FSF, September 2008

by Spilogale Authors

  Wrong thing to say, I guess. Or wrong tone of voice.

  Maggie's waterworks started again: not just the snuffling and the tears, but the whole bawling squalling release thing, water pouring down her face, her nose getting all runny and her saying, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” over and over again, like a Ya Lu aud sample, but without the subsonic thump that would have made it fun to listen to.

  I stared at the wall for a while, trying to wait it out, and thought about getting my earbug and listening to some real Ya Lu, but I didn't want to wear out the battery because it took a while to find good ones, and anyway, it didn't seem right to duck out while she was bawling. So I sat there while she kept crying, and then I finally sucked it up and got down on the floor next to her and held her while she wore herself out.

  Finally she stopped crying and started wiping her eyes. “I'm sorry. I'll remember."

  She must have seen my expression because she got more insistent. “Really. I will.” She used the shoulder of her nightie on her runny nose. “I must look awful."

  She looked puffy and red-eyed and snotty. I said, “You look fine. Great. You look great."

  "Liar.” She smiled, then shook her head. “I didn't mean to melt down like that. And the frying pan....” She shook her head again. “I must be PMS-ing."

  "You take a Gynoloft?"

  "I don't want to mess with my hormones. You know, just in case....” She shook her head again. “I keep thinking maybe this time, but....” She shrugged. “Never mind. I'm a mess.” She leaned against me again and went quiet for a little bit. I could feel her breathing. “I just keep hoping,” she said finally.

  I stroked her hair. “If it's meant to happen, it will. We've just got to stay optimistic."

  "Sure. That's up to God. I know that. I just keep hoping."

  "It took Miku and Gabe three years. We've been trying, what, six months?"

  "A year, month after next.” She was quiet, then said, “Lizzi and Pearl only had miscarriages."

  "We've got a ways to go before we start worrying about miscarriages.” I disentangled and went hunting for another coffee packet in the cabinets. This one I actually took the time to shake. It heated itself and I tore it open and sipped. Not as good as the little brewer I found for Maggie at the flea market so she could make coffee on the stove, but it was a damn sight better than being blown to bits.

  Maggie was getting herself arranged, getting up off the floor and starting to bustle around. Even all puffy faced, she still looked good in that mesh nightie: lots of skin, lots of interesting shadows.

  She caught me watching her. “What are you smiling at?"

  I shrugged. “You look nice in that nightie."

  "I got it from that lady's estate sale, downstairs. It's hardly even used."

  I leered. “I like it."

  She laughed. “Now? You couldn't last night or the night before, but now you want to do it?"

  I shrugged.

  "You're going to be late as it is.” She turned and started rustling in the cabinets herself. “You want a brekkie bar? I found a whole bunch of them when I was shopping for the bacon. I guess their factory is working again.” She tossed one before I could answer. I caught it and tore off the smiling foil wrapper and read the ingredients while I ate. Fig and Nut, and then a whole bunch of nutrients like dextro-forma-albuterolhyde. Not as neat as the chemicals that thaw NiftyFreeze packets, but what the hell, it's all nutritional, right?

  Maggie turned and studied the stove where I'd marooned it. With hot morning air blowing in from the windows, the bacon was getting limper and greasier by the second. I thought about taking it downstairs and frying it on the sidewalk. If nothing else, I could feed it to the trogs. Maggie was pinching her lip. I expected her to say something about the stove or wasting bacon, but instead she said, “We're going out for drinks with Nora tonight. She wants to go to Wicky."

  "Pus girl?"

  "That's not funny."

  I jammed the rest of the brekkie bar into my mouth. “It is to me. I warned both of you. That water's not safe for anything."

