The Old Reactor (14 page)

“Are you still washing uniforms?”

“Sure, if you want it stinking like cadaverine. All the pipes are full of bad water.”

“I’ll just go like this, then. I’m bathing anyway, out at the Old Reactor with my girlfriend.” Moldenke raised his head to show the damage to his ear. “We both got deformed.”

“Some people tell me the water did them a world of good. Other people say it almost killed them.”

Moldenke said, “They were probably too far gone, too sick, too old, too deformed, something like that. At least the cars are running today.”

“Some are, some aren’t. The ones that are are late.”

Moldenke waited at the stop. His guess, going by the sun’s height, was that it was about eight o’clock. He looked up and down Arden Boulevard. There was no sign of cars in either direction and the skies were clouding up. The weather could change at any minute and spoil his outing with Sorrel. Or the car could be so late that she would tire of waiting and go without him.

About fifteen minutes later he saw a car going in the other direction, which meant that it would soon be getting to the end of the line and turning around for the ride to the Quarter and out to Old Reactor Road. He would be tardy, but only by an hour or so. Surely Sorrel would know the cars were running late and take that into consideration.

When he climbed into the car, he asked the conductor the time and was answered with a shrug and a dirty look. “You know free men shouldn’t carry watches or look at clocks.”

“Sorry. I forgot. It’s not surprising the cars are so late all the time. I understand now.”

A rudimentary gel sack has been taken from a free woman of the city. Previous thinking was that such an occurrence would be impossible. The small, dry, shriveled sack was found in the woman’s breast, where it had finally cocooned itself. There had been swelling and pain, which she thought was probably rheumatism, but her entire constitution became so affected that her hands fisted in a way that made them useless, and her face had tanned like a piece of hide. She said that she had been living among jellyheads in proximity of the Old Reactor and that the sack may have entered her system then.

Until the sack was removed, the woman was able to feel it passing from one part of her body to another. She attributed the chills and fever she felt to this action of the sack, which has now been put into a brine solution for observation. In a few days the woman was well enough to travel and did so, saying she was off to the Old Reactor area to rejoin her adopted jellyhead family.

Moldenke’s ride to the Quarter was an uneventful one. Being a Sunday, there was no pretend-guard on duty at the Quarter’s entrance and the car passed through without slowing down, saving some time. It wasn’t enough, though. When Moldenke got off at the stop near Big Ernie’s, he found a note Sorrel had tacked to the bakery’s door:
Tired of waiting. Meet you there
.

He ran toward the car he’d just stepped from, now on its way to the turn at Old Reactor Road. After chasing it a block, his knees ached, his ear throbbed, and he was exhausted. He stopped, returned to the stop at a leisurely pace and waited. The sun, when it peeked through passing clouds, was three-quarters toward mid-heaven. It was about ten thirty, Moldenke guessed. By the time the car made its rounds and picked him up again it was about noon.

The pond could be seen shimmering beside the concrete dome of the Old reactor as the car slowed for its final stop on the route. There were bathers lounging on the green grass at the water’s edge, free children playing, two or three skiffs on the pond. The bathers all wore red rubber swimsuits.

Moldenke saw a free woman, also in a red suit, frying mud fish in a pan over a small fire made of rags, pine cones, and a pair of old canvas shoes. He asked her where to get a bathing suit and she directed him to a rental and dressing area on the other side of the pond.

He lit a Julep and walked along the shore looking for Sorrel and heading for the dressing area at the same time. The weather was holding on pleasantly, the air busy with bees and dragonflies and little biting gnats. Frogs croaked in the mudflats. There were free men fishing in the deeper water. One of them pulled in a big mud fish so heavy it snapped the line and nearly hit Moldenke in the head as it flew. One of the fisherman said, “They’re twice as big as what you get at Saposcat’s.” Another said, “They taste a lot better, too. There’s something in the water.”

Moldenke asked if any of them knew Sorrel. One said, “Big Ernie’s girl?”

“Yes, I’m supposed to meet her here.”

Moldenke heard Sorrel’s voice. “Moldenke! Over here! In the water!” He spotted her out near the middle, floating on her back. She wasn’t wearing a veil and from that distance didn’t appear deformed at all. “Oh, that ear,” she shouted. “Hurry, go rent a suit and jump in. It’ll be much better right away. Look at me.”

