The Milkman: A Freeworld Novel (9 page)

* * *

Lillian Leveski pulled the hem of her daughter’s navy blue dress. The girl squirmed in her arms, arching her back, trying to flip out of her mother’s grasp.

“Lizzie,” she hissed. “Sit up.”

“No.”

“Don’t tell me ‘no’. Sit up. You’re going to conk your head open. You want to go to the doctor?”

“No.”

“Then sit up.”

“No.” She threw back her arms. The added momentum almost helped her break free. Lillian clutched her back, fingers splayed and hooked, and pushed her back up.

The cafeteria had no food. Round tables, bolted to the floor, shiny plastic dulled from unrelenting use of power disinfectants. The space held 50 tables, a third occupied by couples or small families, huddled, chatting not to be heard. The aggregate of tense whispers and nervous cavil created a low continuous rumble.

Emory entered from the far end of the room. He’d been told the table number, but the tables had no labels. He glanced around until finding his wife and daughter. He couldn’t force a smile. He knew he should. That had been his plan. Lie about everything and the lies would start with a smile. He zigged and zagged, stopping at the bamboo chair across from the girls. It didn’t feel like it had the heft to support him. He sat anyway.

“Hi,” Lillian said.

“You shouldn’t have brought her,” Emory said.

“That’s how you’re going to start?”

“No, I just… this is no place for her.”

“It’s no place for anyone, but I’m not going to let her forget what you look like. She asks for you.”

Emory watched Lizzie look at him, then to his left, then farther left, at whatever. “Hi, little lady.”

“Daddy,” Lizzie said.

Her clear, thin, perfect voice. The kind of tone and timbre every flute strives for and never achieves. It hit him in the eyes. He blinked, sucked and bit the inside of his right cheek.

“Mom was busy and a sitter would’ve cost me twenty bucks I don’t have.”

“How are we doing?”

“I’m not going to lie to you. This is failing. We’re failing.”

“Your salary—”

“Covers the mortgage, com, heat and electricity. Those are up, by the way. Now we’ve got extra daycare. And did I mention food? No, that’s right, because we can’t afford any.”

“Lil. Our savings.”

“Burning through it. Tossing it onto the fire.” Lillian sat straight, controlled and calm, as if reading about their lives from a teleprompter on Emory’s face. “We won’t last much longer. Even with my parents help. It kills me more every time I ask them for anything. Like they’ve got a massive stash. We were just getting by on two salaries. With yours suspended, were losing to the math.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Lillian’s face broke into smile. But it wasn’t a good smile, Emory thought. The sides of her mouth sliced upwards like two scimitars. Her eyes bulged. “What you can do? Em, have you seen yourself? God, you’ve got no color, no hair, and lost what? 25 pounds? I’m not the one who needs the help here.”

“I’m doing fine.”

“Fine at what? Digging sewers?”

“Fine, alright.” He slammed his hand down. The slap made Lizzie jump and put a puzzled look on her face. Lillian didn’t appear to notice the sound. Emory looked to the corner, where a supervisor stood. The guy didn’t seem to notice either. He drew his hand back and shoved both under the table. He couldn’t hide his appearance from his wife, though he’d hope he didn’t look as bad as she said. He only saw part of his face for couple of minutes in the morning. His hands, though. He didn’t want Lillian to glimpse his hands for a second. The ‘no touching’ rule came as a relief.

“They give you a hearing date yet?” Lillian asked.

“February 6,” he answered.

Lizzie hopped down from Lillian’s lap. She stood.

“That’s crap,” Lillian said. “You’re stuck here and you can’t even get a hearing?”

“It’s not that far away now.”

“A quarter,” Lillian said. “They bounced you into the next quarter. Somebody wants you in this budget or off that budget or the arbitration budget went over. It’s crap and it’s going to kill us.”

