David Ohle: The Old Reactor

A jellyhead appeared in the motor’s headlamps wearing a bone-colored straw hat and a soot-black coat that hung all the way to the ground. Udo braked hard. The jelly stood at the window, his face veiled by the sagging brim of his sweat-soaked hat. “You people going to the Reactor? Gonna do you some shooting?”

Salmonella came out of her nook.

Before opening his window, Udo said, “Bring me my weapon, girl.”

“No.”

“If I wasn’t driving I’d smack her. Moldenke, go in the back. There’s a satchel. Get my nine millimeter and bring it to me.”

“All right.”

“If you want to take a shot, there are a couple of other weapons in there.”

Salmonella put her hands on her hips. “Don’t be stupid, Moldenke. Don’t shoot a jellyhead.”

Udo turned and glared. “Shut up. Leave that man alone.”

Moldenke brought the weapon to Udo, who opened the window and waved the niner at the jelly. “You by yourself out here?”

Cone-like concretions of dried jelly dangled from the jellyhead’s ear valves.

“No, no. I’m going to bring out my friends.” He curled two middle fingers toward his palm, raised his hand, poked the little and index fingers into the corners of his mouth and whistled shrilly three times — short, long, short. A sound like dry clay coming un-caked floated on the dark along with the sweet odor of wet rags as the jellies emerged from the shrubbery. When they appeared in the motor’s dimming lights, Moldenke mistook their sewed-on smiles for friendliness. But in a canyon-low voice, one of them said he wanted Moldenke to put his arm out the window so that it could be touched.

“Don’t do it,” Udo said. “He’ll squirt you with deformant. You won’t have any skin left.” Other jellies came out of the dark. “I don’t like the looks of this bunch. They’re about to go critical.”

The one in the long coat shouted, “Why in the world do you want to be shooting us? We are the peaceful type.”

Udo put the motor in low gear and crept forward. “Running over a jelly is well within the law here, but it could eat away at the tires.” He revved the engine as a warning to the jellies standing in front of the vehicle. None of them budged.

Udo said, “I’m going to shoot a few.” He took aim out the window and fired once. One of the jellies sank to his knees. “Oh, no, I hit him in the head.” He jammed the motor into reverse and backed away as jellies ran to their dying friend. “I’m sorry I took the shot.” He wheeled the motor hard right and re-set the finder for Altobello.

It was a slow machine, and the hard-scrabble road cut away at all the tires. “We need some heavy water,” Udo said. “It’s almost empty. There’s a station on the By up here, not far. Big sign, says HEAVY WATER. Watch out for it.”

“I will.”

“Say something when you see it. I’m half blind at night.”

“I will.”

The night air whistled through the motor’s open windows. Salmonella said she was cold and was going to bed. “Good night, Moldenke.”

“Good night.”

Moldenke slept, chin on chest, while Udo drove for an hour, until the HEAVY WATER sign came into view.

“There it is,” Udo said, “heavy water.” He angled into the station. There were only three or four motors, all shrouded in steam, filling up ahead of them.

Moldenke confessed he was anxious about living in Altobello.

Udo said, “You’ll get accustomed.”

Once they were inside Altobello limits, Udo pulled the motor up in front of the Wayfarer’s Lodge. “Stay here tonight, Moldenke. Go look for a room tomorrow. There’re plenty of places on the west side. Me and the girl, we’re rooming at the Heeney Hotel over there. It’s full, but there’s a place down the street: the Tunney. They might have a room.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you for the ride.”

A Bunkerville jellyhead who calls himself “Nick the Fuehrer”—a self-appointed, crusading detective — was arrested. Officers said the fifteen-year-old youth went too far this week when complaints poured in that he had been seen wearing a fuehrer veil, carrying a bull whip, and moving “very fast” through the City. After his arrest, the fake fuehrer protested to police that his only intent was to punish anyone seen breaking the law.

When Ozzie read in the City Moon that Darby “the Kicker” Nelson would be exploded on Friday, along with “Nick the Fuehrer,” he made plans to attend. Nelson was a high-kicking jellyhead vandal who caved in four fender panels at Boxberger motors and lodged his foot a little too far into a windshield during one of his famous kicks. The next morning the police found him, the following day the courts judged him, and Friday he will die humanely.

Also exploding that day would be another jellyhead, Joseph Bloom, a self-described “sublime traveler” arrested along with his wife, Marvona, on the staircase leading to the second-floor bedroom of ten-term mayor Felix Grendon’s home. Bloom defended his right to be there, producing a copy of a letter he had sent to the Mayor. The letter said, “Honorable Mayor, sir, I am a sublime jellyhead traveler and my old lady will be with me when I visit you. She will be wearing wraparound shades, ’cause she’s got wraparound eyes. We have very important information you need to know. Stand by.”

As things would have it, Grendon intervened in the arrest and agreed to talk to the couple for a few minutes before they were taken away. The press later learned that Bloom apologized to the mayor for his intrusion and said that in exchange for his freedom, he would reveal secret knowledge about gel sacks. “Marvona knows a lot, too,” Bloom said.

Though the Mayor showed restraint and patience in listening to the delusional Blooms, they would soon face serious charges. While Marvona escaped punishment, Bloom was sentenced to death by detonation.

When asked how he felt about the harsh sentence, Bloom said, “Death is stronger than I am. It will blow me to kingdom come.”

Most every day he sits in his cell playing a nose flute. A tea kettle boils on a hot plate. A small radio broadcasts Radio Bunkerville and he listens distractedly. In the jail yard, final preparations are being made to the three “boom” chairs where Bloom, Nelson, and the Fuehrer will sit.

Moldenke spent his first free night at the Lodge, sleepless. Twenty or thirty fellow arrivals, including an extended family of jellyheads, snored and farted and coughed in their bunks. Someone opened a window for air only to let in the stink of garbage and a pair of gulls who flew crazily in the dark. A wing struck Moldenke in the jaw with enough force to cause a bruise and swelling. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands, hoping for sleep that never came.

When the sun rose he put on his uniform and went out onto Arden Boulevard, but because Altobello’s streetcars ran only every other day, he had to walk the twelve city blocks to the Tunney Arms, a rooming house on the west side. He didn’t know Altobello well but had seen maps. Other new arrivals told him they’d heard that west-side jellyheads were popping out of alleyways or abandoned buildings or anywhere and spraying free men and women with aerosol deformant, scarring some of them for life.

Moldenke proceeded with caution, always looking around as he walked. The west side was unpainted and neglected, with shabby rooming houses offering free accommodations for new arrivals. The Tunney was no different. It was dilapidated outside and smelled of mold in the foyer. Along with the papers ordering him to Altobello, Moldenke showed the concierge his pass card and was assigned a room. “Freedom isn’t free, mister,” she said. “No bath, no kitchen, no nothing. And we’re mostly full, too, so you’re lucky there’s a room at all. Eat and do your business on the street. And be careful. There’re some bad jellies out there.”