“I’m sorry for being late. The cars weren’t running on time.”

“It doesn’t matter. Rent a suit and get in.”

Moldenke went around to the rental shed and showed his pass card. “Give me a suit, please.”

“Size?”

“I’d say medium.”

“Everyone seems to be medium these days. All we got is large. People used to be large before the liberation. I’ll rent it to you, but it might fall off.”

“If that’s all you have…I’ll hold on to it if I have to.”

“Good enough. Here you are. It’s been boiled, don’t worry. Pick any empty stall to change. Here’s your key.”

There was a temporary metal structure that looked like a small barn with stalls for changing and hooks for hanging clothes. Moldenke put on the large red suit and hung his dirty uniform to air out. The key turned smoothly in a small padlock that seemed easy to break open using the simplest of tools or a strong pair of hands with a hammer and spike. While he thought it was a pointless act, Moldenke locked the door and put the key in his bathing suit pocket. His uniform had no real value, but he didn’t want to go all the way back to the Tunney naked.

He pulled in the bathing suit’s sash and cinched it as tightly as he could in his fist then stepped through the cloth curtain into the scene outside. Those who saw him in the over-sized suit were amused. Some of them snickered. One said, “Get in the water. It’s heavy. It’ll fix that ear.”

Moldenke rounded the pond from a different direction. About midway, he spotted Sorrel. She was no longer on her back, but face down in the water, probably trying to give her damaged places a good dosing. He waded into the shallows, worried that when the water was deep enough he would have to let go of the suit’s waist in order to swim out to her. Even as the water rose to his knees, he could feel its weight against him. He dove forward and swam toward Sorrel. The buoyancy of the heavy water made it almost effortless. The red suit slid down and off him as he thought it might, floating off among green lily pads out of his reach.

The water supported his light weight even when he stood upright and did nothing. Now he walked in it and paddled with his hands with the sensation that it was closing around his body like syrup or a gel. He dipped his ear in as he swam. When he reached Sorrel, he took one of her feet in his hand. It was a foot that felt good to him. He had never held a woman’s foot in his hand.

One of the fishermen called out, “Hey, you, turn her over. She might drown.”

Her face was still submerged. No part of her moved. Moldenke placed his hands on her hip and turned her over. She rolled like a log and expelled a long-held breath of air with a mouthful of heavy water. “Oh, Moldenke. Isn’t this the cat’s meow, this water? Look at my face. I don’t need a veil. You should soak your ear more. You should bathe here every day.”

Moldenke cupped his hands, filled them with water, and dipped his ear. “You do look very good, Sorrel.
There’s
a pretty face on the mend if I ever saw one. You can throw the veil away.”

“I’ll never be beautiful, so I suppose I’ll aim for sublime. Have you read The
Treatise
?”

“A paragraph or two.”

“It’s funny. When the beautiful are deformed they enter a state of being that Burke claims either equals or tops beauty—the sublime.”

Moldenke raised his head, and with his bulbous ear dripping water, slid his hand under Sorrel’s red suit, placed it on her cool breast and asked, “Would you consider mating with me?”

“Maybe. I’ll ask my father. He’ll probably want to have a talk with you.”

“All right.”

“Let’s get out of the water. I’m beginning to pucker,” Sorrel said.

“That’s fine, but I lost my suit. They gave me a big one and it fell off. It’s out there in the lily pads. Let me get it. The key is in the pocket.”

“I’ll meet you at the rental shed.”

“Yes, in a minute or two.”

Sorrel and Moldenke walked and paddled through the water in opposite directions.

Brainerd Franklin admitted a reporter on to the grounds of his estate, located on a bluff above the beach at Point Blast. His face was thicker now, the reporter recalled. She hadn’t seen him since his heart attack. His hair was grayer. His eyes weren’t as bright as they once were, but still pierced. His recurring phlebitis forced him to move slowly, the old self-assured stride replaced by an irritating limp.