“Not us.” He started to reach across the table and stopped. He knew the rules. He wouldn’t risk it. They looked for reasons to deny visits. He looked forward to them like nothing else in his life, not dessert or Christmas presents or sex. Seeing Lillian’s skin, her plump lips. Hearing words and sounds directed at him, because he existed as a person and not some piece of organic machinery. Watching Lizzie fidget and dance, bored from lack of tension, fear, drama. Her lack of attention left him relieved. Happy even, though that word didn’t fit. Too large.

Lizzie walked away. Back in the direction from which they’d come.

“Come on, daddy,” she said. “Home now.”

“Not today, pumpk…” Emory’s voice fell apart.

Chapter Twelve

Sylvia and Samjahnee sat in their rented all-wheel drive wagon. The vehicle stood tall, and had 13-times the room they needed, but she’d insisted on it. She wanted something rugged, that could subjugate slush and snow without causing her concern.That there wasn’t much slush and snow at the moment made no difference. She’d read about the Great Lakes climate. Blinding blizzards without warning. Roads transforming to ice beneath your tires. Wild wind ripping across frozen lakes, kicking out your feet and flying you to a frosty neverland. Legends said winters around here fell far too large and powerful for anyone to fight. They took your control.

She didn’t care for that part. She had to at least try to control everything she could or she’d… she didn’t know what. She instructed her forward team to set her up with everything she needed to survive in the arctic for two weeks. Starting with a big, bad six-wheeled truck.

In which, Sylvia and Samjahnee sat, looking at the monitor in the center of the truck’s dash. It showed a young, blond woman’s photograph. Sylvia looked back through the passenger window. The real live version exited a gym.

Samjahnee said, “Our girl’s done a wee bit early today.”

“Those ‘get fit’ New Year’s resolutions never last.” Sylvia watched the woman walk towards them, gym bag over her shoulder. She held the black strap with both hands, presumably not trusting the grip of her enormous fleece mittens. They matched her boots. Sylvia liked the style. Cartoony, but the woman had the body and age to get away with it. In fact, Sylvia thought, she had the looks to get away with a lot. She knew it, too. Only the confident could wear such outsized fuzz.

Sylvia slid her whalebone glasses onto her face. “Are these going to work in this cold? They’re not going to frost over or anything are they?”

Samjahnee tapped the monitor and brought up live feed from Sylvia’s glasses. “The greatest achievements in science in the last 20 years have been in the area of surveillance cameras.”

Sylvia opened the door and pivoted on her seat. The baby bump changed the way she used to exit an automobile. She didn’t care for it, or the uncertain feeling of the packed snow that covered every inch of everything up here, or the sting the cold delivered to your nose despite the sun telling your eyes it still worked. She wrapped her ermine cape tight and walked to block the woman’s path.

“Patricia Racie?” Sylvia asked.

“Yes.” Patricia smiled, but it wasn’t friendly.

“Hi, sorry, Sylvia Cho.” She didn’t hold out her hand.

“Have we met?” She stopped walking.

“No, I just have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

Patricia locked her knees and straightened to her full height, a few inches taller than Sylvia. Sylvia resisted the urge to step forward, remembering Samjahnee’s early suggestions about the distance and angle. What she wanted was a step stool. Patricia looked her up and down. Sylvia knew she didn’t look like systems security, so the young woman probably didn’t know what to make of her.

“I don’t think so,” Patricia said.

But she didn’t move, Sylvia noticed. The poor thing had no business being a conspirator. She was far too much the scientist.

“You are Patricia Racie, a biologist with Utica Brewing, division of Ambyr Consolidated. You test beer and the machines that make it. You live up in dairy country.”

“Not hearing a question.”

“You’re a member of Localvor.”

Patricia’s face curled into indignation. “So?”

“Three quarters of your friends are too.”

“How do you know that?”

“How hard do you think it is get a look at your little circle? A friend of a friend lets you in, then you go down the list, check it against the other nature loving, local food munching, must-be-fresh-and-friendly types and smash. I’m in.”

“Who the hell are you, lady?”

“I told you. Sylvia Cho. C-H-O.”

Patricia brought her silver cuff up close to her face. She tapped it a few times and repeated the spelling.

