The Old Reactor (6 page)

After crossing busy Arden Boulevard, Moldenke smelled fresh-baked bear claws. The strong, sweet, floury scent probably meant the claws had just been taken from the oven. A green light blinked above the doorway of Big Ernie’s Bakery. Forgetting for the moment that his bowel was angering, and passing the privy by, his mouth watered. He stepped inside the bakery, ordered a claw, and showed his card to the cashier, a young woman whose face had been deformed.

She saw him staring at her. “You wouldn’t believe how pretty I used to be,” she said. “A jellyhead got me by the Park. I was just walking by. What’s the point of all this freedom when we’ve got jellyheads carrying deformant and using it whenever they want?” She turned sideways. “How do I look from the side?”

Moldenke felt obliged to respond, but words were slow in coming, and when they did they were tentative. “You don’t look all that bad,” he heard himself saying.

“Thank you, I suppose that’s a compliment.” She gave him the bear claw in a waxed bag. “My name’s Sorrel—after the plant, not the horse.”

“I’m Moldenke, from Bunkerville.”

“How long are you here for?”

“Indefinite. Desecration of a grave. I’d rather not talk about it except to say it was an unavoidable accident. What about you?”

“Came with my father. He got life. They just needed a baker over here. I don’t mind, though. I like Altobello. You can do what you want, except for the jellyheads. I hate them. If I had a gun I’d shoot my share.”

Moldenke bit off a chunk of the pastry. It was crisp and sweet. “Oh, this is excellent an claw.” He sat at a sunny little table near the front window and ate the rest of it.

Big Ernie came in from the back with a tray of fresh-baked claws and began lining them up in the display case.

Moldenke breathed in the fragrant smell. “Give me another one, please, to go.”

Big Ernie backed his head and shoulders out of the case and stood his full height. “Welcome to Altobello, my friend. You’re a free man.”

“I can’t say it’s good to be here, but a person makes do. I suppose I’ll look for some kind of work, employment somewhere. Best way to pass the time I hear.”

“What’s the point of working if everything’s free? I got a passion for baking.”

“I used to have a passion for the labor movement back home, but what’s the use of that here? I do have a yen for these claws, though. They’re far better than the best you can get in Bunkerville.”

Big Ernie put a hammy hand on his hip and thought for a moment, then came to Moldenke’s table and whispered to him, “Look at that poor daughter of mine.” Moldenke glanced over at her. She was busy powdering her lumpy, misaligned cheeks. “A jellyhead did that, squirted her right in the face. No wonder she hates them. She wants a gun now. I tell her how hard they are to find. Can you do me a favor?”

“What’s the favor?”

“Poison that son of a bitch for me, the one that deformed her. He goes naked with a big swinging donniker and wears a snap-brim cap. You can’t miss him.”

“I’ve never killed one. I’ve
seen
them killed with a firearm. I don’t know about poisoning them. How would I do that?”

“Think of it like this: you won’t be killing him…I will. You’ll simply act as my agent. Here’s an example. If you were squirted with deformant, would you blame the deformant or the jellyhead that squirted you?”

“The jellyhead, that’s obvious.”

“You see my point?”

“In a way, I do.”

“The streetcars are running tomorrow. Catch the morning one to the Quarter, go to Smiley’s Meats. Get a couple of sausages and put them on my account. Then walk on to Goody’s Antique Hardware store for a tub of strong rat paste. Charge that, too. Take those sausages, split them open, and pack paste in there. I know that jellyhead loves sausages. There I was, coming back from Smiley’s one day and the filthy thing grabbed a bag of hot links right out of my hand and ran off. I could see him crouched behind a tree, eating them. So go to the Park and leave them by that old dead tree.”

“All right,” Moldenke said. “I’ll take care of it in the morning.”

“Bring me the ear valves. If you don’t have a knife, pinch them off with your fingernails.”

“Right, I will.” Moldenke’s tone was laden with doubt.

Big Ernie smiled broadly and winked. “Little Sorrel’ll owe you a favor…”

“All right. I’ll take care of it.”

Moldenke was on the afternoon car back to the west side feeling anxious. It wasn’t in his nature to kill anything, even a jellyhead. He decided to distract himself that evening after an order of mud fish at Saposcat’s by going to the Joytime Cinema, the only open one in the City, to see Misti Gaynor and Enfield Peters starring in
Who Puked in the Sink?

