Joe The Plumber is an Asshole EPISODE 5

Continued from Joe The Plumber is an Asshole EPISODE 4

The nurse ran from the hospital room.  It was Joe making her run.

“Doctor!  Somebody get a doctor!  He’s awake!  He finally woke up!”

Joseph Theodore Cleveland hadindeed woken up.  Only he didn’t know from what.  Joe didn’t know much of anything.  Even his name.  Joe had been hospitalized since the severe beating at the Southern Arizona bar two years earlier.  He carried no identification.  When he had gone on the lam after the [COURT RECORDS SEALED] of Mrs. Hendrickson, he dropped any IDs that would link him to his past and left no forwarding address for anyone.  Joe was a shadow.

Now he was even more of a shadow.   He was a shadow to himself.  Joe had no idea who he was, where he was from or what he was doing in the hospital.

A doctor ran into the room, the nurse following close behind.

“See!  He finally woke up!  The Plumber is awake!”

“Settle down..Um..What’s your name, nurse?”  The doctor was a prick, someone Joe Cleveland probably would have liked.

“Really?  I’ve been working here for two years!  My name is…”  Nurse was cut off.

“Quiet down nurse, I’m attending to a patient.”  The doctor shined a pen light in Joe’s eyes.  They were still black, but they did not have that cold, vacant stare.  They were curious – fascinated like a child.

Joe had been reborn…

Actually, Joe had just been dumbed down.  The severe beating he took drastically damaged his brain.  Joe, who was previously a wandering maniac with an undeserved intellect, was now just (sorry) An Average Joe.

The doctor examining him kept referring to him as “Joe The Plumber” or just “The Plumber.”

“Where am I?”  Joe whispered at the doctor.  His voice was not as sharp as it used to be.  It was slow, serene.  Kind of child-like.

“Well, Joe.  You’re in the hospital.  It’s a miracle you are alive, actually.”

The doctor went on to explain that when the paramedics had removed Joe from the toilet bowl, he was clinically dead from drowning.  He had been resuscitated but had, unfortunately, suffered some brain damage from being submerged.  Not to mention the deadly beating he had taken.  Joe had undergone surgery, and several pieces of his brain that had been skewered by skull fragments had been removed.

Joe didn’t seem to follow.

“You’re never going to be the same, Joe.”  The doctor checked Joe’s pulse.  “I mean, physically, you are fine.  Well, with the exception of, you know, the severe brain damage you suffered.”

“So, what do I do?”

“I’m not sure son.  Do you have any family?”  The doctor waited for a response.  “Oh, yeah.  Bad question.  You don’t know.”

“Yeah.”  Joe whispered.  “I don’t know anything about me.”

“The guys at the bar you were doing work at only knew you as ‘Joe’ and said you were their plumber.  Apparently, you also have a severe drinking problem.  You may not remember your compulsion to drink, but it’s probably still there.  When we set you free, we’ll give you some information on local support programs.”

“What am I going to do when I leave doc?”

“Well, maybe you can do some plumbing.  I wonder if plumbing is kind of like riding a bike.”

Joe just stated at the doctor.  He didn’t get the analogy.

“What do you think, son?  Plumbing?  I think the guys at the bar said you were from the Midwest.  If there was ever a shithole that needed some de-clogging, the Midwest is it.”

Still staring.  “The Midwest?  A Plumber?”  Joe tried hard to make his brains work.  “Okay.  I am going to be a plumber.  I’m Joe The Plumber.”

——

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it, Reader?  Not as ridiculous as your face.

But life is ridiculous, and sometimes ridiculous things happen.  Joe Theodore Cleveland had been transformed into a bumbling retard, a man with the IQ and curiosity of a 15-year-old.  He was no longer a monster.  He was just Joe.  Joe The Plumber from the Midwest.

And Joe was making his way back home.

—–
 

Joe walked into a small Midwest town.  The town of his birth. 

How did he know it was the town of his birth?

Jesus Christ.  You did so well.  You didn’t ask a fucking question through the last episode, and now you have questions.  Listen, Sillypants, I will fill you in on all the details.  Now shut up and listen.

—–

Anyhoo…
Joe walked into a small Midwest town.  The town of his birth.  His brain was destroyed, his evil gone and his past erased.  But the dumbest of people are like animals.  They just have a sense.

Joe walked past the townspeople.  He seemed to attract attention.  People recognized him, but they didn’t know where they recognized him from.  Joe no longer looked the same.  His curious eyes, once vacant and covered by the front of his mullet, were now visible.  The toilet cleaner had destroyed his hair follicles, and Joe was a bald man.

He walked past a cafe.  A man named Timothy Mason was sitting there sipping his coffee and reading the paper.  Joe’s eyes met Tim’s.

“Hello.  I’m Joe.  Joe The Plumber.”  His voice was monotone but slightly endearing.  Timothy knew that face.  Somehow.  Maybe he was one of the local “special” people who did menial tasks to make the town look pretty, an assistant plumber, perhaps.

“Hi…Joe.  Do I know you from somewhere?”  Tim said this softly and slowly, careful to separate each word so Joe could mentally digest them.

“Maybe!  I’m a plumber.  I’m Joe the plumber.  I think I lived around here one time.”

“Oh…”  Tim swore something looked familiar.  “Well do you have family who lives here, Joe The Plumber?  Do you stay with someone?”

“I think I used to live in a big moving house.”

“Oh.”  It made sense.  A lot of the trailer folks had kids with mental disabilities.  It had something to do with the septic chemicals.  “The trailer park?  Is there where you live?”

“You know,” Joe said happily, “I think that’s it.  I think I live in the trailer park.  Thanks Tim.”

“Not a problem, Joe The Plumber.”

So Joe walked and walked until he wandered into the trailer park.  He looked around, his instincts guiding his curious eyes.  And then he saw it.  It was a moldy looking trailer that had a sign out front.  It said “CONDEMNED.”  It looked like it said “COME IN” to Joe, so he walked right in.

And it was.  It was Joe’s childhood home.  The home Joe used to slither around in, dodging flying beer cans Stiffy threw at him.  Of course, Joe only knew it felt like home.  He had no recollection of his past, nor did he know his stepfather Stiffy who had been arrested on child molestation charges and died behind bars shortly after.

But none of that mattered.  Joe was home.  He was Joe The Plumber, and dagonnit, that was what he was going to do.  He was going to plumber things, whatever that meant.

The next day, the trailer residents awoke to the sounds of a big sign being nailed to the side of the trailer Richard “Stiffy” Johnson used to live in.  A bald, retarded looking man was hammering a sign to the trailer that read “IM JO ANDS I WIL PLUMER 4 U.”

—–

So that is how Joe went from being a psychopath to a mental invalid.  A poorly timed piss, a few knocks to the head and some careful persuasion by a doctor who just wanted a comatose idiot out of his hospital.

So is Joe an asshole, like you’ve been saying?

Okay.  I’ll let that one slide because I was just going to let the next EPISODE explain it.  Evidently, however, you are about as bright as Joe, so you need some immediate insight, don’t you Corky.

Joe is not an asshole like he used to be.  In fact, some would say Joe is just a nice plumber.  A mentally handicapped man who lives in the Midwest.  But Joe is an asshole.  Just a different kind.  And I learned Joe was an asshole just the other day when he managed to make it to Fredericksburg, VA.

 

TO BE CONTINUED