“You live within biking distance of 12 dairy farms,” Sylvia continued. “This isn’t rocket surgery. You take food quality very seriously. I admire that.”

“Do you.” Patricia gazed into her cuff’s tiny monitor.

“On a bike you’re harder to trace, aren’t you. If you take your bracelet off. The company doesn’t always know exactly where you are, does it, Patricia?”

She looked up, nose pasty red from the cold, mouth in the shape of a mouse hole. “You’re a director? A Hollywood movie director?”

“I’m a little disappointed you didn’t recognize me right off.”

“I’m not into mov… what are you doing here?”

Sylvia said, “You sneak onto dairy farms, take samples and test them. Then you report your findings.”

“You sticky bitch.” Patricia stepped closer to Sylvia, who now had to lift her head to make eye contact. Sylvia didn’t want to back up, that was the wrong non-verbal message, but the cameras on her face were getting little more than a load of wool-covered chest. She stepped to the side and ran her gaze up Patricia’s body, stopping at her mouth.

“Either you are the Milkman,” Sylvia whispered, “or you work for him.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then why are you calling me names?”

“Because you’re obstructing me.”

“All I want is a chance to talk to the Milkman. I need to get in touch with him or her.”

“Like I said, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“When this runs, when I’ve put all the gears into place and given this story a spin, you’ll be the tall, blond liar.”

Patricia brought her head back a notch, then looked left and right. “You fucking sticky bitch.”

“He’ll want to talk to me, Patricia.”

She caught sight of Samjahnee near the car. He held a parabolic microphone the size of a halved cantaloupe. “ohGodohGodohGod.” She ducked around Sylvia, hands tight to her gym bag strap and loped down the sidewalk, a deer at the scent of a wolf. Sylvia turned to follow, at least with the cameras. Running on the snow, six months pregnant, didn’t occur to her even for a second.
I hope he’s getting that snow sound
,
did
occur to her. Such a cool sound. Literally. The spongy muffled crunch each time a boot touched down. Sylvia stood still until sure she had enough footage of Patricia’s departure. She walked back to the car, as Samjahnee put away his equipment. Both climbed into the truck. Samjahnee turned the heater to ‘Full’.

“I think you made a new friend,” he said,

Sylvia took off the glasses. “I’m not here to make friends. I’m making a movie.”

“You scared that girl.”

“I inspired drama,” Sylvia said. “That stuff we just shot is going to cut in nicely when we snap this mess together. All cinema — all story — is conflict. Nobody’s going to down a copy of this film if it’s nothing but a bunch of red-cheeked, butter-eaters flat faced in front of the camera. We need emotions, reactions, people struggling against people, the company, or best of all, against themselves. Like that girl just did. Fight or flight. At war with her own curiosity and indignation. It was too lovely for words… it’s why I love movies so much.”

Samjahnee narrowed his eyes. He tilted his head just a little to the left, getting a different angle, changing the way the light crossed Sylvia’s face from his point-of-view. She looked back, waiting.

“I thought you liked this guy. This Milkman,” Samjahnee said.

“I haven’t met him,” Sylvia replied.

“Whose side are you on?”

“Poor man.” Sylvia pursed her lips. “Did you grow up playing soccer and dodgeball? Is everything in your world on one side or another? I honestly believe team sports should be banned. They don’t foster a multifaceted point of view. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, there’s more than two sides to pretty much everything. Or, if you look at it another way, just one side. Mine.”

Samjahnee stared at Sylvia for a moment. She couldn’t tell if he wanted to ask another question or lacked the energy to turn and start the car moving.

“Cricket,” he finally said. “I grew up playing cricket.”

“Well, there you go,” Sylvia said. “You ever play with six or seven teams on the field at one time?”

“That wouldn’t have worked out too well.”

“Maybe not then, but it might have prepared you for now.”

* * *

Emory saw a roll of duct tape on a red metal cart. He never wanted anything more in his life. He never would want anything more, he knew. The tape hit his desire’s maximum, the point at which he could not desire more. He’d risk his life for this roll of duct tape.

