hatch, then came two right punches, and two lefts. He remembered still standing up, still trying to fight back, only to take another blow in the head.
That was when he fell in.
Lumpkins opened his eyes. Had he been dreaming? Or remembering? Or something in between? No, he decided. It felt real. Those were his memories.
Getting up, Lumpkins returned back into his cottage. He could see the Girls, and they were already soundly asleep. Well, all of them except Blossom, who turned to look at him. Those glowing pink eyes - despite being a clone, those eyes seemed to hold more of a soul than that of a normal human being.
"Doncha wanna sleep?" Lumpkins whispered to Blossom.
"I will," she said, before yawning. "I don't know why, but I woke up all of a sudden."
"Why do ya trust me dis much?" Lumpkins asked, genuinely puzzled. "Won't ya think that I'll kill ya in yer sleep?"
"I don't care anymore," Blossom said, her voice dry of any hope. "I don't know if I can go back… and Dad… I don't know if I'll ever see him again. If he's really dead, I don't think I'll want to stay alive…" Blossom couldn't continue as her next thought was too horrifying and wrong to speak out loud. After all, what sort of a sister would think of killing the rest of her family in their sleep as a twisted form of mercy before killing herself? "Please don't tell my sisters that I… said all those things."
"Yer secret's safe with me," Lumpkins promised. "And so are you." With that, the furry beast returned to his bed, lay down on it, and closed his eyes, still marveling at how alike he and Blossom were, despite all the obvious dissimilarities.
It didn't take long for him to fall asleep this time.
