The Old Reactor

by David Ohle

  “Sorrel. Here I am. Hurry, your veil is getting wet.”

  “What a ride,” she said. “The car ran over a jellyhead baby. The mother threw it under the wheels and ran.”

  “That happens all the time.”

  “It was quite a delay. That’s why I’m late. They had to clean up all that stinking goo on the tracks.”

  “I like your veil. It’s very pretty, even wet.”

  “I made it myself. I can smell, I can see, I can eat without offending.”

  “Let’s get inside. You’ll never guess who’s in there. None other than the famous Brainerd Franklin.”

  Sorrel said, “Oh, that should be interesting. I hear he smells bad up close. I hope we don’t get seated next to him.”

  A sandwich board set up outside the front door listed the night’s specials: Scrapple, Kerd, Meal, Mud fish, Sturgeon (seasonal), Trotters.

  “It all sounds good to me,” Salmonella said.

  Although the place was only moderately busy, many of the tables were reserved for Franklin, his handlers, fans, guests, and the visiting Bunkerville press, so there were only a few unoccupied. Sorrel chose the one farthest from Franklin, who was answering questions shouted at him from the press.

  “Do you jellies believe in an afterworld?”

  Franklin answered in slow, deliberate fashion, as though he were drugged. “After what? Oh, I get it. Sure, yeah, of course. I hope so, anyway. A jelly doesn’t any more want to be dead than you do.”

  “Why does golf need a jellyhead player?”

  “Ask a simpler question. And get me another plate of fish.”

  “What’s a sand wedge for?”

  “To eat, I think. Isn’t it? My trainer always made peanut butter ones for me when you could get it, and bread.”

  “Who makes your boots?”

  “The Franklin Bootery, back in Bunkerville. I own it. I’m rich. It feels good. It’s one thing to be a poor jellyhead, but a poor free man? It must be awful.”

  “Do jellies believe in any gods?”

  “Are you kidding? No god ever gave a jelly a break. I dig Masonry, though. I’ve got a scooter and I love to ride in parades, especially on Coward’s Day.”

  “Do you have a philosophy of life?”

  “A what?”

  “Like a guiding principle, sort of a rule or rules that you follow?”

  “Life is a bogey, not an eagle. We are always one stroke over, always in hazard. Fairways turn foul, every tee off ends in a slice. The game is forever uneven, the score is never settled. I often feel under par, and sometimes vengeful, which is why I hardly ever carry aerosol deformant on my person.”

  “So, where do you go from here?”

  Franklin bent over and held his abdomen. “Excuse me, please, but it’s time for me to make for the potty. I’m all loaded up. Got to dump it.”

  Two handlers grasped Franklin by the elbows and walked him to the gutter outside. Even at that distance, and with the doors closed, Saposcat’s patrons could hear Franklin’s apish grunting and smell the odor of his stool.

  “What a disgusting display,” Sorrel said.

  “It sounds like an angry bowel,” Moldenke said.

  Salmonella held her nose. “That is bad, bad, bad.”

  Moldenke wanted things to go well, despite Franklin’s display. He studied the menu with seeming calm. “Mmmm, the river sturgeon looks good.”

  Sorrel summoned a busboy. “Tell someone to turn on the ceiling fans. It smells awful in here.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  After switching on the fans, a waiter came to the table, pad and pencil in hand. Sorrel said she needed a minute or two. “I’m torn between the mud fish and the kerd.”

  Salmonella elected to have the mud fish.

  Moldenke ordered sturgeon steaks. The waiter shook his head. “I’m so sorry, these steaks are driftwood-grilled outdoors and can only be served when the weather is fair.”

  “All right, give me the kerd with a side of the trotters and a pint of bitters.”

  Sorrel finally made up her mind. “I’ll have the trotters too, and a glass of bitters.”

  “Does the girl want anything to drink?”

  “Yeah, I sure do,” Salmonella snorted. “I want some green soda.”

  “I’ll get that order in right away.”

  When the drinks arrived, it seemed to Moldenke the right time for conversation. “Sorrel, tell me, what is your favorite color?”

  “Black. I like black best.”