Midway through the dull, slow paced film, Moldenke fell asleep. Just after its end, an usher awakened him. “Go home, fella. You’ve shit yourself.”

“I’m sorry. It’s something out of my control and it’s getting worse.” Moldenke yawned and stretched. “All right. But tell me, who puked in the sink?”

“It was the
plongeur
, the dishwasher. The wealthy partiers were leaving all those rich canapés on their plates and he’d been eating them. It made him sick and he heaved it all up right there into the three-chambered sink. Mystery solved. Now get on out of here. We’re closing up for the night.”

On the way back to his room, Moldenke ventured into a dark alleyway where he threw his soiled underdrawers into a trash bin. Fortunately the discharge in the theater had been light. His uniform pants were only lightly stained. When he reached his flat he hung them in the window to dry then sat naked all night, smoking Juleps and watching the progress of the half-moon through his window when the clouds and the swaying pants would let him.

It was an hour or two after getting into bed that he finally gave in to sleep and dreamed of Ernie’s daughter coming fast toward him on a busy street, her hair wild and tangled and blown by the air she parted with her rapid walk. She looked as thin as death, expressionless as she came to him and locked him in a tight hug. They whirled around, which prevented him from looking straight into her ravaged face. He saw only parts of her—a cheek, an ear, and hair swept back like a comet’s tail. His eyes were fixed in a stare at empty space. She said nothing, and her gaze never met his.

Employees at a streetcar terminal in Bunkerville watched in horror Monday night as a jellyhead fatally slashed her throat and stabbed herself repeatedly in the chest. Melba Morten, thirty-one, was dead on arrival at a hospital after the incident in the cafeteria of the terminal.

Randolph Scott, an off-duty police officer working as a security guard, struggled with the victim, twice trying to get the knife from her.

“She was split from one end to the other, screaming and gasping for breath,” Scott said. “I tried to get a bandage on her, but I’ve never come across anyone so strong. She pushed me away.”

Olga Pimental, cafeteria supervisor, said she heard Morten screaming. “I ran to see who it was and she was slashing her throat,” she said. “She did it about three times. After she did it, she just stood there screaming. It sounded horrible.”

After a cup of tea and a bowl of meal at Saposcat’s the next morning, Moldenke cut through Liberty Park on his way to the streetcar stop and stepped into a mound of jellyhead stool hidden by leaves. There were no flies on it to give warning, even though the odor was unbearably foul, like something days dead. There were other mounds scattered around and balled bunches of wiping rags and soiled newspaper thrown about. It was a jellyhead toileting area.

As he waited at the stop, Moldenke scraped much of the stool from his boots onto the car tracks, but what remained smelled strong enough to get him kicked off as soon as he got on.

“Who do you think you are, getting on my car smelling like that?”

“Sorry, couldn’t help it.”

“Get off right now.”

Moldenke jumped out of the car while it still moved, fortunate not to sprain his ankles. It was a long walk to Smiley’s, and he was exhausted when he got there. He sat down outside on a concrete banquette under an awning and watched the comings and goings of Smiley’s customers until he felt strong enough to go in. An elderly woman who passed him said, “I’ve never seen a maggot in Smiley’s meat.”

The market was cool and cavernous inside, the floors, walls, and ceiling covered in gleaming white tiles. There were several counters between the refrigerated cases, each with a long line. Moldenke chose one and prepared for a long wait. A free man in front of him said, “Holy Christ, man. I’m going to faint from that smell. Did you step in shit or something? Get in another line.”

“All right. I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

Moldenke moved to another line. When he finally reached the counter, he said, “Let me have two of your sausages.”

“You got it. Two links on the way.” The clerk wrapped them in waxed paper.

“Put them on Big Ernie’s card.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, Big Ernie’s Bakery, downtown. Best claws in the Quarter. Him and me go way back.”

The clerk disappeared through a rubber curtain. When it parted momentarily, Moldenke saw butchers at work sawing bones and cutting meat. A jellyhead boy in a canvas apron policed the floor, picking up fallen scraps and filling a wheelbarrow with them, which he emptied into the hopper of a sausage making machine, along with scoopfuls of pepper, salt, and other spices. At another station, a butcher emptied packets of gelatin into a vat of head cheese.

