The Head Of The Family - From The Madness Of The Number Man

Previous Part

Part Five

“RICHARD! HOW ARE YOU SON!” Richard couldn’t hold back the scream that tore its way out of his lungs and he jumped up out of the chair and spun around towards its source while he continued to scream. “Whoa buddy! Calm down, it’s just me. You don’t have to be scared.”

“Mr. Gip?!” Richard hadn’t recognized the voice right away, but he was able to put the pieces together when he saw the head of Mr. Gip sitting amongst the other contraptions on Petunia’s workbench. The top half of his head looked just as Richard remembered him, but everything underneath his upper jaw had no skin, and the metal inner workings of his lower jaw were exposed. Richard quickly walked over to the robot that he thought was no more. The head was sitting on top of a metal neck that was attached to a pedestal. “Mr. Gip, I thought you were gone!”

“Well the first version of me is gone. I get rebooted every night, so I just have to take everybody’s word for it when it comes to what happened to the first me. Oh boy, it’s nice to see you.”

“I’m glad you’re here Richard.” Mrs. Gip’s voice came softly from behind him as she walked down the stairs. “I’m getting worried about Petunia. She’s not herself right now.” Agatha Gip stood next to him while she looked at the head of her counterpart.

“She won’t even really talk to me right now Mrs. Gip. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“It’s that place Richard.” Mrs. Gip pointed to the large picture on the south wall. “It's all she thinks about, and the more she talks about it, the more worried I get. Some days, she won’t even take her pills. She knows she needs them.”

“Her pills?”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” Petunia’s screech echoed off of the walls of her lab as she ran down the steps and over to Richard. Richard had faced a monster intent on eating him, just as it ate his father, and he had also only moments before been face to face with a man who would like nothing more than to kill him, but the way Petunia rushed towards him at that moment was just as unsettling as either instance. “How did you get in here?!”

“Um….”

“Petunia, honey, it’s not polite to raise your voice.”

“Really mom?! You’re supposed to let me know when someone comes inside the house! What were you thinking?!”

“You see what I mean Richard? She’s not herself.”

“Um…”

“I hate you mom, I wish I never made you!”

“Alright! That’s enough yelling, young lady! You knock it off right now! That is no way to speak to your mother!” An awkward silence followed Mr. Gips' order, and the bizarre scene was not lost on Richard as the robotic disembodied head was still doing its job as the head of the family. Petunia took a few deep breaths through her nose and pursed her lips while she tried to formulate a thought. Agatha Gip reached over and rubbed her daughter’s shoulder.

“We’re all worried about you, honey.”

“I’m fine mom, I’m more worried about you not following your programming!” This was the first time Petunia was aware that her mother had chosen to violate the commands that were embedded into her electronic brain, and although it was out of concern, it still didn’t make Petunia feel any better about the situation. Richard felt compelled to break the awkward silence that followed between the family by clearing his throat before he spoke.

“Um…. Gene’s over at my house. He’s over there right now with my mother.”

“Why is Gene at your house?”

“He came to my mom’s support group. It was her night to host it. There’s so much going on right now Petunia, that I feel like I’m going to lose it. I really need my friend right now.” Richard had no intention of sounding as vulnerable as he did, but the words just fell out of his mouth, and Petunia wasn’t used to such bold-faced honesty without some kind of anger to go along with it coming from Richard.

“Richard...I know you’re scared and confused, but so am I. I wish I could tell you how my mind works, but once I get caught up in something, I have to finish it, or I go crazy.” She cast her eyes down momentarily before she looked over to the south wall, and the building plan that she had created. “I have to know why my name was on that wall, Richard. It shouldn’t be there, and I need to figure out who wrote it. Outside of school, no one in this town even knows who I am.”

“Gene does. Maybe he put it there.”

“That’s an awfully big leap, don’t you think?” Petunia could still see the message written behind the arch on the stage of the Wicker Bush Community Theatre, or as everyone in town called it, the WBCT. She had seen it out of sheer dumb luck when they had left the tunnels through a small door which led to the prop room in the attic of the theatre. During Richard’s haste in wanting to leave the building, Petunia had stumbled while trying to keep up with him, and her flashlight illuminated the backside of the proscenium arch.