  She made a face. “Well nothing happened to me, smarty pants. We all looked at it and it wasn't yellow or sludgy or anything—"

  "So you jumped right in and went swimming. And now she's got all those funny zits on her. How mysterious.” I finished the second coffee packet and tossed it and the brekkie bar wrapper down the disposal and ran some water to wash them down. In another half hour, they'd be whirling and dissolving in the belly of Pump Two. “You can't go thinking something's clean, just because it looks clear. You got lucky.” I wiped my hands and went over to her. I ran my fingers up her hips.

  "Yep. Lucky. Still no reaction."

  She slapped my hands away. “What, you're a doctor, now?"

  "Specializing in skin creams...."

  "Don't be gross. I told Nora to meet us at eight. Can we go to Wicky?"

  I shrugged. “I doubt it. It's pretty exclusive."

  "But Max owes you—” she broke off as she caught me leering at her again. “Oh. Right."

  "What do you say?"

  She shook her head and grinned. “I should be glad, after the last couple nights."

  "Exactly.” I leaned down and kissed her.

  When she finally pulled back, she looked up at me with those big brown eyes of hers and the whole bad morning just melted away. “You're going to be late,” she said.

  But her body was up against mine, and she wasn't slapping my hands away anymore.

  * * * *

  Summer in New York is one of my least favorite times. The heat sits down between the buildings, choking everything, and the air just ... stops. You smell everything. Plastics melting into hot concrete, garbage burning, old urine that effervesces into the air when someone throws water into the gutter; just the plain smell of so many people living all packed together. Like all the skyscrapers are sweating alcoholics after a binge, standing there exhausted and oozing with the evidence of everything they've been up to. It drives my asthma nuts. Some days, I take three hits off the inhaler just to get to work.

  About the only good thing about summer is that it isn't spring so at least you don't have freeze-thaw dropping concrete rain down on your head.

  I cut across the park just to give my lungs a break from the ooze and stink, but it wasn't much of an improvement. Even with the morning heat still building up, the trees looked dusty and tired, all their leaves drooping, and there were big brown patches on the grass where the green had just given up for the summer, like bald spots on an old dog.

  The trogs were out in force, lying in the grass, lolling around in the dust and sun, enjoying another summer day with nothing to do. The weather was bringing them out. I stopped to watch them frolicking—all hairy and horny without any concerns at all.

  A while back someone started a petition to get rid of them, or at least to get them spayed, but the mayor came out and said that they had some rights, too. After all, they were somebody's kids, even if no one was admitting it. He even got the police to stop beating them up so much, which made the tabloids go crazy. They all said he had a trog love child hidden in Connecticut. But after a few years, people got used to having them around. And the tabloids went out of business, so the mayor didn't care what they said about his love children anymore.

  These days, the trogs are just part of the background, a whole parkful of mash-faced monkey people shambling around with bright yellow eyes and big pink tongues and not nearly enough fur to survive in the wild. When winter hits, they either freeze in piles or migrate down to warmer places. But every summer there's more of them.

  When Maggie and I first started trying to have a baby, I had a nightmare that Maggie had a trog. She was holding it and smiling, right after the delivery, all sweaty and puffy and saying, “Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it beautiful?” and then she handed the sucker to me. And the scary thing wasn't that it was a trog; the scary thing was trying to figure out how I was going to explain to everyone at w
ork that we were keeping it. Because I loved that little squash-faced critter. I guess that's what being a parent is all about.

  That dream scared me limp for a month. Maggie put me on perkies because of it.

  A trog sidled up. It—or he or she, or whatever you call a hermaphrodite critter with boobs and a big sausage—made kissy faces at me. I just smiled and shook my head and decided that it was a him because of his hairy back, and because he actually had that sausage, instead of just a little pencil like some of them have. The trog took the rejection pretty well. He just smiled and shrugged. That's one nice thing about them: they may be dumber than hamsters, but they're pleasant-natured. Nicer than most of the people I work with, really. Way nicer than some people you meet in the subway.

  The trog wandered off, touching himself and grunting, and I kept going across the park. On the other side, I walked down a couple blocks to Freedom Street and then down the stairs into the command substation.