  “Besides ugly, you’re pretty stupid,” Salmonella said. “Black isn’t a color. Everybody knows that.”

  Sorrel was offended and Moldenke grew impatient. “The whole idea of color is a human concept, a word. That’s all. Drink your soda and hush.”

  Even through Sorrel’s macramé veil, one could see her face flush in anger.

  “Her father abandoned her,” Moldenke said. “I took her in for a night. Call me soft-hearted.”

  “She belongs in the Young People’s Home.”

  Salmonella twirled her hair anxiously. “Don’t listen to that, Moldenke. I do not want to go there.”

  Just as the waiter set the plates on the table, someone from the press yelled out. “He’s had a heart attack! The great golfer is dying!” Six or seven of his handlers carried Franklin and placed him in his motor, which sped away. It was rumored that he would be taken to his yacht—the Blue Crab, docked at Point Blast—where his personal physician had been stationed.

  The Altobello Young People’s Home, run by the Sisters of Comfort, was a walled fortress of youthful freedom, a freedom thought by some to be more like neglect. Ordinary young people lived largely unsupervised among wild young jellyheads, who were ever ready to bare their blue teeth, spit at you, or squirt you with deformant. With the shape of an octagon, the Home surrounded a central commons, where young people of both sexes were set free without food, clothing, or shelter. It was everyone for him or herself.

  A healthy grove of pines grew there on a rise above a sizable fishing pond, an apple orchard, several acres of rich soil set aside for crops and enough of a meadow to graze a few animals. It was thought that in those surroundings and supplied with the tools of survival, that the young people would learn that life is what you make of it.

  Salmonella was glum and quiet as she and Moldenke rode the streetcar. He tried to both excuse himself from what he was about to do and at the same time explain why he was doing it.

  “First of all, you’re not my child. Your father abandoned you. The Home is where you belong. If I see your father, I’ll insist he come and get you.”

  When the conductor called out, “Young People’s Home,” Salmonella began to weep.

  “I’m not going.”

  Moldenke took her by the hand and pulled her into the aisle. “This is our stop. We’re getting off.”

  She stiffened her body. “No!”

  “Yes!” Moldenke dragged her up the aisle and down three steps to the pavement. On each step she banged her knees. By the time Moldenke had pulled to the Home’s gate, streaks of blood ran down her legs and her kneecaps were shredded.

  There was a Sister of Comfort at a sentry post. “Just the one, sir?”

  “Yes. Abandoned by her father. I can’t look after her.”

  “He could. But he won’t, is the truth.”

  “What’s your name, dear?”

  Salmonella folded her arms and pouted. “Look at him. He needs my help. He can barely take care of himself. It’s crazy to put me in here. He’s as stupid as I thought he was when I met him.”

  “She calls herself Salmonella,” Moldenke said. “She’s about fourteen, fifteen. No one really knows—even her father.”

  “You can leave her with me,” the Sister said. “We’ll get those street clothes off, clean her up, and turn her loose on the commons.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “Just to clear something up, do the jellies in there have deformant?”

  “All weapons a
re allowed.”

  “Guns?”

  “Yes, guns. Knives, too. Anything, really. That’s part of what we try to drill into these young people, that pure freedom is just that: pure. Once we’re completely free in body and soul, we have no need of aggression. Everyone is safe, especially if they are armed. It keeps things in balance. It’s the way freedom is arrived at.”

  Moldenke asked if there were any medical facilities on the grounds.

  “A few of the kids know first aid,” the Sister said. “Most of the wounds we have in here are not life-threatening. They usually survive.”

  Salmonella scowled at Moldenke.

  “Sorry, girl…I’ll try to find your father.”

  As Moldenke backed away from the gate, he saw Salmonella kick the Sister in the shin. In turn, the Sister slapped Salmonella with the back of her hand and pulled her up the path by the hair.

  A comic book has nearly killed Brainerd Franklin, who didn’t read but ate it. The laughter wasn’t responsible for the damage, but part of the metal binding was. Wire staples found in the valuable jelly’s stomach and intestinal tract were cause of his nearly fatal bleeding. A gardener had seen him floating in his swimming pool and munching on the comic only hours before his collapse.

