by Nina Post
“I vomit on your career.”
“Well, notwithstanding your, ah, feelings,” the consultant said, “this is a highly unusual situation. You have a lot of turbulence here, and I don’t know why. The filters only function when there’s a certain velocity flowing over them, and you often have excess velocity.”
Dragomir wandered off near the motor.
“The velocity is often excessive,” the consultant raised his voice toward Dragomir, “because of the continuous turbulence. Problem is, you’re challenged by the original design of the building.”
“You are challenged by the original design of your brain,” Dragomir said, returning. “The air handlers, filters, building―our responsibility. Residents complain wind too loud in lobby, then manager complains because we turn down gauge, slow the air handler when heavy snow happens. Then, doors not work, elevators not work, and alarm goes off outside door.”
Dragomir flicked his arm at the door with the precision of a j’ai-alai player. “There is no way to win; we lose both ways!”
Bogdan tried to steer the consultant back to the door, but the consultant brushed him away and focused again on Dragomir.
“During certain snow events,” the consultant said, “the mesh filter gets overwhelmed.”
“The mesh is not always clogged with snow events,” Bogdan muttered.
“Now, you or I or Bogsnatch here―”
“Er, Bogdan,” Bogdan said.
“Bogman, sorry. Any one of us could come up here during these events to brush the snow off the mesh, but maybe there’s a better solution,” the consultant said.
Dragomir, Bogdan, and Traian huddled briefly to discuss the inter-dimensional monsters coming in through the air handler, and how you couldn’t just brush the monsters off the mesh. They argued, in urgent whispered tones, about the likelihood of the handler clogging with the monsters, then the whole thing exploding and taking the building with it. Dragomir turned back to the consultant.
“If we reduce the velocity of the stack during big snow―if we slow the air handler―there is impact to building. “Then there is violent crap storm.”
“Unless you also slow the exhaust,” the consultant said.
“And aggravate building’s odor migration?” Dragomir said.
“Yes, the make-up air side is challenging” The consultant stroked his chin.
Bogdan exhaled. It was near the end of a very long day of dishwasher and hot tub repair. He just wanted to go home to his small apartment and work on his scale circus model, especially the reptile show banners, but now they would all be delayed until Dragomir won.
Dragomir spoke in the tone of a dictator woken up too early. “Do you know what happens if stack clogs?” He took slow steps toward the consultant like a panther cornering an animal before eating it. Soon, he violated the consultant’s personal space with prejudice.
Bogdan could see that the consultant was not accustomed to confrontation, nor to Dragomir’s high-revving territorial drive.
Behind Dragomir, Traian shook his head at the consultant as though to say ‘Stop now and give in.’
“Well, you would probably have to replace the parts―”
Dragomir barked a laugh. “Do you know what happens if stack clogs?”
Again, Traian shook his head for the consultant, this time in a more exaggerated manner, so even a thick-headed fool like the consultant would know to also shake his head no. Bogdan did the same.
The consultant glanced at Traian, then reluctantly met Dragomir’s eyes.
“Um… no?”
Dragomir scoffed and dismissed the consultant with a gesture that made Bogdan and Traian gasp, but which meant nothing to the consultant.
“A lot more happens if the handler breaks than just having to replace parts.” Traian cleared his throat in a self-conscious way.
“Like what?” the consultant asked.
Bogdan stepped off to the side and conferred with Traian in Romanian as Dragomir stalked back and forth in front of the air handler, cursing.
“If we tell him situation, maybe he would”―Traian paused to think of the colloquialism―“get off Dragomir’s back.”
“If Dragomir is unhappy, we are more than unhappy,” Bogdan said.
“No, better if the consultant does not know,” Traian said. “This building is not like others.”
“Agreed. Consultant must not find out,” Bogdan said. “What if the city also found out? We could be fined, and out of our jobs.”
“We put up with the consultant as we brush aside a mosquito at our ear,” Traian said. “But it is up to Dragomir.”
