David Ohle - Motorman

Moldenke again hung up.

11

He opened the book to a random page, let his finger float to a random line and read: In 1856 Claude Bernard noted the appearance of cloudy lymph in the duodenum near the entrance of the bile duct. He read no further.

12

He dialed in a station on the radio and got a weather report:

Cloudy, freezing in the outskirts, cold tonight, colder tomorrow, warming Thursday and Friday, cooling off by Saturday, sleet by Sunday, double suns on Monday, and so on, according to the everyday charts, indicating a possible trend — warm, cool, cooler, etcetera, chance of light-to-heavy blister snow, probable drizzle washing out the artificial month, gas breaks at Amarillo, Great Chicago, and Texaco City, no moons tonight, shelter animals if necessary, please stay tuned . .

13

He dialed 555-333-555333-555-333, an obvious woman answered the first ring:

"Chelsea Fish Pavilion."

"Excuse me," Moldenke said. "I may have misdialed. My apologies."

"Sir, what number did you call?"

"I don't remember. What number did I reach?"

"The Chelsea Fish, 555–333 — "

"Thank you, miss. The number sounds familiar, although I don't think — "

"May I help you, sir?"

"I don't know, miss. Is there by any odd chance someone in the establishment by the name of Bunce?"

"Yes, sir. The Manager, Mr. Bunce. Would you like me to connect you with him?"

"No, miss. I already am. Thank you. And, miss?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Is he what you call the boss?"

"Yes, sir. He is."

"I see. Well, thanks, miss. I was only verifying the number. I didn't have anything to talk about. I may come in and buy a few nice fish sometime."

"We don't have any, sir. I'm sorry."

"Oh?"

"Goodbye, sir."

"Goodbye, miss."

14

He went to his kitty-file and took out a Burnheart letter:

Dear Moldenke,

Yesterday I had a productive visit with my friend Eagleman of Atmospheric Sciences. He was full of his ensiform work with oecanthus and it took him several cigars to get it all on the table, as it were.

One question, Dinky: how are the polyps?

Cordially yours,

Doc Burnheart

P.S. Have you seen Eagleman's moon?

15

After the mock War was apparently over, the army let Moldenke go. He found work as a bloodboy in a gauze mill outside Texaco City, a klick or two from the L.A. limits. He started low and remained there, sure that safety embraced felicity on a mattress of obscurity. He knew that vertical activity invited dazzling exposure, and that to seek is to be sucked. He recognized loneliness as the mother of virtues and sat in her lap whenever he could. He practiced linear existence and sidewise movement, preferring the turtle to the crane, the saucer to the lamp. He enjoyed the downstairs and chafed at going up. All of this, despite what his mother had told him: "Sonny," she had said, a circle of rouge on each of her cheeks, her eyes like basement windows. "Son," she said, "I want you to always have a job to go to, no matter what it is or where it is or what it involves. What matters is whether or not it lets you go up."

16

The lights went out. The radio died. Moldenke went to the lookout. Both suns were up, and clouded over. It was dark enough to be close to noons, although he didn't have a clockpiece anywhere. The second double Sunday in an artificial month.

He opened his refrigerator and found a cockroach at the lettuce. Something scratched in the eggs.

The juice was off. He would call the Power Co-op.

17

The phone rang. Moldenke answered.

"Hello?"

"Am I speaking with Moldenke?"

"Yes. Bunce? Bunce, my lights are off."

"His lights are off, he says."

"And the radio, and the refrigerator. What about my weather reports? I'm worried. The wind is dying. What about those things, Bunce?"

"Moldenke fiddles on. The lights are off, the wind is dying. Moldenke, if we were back-to-back we'd tangle asses."

"The heat grille went off also. I should add that. I'm getting colder."

"Hey, pal, listen to this: I'm taking you out of the M's and putting you at the top of the A's, smack at the head of my list. Here it is, jock: From now on, only one outgoing call per day, two incoming, all monitored. Consider benefits and privileges terminated, and don't leave your room until I say so. I don't necessarily want blood, but don't rule it out. Read a few magazines. No moving around. Pick a chair you like and stay with it. No changing. I'll have your food sent up. What do you think this is, Moldenke? A nightflying outfit? Don't be so casual about it, boy. How would you like to spend an hour in the hot room? I want seriousness from you. Remember, if you don't ease up, you might get plugged."

"What are you doing, Bunce?"

"What am I doing, he says."

"Why the hot room threat, why the sudden restrictions? If this is a mistake I'll forgive it right now, but if it's a josh I don't know what I'll do. Is it a mistake? A josh? A shuck?"

"No. Perfectly serious. I want your close attention, Moldenke. You're in my hands."

"No, Bunce. I decline. I'm hanging up now; maybe I'll run the movie backward a few frames, and the phone won't ring."

"Can the tricks, boy."

"I don't believe this, Bunce. I need proof, some sign."

"You want proof?"

"I want a sign."

"All right, boy. A sign. Stand there awhile and then go to the lookout."

Moldenke waited, went to the lookout, watched an amber cocacola mist fade into a yellow drizzle. Proof? He scanned two horizons, surveyed the streets. Nothing. No sign. Pigeons in eaves across the way. No k-vehicles. The Health Truck passed.

An ant crawled over Moldenke's shoe and went up a wall.

Something climbed from shelf to shelf in the refrigerator.

A dull hissing, distant, then close. He spun in the darkness, saw its eyelike headlight, heard the jelly slosh.

18

A genuine month before this, Moldenke had been driving his k-rambler along a white boulevard curving around a stadium. At a certain point on the curve he saw a couple, man and woman. The woman knelt over the gutter, favoring her stomach, her face a shade of purple. Moldenke stopped. The man, tobacco-stained and scholarly, asked if Moldenke would be so kind as to give them a ride to a drugstore for a tin of "shark" tablets, for the woman's illness.

They lifted her onto the back seat and drove on down the wide boulevard, Moldenke beginning to have some doubts about the couple. The woman grunted in the back and gave off an odor.

"Shark tablets?" Moldenke questioned.

The man nodded and agreed.

"For the wife?" Moldenke questioned again.

The man said, "Yez," with a "z," a mannerism Moldenke never enjoyed.

He saw a slight movement over the man's eye. He looked. An eyebrow dangled over the eye, parts of the face flaking down the suit.

He took out a cigar, testing.

"No flames, pliz!" He turned the face toward Moldenke.

Moldenke held out his cigar lighter, his thumb on the flint. "Why not?" He turned the flint slowly, the car filling with gas.

The moustache slid down the tie. Above the paper collar the plastic had begun to curl. Now Moldenke was sure — a pair of jellyheads working the streets. He shouldn't have picked them up, but he had. He would do what Burnheart had told him to do on a number of occasions; he would open them up.

He gunned the k-rambler and drove toward the bottoms. Traffic thinned and ended. Civilization gave way to a marshland, veined with treeless ridges. At every klick-marker a blind road turned into the bottoms. He picked one and drove along slush ruts until they ended, stopped, and turned off the motor.