26 Fire and Flatulence II.

Jimbo lowered Joe down into the crusty Gulf Oil drum until just his head was sticking out almost completely submerging him in the wood alcohol he left the 3 ton chainfall connected to the SpiderSilk rope. Joe was conscious shouting obscenities in English.

"I swear on all that is unholy from the depths of the Moose Knuckle Sea to the heights of the Big Rock Candy Mountain I will destroy you and all of your scaly kind you swamp dwelling retard."

"We moved out of the swamps generations ago... It's a big wide world but I never heard of any of those places champ. So whether you are completely back amongst the sane I can't be too sure. I'll start the initiation rites. Just in case you run into any of your kin later I can't have you embarrassing me." Jimbo began to take off his coveralls when he disrobed to his waist he tied the sleeves of his romper in a knot at his belt. He looked at his left wrist blue dots and dashes in horizontal lines ran circular around his arm continuing under his yellowing white t -shirt. "You are Grubworm son of Jimbo son of Claude son of Billy Ray..."

Jimbo kept at this for about an hour and a half reciting back to the 333rd generation as he looked down on his left knee cap.

"I'll be back,first I want a cold beer before I start again." 'Who am I kidding I'll need to get out the 16 penny nails and the blue indigo dye he's never going to remember hell that's why we tattoo all the boys in the first place there's almost 6000 names on me.'

The SpiderSilk had started to dissolve in the industrial strength parts cleaning solution.

'The Neptronians have gotten complacent it is my time to strike. I see tanks of rocket fuel against the wall if only there was an escape pod ahaha the Childilian Class Destroyer is mine for the taking too bad I don't know the galatic coordinates for planet Earth. If I can't leave I'll burn it to the ground' Joe sped towards the oxygen and acetylene tanks with the cutting torch head on it. Vague memories of a shop class from another life guided his hands as to how to operate the valves on the tanks. He found the striker dangling from a peg on the cart holding the tanks * whooosh* the pressurized fuel ignited.

Jimbo had come back from his ice chest 'She took my pimento cheese sandwhich... shit is nothing sacred anymore.' "Put the flame down I got 40 years worth of primo porn stashed all over this shop do you want to destroy your inheritance?"

The alien was making no sense the words were getting hard to translate all of his words.

Arrrh! Joe let go of the torch letting is fall to the spirits soaked ground they ignited causing a wall of flame to spread across both Joe and the shop floor.

'Shit I never got around to putting in any fire suppression. This whole place is going to go up like a house made out of fatwood.' Jimbo tried to think without falling into panic. "The boy should be fine that alcohol should burn off pretty quick he'll only lose a little hair. I gotta save the Beaver Hunter from 1979 it's got collector's value.' Jimbo unzipped his coveralls whipping out his penis and began to piss into the conflaguration aiming just in front of the flames allowing the pressure from the jet to splash across the heat for even distrubution. The once mighty inferno was reduced to smoldeting embers. 'That was a close one' Jimbo walked past the now mostly extinguished remnants of some 2×6s when a fart passed his cheeks reigniting the flames and causing a fireball to burn the seat of his coveralls. Jimbo plopped to the ground dragging his but across the floor like a dog with an itchy butt does across the carpet. When he got up there was now a reduction in cloth on his coveralls but at least he had a nice cross breeze. He walked over to the tanks closing the valves.

"Grubworm, my little pyro son you have learned a life lesson play with fire you get burned. You are about to learn another one

Mess with my porn you get the horns."

'At last the world is safe from the Neptronians,

for the moment at least they shall probe no more.' Joe thought before he had a moment of clarity in his fog of madness.

"Jimbo what am I doing here?"

"Not worried about why you are naked or your hair is gone?"

"Not at all Tinker I'm getting used to being au naturel."

"Good that means I can start the initiation again... You are Grubworm son of Jimbo son of Claude son of Billy Ray son of Clovis son of Buford son of Big Tim son of Eugene son of Joe Dohn son of Cletus son Clem... screw it I'll get your hat and the ink."

"Why do you need ink?" Joe asked the Tinker as he watched him dislodge a pile of junk revealing a wooden sea chest with an ancient bronze lock with heavy patina and a shackle at least an inch thick. The wood was luminescent and it gave off a white fog when he opened it. There was a shiny stainless steelsauce pan with two t handles attached to threaded shanks that ran into two 7/8" nuts welded to the sides of the pan.Inside of the saucepan was a paisley cloth liner sitting atop that liner lay small mayonaise jar with a aqueous solution of the deepest indigo.

"Is that ink for spirit print tattoos?" asked Joe secretly praying that it was some kind of crazy ancestral magic. "What's that crazy saucepan for?"

"No you idjit I'm going to tatoo your entire family line on you."Jimbo laughed

"Why would I need that? How do you know my entire familial line?" Joe was resigned to the insanity of the world but still wanted to know why he was getting inked up by Jimbo.

"You can think of it as an adoption ritual I saved your life with transmission fluid and some of my DNA now you are my son."

"What's that sauce pan for?"

"That's the Helmet of Memory."

"Is it going to make me smarter?"

"I hope so put it on your head."

Joe put on the helmet but he didn't feel smarter "Jimbo nothing's happening....ow ow ow Ow OW!" Jimbo was turning the handles on the side of the saucepan." What the hell are you doing Jimbo?"

"I'm calibrating the Horns hold still."

Joe was starting to feel a clarity of thought he had never experienced in the outside world.

The pain threatened to split his head in two but he tried his best not scream anymore.'Thank God Jimbo stopped turning those handles.'

Jimbo grabbed a 16" crescent wrench from another haphazard pile in the shop then began banging on the bottom of the inverted pot on Joe's head.

"Feel any smarter now you jackass!!!"