He gingerly eased himself into a gray velvet recliner, resting his leg on a matching footstool. “I bought this chair when I was at my peak,” he said. “It’s been my favorite ever since I said goodbye to the game I loved. My resignation speech was written in this chair, with a glass of bitters right there on that table.”

The former exhibition golfer says he did the best he could with the talent he had. “I never thought about being loved. I wanted to golf, that’s all. I’ve married to keep up appearances, but it’s cold and distant.”

His resignation from the lucrative exhibition circuit has eaten away at his transplanted heart. His sad eyes glanced at a showcase where mementos of his headline-making world tours were proudly displayed. Then he gave a faint grin. “You know, in times like these, you find out who your friends are.” It’s no secret that in the aftermath of his retirement many of Franklin’s personal contacts abandoned him.

“Come on,” he said, limping to the door. “Let me show you around.”

The reporter followed him from his rosewood-paneled office and climbed into a yellow golf cart with the name Franklin painted above the grille. As they drove through the estate grounds, taking things at a slow clip, Franklin lamented the sorry state of his former golfing empire. “Those buildings over there were filled with my working staff. Now they’ve been stripped of furniture. But I’m told that’s the way it is for a jellyhead, the ups and the downs. I’ve had the ups. Now I’m going down.” The cart then returned to the main house. “I get out here,” he said.

Off to the side, Mrs. Franklin, a free woman, wearing a bright yellow and white pantsuit, stopped puttering in her garden and trotted toward the reporter. “Isn’t this a beautiful garden?” she asked. “I just love working with my flowers. That’s how I spend most of my time.”

When she had gone back to her garden, Franklin said, “Even without love, Sophie and I talk a lot about our shattered lives. I get strength from her. She is at peace with herself. She is truly a great lady.”

Franklin was met on the patio by a visiting nurse who removed his gray sports coat and made him swallow two or three pills. She then checked his blood pressure and palpated his wide abdomen, causing him to gasp when her thumbs dug into his spleen.

When the procedure was over, a pained Franklin beckoned to the reporter. “Come see my office. I’ll give you a souvenir.”

The reporter followed eagerly and stood at Franklin’s desk, watching him rummage in the drawers until coming up with an autographed ball. “Perhaps you’ll like this. It’s the only one I have left. The rest have been sold.”

His handshake was firmas she accepted the ball and left.

Moldenke retrieved his red suit, climbed back into it, and went to the changing nooks. The flimsy lock, as he feared, had been broken open. His dirty uniform hung there still, but his pass card was missing from the pocket.

The attendant at the rental shed showed a hardened attitude at first. “Anybody stupid enough to leave it in there with that little lock, I got no sympathy for.”

“How will I get on a streetcar?”

“I don’t care. I’m about to close.”

“Have you seen Sorrel? She must have come here to turn in her suit and change.”

“Big Ernie’s girl?”

“That’s her.”

“Ernie came and got her in his motor.”

“Did she mention she was
with
someone? This was a date. We were together. I thought she would wait.”

“Brought back her suit, changed clothes, and left. That’s it.”

“All right. Thanks.”

“Wait a minute,” the attendant said. “I’m feeling bad about this. Look, people lose their pass cards here all the time.” He reached into a box filled with them. “Here, take this one.” He handed a card to Moldenke embossed with the name Enfield Peters.

“I know him,” Moldenke said. “The actor.”

The attendant chuckled. “Free people don’t need a name. Half the folks in Altobello go around with somebody else’s card. Nobody cares. You want another card? I got plenty of unknowns.”

Moldenke thought of taking another one but reconsidered when he realized that Peters’ name on the card could pave the way for little courtesies and attentions he wouldn’t get otherwise. “No, I’ll keep this one.”

The Peters pass card proved effective when Moldenke boarded the car back to the Tunney Arms. The conductor tipped his cap and smiled. “Evening, Mr. Peters.”

“I’m going all the way to the Tunney Arms on the west side.”

“Yessir. Sit anywhere you like. I loved you in
Who Puked?
Great film.”

“Thank you. It was one of my best.”

“It took me a good while to figure out it was the waiter,” the conductor said.

“It had to be him. The clues were there all along.”

“You don’t look like you did on screen with an ear like that.”

“They do wonders with powder, wax, and rouge these days, and the lighting, too.”