“Look. Guys.” The consultant waved his file folder. “I have another building to get to, so maybe we could wrap this up.”
Dragomir lost his last scrap of patience and self-control, which Bogdan thought were stronger than others realized. “Oh, you like to wrap this up? We are up here to do nothing?”
“No! No,” Traian said to Dragomir, eyes wide.
“We are done. Is not your job on the line, and is more than our jobs on the line. Okay? You go now,” Dragomir said with contempt.
The consultant put his palms up to Dragomir. “Fine, fine. I’ve done my part.”
“You do nothing,” Dragomir said. “Your part is as a pebble in my shoe. An owl pellet I kick in the barn.”
The consultant rolled his eyes and muttered “Whatever, buddy.” He opened the door back into the building. Dragomir, Traian, and Bogdan remained in the mechanical room.
“The foolish man is right. The gauge is not, ahm, designed for equipment,” Bogdan said.
Dragomir rested a hand on the vent. “Is OK for now.”
fter the bootcamp in the patio, Af showered and made a marshmallow and mozzarella panini. Though his day-to-day tasks seemed mundane, being bound to Amenity Tower was actually a huge improvement, compared to his previous situation.
Just before he arrived at Amenity Tower, Af had 1,003 years left on his sentence. The King of the Demonic Locusts―occasionally known as the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, the Destroying Angel of the Apocalypse, the Angel of the Abyss, the Destroyer, or Don, depending on his mood or whom he wanted to impress―wanted to put Af out of commission, and kept finding ways to bind him for long periods of time.
They had never gotten along. Af considered Don both indolent and competitive, a dangerous combination, and knew Don thought of him as a threat to his position. But Don screwed up when he bound him to a Ms. Pac-Man game at a run-down AMC movie theater in Erie, Pennsylvania.
The game was unwinnable, or so Don assumed. But then some metalhead kid in the AMC beat the high score, reached the kill screen, and inadvertently released Af from his prison.
Hubris. Gets you every time.
As a direct result of what everyone in the know called “The Shirley Temple Incident” or “The Don Knotts Incident”―in reference to the other famous bow-wearers aside from Ms. Pac-Man―Af was free under a loophole in his contract.
Binding a fellow ruler of destruction to an arcade game just wasn’t good sportsmanship. It told Af that Don couldn’t compete on a level playing field. Don lacked the discipline and intelligence of his more savvy peers, and compensated by lying and cheating his way up the totem pole.
Af had spent his whole existence being wrathful and destructive. It was his job, his purpose. He operated with a wide swath of autonomy, but the bureaucracy wore on him and he found it difficult to work alongside the same people over such a long period. Even though they were angels, his colleagues’ negative attributes became more pronounced over time.
Within a vast structure of variably-ranked angels, at least a few were keenly interested in Af’s position. As for how well another angel could do his job, he didn’t much care anymore if they did, or if they handled it poorly or superbly.
It pleased him that he wasn’t constrained to an identity that was many millions of years old or limited by anyone’s perception of him―with the exception of Raum, who wouldn’t shut
up about it. It wasn’t Af’s concern. He just wanted a quiet life of cooking, exercising, reading, and his favorite activity: photographing products he liked and posting reviews of them online. Maybe he would start writing longer essays about some of the products he reviewed.
His former more volatile self would have invaded nearby buildings, the city as a whole, and other towns and cities, all before lunch, if directed to.
He laughed, thinking of his old friend Temeluch, his colleague to whom souls were delivered at the death of the body. Temeluch resented the huge workload he faced after Af went on a tear.
“Well, they’re going to have to wait,” Temeluch would say, referring to the souls awaiting transfer. “I have a daughter to raise, paperwork to do, dinner to make. I have three dozen cupcakes to make for those terrorizing, cupcake-extorting demons at the PTA.”