  Moldenke went down to the Free People’s Bar, the only bitters bar operating on the west side. He found Udo there, who had been drinking bitters most of the afternoon.

  “Where’s my daughter, Moldenke? I want her back.”

  “She’s in the Home. I left her there about a month ago.”

  “Tell me you didn’t diddle her?”

  “No, I took care of her. That’s all.”

  “If I ever find out you did diddled her, I’ll have your nuts for breakfast.”

  “It didn’t happen.”

  “You understand why I wonder. She’s mature for her age. Most of these freeborn girls are like that. They mate pretty young.”

  “If I mate at all, it will be with an older female. I couldn’t attract anyone else. Look at me.”

  Udo had a quick look at Moldenke head to toe. “I’ll take your word for it until I hear different. I guess I’ll go over to the Home and get her.”

  “Whatever you want, Udo.”

  The next morning, with his courage up, Udo drove his motor to the curb in front of the Home. The sun ogled. Asphalt in the drive bubbled as he walked toward the mudstone entry gate where a Sister stood watch. Her blue uniform shimmered in the sunlight. She was eating a green apple.

  “Good afternoon to you, Sister. I’ve come to get Salmonella. She was brought in by a man named Moldenke, oh, a few weeks ago. He’s usually in uniform, wears boots. Has a scruffy little beard, rotten teeth. Sometimes smells bad.”

  The Sister ventured up to the heavy wooden doors that led onto the commons and opened them with a thrust of her shoulder. Udo saw the lush greenery inside: the orchard, the fields, and gardens. He saw the pig pens and chicken coops, the goat herd, the milking shed, all the things needed to sustain a body living the simple life. It was almost a shame, he thought, to take her out. Shaking his head and wishing the best for his daughter, he got into his motor and returned to the bar for another shot of bitters.

  Salmonella, meanwhile, was busy squeezing apples with a press and selling the juice to other free youth by the cup.

  “Your father is here to get you,” the Sister said.

  Salmonella stopped pressing for a moment. “I’m going to have an apple orchard of my own someday. Look, I’ve saved some seeds.” She showed the Sister a little cloth sack full of apple seeds.

  “That’s nice, Salmonella.” The Sister smiled as best she could. “Your father, he’s waiting for you.”

  “He’s not a fit father.”

  “Shall I tell him you’d rather stay here?”

  “No, I’ll give him one more chance.”

  The Sister looked at all the thirsty, anxious young people waiting in line for apple juice and stepped back. “I’ll tell him you’ll be along in a few minutes.”

  After two bitters, Udo thought that though the commons looked lush and the children were free of supervision, it didn’t mean that Salmonella was better off there than on the outside, with a father. Not the father he had been, but the father he promised himself he would be. And all that freedom of will could mold her into something unmanageable altogether. Now his mind was changed.

  Stiffened with bitters, Udo drove back to the Home in time to see the Sister escort Salmonella toward the entry gate. “Look, there he is. Your father,” she said.

  Udo tugged on the pull-crank that operated the side door of the motor and the Sister ushered Salmonella up the steps.

  “Thank you, Sister,” Udo said.

  Salmonella sat just behind him. She was angry enough that he could feel her heat on the back of his neck. “I might kill you someday, Daddy, if you don’t treat me better.”

  “I’m going to be nice to you from now on. You’re my daughter.”

  “Where’s my mother?”

  “I’ve already told you a hundred times. They sent her back to Bunkerville. I haven’t seen her since the day after the day you were born.”

  Salmonella shook her head and pointed a finger. “I don’t believe you.”

  Udo made a fist. “Go back to your nook.”

  Salmonella had no wish to be slapped again. She went to her nook and lay on the cot.

  Udo set the finder for Bunkerville and the motor responded with a sudden lurch, then entered the flow of vehicles on Arden Boulevard. In the rearview he saw the Sister waving.

  Bunkerville radio last night issued a warning to free Altobelloans that anyone swimming in the Old Reactor pond risks exposure to radio poison, possibly a fatal dose. The report noted further that jellyheads—who have been swimming and bathing in the pond for a hundred years, long before the liberation—never exhibit signs of poisoning. It seems that over time jellies living near the Old Reactor have developed a resistance to the fatal malady.

