The Old Reactor (19 page)

“All right, Salmonella,” Moldenke said, “listen to me a minute. When we get there, let me handle the situation.”

“Stop worrying.”

“All right.”

They walked the remaining blocks in the hot late afternoon sun and were standing on the porch of Moldenke’s house on Esplanade when Ozzie came around the side with a dripping garden hose.

“Moldenke?”

“I’m back. This is my friend, Salmonella. She’s freeborn.”

“Hello. I’m Ozzie.”

Moldenke chuckled awkwardly. “The place looks grand. I’m surprised. Fresh paint, running water, no broken windows, all the brickwork tuck-pointed. I’m happy to see this.”

Salmonella said, “We’re hungry. We’ve got food. Can we go in?”

“Yes, but please be quiet. The jellies are napping. They work hard in the morning and late at night, they nap in the afternoon. I’ll go in through the back and meet you in the kitchen.”

Salmonella entered the foyer first and paused at the stairs leading to the second story bedrooms. Moldenke followed, past a tall clay pot holding four umbrellas, then the stairs leading to the second story bedrooms and a long low-boy that he recognized as his aunt’s. On it was a copy of the
Treatise
.

“What’s that…? Listen.” Salmonella cupped her ear. “From up there?”

Moldenke listened closely. “It’s the jellies snoring.”

“What about us? Where do we sleep?”

“I don’t know. We’ll ask Ozzie.”

They went into the dining room. Moldenke recognized his aunt’s round oak dining table set with four placemats and her silverware. He could see that two of his friend Myron’s typewriter portraits were still hanging in the hallway, clean and free of dust.

Ozzie took off his boots in the mud room and came through the back door. “Let’s sit in the kitchen, you two. If you’re hungry, one of the new jellies here is a cook and he made some very nice sheep’s liver scrapple. It’s just about to come out of the oven.”

“I love scrapple,” Salmonella said. “What’s a sheep? I know what a pig is. I know what a cow is.”

“A grazing animal. People used to shear them for wool,” Moldenke said, “to make warm jackets.”

Ozzie removed the scrapple loaf from the oven. “Old man Burnheart down the street keeps a few sheep in his yard. People say he used to be a surgeon. Sometimes he comes down here with a bucket of organ meat. I don’t know what he does with the rest of the animal.”

“That’s very interesting,” Moldenke said, “but what I want to know is…how many do we have here now, Ozzie?”

“Jellies?”

“Yes, jellies.”

“With the cook and the gardener, that’s seven. They’re two to a bed now.”

“This is my house. You were sleeping in an alleyway. I was desperate to find someone.”

Ozzie was insulted, a little angry. “Look at this place. It’s far better than when you left it. No rats, no rot, good roof, a place to shit, clean as a whistle. It wasn’t me alone who did all that. It was the jellies. They like me. We get along. How about some stew? Want a glass of bitters?” He slid a pack of Juleps from his shirt pocket. “Smoke?”

“Yes. All of that. I haven’t had a smoke in weeks. Big shortage in Altobello.”

Ozzie poured two glasses of bitters and lit Moldenke’s Julep. “Excellent bitters, made right here. The jellies and I brew it in the back yard.”

Ozzie sliced the scrapple and fried it in a pan.

Moldenke inhaled the minty Julep smoke and spoke as he held it. “We were told Bunkerville was liberated.”

“I don’t know. People are leaving. There’s a lot of confusion. Right now it’s smart to stay home and hope for the best. At least it saved me from getting exploded.” He plated slices of scrapple. “There, eat up. The little grocery is closing, you know. Can’t say how long we’ll be able to get certain things. This is the best we can offer right now.”

Moldenke emptied his pockets, laying the items out on the table. “This is the last they had.”

Salmonella asked, “You got any green soda?” She had a bite of the scrapple.

Ozzie popped open a soda from the cooler and gave it to her. “We got three left. The ice house closed, so this is the last of the cool ones. Enjoy it.”

Salmonella guzzled the green soda between bites of scrapple, grunting with pleasure.

Moldenke wondered aloud if pass cards would eventually be recognized, or would he need money to get by. He wondered, too, if Ozzie thought they’d be wearing uniforms, and if so, where to get them.

“I don’t know, Moldenke. I’m staying out of the fracas. I feel lucky to be alive right now. I don’t want to show my face out there. Anyway, there are no more real workers to organize. No one works now except jellies.”

Moldenke finished his bitters and Ozzie poured a second round.