But Af was different now, to his own amazement. Not only did he refrain from laying waste on a wide scale, he sat and discussed agenda items like the lobby tree, the scavenger contract, and whether or not a resident could use the regular elevators with his or her pet death worm.
Af thought about his conversation with Kelly in the elevator and wondered why he didn’t tell her about Temeluch. Perhaps he assumed it would sour her opinion of him.
As he set up a paper carton of tomato sauce to be photographed, it occurred to him that he might have to fight to stay in Amenity Tower.
elly swaggered in to Amenity Tower wearing a brown wig, mustache, and a black baseball cap embroidered with “FDA” in red letters. Her dental tray featured large front teeth.
“FDA Criminal Investigations.” She showed her badge to Clementine, who apparently worked most shifts. “We have a report of an unlicensed banana farm in unit 4202. I need to get up there right now.”
Clementine was breezy and friendly, but Kelly had seen her rip into people for violating process before.
“I didn’t know the FDA had a criminal division.” Clementine raised one brow dramatically.
“Yes ma’am, they do,” Kelly said briskly. Clem didn’t have to know that they investigated mostly corporate executives.
“Well, I guess I don’t call up to that unit, considering. Let me ring the manager.” Clem picked up the phone.
She smiled. Roger was probably busy interviewing a pigeon breeder or a bioprocess engineer. He wasn’t going to blink an eye at an FDA investigator.
Clem mumbled into the receiver and hung up. “Okay. You can go on in.”
She followed a resident who looked like they were made entirely of rubber, then got into the next open high-rise cab with a short toad resident and his leashed death worm. Tom the giant water scorpion wasn’t there, so she pressed the button for forty-two. Af’s floor. As they rose, the toad hummed a Roger Balbi song and she could swear the worm was looking at her funny. She shifted a sideways glance to it.
She walked to the end of the hall, smelling toast and eggs from much earlier that morning, along with fabric softener, a new piece of luggage, orange juice, and at least a few things she didn’t recognize at all. Also, someone had printed out a stack of paper.
Kelly placed her head up to a doorjamb five units down from Af’s apartment.
Af found her on his way to go for a swim. “It’s good to see you again, Kelly. Or should I call you Bogdan?”
She smiled at him and felt stupid (it wasn’t even her smile―the dental tray made her lisp a little). They looked at each other awkwardly. Af was dressed for the pool in board shorts, an old Howard Jones t-shirt, flip-flops, and goggles perched on the top of his head.
“Well, I was going to go down for a swim, but I’d rather have you over for coffee so you can tell me why you’re wearing that horrible thing,” Af said.
“Can’t.” She pressed her lips together with some effort over her dental tray. “Working.”
“I can tell by your teeth.”
“The teeth draw attention,” she said. “Obviously.”
“Well, come down to the pool when you’re done.” Af flashed her an irresistible grin and went over to the elevator, carrying his large towel. “I look forward to seeing you as you one day.”
Kelly didn’t know if there was much left.
She skulked back down the hall and checked out another unit. Whiffs of something strange blew gently out of the door frame. After sniffing around a few more doors, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She found Af on the edge of a lounge chair at one end of the pool, looking like someone stole his balloon and let it go. The pool was full of lap-swimming angels, all bumping into one another.
Af waved, a half-hearted gesture, and she walked down the length of the pool toward him. “I was really looking forward to a swim,” he said when she got close enough. “This is the time when I swim. My whole schedule is off now.”
She sat next to him. “Why are there so many in the pool?”
Af shook his head. “I created my schedule based on the least populated times in each place, but then everyone in the building started to train for something. Don’t know what. Don’t care. I just want to swim.”
She stood back up and checked her pockets, starting with the back, pulled out an empty vial from her front right pocket, and sucked in everyone in the pool.
“Wow,” Af said. “You can fit all of them into one vial?”
“Not really,” Kelly said. “If I’m feeling generous later, I’ll transfer some to another vial.”