  Chee was waiting for me when I unlocked the gates to let myself in.

  "Alvarez! You're late, man."

  Chee's a nervous skinny little guy with suspenders and red hair slicked straight back over a bald spot. He always has this acrid smell around him because of this steroid formula he uses on the bald spot, which makes his hair grow all right for a while, but then he starts picking at it compulsively and it all falls out and he has to start all over with the steroids, and in the meantime, he smells like the Hudson. And whatever the gel is, it makes his skull shine like a polished bowling ball. We used to tell him to stop using the stuff, but he'd go all rabid and try to bite you if you kept it up for long.

  "You're late,” he said again. He was scratching his head like an epileptic monkey trying to groom himself.

  "Yeah? So?” I got my work jacket out of my locker and pulled it on. The fluorescents were all dim and flickery, but climate control was running, so the interior was actually pretty bearable, for once.

  "Pump Six is broken."

  "Broken how?"

  Chee shrugged. “I don't know. It's stopped."

  "Is it making a noise? Is it stopped all the way? Is it going slowly? Is it flooding? Come on, help me out."

  Chee looked at me blankly. Even his head-picking stopped, for a second.

  "You try looking at the troubleshooting indexes?” I asked.

  Chee shrugged. “Didn't think of it."

  "How many times have I told you, that's the first thing you do? How long has it been out?"

  "Since midnight?” He screwed up his face, thinking. “No, since ten."

  "You switch the flows over?"

  He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Forgot."

  I started to run. “The entire Upper West Side doesn't have sewage processing since LAST NIGHT? Why didn't you call me?"

  Chee jogged after me, dogging my heels as we ran through the plant's labyrinth to the control rooms. “You were off duty."

  "So you just let it sit there?"

  It's hard to shrug while you're running full-out, but Chee managed it. “Stuff's broken all the time. I didn't figure it was that bad. You know, there was that bulb out in tunnel three, and then there was that leak from the toilets. And then the drinking fountain went out again. You always let things slide. I figured I'd let you sleep."

  I didn't bother trying to explain the difference. “If it happens again, just remember, if the pumps, any of them, die, you call me. It doesn't matter where I am, I won't be mad. You just call me. If we let these pumps go down, there's no telling how many people could get sick. There's bad stuff in that water, and we've got to stay on top of it, otherwise it bubbles up into the sewers and then it gets out in the air, and people get sick. You got it?"

  I shoved open the doors to the control room, and stopped.

  The floor was covered with toilet paper, rolls of it, all unstrung and dangled around the control room. Like some kind of mummy striptease had gone wrong. There must have been a hundred rolls unraveled all over the floor. “What the hell is this?"

  "This?” He looked around, scratching his head.

  "The paper, Chee."

  "Oh. Right. We had a toilet paper fight last night. For some reason they triple delivered. We didn't have enough space in the storage closet. I mean, we haven't had ass wipes for two months, and then we had piles and piles of it—"

  "So you had a toilet paper fight while Pump Six was down?"

  Something in my voice must have finally gotten through. He cringed. “Hey, don't look at me that way. I'll get it picked up. No worries. Jeez. You're worse than Mercati. And anyway, it wasn't my fault. I was just getting ready to reload the dispensers and then Suze and Zoo came down and we got into this fight.” He shrugged. “It was just something to do, that's all. And Suze started it, anyway."

  I gave him another dirty look and kicked my way through the tangle of t.p. to the control consoles.

  Chee called after me, “Hey, how am I going to wind it back up if you kick it around?"

  I started throwing switches on the console, running diagnostics. I tried booting up the troubleshooting database, but got a connection error. Big surprise. I looked on the shelves for the hard copies of the operation and maintenance manuals, but they were missing. I looked at Chee. “Do you know where the manuals are?"

  "The what?"

  I pointed at the empty shelves.