  Scientist Zanzetti and his assistants returned from Altobello with vials of the suspect water for study. In a public statement today the scientist said, “Even if you’ve been deformed, stay out of that water. It’s heavy and it’s dangerous. One swim, two swims, maybe three, and you’d be all right. More than that and death will follow as sure as I’m standing here on these two feet.”

  Unfortunately for many, the radio signal from Bunkerville, weakened by a little-understood effect of the full moon, never reached Altobello. The severely and moderately deformed continued swimming daily. In the dull, routine atmosphere that freedom brought them, along with shame of deformation, swimming was one of their greatest pleasures. They gladly took the risk.

  After ten or more explosive angry-bowel incidents, Moldenke decided to have his uniform boiled. Getting a new one was a long, bureaucratic process that could take a year or more. Cleaning and sanitizing the pants, socks, and boots wasn’t all that troublesome. He would take them to Myron’s Boiling Service. Myron was an old Bunkerville friend who had once said to Moldenke, “Did you know that boiling a shoe for thirteen minutes will kill all fungi?” Myron claimed he could boil anything. The only problem was that his boilery was way out on Steaming Springs Road, not far from the Old Reactor. There were no streetcar tracks running out that far. It would be another long walk.

  By the time Moldenke got to Steaming Springs Road, hoping all the while that Myron would still be open, his ankles ached terribly, yet he had a half mile to go. He could see the dome of the Old Reactor. The night was bright and there were moon shadows all around him. The dome’s pitted surface could have been mistaken for the moon itself.

  Myron’s boiling business depended on the periodic, if random, cooling and boiling of the Springs. They were as likely to boil at night as any other time winter or summer. If they were boiling now, Myron would not be closed. He would be there with bitters in the cabinet, a fire in the stove, and Juleps to smoke.

  As Moldenke walked on, the shadows playing in and
out of the crepe myrtles than lined the road gave him the willies. A jellyhead gone critical could be lurking among them, planning to rush at him with a can of deformant. He thought the best strategy was to look straight ahead, to walk tall and purposefully, showing that he had a clear destination in mind. If a predator were stalking him, Moldenke didn’t want to give the impression he was lost or disabled or otherwise vulnerable.

  The mineral-rich steam rising from the little ditch that ran alongside the road indicated that the Springs were ready to boil, a strong sign that Myron might be open and in business. As Moldenke recalled, he was an affable sort and likable company. While the pants, shoes, and socks boiled he would probably sit with Moldenke in the kitchen drinking bitters and swapping stories about their lives in Bunkerville before they were set free.

  Myron had been an art typist. On Saturdays and Sundays he could be found at a portable table in the Park at his Remington typewriter, pecking out the most intricate landscapes and portraits with letters, numbers, and diacritical marks. Strollers in the Park stopped to watch him. A small crowd often gathered, some to have Myron type their likeness for a thousand or two. Moldenke was often among the crowd and had two of Myron’s works hanging in the hall at his aunt’s house on Esplanade. His favorite was the head of Bunkerville mayor, Felix Grendon, whose features were etched perfectly in the artful strokes of Myron’s Remington.

  Then, one Sunday, Myron’s table was not there. Strollers stopped, waited a while, and moved on. It was unusual, but then there was a chill in the air and a mist. Perhaps Myron, worried his machine would rust and the ink run, stayed home. It wasn’t a serious concern until weeks went by without Myron’s arriving with his machine in its case and the folding table and stool under his arm. Curious, Moldenke went to the Bunkerville Records Office and looked up the names of recent offenders sent to Altobello. Myron was there, detained three weeks and sent to the free city on two charges: selling private art in a public park and boiling jellyhead clothing.

  The boiling service idea had come to Myron when he read in the City Moon that hundreds of pounds of gel-soiled clothing was either going to the dump or being burned in back yard fires. Jellies had been increasing in dramatic numbers and so were jelly killings, which more than likely ended in a well-aimed discharge of gel. Boiling, he knew, would neutralize the odor and restore the clothes and footwear to usability. He opened a small operation in his basement, but a shortage of wood to fuel enough fire to boil the water in his kettles threatened to close it quickly.