The Old Reactor (12 page)

“All right.”

“But don’t take me to the Home.”

Udo parked the motor around the corner from the Tunney Arms while Salmonella packed a few things from her nook into a leather bag.

Udo said, “Get her to the Home as quick as you can. You understand me, Moldenke?”

“Sure. We’ll take the streetcar tomorrow if they’re running.”

“Don’t you be diddling her, you hear?”

“I hear. That’s not going to be a problem.”

The concierge, asleep in a wooden chair in her little receiving room, woke up when Moldenke and Salmonella entered the foyer. She stood at her Dutch door yawning. “Who is that girl? One room, one person. That’s the way we do it.”

“It’s just for the night. She’ll be going to the Home tomorrow. No real mother, no real father.”

Salmonella produced a tear. “I’m an orphan. Let me stay. This poor man needs help. Look at his ear.”

The concierge put on her bifocals and looked at Moldenke’s ear. “You’ve gotten yourself deformed, haven’t you?”

“It was a light dose,” Moldenke said, and hoped. “It may resolve itself. Who knows?”

“Here, I have something.” The concierge went into an adjacent room, a kitchenette, and returned with a small bottle labeled
Barrel Honey Concentrate
. “It’s anti-deformant from Zanzetti Labs. Try it. Rub it in.”

Moldenke could see beyond the kitchenette, through a slightly opened door, a commode, and next to it, on the floor, a pre-liberation roll of tissue for wiping.

“Is that a wet commode, ma’am? You hardly ever see those.”

“My husband built it for me after the liberation, before he went back to Bunkerville. There’s a big rain barrel on the roof. That’s what flushes it all into a lagoon he dug out back.”

“That’s really something,” Moldenke said.

“It makes life a little better for me.”

“I’m certain it does,” Moldenke said. “I see a bathtub, too.”

“It doesn’t drain and can’t be used.”

“All right then. Thank you.”

Moldenke had one more thing to ask the concierge. “Is there any mail for me? A friend is looking after my house in Bunkerville. He’s promised to keep me posted about it.”

She looked through a small stack of letters. “Yes, you did get one.”

Moldenke opened the dirtied envelope and took a few minutes to read the letter.

Moldenke gave the concierge the awkward little salute he always gave when he felt uneasy. “All right, thank you. Good night.”

Salmonella grasped Moldenke’s hand and led him up the stairs and into his room, where a dim bulb hung from the ceiling by an electric wire, not giving enough light to get a good look at the damages to his ear and the flesh around it. He had to rely on Salmonella’s sharp young eyes to describe it to him as he lay on the cot.

“It’s red and purple and leaking brown stuff.” She applied barrel honey concentrate to the ear. “We don’t want it to get any worse. This might help.”

The heaviness of the ear tilted Moldenke’s head sideward and downward. His swollen hand now lay beside him on the cot without sensation. “Put some on that ankle gouge, too. It’s festering.”

Salmonella dipped a finger into the honey and gently spread it over the wound. “Why do you want to put me in the Home? You need somebody to take care of you. I can do that.”

Moldenke’s lids sank over his eyes. “We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

The morning brought a raucous noise from the street. Moldenke went to the window. There were a few hundred jellyheads marching along Arden Boulevard tooting kazoos. They held no banners, carried no flags, sang no songs, and shouted no epithets or slogans. He wondered what had gotten them out at dawn to march that way without apparent cause or purpose. It wasn’t even Cowards’ Day, but the day after.

Salmonella joined him at the window. “Who are they? What are they marching for?”

“I don’t know,” Moldenke said. “It could be anything.”

Salmonella scratched her head. “I’m hungry. Let’s go to Saposcat’s.”

“All right. How does my ear look?”

“Pretty ugly.”

The concierge stopped them on the way out.

“How’s that ear today?”

Salmonella shook her head. “Bad.”

“Did you rub it good with that honey?”

“Yes. It didn’t help.”

“Show me that ear. Let me see it.”

“No time. I’ve got to get to the privy right away. I’ve got a condition.”

“His bowels get angry,” Salmonella said. “He potties in his pants all the time.”

“Like Franklin, the famous golfer,” Moldenke said. “We have the same problem.”

“For goodness sake, go ahead and use my crapper.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Hurry up,” Salmonella mumbled.

Moldenke entered the little toileting room and savored the look of the wet commode. He hadn’t seen one since Bunkerville, and seldom then. It was clean and the porcelain gleamed, even in dull light. On a small wooden stool within his reach was a copy of Burke’s
Treatise
. Although he was curious to read a bit of the well-worn copy, he didn’t want to overstay his time on the commode. He sat down and relieved himself with exquisite pleasure, then carefully unrolled the paper, wound it thickly around his sore hand, and wiped himself, careful not to get fecal contaminant on the cracked, slightly bleeding palm. When he flushed, the water swirled with energy and quickly emptied the bowl. “
Really nice
,” he said to himself. “
Really nice setup
.”

He wondered if perhaps the concierge might somehow be persuaded to give him toileting privileges when he needed them and began to consider what approach to take toward that end. What could he offer her? Everything in Altobello was technically free. Would she accept an exchange of janitorial services? But what could he do with his sore hand the way it was. He wouldn’t be able to sweep or mop.

