Overload (14 page)

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I itor said from behind Nim. "Got things to

"Leave you now," the 'amI

do."

As the outer door closed, Nim stepped inside the living roorn.

"Hello," the same voice said. "What do you know that's new and exciting?"

Long afterward, and through the months ahead when fateful events unfolded

like succeeding tableaux of a drama, Nim would remember this moment-the

first in which he ever saw Karen Sloan-in sharply vivid detail.

She was a mature Nvorrian, but appeared young and was extraordinarily

beautiful. Nim guessed her age as thirty-six; later he would learn she

was three years older. Her face was long with perfectly proportioned

features-full, sensuous lips, now opened in a smile, wide blue eyes

appraising Nim with frankness, and a pert nose, suggesting mischief. Her

skin was flawless and seemed opalescent. Long blonde hair framed Karen

Sloan's face; parted in the middle, it fell to her shoulders, with golden

highlights glinting in a shaft of sunlight. Her hands were on a padded

lapboard, the fingers long, nails manicured and sbining. She \~ ore an

attractive light blue dress.

And she was in a wheelchair. A bulge in her dress showed that a res-

pirator was beneath it, breathing for her. A tube, emerging below the

dress hemline, was connected to a suitcase-like device secured to the

rear of the chair. The respirator mechanism emitted a steady bum along

with a hiss of air, inward and out, at the normal pace of breathing.

TI-le chair's electric components were connected by a cord to a wall

power outlet.

"Hello, Miss Sloan," Nim said. "I'm the electric man."

The smile widened. "Do you work on batteries or are you plugged in too?"

Nim grinned in response, a trifle sheepishly, and uncharacteristically

he had a moment's nervousness. He wasn't sure what be bad expected but,

whatever it was, this exquisite woman before him was completely

different. He said, "I'll explain."

"Please do. And won't you sit down?"

"Thank you." He chose a soft armchair. Karen Sloan moved her bead

slightly, putting her mouth to a plastic tube extending on a gooseneck.

She blew softly into the tube and at once her wheelchair swung around so

she was facing him directly.

"Hey!" be said. "That's a neat trick."

"I can do lots more. If I sip instead of blow, the chair moves backward."

She showed him while be watched, fascinated.

"I'd never seen that," he told her. "I'm amazed."

"Mv head is the only part of me I can move." Karen said it matter-

of-factly, as if speaking of a minor inconvenience. "So one learns to do

some necessarv things in unusual ways. But we got sidetracked; \,on were

going to tell me something. Please go on."

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"I started to explain why I came," Nim said. "It all began two weeks ago,

the day we had the power failure. I saw you as a small red circle on a

map.

"Me-on a map?"

Ile told her about the Energy Control Center and GSP & L's watchfulness

over special power users, like hospitals and private homes with

life-sustaining equipment. "To be honest," be said, "I was curious.

That's why I dropped in today."

"That's nice," Karen said. "To be thought about, I mean. I do remember

that day-well."

"When the power went off, bow did you feel?"

"A little frightened, I suppose. Suddenly my reading light went off and

other electrical things stopped. Not the respirator, though. That

switches over to battery right away."

The battery, Nim observed, was a twelve-volt type, as used in auto-

mobiles. It rested on a tray, also fixed to the wheelchair at the rear,

below the respirator mechanism.

"What you always wonder," Karen said, "is how long the power will be off,

and how long the battery will last."

"It ought to be good for several hours."

"Six and a half when fully charged-that's if I use the respirator only,

without moving the chair. But when I go out shopping or visiting, as

happens most days, I use the battery a lot and it gets run down."

"So if a power cut happened, then . . ."

She finished the sentence for him. "Josie-that's who you met coming

in-would have to do something quickly." Karen added knowledgeably, "The

respirator draws fifteen amps, the wheelchair-when it's in motion-another

twenty."

"You've learned a lot about the equipment."

"If your life depended on it, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I expect I would." He asked her, "Are you ever alone?"

"Never. Josic is with me most of the time, then two other people come in

to relieve her. Also, Jiminy, the janitor, is very good. He helps xNith

callers, the way he did with you." Karen smiled. "He doesn't let people

in unless he's sure they're okay. You passed his test."

They went on chatting easily, as if they had known each other a long

time.

Karen, Nim learned, had been stricken with poliomyelitis just one year

before the Salk vaccine went into widespread use in North America and,

with Sabin vaccine a few years later, wiped polio from the landscape. "My

bug bit too soon," Karen said. "I didn't get under the wire."

Nim was moved by the simple statement. He asked, "Do you think about that

one year much?"

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"I used to-a lot. For a while I cried over that one-year difference. I'd

ask: Why did I have to be one of the last fe,,v? And I'd think: If only the

vaccine had come lust a little sooner, everything would have been

different. I'd have walked, danced, been able to write, use my bands . . ."