“Where do they go, and should I be worried?”
“They’re repatriated, as far as I know. Why, did I vial one of your friends?”
“No… but should I be worried?” Af asked again.
“Nah.”
Af smiled, basically making her day all over again. “Thank you.” He descended into the water and adjusted his goggles.
She loved that he had the whole pool to himself.
Kelly went back to Af’s floor. The first apartment she checked was redolent of toast and piperine, and the resident was watching what sounded like a repeat of What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi, one with Roger talking to a ninja with unceasing hiccups.
She shrugged and made a notation in her notebook. The fourth apartment smelled like horseradish, spikenard oil, and peaches. The sign on the door read “134th Anniversary Annual Meeting and Dinner.”
“Anniversary of what?” she said.
At the doorjamb of the fourth apartment, Kelly detected eucalyptus shampoo and formic acid (probably a death worm bath), as well as voices from a radio show.
At the fifth, she smelled ambergris tincture and new furniture.
Kelly tucked her notebook in her pocket and rested against the wall by the window, feeling her mother’s absence from the world, which made her want to vial every single angel she saw. None of them had any answers.
Her hand tightened around one of the vials. Maybe she should sweep this whole building right now and be done with it. They could sort the HVT out later. Or is that what Don hoped she would do?
The elevator stopped on the floor and the doors opened. She pocketed the vial and nodded politely to a locust with a fidgety young worm on a leash. Tapping the vial in her pocket with a fingernail, she paused, then took the elevator back to the first floor. The worm shrieked the whole way.
elly stopped at her building to check on the SPs and swap some gear. Murray was there waiting for her, dressed ominously well. She dropped her bag on the floor. “Is it time for the spring ball already?”
His charcoal gray wool suit and four-in-hand tie knot made her nervous. He had shaved, perhaps seconds ago, and his hair had been cut by someone licensed.
She took a guess about his formal attire. “Am I meeting Don? Can I call him Don?”
“Today’s the day.”
“I’ll get dressed.” She emerged five minutes later in a midnight blue dress, black flats, and a gold locket.
“It’s my ‘Lady in a Bag’ kit,” she said.
“As opposed to the ‘Bag Lady’ kit?” he asked.
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“I use the Bag Lady Kit a lot more.”
They took a cab to the train station and got on a biomorphic tube that contracted to a stop and gave them an opening. Murray gestured her in.
The inside looked like a 1930s lounge car, silver and scrupulously clean, outfitted with cherry-wood paneling, leather seating, and two dining tables. A fresco painting of a forest scene covered the ceiling. On every table, a set of playing cards in leather cases sat next to backgammon boards with solid wood pieces.
“Can I live here?” she asked Murray.
“Your place not big enough?”
Kelly and Murray didn’t have the car to themselves: a man with a red plaid shirt, a chew tin imprint in his front pocket, and tin belt buckle gave them a slow nod. Otherwise, the man looked out the window until he got out at the next stop.
Murray mixed a drink at the bar using liquid in crystal decanters.
“How did you end up with this lousy handler gig?”
Murray stared at his drink for a few seconds before glancing sideways at her. “Tribal sorcerer curse.”
“Typical.”
“I’ve worked for Don a long time. Too long.” Waving off the conversation, he went back to the bar to refill his drink.
She leaned back in her sleek, curvy chair and crossed one leg over the other and stared at the painting. In the distance was a small wood-frame cabin. “Holy crap,” she said, her voice higher from her stretched neck.
“What? What is it? Did you forget your third backup switchblade?”
She pointed up. Murray came around from behind the bar and stood next to her.
“What?”
“That’s my cabin.”
“Huh?” He looked up.
She stood on the chair for a closer look. “Why is that painting there?” she asked in a demanding tone, like he’d been keeping something from her.
“You built a cabin?” Murray asked.
“Answer me.”
“When was this?”
“I started it when I was eleven and finished it when I was twelve.”