Many people had signed their names on the back of it, people who had given their time in the volunteer theatre, and in the middle of all those names, Petunia had found the words, “What’s the frequency Petunia Gip?”

 Right next to the words in the same hand and ink, was the mathematical symbol for infinity. In spite of everything that happened later that night at Hocus Pizza, and even in spite of losing the first version of her father that she had built, Petunia had become fixated on the message.

“No Richard, someone else in this town must be watching me.”

“So what? Petunia, we have real problems here.”

“I know that, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Besides rebooting my dad, I haven’t done anything other than making that map and staring at every centimeter of it.”

“Where did you get the copy?” Richard followed Petunia as she walked closer to the map.

“I found it down at City Hall, but the plans are revised; they're not original, so for all I know, these are inaccurate to some degree. I needed something large to look at to really get a feel for it, so I committed the plans to memory, measurement by measurement, and then I made this.” Richard felt uneasy just looking at the plans of the building he had grown to hate due to an, experience regarding the wooden staircase that led up to the prop room. “I have to get in there Richard.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. I can’t find anything in any old newspapers about the place. I’d like to help with everything right now Richard; I really want to, but there’s something in my brain that just can’t let this go until I find out why my name was there.” Richard looked back at Petunia’s parents; Agatha Gip was stroking the balding head of her husband and they were both obviously very concerned for their daughter, and if Richard didn’t know better, he could have sworn that Agatha had a look that was begging him to help her daughter.

“Petunia, I don’t really want to go back to that place...like ever.”

“I know that. That’s why I haven’t asked for your help and that’s why I’ve been avoiding any conversations about it, or about anything really.” Petunia sank down into the chair in front of the south wall and stared helplessly at the plans.

Richard felt that his world was coming apart at the seams at the speed of light, but he knew he was ill equipped to handle all of it on his own. He needed Petunia’s help, and he knew that if he didn’t indulge her stupid little mission, he would be flying solo. He had an uncle on his father’s side who seemed to have the same problem as Petunia.

His Uncle Stewart was a man who liked to tell stories, and if those stories were interrupted, whether if it was only for a moment or more than an hour, he couldn’t say another word about anything until he was able to finish his thought. His mother had told him that Uncle Stewart was obsessive and that was the reason for his strange behaviors concerning finishing a thought or having his clothes perfectly pressed or his canned foods facing a certain way or his odd way making sure none of the food on his plate touched the exact middle of the plate.

In that instant, Petunia had once again taken a glazed look over those big eyeballs behind those big glasses. Richard noticed that her hair seemed more wild than normal, and with that detail, he began to pay attention to everything else about her that he had failed to notice while he was busying himself with his own problems.

Her fingernails were dirty and oily, there were small food stains on the front of her shirt, the socks she wore looked as if they had been on her feet for at least a few days, and the bags under her eyes were starting to dip below the frames of her glasses. She was a mess, and seeing her in this light, he began to worry that his friend, who was by all means the more levelheaded of the two of them, was about to fall over a mental cliff that there was no coming back from.

“If I help you... will you help me?” Petunia turned from the map and her face lit up; the glazed look was gone and his friend was back in the moment with him.

“Of course I will.”

“So, what do you want to do then?”

“Can you get me inside that building?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know anyone there who might know a little history about the building?” Richard winced at her question and wished he could answer differently.

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Richard!” Petunia was ecstatic at the prospect of walking into that miserable building, but in the very next moment, she turned back towards the map, and once again, the glazed look returned to her face. Richard had never known anyone like Petunia, whose moods could be so unpredictable.

“So... I guess we can go up there tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock?”

“Uh huh.” Richard knew there wasn’t any point in continuing the conversation, and he turned and gave a casual wave to Petunia’s parents as he slowly climbed the stairs out of the lab with even more problems on his shoulders than he had just a few minutes before.