The tunnel gave you a lot of ways to risk your life. Poisonous gas, explosions, electrocution courtesy of the wet wired power tools and Emory’s least favorite: buried alive. This section of the water main ran only 15 feet below the streets of Buffalo. Still, that 15 feet held more than enough crumbling rock, concrete poured near the time of its invention, wooden timbers cut back when they still had to be drawn to the job site by horse teams, and earth, packed and crusty with frost to lay waste to a bunch of men. Palming supplies did not invite a cave-in, he told himself. If the foremen caught him they’d what? Freeze him, beat him, rape him? Too late.

He looked neither left nor right, he just walked into the cart and pushed. He made it look like his job, like he was so freakin’ annoyed to have to be pushing this rickety squeaky piece of junk he might fall asleep while doing it. The cart belonged to someone in this tunnel. Someone close. Stealing down here was nuts because there was no place to hide. He could stumble forward in the tunnel or back. He couldn’t even rise because they pulled the ladder once the crew descended. After a few yards no one had a direct view. He snatched the duct tape, rammed it into his coveralls and strolled on, in the hunched way everyone moved underground. His bump hat never touched the top and still, like everyone, he stayed bent.

The yellow man-shaped balloon he wore was supposed to keep the near freezing air and water off his skin as he worked in the pipes, but the gaps were so large and numerous that each day below became a battle with frostbite. The cold let you think of little else. Because of Emory’s duties, he reached the end of the tunnel before any others. He ripped off squares and patched his suit in a shaky blur. He couldn’t mend fast enough. He knew he was saving his skin, his digits, probably his life.

As he worked a jack, forcing a support spar into the ceiling of the tunnel, he noticed the man next to him had similar problems. The gash in his coveralls stretched from his knee down to his ankle. Emory knew from experience that the gash would let water inside his boot, where it could do the most damage. Pooling, burning, numbing and finally killing your toes.

“Here.” He handed the roll to the man, motioning at the tear.

The man looked down and took the tape with some hesitation.

“Dry the area first,” Emory said. “It’ll stick longer.”

The man found a rag by the floodlight stand, whipped his leg down, tore off a long strip of duct tape and fixed his rip. He gave the roll back to Emory.

“Thanks,” he said. “Campbell.”

“Emory.”

A chime rang through the tunnel, followed by an old guy with white boxes. He passed them out and all the men dropped to the ground, splashing water out of the way, making butt-sized craters in the soft soil. Cold sandwiches of unclassified meat. An orange. Water laced with enough vitamins to render it milky and metallic tasting. Emory crammed it all in his mouth regardless. The labor took every stored calorie out of him. Dragging, lifting, ramming support beams, and the vibrating— he knew that’s what really drained him. His body quivered continuously to shake off the cold.

“What did you do?” Campbell asked.

Emory heard the question far less frequently than he wanted to ask it. No one on this work detail talked much about their infractions. He made a game of guessing. Who failed a drug test, who slugged a superior, who killed a man in a bar fight because he looked at him funny? He wanted to ask all the time, but didn’t. They never asked him, adhering to a protocol he failed to fully fathom. Emory could guess why Campbell asked. Emory did not look like he could do anything bad enough to end up on this gang.

“Not sure,” Emory answered. It was an honest answer, in its own way. Campbell grunted a half smile.
He understood
, Emory thought, making a good guess at Campbell’s policy violation much harder. Tall, in his late fifties, Campbell carried himself like his muscles had abandoned him— under his overalls would be levers and counter weights. He seemed bright, and alive and yet lacked the searching eyes of a man seeking a crack, an edge, a way in or out. Thief, saboteur, smuggler— none of it fit. Plastered with dirt, ensconced in yellow plastic, Emory could only guess he’d been an inventory superintendant or traffic modulator or some such watch-the-numbers job, back up top. In the world. Ago.

“How about you?” Emory asked. “What did you do?”

Campbell swallowed whatever he’d been chewing. “I know the truth and made the mistake of trying to share it with others.”

* * *