“Is there a radio? Do you have any news?”

“The station is off the air.”

Salmonella wiped her lips with a linen napkin. “That was good. Now I’m tired. Where do we sleep?”

“I’ll roust a few jellies and free up a couple of beds. They don’t care. They’ll sleep in the shed.”

“We only need one,” Salmonella said.

“Two,” Moldenke said. “We’ll need two.”

Salmonella pouted jokingly.

Zanzetti made news today with the announcement of Molly, a mechanical mother he and his staff are developing. “Free mothers will no longer need to pay the psychic wage of making milk,” the scientist says, “because it comes from Molly’s breasts in great squirts.” The milk, rich in folic acid and lactose, is infused with a mollifying agent to help curb unwanted impulses and instill a modicum of conscience in free-born individuals.

“Those raised in pure freedom, where everything is permitted, never develop a sense of right and wrong. Remorse is unknown to them. Any action is the same as any other action. Can you imagine walking your body around in a world where nothing matters? There would be pandemonium.”

If Zanzetti is successful in this pursuit, mother machines in their milk will alleviate those raw necessities of child rearing and allow free women to go about a more productive business, to dabble in cottage industries such as bee culture and candle making without fear of raising un-socialized children.

Ozzie poured another round of bitters. “The sun’s still up. It’s too early for bed.”

Moldenke crushed out his Julep and swallowed down the glass of bitters. “Is it safe to assume you’ve been in the attic?”

“One of the jellies was up there mixing paint and he found the shoebox. We spent the money fixing the place. You should be happy. Money is either worthless now or will be soon. It was well spent, my friend. We can all live comfortably here as free people.”

“It will be too crowded,” Moldenke said.

“Not with
these
jellies. They seem to have a very mature philosophy of service. They work hard, they nap, they don’t eat much, they stay out of the way, they’re easy to live with, and they’re always improving the place. Your aunt couldn’t ask for anything better.”

Salmonella reached into her bag and brought out the sack of apple seeds. “Can I plant these in the yard?”

Ozzie beamed, “Sure you can, girl. I’ll have the gardener give you a hand.”

Salmonella stood up and clapped. “Oh, goody!”

Moldenke shrugged. “All right. We’ll see how it goes.”

“You’ll meet the jellies later.”

Moldenke said, “I’ve soiled my uniform. Can I take a bath?”

“Of course you can. In your aunt’s bathroom, upstairs. We’ve kept it as it always was. Your uncle’s clothes are still in the chiffonier. Wear those.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Ozzie.”

Moldenke excused himself and went upstairs to bathe. His aunt’s bathroom was adjacent to her bedroom, where he selected one of his late uncle’s jumpsuits to wear after the bath. The bedroom was as he remembered it, other than the wall paper, which had been stripped away and the walls painted a mint green. The lamp on her vanity shed light on bottles of fragrance, atomizers, and a pin cushion. Her collection of spoons from all the great cities of the world hung nearby.

At about sundown Ozzie went upstairs and rousted four jellyheads to make two rooms available to Moldenke and Salmonella, who remained in the kitchen eating scrapple.

The jellies came down the stairs yawning, unsteady, holding to the rail. When they shuffled into the brightly lit kitchen, they were almost blinded. Their eyes closed and they leaned against the wall. Ozzie said, “This is Brewster, who gardens; Lester, the mason; Charles, the plumber; and Frank, the painter.” The jellies smiled politely and rubbed their eyes. “And our guests are my old labor-organizing friend, Moldenke, and Salmonella, an orphan in his charge, or his companion, or girlfriend. I don’t know.”

“I’m a girl and I’m his friend,” Salmonella said, reaching for a handshake.

The jellies seemed to take pleasure in the act, holding her hand over long, and discharging drops of gel from their ear valves.

The mason said, “Hello. I’m very pleased to meet you. Sorry for the smell. We can’t help it. The valves leak.”

The gardener said, “Mr. Ozzie tells me you have apple seeds. That makes me very happy. We will start them in the greenhouse then plant the little saplings in the yard. We have a pile of compost out there and quite a bit of sawdust, but it will be years before we have apples.”

Salmonella beamed, fingering her sack of seeds. “I’m young enough to wait.”

Ozzie said to the jellies, “You’ll be sleeping in the shed tonight. Our guests need your rooms.”

“Guests?” Moldenke questioned. “This is my house.”

