by Guy James
“Mr. Voleseimer?” Lorie said, her hand still raised.
He turned to Lorie, and his face suddenly grew concerned. “Yes? What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I mean, I don’t have to go to the bathroom. I want to answer your question. They’re Pythagorean triples.”
Mr. Voleseimer stared at her, incredulous. “What?”
“Pythagorean triples. All those sets of numbers are Pythagorean triples.”
“Th—that’s right,” he said, and smiled down at his nub of chalk. He took the nub of his chalk with the fingers of his other hand and licked the thumb and forefinger that had just held the chalk. “That’s absolutely right. Very good, Lorie. Very, very good.” He nodded enthusiastically to himself. “Pythagorean triples, that’s absolutely right.”
He turned to face the blackboard and began stabbing at it with his nub of chalk with great, animated movements. The chalk broke, shattered, and fell in bits under the blackboard. Mr. Voleseimer licked the chalk dust from his fingers and took up a fresh piece of chalk, which he proceeded to break in short order.
He licked his fingers and babbled on excitedly about Pythagoras, Pythagoras’s theorems, angles, hypotenuses, and so on, brushing chalk dust into the wild tangles of his hair as he spoke.
Lorie smiled to herself, amused that she had been able to restore some order to the classroom. With Mr. Voleseimer caught up in the excitement of mathematics again, her fourth period had been restored to normalcy. Beaming with pride, she turned her attention back to her lap and took the game off pause. There were zombies that had to be dispatched. The fate of Land of Dead Reckoning: Zombies Among Us lay, literally, in Lorie’s lap.
10
CITY HALL, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Mallory ran her fingers through her silky, brown hair. Sven’s gaze was drawn to the chocolate nail polish that Mallory wore, and the way that the pale skin of her fingers disappeared under her hair and then resurfaced as her hands moved through it.
“Once the mayoral campaign was going,” Mallory said, “how do you think New Yorkers received you?”
“They were, and still are, very welcoming...for the most part, anyway.”
“I assume you’re referring to the small amount of backlash you received from certain groups that believe...that believe your presence is a danger. I’m sitting right here and I don’t feel like I’m in any danger.” Mallory smiled, then bit her lower lip. “What’s your take on what these groups think about you?”
Sven’s face grew stern. “There’s really only one group left at this time that continues to be against my presence. The Containers, they call themselves.” Sven shook his head. “They think that by letting people outside of the previously quarantined zone, the government is putting the rest of America in danger. They like to suggest that Jane and Lorie and I carry the virus, even after we underwent numerous medical tests that confirmed we were free of any disease.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, they didn’t come as a surprise. Before we left Charlottesville, we knew that there were a lot of people around the country who didn’t want anyone leaving Virginia. I understand that. They thought we might carry the virus out of Virginia and spread it to the rest of the country, causing the ultimate outbreak.” Sven shook his head. “The final outbreak.”
Mallory stared at him and said nothing for a moment. Then she said, “And so…and so you’ve found there are a number of those people here, some of whom, as I understand it, protest outside your window on occasion.”
“That’s right. Not everyone wants me here.” Sven smiled, deciding that he would make an attempt to put a positive spin on the protests. “But I’m wearing them down. The protests outside my window are getting smaller and smaller. I really think they’re getting used to me. They see there hasn’t been any outbreak here since I came to New York, and I think they’re all starting to believe that I mean well. I really am trying my best to use my experience to improve the city’s outbreak preparedness.”
“Can you tell me how Jane and Lorie feel about it? How Lorie is dealing with it at school?”
Sven raised his hand. “Mallory, I’m not sure I want to talk about The Containers any more than I just did. It’s a very complicated issue, and I don’t want to speak out of turn, without giving all the issues a fair treatment, and I don’t think this is the time for it.”
Mallory looked at him. “Okay.” She pursed her lips and nodded. “Okay. How are Jane and Lorie adjusting to life in the city?”
“They’re doing great. Lorie loves her new school and I think she’s found a passion for math. She walked onto the track team, so between that, the math team, and a couple other extracurricular projects she’s doing, she spends a lot of her evenings at school.”
“That’s good to hear. It sounds like she’s making a lot of new friends.”
“She is.” Sven smiled, looked over at Ivan, and then back at Mallory. “From what I hear, everyone wants to be friends with Lorie.”
“Who can blame them? High school kids are curious.”
“True. I think Lorie gets a bit frustrated with the attention sometimes, but overall she’s doing very well.”
Mallory smiled. “And how about Jane?”
“Jane’s doing really well too. She’s adjusting differently than Lorie and I are, but she’s doing her own thing and I think she’s very happy here.”
“What do you mean when you say she’s adjusting differently?”
“Well, just about as soon as we got here, Jane went on a very serious health kick. She got us involved, too.”
“Really? How do you mean?”
“There’s two aspects to Jane’s new regimen: diet and exercise. As far as diet, she is very careful about food, in a way she never was in Virginia. She only buys organic, whole foods now, and prepares all of her own food and the meals that we have together from scratch.”