  "Oh. They're in the bathroom."

  I looked at him. He looked back at me. I couldn't make myself ask. I just turned back to the consoles. “Go get them, I need to figure out what these flashers mean.” There was a whole panel of them winking away at me, all for Pump Six.

  Chee scuttled out of the room, dragging t.p. behind him. Overhead, I heard the Observation Room door open: Suze, coming down the stairs. More trouble. She rustled through the t.p. streamers and came up close behind me, crowding. I could feel her breathing on my neck.

  "The pump's been down for almost twelve hours,” she said. “I could write you up.” She thumped me in the back, hard. “I could write you up, buddy.” She did it again, harder. Bam.

  I thought about hitting her back, but I wasn't going to give her another excuse to dock pay. Besides, she's bigger than me. And she's got more muscles than an orangutan. About as hairy, too. Instead, I said, “It would have helped if somebody had called."

  "You talking back to me?” She gave me another shove and leaned around to get in my face, looking at me all squinty-eyed. “Twelve hours down-time,” she said again. “That's grounds for a write-up. It's in the manual. I can do it."

  "No kidding? You read that? All by yourself?"

  "You're not the only one who can read, Alvarez.” She turned and stomped back up the stairs to her office.

  Chee came back lugging the maintenance manuals. “I don't know how you do this,” he puffed as he handed them over. “These manuals make no sense at all."

  "It's a talent."

  I took the plastirene volumes and glanced up at Suze's office. She was just standing there, looking down at me through the observation glass, looking like she was going to come down and beat my head in. A dimwit promo who got lucky when the old boss went into retirement.

  She has no idea what a boss does, so mostly she spends her time scowling at us, filling out paperwork that she can't remember how to route, and molesting her secretary. Employment guarantees are great for people like me, but I can see why you might want to fire someone; the only way Suze was ever going to leave was if she fell down the Observation Room stairs and broke her neck.

  She scowled harder at me, trying to make me look away. I let her win. She'd either write me up, or she wouldn't. And even if she did, she might still get distracted and forget to file it. At any rate, she couldn't fire me. We were stuck together like a couple of cats tied in a sack.

  I started thumbing through the manuals’ plastic pages, going back and forth through the indexes as I cross-referenced all the flashers. I looked up again at the console. There were a lot of them. Maybe more than I'd e
ver seen.

  Chee squatted down beside me, watching. He started picking his head again. I think it's a comfort thing for him. But it makes your skin crawl until you get used to it. Makes you think of lice.

  "You do that fast,” he said. “How come you didn't go to college?"

  "You kidding?"

  "No way, man. You're the smartest guy I ever met. You totally could have gone to college."

  I glanced over at him, trying to tell if he was screwing with me. He looked back at me, completely sincere, like a dog waiting for a treat. I went back to the manual. “No ambition, I guess."

  The truth was that I never made it through high school. I dropped out of P.S. 105 and never looked back. Or forward, I guess. I remember sitting in freshman algebra and watching the teacher's lips flap and not understanding a word he was saying. I turned in worksheets and got Ds every time, even after I redid them. None of the other kids were complaining, though. They just laughed at me when I kept asking him to explain the difference between squaring and doubling variables. You don't have to be Einstein to figure out where you don't belong.

  I started piecing my way through the troubleshooting diagrams. No clogs indicated. Go to Mechanics Diagnostics, Volume Three. I picked up the next binder of pages and started flipping. “Anyway, you've got a bad frame of reference. We aren't exactly a bunch of Nobel Prize winners here.” I glanced up at Suze's office. “Smart people don't work in dumps like this.” Suze was scowling down at me again. I gave her the universal salute. “You see?"

  Chee shrugged. “I dunno. I tried reading that manual about twenty times on the john, and it still doesn't make any sense to me. If you weren't around, half the city would be swimming in shit right now."

  Another flasher winked on the console: amber, amber, red.... It stayed red.