Motorman (8 page)

Moldenke raised the wick of his k-lamp.

48]

“Folks, please pay attention to this announcement. This is not a weather report.” He imagined his voice echoing in stadiums, in dark rooms, interrupting jellyhead workers. “My friend here is Shelp. My name is Moldenke, out of Texaco City. It's time we ended our backward ways. Don't be pinned like a flutterby in a camphor box. Get up, go out and mill in the street. What can they do, occupy the rooms? Everybody turn on the faucets. Open the lookouts and turn on the heaters. Heat the city. Protcher a friend in a tender place. Be good. Be sensitive to the flow, listen to the hum. As I said, this is not a weather report. This is Moldenke of Texaco City. Bloodboy, mock soldier, banana man, shrimper-—I've done my share of swallowing chuff.”

Shelp turned from the lookout. “You're doing good, Dink. Don't get excited, though.”

“Turn the volume up, folks. The weather is improving in spurts. Remember the old sun? The old moon? The old songs we used to sing about them? The government sent Eagleman and his moon to wane in the country, sent up its own moons. Up they went, a new mock moon every paper month, confusing the issue of tides. At least with Eagleman's moon we could get to see a sky movie every month. Now, what now? The g-boys give us gauze and goggles, encouraging indoor play. They send out a herd of jellyheads to do the mock work and the rest of us hole up in our rooms.”

“Ease off, Moldenke. You're getting me excited. My hearts...one of them quit on me yesterday.”

Moldenke switched off the microphone. The lights flickered and went on. The gauges came to life, gave false readings.

“Shelp, you have hearts?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Eleven.”

“What kind?”

“Sheep and dog alternating, and one calf.” He opened his khaki and Moldenke saw the scar, the chest heaving, rippling, ticking. Moldenke went close and protchered a soft wattle under Shelp's chin. “I like you, Shelp. Let's go south. No more time games. He's sending a man out.”

“I can't, Moldenke. When one of them goes-—”

“I know. All of them go. I know. But you've got ten more. We can make it to Burnheart in time for a heart fix. Pack a few things. Bring cigars.”

“No, I wouldn't make it.” He gave Moldenke a key. “Here, take my k-motor. The tire is low but it runs. It might get you there. Trust me, Moldenke. Get on it. I'll see you after the flood maybe, depending on the hearts. The calf heart is a good one. It may suffice alone when the other ones quit. Go, Moldenke. I'll broadcast till the man comes. We'll see what happens.” He took Moldenke's elbow and led him to the door. “Goodbye, Dink.”

Moldenke tightened his coat straps. “Thank you for the tea, Shelp. He sat in the lift chair and buckled in. He turned to Shelp. “I'll be looking for you after the flood.”

Shelp smiled, bent forward, holding his chest, went back into the weather room.

The telephone rang. He stood over it and let it ring. The lights went off. He took off his rubber shoe and dipped his foot in the floor pit. As the embers sizzled into the flesh, the phone stopped ringing, the lights went on, and the gauges gave accurate readings.

49]

One season past, Moldenke thought of farming. He wrote off for a dozen chickens in the mail. In a genuine month he received a package of egg shells and a bag of yellow powder.

He opened the
Ways & Means
to agriculture, found most of the section deleted. He turned to livestock and found a picture of a wooden bull, mechanically cranked, ejaculating plastic sacks of sperm into a bucket. Burnheart stood smiling over the wooden bull, wearing his cowboy hat.

50]

Dear Moldenke,

Whether or not you have feelings for me, or feelings at all, I do have feelings about you. They increased when you compared my nipples to pencil erasers. No one has been so gentle to me.

The clouds are promising rain.

Love,

Cock Roberta

51]

Dear Cock,

Although my feelings have not improved, I like you more. Burnheart is trying to find me a laboratory job in the city. If he does we can be together on weekouts. I enjoy your apparent affection for me. When I see you I'll play the Buxtehude. Do you have a piano?

Your friend,

Moldenke

52]

Dear Doctor Burnheart,

In the morning my first duty at the Trop Garden is to walk the banana rows and inspect the plants.

If I see mites or spiders or anything unusual, my second duty is to report it to you. Consider this, today's report:

(1) Triple the usual number of mites, no spiders.

(2) Normally I see a few spiders. Today, none.

(3) Leaves facing the southern sun are dry and fibrous.

(4) General trunk damage.

(5) Jellied fruit, if any.

(6) Dead snipes covering the ground.

Cordially yours,

Awaiting word,

Moldenke

53]

Dear Moldenke,

We have cause for concern. It is not good that one branch of arachnida would be present in greater numbers, while another branch declines. It's a puzzle, son. Thank you for sending me the pieces. I'll work on it. Eagleman should know about it, too. Meanwhile, continue the rounds. Report any further changes.

Yours in spades,

Burny

54]

Dear Burny,

When this note reaches you, the way the mails are these days, I will have left the Trop Garden. There was nothing I could do. I'm afraid the Garden is dead. The snipes are growing deeper. The stink is driving me off, and I don't have to mention the flies. I saw the last banana plant crimp and bend over dead. Something of me went with it, Doc. I won't be the same again.

Regretfully yours,

Moldenke

55]

When the lift stopped suddenly he vomited tea and cat weenies. He changed gauze pads, rewound his hand bandage. He lit his lighter and found the k-motor. He read the tire gauge, had to ignore the high reading. The tire was low. He walked the length of the tire, spot-checking it by lighter light, looking for weak spots in the rubber. Overall, the tire seemed sound.

