David Ohle - Motorman

He threw his backpack up to the platform and climbed the ladder, lowering himself into the motor room through a shaft. He cranked the motor a dozen times. One cylinder fired. He wound the pull-rope and cranked the motor again, sitting on the choke button and easing down several calibrations on the spark pilot. He found a candle waxed to a flywheel and lit it. The motor room brightened to dim, two moths flew in and patterned on the flame. He nursed the key into the slot again and finger primed the juice pump nozzle. The gauges lit up and gave low readings. Other cylinders caught and fired, detonating unevenly as the motor warmed, gradually smoothing, growing quiet, until Moldenke could hear the beats of his hearts. He caught a moth in his good fist, dusted off its wing scales, and ate it. He turned on the front and side running lamps, the yellow night-beam, raised the volume of the fog whistle. A tree frog croaked in the dark periphery of the motor room. He set the compass point on generally south. He thought he heard the grind of Bunce's cameras. He stepped to the forward lookout, drew back the worn khaki curtain, checking the area. A one-klick semicircle was lit as though in camera flash by the k-motor running lights. He went back up the ladder, through the shaft, pulled his backpack in, closing the hatch behind him. The motor room, except when the frog croaked, went silent. He put the gear jam in very high and the k-motor moved slowly forward, the great soft tire its dominant feature, over dead, doorless refrigerators and rusted mattress springs. He took the snipe from his sidepack, cleaned it, warmed it on a hot pressure sleeve, and ate it. He grew sleepy and slept warmly an undetermined space of time.

56

Someone shook his cot and told him there was a letter for him down at the mailpost. He sat up, sleep wrapped, rubbing his eye. "Moldenke! Mail at the mailpost. Get it on!"

He stood up. "It couldn't be important enough for a two klick walk in the mock mud, could it?"

Someone said, "I saw government marks on the upper left."

Moldenke said, "Government marks?" He fixed himself crookedly into a set of trenchpants and opened the tent flaps. "It's still raining," he said. "Government marks you say?"

"Yes, government marks. I saw the eagle and the lightning bolts, the blue envelope; I smelled the human glue. What do you want, proof? Go get the letter, Moldenke."

"It's raining too hard." He bared his arm and extended it through the tent flaps, brought it back dry. "No excuses, Moldenke. You know it's a dry rain."

"I know," Moldenke said. "I know. And I miss the old thunder claps, the water spinning in the drainpipes. Give me an old fashioned downpour for a change. I don't know if I'm up to a two klick walk, blue envelope or no blue envelope. Actually, I don't think I give a snort. The last time I went out walking I stepped into the rib cage of a friend. No thanks."

"Moldenke the pessimist," someone said.

"I had to scrape his heartmeat off my k-boots."

Someone said, "Why do you insist on keeping your old balloons, Moldenke, filling up the tent like that?" They all struck positions on their cots and read the Ways & Means.

Moldenke put on a wet-coat and walked to the mailpost.

Earlier in the mock War he had volunteered for injury, writing his number down on a square of paper and dropping it in a metal box outside the semi-Colonel's office. At morning meal, the day's injury volunteer list was read. Moldenke would eat his prunes and potato milk and wait. When they read his name he reported to Building D, stood in a line at the door. Every minute or so the line shortened by one. The mock soldier in front of Moldenke turned and said, "I'm proud that I gave for my country." He opened the fly of his trenchpants and showed Moldenke a headless crank. "I'm a vet, boy. What are you giving up?" Moldenke was about to admit a minor fracture when the veteran's turn came up. Moldenke asked him, before he went in the door, what he would be giving up this time. The veteran shaped his hand into a gun and pointed a finger toward himself, cocking his thumb. During Moldenke's minute outside the door, a gun fired and someone shoveled smoking bones onto a pile at the side of the building. A red light blinked above the door jamb, everyone in line saluted. Moldenke snorted. The green light went on and Moldenke stepped into the prep room. A table, a jellyhead mock doctor in a swivel chair. Moldenke crossed his hands behind his back and waited. The jellyhead pushed colored plastic wafers into configurations on the desk top. A circle, a cross inside the circle. Moldenke coughed honestly and the jellyhead looked up, turning a knob on his throat box.

Moldenke said, "Moldenke, sir. Minor fracture."

The jellyhead swiveled a quarter turn and looked at a chart of seasons on the wall.

Moldenke said, "Moldenke, sir. Minor — "

The jellyhead said, "You I heard! Weather is the outside how?"

Moldenke waited for the correction. The jellyhead said, "Correction: I heard you! How is the weather outside?"

Moldenke said, "Not bad. A little blister snow last night. Not bad."

The jellyhead swiveled a half turn and adjusted his word order bubble, swiveled back, his headlight shining in Moldenke's eye. "What are you giving up, General Moldenke?"

Moldenke mentioned the minor fracture. The jellyhead arranged the colored wafers into a square containing other wafers. "How brave you are, Moldenke. I just this last minute shot a two week vet in the spine. A day ago I had occasion to remove the longest inch he had. One day that, the next day his life. What do you think, Moldenke? Your minute is getting older. Is a minor fracture enough? Ask yourself that?"

Moldenke experienced guilt, agreed to give up a list of feelings in addition to the minor fracture. The jellyhead seemed satisfied, told Moldenke to follow a corridor to the No. 2 fracture room and have a scat. He waited in a cold chair in the fracture room, flipping through magazines. Music played. In a while feet shuffled in the corridor and a jellyhead nurse came into the fracture room. Moldenke smiled, said "Hello." The nurse sat on a stool in front of him and told him to cross one leg over the other. She scissored open the trenchpants, exposing the kneecap. Moldenke looked at the ceiling light. The nurse, in one experienced stroke with a chromium ball peen, broke the kneecap.

He lay in the shock room under a clockpiece. When he opened his eye the jellyhead doctor stood over him. "How do you feel, Moldenke?" Moldenke sat up and said he didn't know. The doctor said, "Good. The War is over now. Go home. Stay in your cot for a few days and then go home."

Returning from the mailpost he rested on a refrigerator in the mud, his knee throbbing, and read the letter:

General Moldenke

The False Front

The War

Dear General Moldenke,

Because of punctuation we have taken Cock Roberta. You may have custody of her after the War. We have her on a standard regimen. She often talks about her hero.

Truly yours,

The Staff

The Grammar Wing

The Great Chicago Clinic

57

When he woke up the k-motor had stopped, the temperature had gone up. He went to the lookout, put on his goggles. A number of suns had risen. His forearms had blistered.

Someone opened the hatch and said, "Climb out of this thing, Moldenke, before you fry yourself."

A column of white sunslight filled the shaft. He opened his backpack and took out his sun hat, clamped on darker goggle lenses. "Hurry on, Moldenke. Climb out of there."

He climbed the shaft. Someone took his elbow and helped him out. "My name is Roquette."

Moldenke squinted in the goggles, saw Roquette reversed and inverted, a figure in khaki swamp shorts, boots, carrying a walking stick and a shade lamp, upside down.