“What’s a typical meal like?”
“Usually a lean protein, a starch, and some kind of fruit dessert. Lately there’s been a good amount of dark chocolate in our desserts, so I’m not complaining. It’s actually not that different from what I ate over and over again in my bodybuilder days. I used to rotate a limited number of foods and mix and match them for my meals. It was repetitive, but it worked. What Jane does is much more interesting than that. There’s always something new on our dinner plates: new foods, new flavors, and different ways of preparing them.”
Sven laughed. “I’m grateful she’s around to feed us. On top of the dinners, Jane tries to make Lorie and me eat healthy all the time. She makes breakfast and packs lunch for Lorie and for me, and she stocks the house with healthy food. That’s a large part of her outbreak preparedness routine—staying healthy…healthy enough to have a shot at survival in the event of an outbreak.”
“That’s very smart,” Mallory said. “What about her exercise routine?”
“Her exercise routine she does on her own. What she does is she gets up at five in the morning every day, runs a fast mile, then hits the gym for forty-five minutes of weight training. After her morning workout, she comes home and helps Lorie and me get ready for the day. Then she usually does a second workout in the afternoon—more running and weight training. On weekends, her training is pretty much the same. She’s relentless.”
“What else does she do during the day?”
“She helps me with some of my work, actually. I let her see some of the first drafts of recommendations that I put together so that I can get her input—Harry knows about this, of course, and he’s okay with it. In fact, he encouraged it. That way we can have more input into what to do from someone else who was there. Other than that, I think she’s very happy to be there for Lorie and to be involved with her activities. She’s been exploring the city some, too, going to museums—sometimes on her own and sometimes with me. I enjoy it, too, when time allows.”
“You don’t have a lot of downtime these days, do you?”
“No, I don’t, and I like it that way
, and the job requires it.”
“Since we’re getting there anyway, why don’t we switch gears to your job, if that’s okay?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, so you’re here, you’re settled, and let’s move past the mayoral election and talk about you starting in your position here.”
“So basically, the last few weeks?”
“Exactly. How does it feel to be in public office?”
“Actually, I like it.”
“You didn’t expect to?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure about putting myself in front of everyone like this with these press conferences and public forums. When Harry and I were first talking about my role, I was hoping that I could hide in a back office somewhere.” Sven laughed. “The thought of appearing in public and addressing New Yorkers scared me.” Sven shrugged. “I’m pretty shy.”
Mallory laughed. “You, camera shy? Since when? You’re a hero after what you did in Virginia, you belong in the limelight.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’m definitely getting used to it. I hardly shake at all when I’m up at the podium these days.” He laughed.
“I haven’t seen you shake once.” She looked at Sven, and he felt like she was staring him down.
Sven looked away. “I’m getting used to it, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to do what I’m doing.”
Mallory flipped through her notes. “That’s good to hear, and I’d like to talk more about the specifics of your initiatives, but before we get there, do you mind if we talk about Ivan? Sorry, I meant to bring him up earlier and I see I skipped the question.”
“Ivan? Sure.”
“You’ve mentioned Ivan during this interview, and there have been a number of reports about your relationship with your cat, Ivan—” Ivan raised his head on hearing Mallory say his name a second time and yawned, “—and the possible role that he played in helping you through the outbreak. Can you tell me some more about that?”
“Sure,” Sven said. “I didn’t realize it at first, but Ivan is actually like an early warning system for the virus. I think he can smell it much earlier than we can.”
“So he was able to warn you about it during the outbreak? What do you mean?”
“He could smell them—the infected—when they were getting closer, before we ever knew they were there, and he would become anxious. It would have helped if we had been more attuned to it, if we had known to look for that.” Sven shrugged. “Hopefully there won’t be a next time for us to need to take advantage of Ivan’s abilities.”
“Agreed. Do you always take Ivan to work with you?”
Sven smiled. “Not always. It’s really up to him. Sometimes he waits for me at the door in the morning and tries to climb into his travel pack. He makes a big fuss on those days if I don’t take him. Other times he shows no interest. He seemed really excited about going to work with me today—” Sven looked at Ivan, “—didn’t you, Ivan?”
Ivan yawned again, opened his eyes for a moment, and silent-meowed.
“Aw,” Mallory said, smiling, “he’s so cute.”
Sven nodded. “Yep, he’s a good cat.”
“Okay, that’s great.” Mallory said. “Now let’s get into the meat of what you’re doing here at City Hall. It looks like you’ve settled in, by the way, and that you’re in your element, except for unpacking those boxes.” Mallory gestured at the boxes lining the wall and smiled.
“Thank you. I do feel like I’ve settled in some. New York City has been a welcoming place for me overall, and I intend to make it my permanent home.”
11
THE LUCKY CHARM MOTEL, HAWTHORNE, NEW YORK
The brakes weren’t working. Milt hit them again, and again, and again. He used both of his feet to press the brake pedal as far into the brake well as it would go. It was no use.
