David Ohle: The Pisstown Chaos

Jacob shook his head. "The Reverend says the whole process is gender neutral, age neutral, all completely random pairing. It's exciting in a way. Things got so dull after that first big chaos."

Mildred began to pedal.

"Slowly at first," Jacob cautioned. "I'm worried about the chain. Let's pedal in reverse a few turns. Unwind the starter spring a little. Then go forward with a light touch. She's a moody machine."

Their conversation continued as the car sprang forward, then slowed to a steady pace.

"It's all been tried before," Mildred said. "The shiftings."

"Has it, now?"

"By Michael Ratt, one of the last presidents."

"I don't remember him."

"The eightieth. Came right after Dorothy Peters. Don't you know any history? He was assassinated by his enemies. They exploded his campaign balloon. He was right under it."

"Sorry, the only things I really read are the Reverend's writings. What came before them doesn't matter."

"The Reverend is utterly jackbatty. I'm not a Hookerite. Never will be."

"He assumed power fairly and squarely," Jacob said. "I'm all for him now, and proudly so. You won't see me complaining. Look, in any culture, when boredom and apathy take hold, the currency is debased and the decline is irreversible. Within the period of peace and prosperity that follows a Chaos lie the seeds of the next Chaos. The Reverend says that all the time. What could be more of a tonic than a random redistribution of the populace? It's fundamental. Hooker has learned a few things from history."

"The whole scheme is idiotic."

"I hear the camp isn't all that bad. The trailers are fairly modern. The food is free, and luckily so is the willywhack. One taste of willy and you must have more, they tell me. It makes camp life and all that waiting more tolerable, they say."

"It leaves me feeling too stiff, half dead, like a stinker. I don't like it. I won't take it."

"You will take it. It's compulsory."

"We'll see about that."

As Jacob shifted into higher gears, Mildred focused on the pedaling. "Well, then, tell me, what did you do before all the shifting started?"

"I traveled, sold my powder. It's called Jake, a secret formula. You mix a drink out of it that makes you feel a little happy."

"How interesting," Mildred said. "Isn't it exciting, that so many of us are inventing things these days? What we really need is a faster, lighter machine for getting around in. It could have four sets of pedals. You'd have a triangular frame made of light metal tubing with sets of pedals at the corners and one more at the center of the base. In the middle of the triangle I envision a taut canvas, like a trampoline. As the `quadraped' speeds forward, with air rushing beneath it, a lift is achieved. The pedaling is easier. Even with only two pedaling, it should go at a brisk pace."

"You seem very smart. And I like the way you look," Jacob said, leaning toward Mildred's shoulder and sniffing her. "No odor at all. Nice. I like that. Listen, I'm looking for a viable mate. I want two children, a boy and a girl."

Mildred thought it over for a moment. "As far as children go, I wouldn't be a good mother. I'm too distracted by my work."

"They won't be mothered, or fathered. They'll be raised more or less as house servants. I'm a free-thinker, dear. And in a few years I'll be rich. I'll have thousands. Everyone will be drinking Jake."

Suddenly, Mildred was convulsed with a sneezing fit. "There's something in the air around here." She raised her chin. The sun blisters had grown into patches of small, fluidfilled pustules scattered over most of her throat and neck in circular configurations. "It isn't the sun doing this. There's an irritant in the air, something caustic."

"I don't smell a thing," Jacob said. "I do know the camp is administered by Hooker's Guards and is on the Reverend's approval list. It should be reasonably sanitary."

When we get there, I'm supposed to meet my new mate at the local Impeteria."

"Now there's a coincidence. So am I." Jacob angled onto a wide, dirt road.

A pearly pink powder sifted into the coupe and formed dunes on the dashboard. "That dust," Mildred said. "It isn't normal. Look at the color of it."

Jacob wet his finger, touched it to the dust, then tasted it. "Sandy, a little salty. It's just road dust."

"No, it's the residue from something incinerated. Don't you smell it?"

"That's quite a nose you have. As I said, I smell nothing but the scented oil on my mustache."

"There must be a stinker crematory somewhere close."

"You have an excitable imagination, and that makes me want you to bear my children even more."

The Impeteria appeared around a hairpin turn. "There it is," Mildred said. She unstrapped her feet from the pedals and got out. "I'll give your proposal some thought. We'll find one another in the camp. How big could it be?" She retrieved her bag from the trunk.

Jacob unstrapped and got out. "Take a tin or two of Jake powder. My compliments."

"Thank you. I'll try it."

"Just mix it with eight parts water, or urpmilk, and two parts powder. If you're a slow drinker, you might have to give it a stir every once in a while if it gets too cloudy."

"I'll remember that." She put two tins in her bag and they entered the Impeteria. A frycook sat alone in a far-back booth, his bloated face deeply inflamed and toadlike. The eyelids drooped and the cheeks sagged pitiably. One of the dim eyes drifted from its focal point, making his gaze disturbing and irritating. His chafed brown shoes and dirty rags were equally unattractive. "Well, now, you two look like a good pair. Hardly ever see that anymore. Yesterday come a six-year-old boy and his baby sister. Whatever that Reverend's plan is, it's way beyond my earthly understanding." His face reddened further, his cheeks puffed out and one jagged tooth sat like a kernel of corn on his lip.

"I'm meeting a Jacob Balls, out of Bum Bay."

Jacob did a little dance. "How perfect! Then you're Mildred Vink."

"I am. I guess we're mates." Of all the possibilities, Mildred considered herself fortunate.

"Okay, Mildred, before we order us some stew, I want to make one thing clear to you. You're young, you're fine, in your prime, and I can't wait to mate." He leaned across the table. "Nice lips. Let me have a taste. Give me a kiss. It's the law, you know. Compulsory mating."

"Perhaps, but not compulsory kissing." She held a checkered gingham napkin over her mouth. "It's too intimate. As far as mating goes, I only ask that you take the slow approach."

She angled forward to sample Jacob's odor. "You don't smell good. This will take time to get used to. Don't hurry me."

"All right, I'll try to be nice and gentle. We'll just talk awhile. You like Hooker's shifting programs? I sure do. You should have seen me a month ago. A mate that was threefourths stinker, six bad, mixed-breed children, three of them step, and an all-night job polishing marble in the Bum Bay Templex. Now look what I got. I'm a happy man. This is a well-deserved upshift."

Mildred ordered the stew.

"We're out," the frycook said. "And I've done warshed the pot. Alls we got is sea slug, pickled."

"Slug's not bad. I'll have an order," Jacob said.

"Just a starch bar for me," Mildred said.

"Something to drink? We got root water that I make myself. It's got gas in it. It bubbles. And we got urpmilk."

Jacob ordered urpmilk, Mildred the root water. When the frycook returned quickly with the food and drinks, Mildred asked, "What do we do now? What's the routine here? How far is the camp gate?"

"After you eat, you catch a pedal bus up to the welcome station. They'll tell you what to do from there."

"I have a car outside."

"Leave it where it is. They'll come and get it. When your wait's over, you'll get it back. You'll have another one in the camp. They're all painted yellow."