Ozzie poured Moldenke another shot of bitters. “Once we’re officially liberated, it’s just as much mine as it is yours. And these jellies will own it too. So we better learn to cooperate right now and be ready.”

“When will it happen?” Moldenke asked. “Is the liberation already underway? How do we know what to do or how to act?”

“It hardly matters,” Ozzie said. “We’ll do well here either way.”

“I’m going to bed,” Salmonella said.

Ozzie pointed to the stairs. “It’s the first one to the right at the top. I’ve changed the sheets. They get sticky with gel.”

Salmonella said her goodnights and went upstairs.

The four jellies held hands. Ozzie led them out the back door, saying “Good night, my friends.” When they had managed the steps down into the yard without falling, he shut and bolted the door. “There’s a radio in the shed and some cots. They’re perfectly happy to lie down and listen all night to rebroadcasts of Franklin’s best-played games. I’m telling you, Moldenke, under the circumstances, we have a good thing here. We’re practically self-sufficient.”

“I’m going for a walk,” Moldenke said. “I need to think about all this. Is the old Come On Inn still open?”

“I don’t know. Some taverns are staying open, some have closed.”

Moldenke walked a few blocks then caught a streetcar going to Broad Street. “I’m surprised the cars are still running,” he said to the conductor when he got on.

“No one’s told us to stop.”

“Do you take pass cards from Altobello?”

The conductor examined the Enfield Peters card. “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Peters. Take any seat you want. There’s hardly anybody riding the cars tonight. They’re all staying home. Nobody knows what’s happening.”

“I’ll get off at the nearest stop to the Come On Inn. Are they open?”

“I’ve seen the lights on.”

The stop was within sight of the Inn. Moldenke saluted the conductor. “Thanks.”

“Good night, Mr. Peters.”

The Come On Inn was quite the same as it had always been, the air stale, the floor covered with a layer of sawdust, the bite of Julep smoke stinging the nose.

Moldenke sat at the long bar. “What have you got?”

“We got jelly-made bitters. None of the real stuff. Can’t get that anymore.”

“I’ll have a double shot. Do you take pass cards?”

“Till further notice.”

Moldenke showed the Peters card. “I’m just back from Altobello.”

“You’re Enfield Peters?”

“Yes, the actor.”

“I saw you in, what’s that one? Somebody puked in the sink? They tried to figure out who did it.”

“Yeah, I was in that. It was the dishwasher who did it.”

“You don’t look like you did in the movie.”

“I’ve been deformed. It changed my face.”

There were other patrons moving closer to Moldenke, thinking he was the famous actor. They wanted to hear what he had to say. He began to enjoy playing Peters. Letting go of himself, he felt as Peters must have felt—healthy, handsome, tall, imposing. He welcomed the attention and the respect, no matter how shallow.

Then one of the patrons said, “He looks like a guy used to live around here, used to come in here. His name was Molinski or something.”

At that moment, a jellyhead carried a five-pound rat by the tail into the Inn. “Anybody want to buy a rat?” the jellyhead asked. When the barkeeper ordered him out, he dangled the rodent near Moldenke and allowed it to sink its teeth into his shoulder. Later, others at the bar said the animal that attacked Moldenke was eighteen inches long from its snout to the tip of its tail.

“Look, it even bites,” the jellyhead had said as the animal attacked.

In the commotion that followed, the jellyhead dropped the rat and ran from the bar. Bar patrons killed the big rodent by stepping on it and sticking it with pocketknives.

Moldenke opened his uniform jacket and slid the undershirt off his shoulder. There were teeth marks and beads of blood.

“This guy’s not Peters,” one of the patrons said.

The bar keeper tore up the card and flung the pieces at Moldenke. “Get out of here you impostering son of a bitch.”

Out on the street, Moldenke wondered if there were clinics open, a doctor’s office, some place where he might have the rat bite looked at. Even in the best of times, there would be no doctors’ offices open this time of night. There was Charity Hospital, run by the Sisters of Comfort, way up on Broad Street. He would have to catch a streetcar. No, that would be too strenuous. And he might find the Hospital’s doors closed. The only thing to do was walk back to the house on Esplanade, wash the bite, and hope it would heal cleanly.

Photographers’ bulbs flashed as two hundred jellyheads stood in the mud of City Park Wednesday night awaiting a miracle. They watched a nine-year-old jellyhead, Joseph Vitolo, pray at an improvised altar banked with pissweed and dandelion flowers, statuettes and dozens of guttering candles.