The brakes had worked fine just a few moments earlier, and now Milt was sure that he would crash.
Milt maneuvered the van with frantic turns of the steering wheel, directing the van toward the dilapidated Lucky Charm Motel, his base of operations in Hawthorne, New York.
The garbage cans and their lids that were unfortunate enough to be in his path flew in all directions. They clattered and clanged down the street.
The van lurched over the curb into the motel parking lot, and a violent spray of rust exploded from its undercarriage.
“Blasted, treacherous apparatus,” Milt shouted. “Wretched, infernal—”
The front of the van made an ear-splitting crunch as it crashed into the four foot tall, cement barrier between the parking lot of the Lucky Charm Motel and the door to room seven. Milt, who was not wearing a seatbelt because the one that the van was equipped with could not accommodate his girth, was launched forward and through the windshield, which shattered into a thousand bits and made Milt think—even as he himself flew through the air—of airborne fried rice.
Milt screamed, and extended his hands in front of him as Superman might have done in a similar situation. Milt’s palms made contact with the window of room seven, and his arms bent at the elbow as his hands stayed in place and his head broke through the glass, making an entryway for the rest of his body to enlarge.
A spray of shattering glass engulfed Milt’s body as he flew through the window and into room seven. He landed in a heap at the far edge of the queen size bed, tried to grasp for purchase in the sheets, and, upon failing, fell over the edge and into the narrow space between the bed and the wall beyond it.
A belch emanated from the mess at the same moment that the dead van began to roll backward through the parking lot, away from the cement barrier. Its driver side door swung open with finality, coming loose on its hinges so that it hung askew.
The van rolled backward over the curb and came to rest in the middle of the street, which, though it was a busy street by Hawthorne standards, was empty at the moment. A bird landed on the top edge of the sideways yawning driver side door. The small animal’s weight caused the door to sag lower and to begin to swing shut. The door’s top hinge popped and broke, and the bird took to flight, leaving the door to sag farther until the lower hinge gave way. The door clattered to the ground, the old mangled metal retiring at last.
Back in room seven of the Lucky Charm Motel, Milt burped again, expelling gas for a longer period this time, and performed a smooth transition from belch to groan.
Milt flailed his arms and twisted this way and that, trying to work his way out of the narrow space into which he had fallen, but found that he was stuck. He went on twisting his body, shifting the bed over little by little, until he had made enough space for him to rise to a sitting position. He raised his head from the floor and reached up and grasped the covers of the bed. He pulled, meaning to pull himself up. Instead, the covers of the bed came loose and Milt’s body fell backward, his head hitting the floor.
An art print fell from its hook on the wall above Milt and landed on Milt’s face. The glass of the frame broke, the shards littering Milt’s face and falling around it.
“I judged you hideous upon my arrival at this sordid establishment,” Milt said to the art print, “and this, no doubt, is the perceived justice you mete out upon me.”
Milt knocked the art print off of him with a furious jab, and, propelled by rage, sat up without having to pull himself up with anything.
“What the hell happened in here?” The proprietor of the hotel said in her shrill voice.
Milt looked over at her and remembered that he had found her even more hideous than the art print upon his arrival at the Lucky Charm Motel. He noted that she had become no less hideous since then.
A cigarette protruded from a corner of the proprietor’s mouth at all times, and her skin was so creased and mottled that she looked like a living piece of cardboard that had been soaked and dried repeatedly for years, until all that remained were cracks etched indelibly into a rotten patchwork of stains.
Milt tilted his head and grinned, impressed with himself for the
eloquent disgust that the proprietor inspired.
Repulsive as she is, Milt thought, perhaps she could be of use to me as a muse.
“It seems,” Milt said. He cleared his throat and went on, “that I have taken a tumble, my quite unfortunate proprietress. But, do not fear, for I seem to be undamaged. As I am sure you will understand, I plan to commence an action against you and this establishment forthwith, unless you grant me a free stay.”
“What?” she said, raising her hand to her cigarette as if to remove it, then dropping her hand, apparently having rethought the action. “What the hell did you do here?”
“I seem to have been a victim of improperly constructed facilities. Do you have a working communications device through which I may contact my attorney? I am certain that he will want to speak with you immediately.”
“Your attorney? What for? We don’t need any of that. Stay as long as you like. You’re fine, anyway. Man as fat as you can’t get hurt. I know it. My son’s bigger ‘an you and nothing can hurt that man. Nails pretty much bounce off o’ him.”
“Very well. It seems we have reached an accord. Please have a meal brought to me at once so that I may move past the tragedy that has befallen me here.”
“Stress-eater, huh? My son’s just like that, too. I’ll bring you something, don’t you worry. Just sit tight and don’t give no more thought to calling no attorney. Attorneys are destroying this world, I tell you. They’re eating up the very fabric of our society. Like moths. Like nasty, little, blood-sucking moths.”
The proprietor of the Lucky Charm Motel shuffled out of the room, wisps of smoke wafting up over her face.