She stopped, and in the silence Nim could hear the ticking of a clock and

the soft purr of Karen's respirator. After a moment she went on, "Then I

got to telling myself: Wishing won't change anything. What happened,

happened. It can't be undone, ever. So I started making the best of what

there was, living a day at a time, and when you do th.it, if something

unexpected happens, you're grateful. Today you came." She switched on her

radiant smile. "I don't even know your name."

When he told her, she asked, "Is Nim for Nimrod?"

"Yes."

"Isn't there something in the Bible . . . ?"

"In Genesis." Nim quoted, "'Cush also begat Nimrod who was the first man of

might on earth. He was a migbty hunter by the grace of the Lord."' He

remembered hearing the words from his grandfather, Rabbi Goldman. Ile old

man had chosen his grandson's name-one of the few concessions to the past

that Nim's father, Isaac, bad allowed.

"Are you a hunter, Nim?"

On the point of answering negatively, he remembered what Teresa Van Buren

had said not long ago: "You're a hunter of women, aren't you?" Perhaps, he

thought, if circumstances had been different, he would have hunted this

beautiful woman, Karen. Selfishly be, too, felt sad about that

year-too-late vaccine.

He shook his head. "I'm no hunter."

Later, Karen told him that for twelve years she had been cared for in

hospitals, much of that time in an old-fashioned iron lung. Then, more

modem, portable equipment was developed, making it possible for patients

like herself to live away from institutions. At first she had gone back to

live with her parents, but that hadn't worked. "It was too much of a strain

on all of us." Then she moved to this apartment where she bad been for

nearly eleven years.

"There are government allowances which pay the costs. Sometimes it's tight

financially, but mostly I manage." Her father had a small plumbing business

and her mother was a salesclerk in a department store, she explained. At

the moment they were trying to accumulate money to buy Karen a small van

which would increase her mobility. Tbe van, which josie or someone from

Karen's family would drive, would be adapted to contain the wheelchair.

Although Karen could do almost nothing for herself, and bad to be washed,

fed, and put to bed by someone else, she told Nim she had learned to paint,

holding a brush in her mouth. "And I can use a type-

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writer," she told Nim. "It's electric and I work it with a stick in my

tecth. Sometimes I write poetry. Would you like me to send you some?"

"Yes, please. I'd like that." He got up to go and was amazed to discover

lie had been with Karen more than an hour.

She asked him, "Will you come again?"

"If you'd like me to."

"Of course I would-Nimrod." Once more the warm, bewitching smile. "I'd

like to have you as a friend."

Josic showed him out.

The image of Karen, her breathtaking beauty, warm smile and gentle voice,

stayed with Nim through the remainder of the drive downtoNvii. Ile had,

lie thought, never met anyone quite like her. He was still thinking of

her as be left his car in the parking garage of Golden State Power &

Light's headquarters building, three floors down from street level.

An express elevator, accessible only with a key, operated from the

parking garage to the senior executive offices on the twenty-second

floor. Nim used his key-a status symbol at GSP & L-and rode up alone. On

the wav, he remembered his decision to make a personal appeal to the

Sequoia Club chairman.

His secretarv, Victoria Davis, a young, competent black woman, looked up

as lie entered his two-room office. "Hi, Vicki," be said. "Is there much

in the mail?"

"Nothing that's urgent. There are some messages, though-including several

saying you were good on TV last night. I thought so, too."

"Thanks." He grinned. "Wclcome to my fan club."

"Oh, there's a 'private and confidential' on vour desk; it just come. And

I have some things for you to sign." She followed him into his inner

office. At the same moment a dull, heavy thud occurred some distance

away. A water carafe and drinking glasses rattled; so did the window

which overlooked an interior Courtyard.

Nim halted, listening. "What's that?"

"I've no idea. There was the same kind of noise a few minutes ago. just

before you got here."

Nim shrugged. It could be anything from an earthquake tremor to the

effect of some heavy construction going on nearby. At his desk be riffled

through the mes;ages and glanced at the enveiope which Vicki had referred

to, markcd "private and confidential." It was a buff manila envelope with

a dab of sealing wax on the back. Absently be began to Opel-,

"Vicki, before we do anything else, see if you can get Mrs. Carmicbael

on the phone."

6o

"At the Sequoia Club?"

"Right."

She put the papers she was carrying in a tray marked "signature" and turned

to go. As she did, the outer office door flew open and Harry London raced

in. His hair was disordered, his face red from exertion.

London saw Nim.

"No!" he screamed. "No!"

As Nim stood still in bewilderment, London flew across the room and hurled

himself across the desk. He seized the manila envelope and put it down.

"Out of here! Fast! All of us!"

London grabbed Nim's arm and pulled, at the same time pushing Victoria