No, he decided to put it to her foursquare. He said, “What can I do in exchange for use of that commode? I never know when the need will strike. It could be in the middle of the night. I can’t be running down to the public privy all the time. You seem like a kind woman. Please.”

“When the rain water up there freezes, it doesn’t work. And you’ll need to find your own paper. They always have extra down at the privy. Just take some.”

“All right, that’s fair.”

“And when the lagoon out back gets full, I expect you to help me cart it down to the ditch in buckets.”

“Of course I will.”

“Please don’t tell the other guests you’re using my commode. I’ll have a line out here.”

“I won’t say a word.”

Salmonella patted her stomach. “Let’s go eat.”

“Wait,” Moldenke said. He asked the concierge, “Why were they marching out there this morning? Who were they?”

“The Cowards that weren’t killed yesterday. They’re headed home. I hear they stay out by the Old Reactor.”

Moldenke shook his head and pulled on his chin beard. “They’re an odd bunch, aren’t they? No one understands their customs.”

“You can say that again,” she said. “Here’s another letter for you.”

At Saposcat’s, the breakfast special was meal with fried kerd. “Perfect,” Moldenke told the waitress. “What could be better for my stomach? I’ll have the special.”

Salmonella’s lips pruned. “Kerd I like. I’ll vomit if I eat meal.”

“There are other things,” Moldenke said. “Get what you want. You’re going to the Home today. Enjoy these few hours outside.”

“I’ll have the fried kerd, a plate of mud fish, and a bottle of green soda.”

“Be back with that in a minute.”

Salmonella pouted and kicked Moldenke’s leg lightly. “You promise?”

“Promise what?”

“That you’ll take me back to Bunkerville when you go. Maybe my mother’s there. Maybe I’ll find her.”

“I’m not going to promise anything. I could be sent back to Bunkerville any day anyway. I’m indeterminate. If you were my ward we’d have to say goodbye then and you’d be all on your own.”

“Is Bunkerville free? Is it liberated?”

“Not yet. You don’t want to go there.”

“Are there apple trees in Bunkerville with apples to pick?”

“I’ve never seen one.”

“Have you ever eaten an apple?”

“I know all about them from pictures.”

“Take me to Bunkerville. I’ll grow the trees myself. Promise me right now you’ll take me to Bunkerville.”

“There are still laws there and police. For a free person like you, it would be a jail sentence.”

“What’s a jail?”

“You’re locked up in a small room with metal doors.”

“Why?”

“For killing someone, for example. Stealing, cheating, fraud, the list goes on and on.”

“Oh. That’s pretty stupid.”

“They’re not free yet,” Moldenke said. “They’re still trying to control things, to keep order or something. They don’t want a chaotic situation.”

Moldenke was served a bowl of meal and a side dish of kerd. He tucked right into the pasty mash with a spoon. Salmonella ate her mud fish from the head down—gills, bones, innards and fins. By the time she had finished, her gums were bleeding. She said, “Take me to the Home. I’m ready.”

It was late in the evening when Moldenke and Salmonella arrived by streetcar at the Home. A lamp burned in a mud brick kiosk near the gate post. A Sister sat inside reading the
City Moon
and smoking a Julep.

Moldenke said, “All right, Salmonella. I wish you the best. Go on to the Sister.”

Salmonella took one step down and turned. “Don’t leave Altobello without me. We’ll go to Bunkerville, and when I’m ready we’ll mate, we’ll have some children, and we’ll grow apples.”

The prospect of that happening seemed extremely remote to Moldenke, so he simply smiled and gave Salmonella an ambiguous nod. As the car pulled away, he watched her until she had explained things to the Sister and was headed toward the gate to the commons.

Moldenke, relieved that Salmonella was no longer around, had a yen for bear claw the next morning and caught the Arden car going to the Quarter. The car’s windows were open to cool, pleasant breezes and the sun shone brightly. There were even a few blooming crepe myrtles along the route. Things seemed quite mild and relaxing until the car stopped at the entrance to the Quarter for the usual boarding and inspection. A guard got on the car and walked up and down the aisle looking suspiciously at the passengers. Sometimes he would stop and bend over until his face was inches from theirs. When he came to Moldenke’s seat, he did just that. “Got yourself squirted, eh?”

“Yeah, it’s not too bad, but it still stings and burns and itches sometimes.”

“They tell me people are starting to swim in that pond out by the Old Reactor. They say the heavy water heals those deformations better than anything.”

“All right. I might try that.”

“I’ll tell you, if I ever get deformed, look for me in that pond.”

Sensing that the guard was not as gruff as he appeared, Moldenke said, “Say, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, fire away.”

“When you board the car and you stare at everyone, what exactly are you looking for?”

“Nothing, it’s just for show. I enjoy doing it. I like people to remember what it was like before the liberation.”

“I’m new here. I didn’t know.”

“People forget what it was like. So I developed this act and they let me do it. Everybody gets a kick out of it.”

“Thanks for the information.”

“You bet. Welcome to the Quarter.”