The sanitary waste disposal packets he called them. His idea was that after a disaster, man-made or natural, it would be an efficient, sanitary way to dispose of human waste. If it worked, it would do a great deal toward eliminating disease and infection. He liked to have people test his invention after he developed it before submitting it to Washington. The sanitary waste disposal packet was a cardboard box that the user squatted over, did his business, and when he was done, would fold up the box. The box had holes in it to allow for aerobic bacterial decomposition aided by limestone that would accelerate the process. Or the box could be burned. There was toilet paper provided to clean oneself. Like I said, Bronson liked to test his inventions and he was going around town asking, Would you like to shit in my box?
The men laughed.
He loved to shock people like that, said Jean.
He was funny, said Regis.
As long as you weren’t the butt of his joke, suggested the tall man.
I’m sure he got a laugh from how people reacted, said Regis.
You know, I don’t mean to get too philosophical here, but it is interesting the attitude of the locals toward Bronson, observed Jean, I mean, there’s kind of this ambivalence toward him; on the one hand, a feeling that he was odd or eccentric or a weirdo of some kind, and on the other, this admiration for all the money he’d made.
What’s ambiflance? asked Claude.
Feeling two ways about something; like you love and hate it at the same time, explained Jean.
Boy, do I know that one! I never heard that word though, muttered Claude.
I think you’re right, Jean, said Regis, Bronson was a lone wolf. He gave no alliance or allegiance to anyone. He was self-absorbed which gave him a creativity of the highest rank, and sadly kept him from intimacy with another human. The misunderstanding was he had a character defect when, in fact, I believe it was his temperament. I’m not talking about the alcohol – that is a disease he chose not to treat, but his aloneness, his individuality is what I’m talking about. He was different from most of us temperamentally which made us nervous and so we ridiculed him. But it was him who ignored the convention and boundaries the rest of us live by. Contrary is the word to describe him. That’s what the fly under was about – it was breaking the rules in a unique way that showed to the rest of us that Bronson went where the rest of us won’t travel, took risks we won’t take, and while he sacrifices