The clerk returned with the sausages. “There you are. Cook them a long time.”

“Thanks for the caution.”

Back on the street with the sausages, Moldenke asked someone how to get to Goody’s Hardware. “Old Goody got deformed, you know. I’m not sure he’s opened the store yet. It’s only been a week or two.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Some jellyhead gone critical barges into his store, squirts him, takes a sack of sulfur, fifty pounds of slug bait and a gallon of fly syrup. So Goody’s out of all that. What do you need?”

“A tub of rat paste. I’ll take the chance he might be open.”

“All right then. Walk ten or twelve blocks north and there you are.”

Moldenke felt the heat of the sidewalk through boot and sock and into the bottoms of his feet. The walk to Goody’s was miserable and he was parched by the time he got there. After a long drink at a public fountain he sat down on a bench in front of the store and took off his boots. His socks were worn in places and there were little bleedings where shoe nails had pushed up through the sole and punctured the skin. He slammed the boots repeatedly against the concrete until the rest of the dried out stool fell off. When his socks had aired a little he laced his boots back up and went in under a hand-painted sign that read: NO JELLYHEADS.

In front of him was an opaque window where orders were placed, and another where they were picked up. Goody tended both wearing a rough, sagging mask scissored out of window curtains and held there by a headband.

He opened one window long enough to take the order then went about filling it. Only his wavering silhouette could be seen through the glass as he moved about. When the order was filled, Goody appeared at the pickup window to deliver it.

When Moldenke’s turn at the window came he ordered a tub of rat paste. “The strongest you have. This is a big rat.”

Goody went back to fetch the tub and Moldenke met him at the pickup window. “You can put this on Big Ernie’s card.”

“All right,” Goody said. “He and I are good friends. His nuts click loud in this City.”

“Sorry to hear about your deforming, Mr. Goody. It could happen to any of us I hear.”

“Yeah, sure enough. That little jelly came in here in spite of that sign out there that says ‘no jellies.’ He ordered a sack of salts, and when I opened the window, he sprayed me all over my face, laughing, like he was having a lot of fun. I’m all scarred up.”

Moldenke shook his head, which made his ears ring. “I guess that’s the only fun jellyheads can have. Was he naked? Wearing a cap? Good sized donniker?”

“That’s the one. The hat and the big peter.”

Goody slid the tub of rat bait forward and closed the window suddenly, nearly crushing Moldenke’s fingers. The lights dimmed. The store was closing abruptly for the day.

Moldenke shuffled out with a few unserved, complaining shoppers all rushing to the car stop at once. This time, with his boots clean, Moldenke thought he would be able to board the Arden car going to the Park. He did board initially without trouble, but along the line there was a kiosk and a stop sign between the exit from the Quarter and the entrance to free Altobello. An official stepped from the kiosk and entered the stopped car. He went up the aisle grumbling, checking pass cards. When he came to Moldenke he said, “You stink. Don’t you think that offends the rest of the passengers? Get off now.”

“Well, I’m sure it does offend them, but it’s something I couldn’t help. I stepped in jelly stool.”

“In that camp in the park?”

“Yes.”

“My young son fell face down in a pile when we were walking through there. They’re worse than dogs, aren’t they? Don’t get off. It could happen to anybody.”

The official signaled to the conductor to move on down the line, that everything on the car was fine.

After getting off, Moldenke sat on the curb to load rat paste into the sausages. He split the casing with his long, dirty thumbnail, parted the two sides, then used a stick to press the paste into the gap. When he turned to get up, he saw the naked jellyhead trotting purposefully across the street, tongue dripping with hunger, the large member swinging, the cap worn rakishly to the side. His hands, however, were empty. He wasn’t carrying deformant.

Without slowing, the jellyhead snatched a sausage from Moldenke’s hand and ran into the unlit Park. Moldenke followed at a chosen distance—not close, not far. It was getting dark and hard to see. The jellyhead slowed his pace long enough to eat half the sausage then raced on toward the old dead tree. Moldenke continued following. He had no idea how long it would take the jelly to die, and he needed the valves to show to Big Ernie.