He threw his backpack up to the platform and climbed the ladder, lowering himself into the motor room through a shaft. He cranked the motor a dozen times. One cylinder fired. He wound the pull-rope and cranked the motor again, sitting on the choke button and easing down several calibrations on the spark pilot. He found a candle waxed to a flywheel and lit it. The motor room brightened to dim, two moths flew in and patterned on the flame. He nursed the key into the slot again and finger-primed the juice pump nozzle. The gauges lit up and gave low readings. Other cylinders caught and fired, detonating unevenly as the motor warmed, gradually smoothing, growing quiet, until Moldenke could hear the beats of his hearts. He caught a moth in his good fist, dusted off its wing scales, and ate it. He turned on the front and side running lamps, the yellow night-beam, raised the volume of the fog whistle. A tree frog croaked in the dark periphery of the motor room. He set the compass point on generally south. He thought he heard the grind of Bunce's cameras. He stepped to the forward lookout, drew back the worn khaki curtain, checking the area. A one-klick semicircle was lit as though in camera flash by the k-motor running lights. He went back up the ladder, through the shaft, pulled his backpack in, closing the hatch behind him. The motor room, except when the frog croaked, went silent. He put the gear jam in very high and the k-motor moved slowly forward, the great soft tire its dominant feature, over dead, doorless refrigerators and rusted mattress springs. He took the snipe from his sidepack, cleaned it, warmed it on a hot pressure sleeve, and ate it. He grew sleepy and slept warmly an undetermined space of time.

56]

Someone shook his cot and told him there was a letter for him down at the mailpost. He sat up, sleep wrapped, rubbing his eye. “Moldenke! Mail at the mailpost. Get it on!”

He stood up. “It couldn't be important enough for a two klick walk in the mock mud, could it?”

Someone said, “I saw government marks on the upper left.”

Moldenke said, “Government marks?” He fixed himself crookedly into a set of trenchpants and opened the tent flaps. “It's still raining,” he said. “Government marks you say?”

“Yes, government marks. I saw the eagle and the lightning bolts, the blue envelope; I smelled the human glue. What do you want, proof? Go get the letter, Moldenke.”

“It's raining too hard.” He bared his arm and extended it through the tent flaps, brought it back dry.

“No excuses, Moldenke. You know it's a dry rain.”

“I know,” Moldenke said. “I know. And I miss the old thunder claps, the water spinning in the drainpipes. Give me an old fashioned downpour for a change. I don't know if I'm up to a two klick walk, blue envelope or no blue envelope. Actually, I don't think I give a snort. The last time I went out walking I stepped into the rib cage of a friend. No thanks.”

“Moldenke the pessimist,” someone said.

“I had to scrape his heartmeat off my k-boots.”

Someone said, “Why do you insist on keeping your old balloons, Moldenke, filling up the tent like that?”

They all struck positions on their cots and read the
Ways & Means.

Moldenke put on a wet-coat and walked to the mailpost.

Earlier in the mock War he had volunteered for injury, writing his number down on a square of paper and dropping it in a metal box outside the semi-Colonel's office. At morning meal, the day's injury volunteer list was read. Moldenke would eat his prunes and potato milk and wait. When they read his name he reported to Building D, stood in a line at the door. Every minute or so the line shortened by one. The mock soldier in front of Moldenke turned and said, “I'm proud that I gave for my country.” He opened the fly of his trenchpants and showed Moldenke a headless crank. “I'm a vet, boy. What are you giving up?” Moldenke was about to admit a minor fracture when the veteran's turn came up. Moldenke asked him, before he went in the door, what he would be giving up this time. The veteran shaped his hand into a gun and pointed a finger toward himself, cocking his thumb. During Moldenke's minute outside the door, a gun fired and someone shoveled smoking bones onto a pile at the side of the building. A red light blinked above the door jamb, everyone in line saluted. Moldenke snorted. The green light went on and Moldenke stepped into the prep room. A table, a jellyhead mock doctor in a swivel chair. Moldenke crossed his hands behind his back and waited. The jellyhead pushed colored plastic wafers into configurations on the desk top. A circle, a cross inside the circle. Moldenke coughed honestly and the jellyhead looked up, turning a knob on his throat box.

Moldenke said, “Moldenke, sir. Minor fracture.”

The jellyhead swiveled a quarter turn and looked at a chart of seasons on the wall.

Moldenke said, “Moldenke, sir. Minor-—”

The jellyhead said, “You I heard! Weather is the outside how?”

Moldenke waited for the correction. The jellyhead said, “Correction: I heard you! How is the weather outside?”

Moldenke said, “Not bad. A little blister snow last night. Not bad.”

The jellyhead swiveled a half turn and adjusted his word order bubble, swiveled back, his headlight shining in Moldenke's eye. “What are you giving up, General Moldenke? ”

Moldenke mentioned the minor fracture. The jellyhead arranged the colored wafers into a square containing other wafers. “How brave you are, Moldenke. I just this last minute shot a two week vet in the spine. A day ago I had occasion to remove the longest inch he had. One day that, the next day his life. What do you think, Moldenke? Your minute is getting older. Is a minor fracture enough? Ask yourself that? ”

Moldenke experienced guilt, agreed to give up a list of feelings in addition to the minor fracture. The jellyhead seemed satisfied, told Moldenke to follow a corridor to the No. 2 fracture room and have a seat. He waited in a cold chair in the fracture room, flipping through magazines. Music played. In a while feet shuffled in the corridor and a jellyhead nurse came into the fracture room. Moldenke smiled, said “Hello.” The nurse sat on a stool in front of him and told him to cross one leg over the other. She scissored open the trenchpants, exposing the kneecap. Moldenke looked at the ceiling light. The nurse, in one experienced stroke with a chromium ball peen, broke the kneecap.

He lay in the shock room under a clockpiece. When he opened his eye the jellyhead doctor stood over him. “How do you feel, Moldenke? ” Moldenke sat up and said he didn't know. The doctor said, “Good. The War is over now. Go home. Stay in your cot for a few days and then go home.”