Motorman

by David Ohle

  10]

  The phone rang. Moldenke answered:

  “Hello?”

  “May I speak to Mr. Moldenke? ”

  “This is Mr. Moldenke speaking. Who's calling?”

  “Bunce here, Moldenke. Serious up a minute, please. No fooling around. I don't like the way you hung up on me last call. I never like to see a hang-up. It shows me you're not as interested as you should be, not as engaged as you might be. What's the trouble? Would you like me to put my forearm up your very delicate chuff pipe and pop your spleen like a cherry, or run my thumbnail down your inner spine, assuming you have one? Is that the sort of thing you want? Bunce doesn't cater to the meek, my friend. Remember that even if you forget all else. Remember that much. Open the good ear, jocko. Listen to me. We have the tapes.”

  “You have the tapes,” Moldenke said. “What tapes?”

  “What tapes, he says.”

  “Yes, Bunce. What tapes?”

  “Tapes, friend. Tapes! Things said about you in your absence. Yourself as others see you. The works. We have it all. The whole Moldenke. If you ever have a yen to listen to a few of the tapes, give me a call. The number is 555-333-555333-555-333. I'll be around. Give me a ring sometime. We'll have lunch, slug down a few pinebrews, and talk things over. Put all our bags on the table, if you know what I mean. Are you with me, Moldenke? Can you follow me? ”

  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 Mold
enke 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.

  He looked at the rubber face. “Are you a pair of Bunce's jellyheads?”

  In the back the woman sat up, said nothing. Most of the man's features had broken loose and tumbled down to the seat and floor. The head, without makeup, a gray balloon, something sloshing inside it.

  “I asked if you were on Bunce's payroll.” He turned the flint faster.

  They chose silence.

  “Okay,” Moldenke said. “Then get out of the car and take your medicine. I've got you fair. Don't resist me.”

  They climbed out. Moldenke exposed his letter opener.

  “You first.” The man came forward. “Bend over.” The man bowed. With the letter opener, Moldenke opened a small hole in the back of the neck, enough for two fingers. He put a thumb and a forefinger in and widened the hole, a clear jelly spilling out, down his trenchpants. The air smelled of laboratories. He did the woman, her jelly more clouded, her rubber skull a little thicker than the professor's had been.

  In the morning, with two suns behind him like stray moons, he examined his vehicle. The odor of laboratories was there, although faint. In the back seat the same jelly substance, studded with nibs, as though the woman had eaten peanuts, had washed across the upholstery.

  19]

  There was a knock at the door, either soft hands or gloved fingers. The meal was there from Bunce, on a tray in the hall, on the floor. The first meal from Bunce. He was hungry. He took the tray inside and ate. The tray had three hollows: catmeat filled one, boiled crickets filled the second, and a chunk of stale pinebread with ant sauce filled the third.

  20]

  A letter came from Burnheart:

  Dear Moldenke,

  Cheer up. Things are approaching the jell. Nothing is final as yet, but we are working it through. Eagleman sends his regards. He's a good man to know. We should consider ourselves among the fortunate few. What would a winter night be like without Eagleman's moon? Tell me that. Crowded almost out now with government moons, but still the brightest light in the sky. We have no one to thank for Eagleman except...Eagleman.

  This letter has a purpose. Enclosed, please find a simple, one-part questionnaire. Fill it out and get it back to me as soon as you can. We can't move an inch without the information.

  Cordial greetings,

  Burnheart

  The questionnaire:

  Situation Reaction

  You are shad fishing in a plainly marked municipal water tub, or (2) you chance by a swollen river. The fog log, you remember from the radio weather, is at 77. The ambient light is dim, or (2) very bright. As you gaze over the water's surface you see what appears to be the corpse of a dray horse, bridled even in death, with sodden fragments of the dray still attached. No moons are up, or (2) two moons are up, or (3) the sun is simply down, or (4) more than one sun is down. You rise up to your feet and take another look. Caution: It may not be a horse at all. Additional Caution: If it is a horse it is either bloated, or (2), there is a plate-sized hole in its belly to relieve the pressures of rot. The animal floats closer to the breakwater, now clearly in danger of rubbing barnacles. Your hearts leap up. Your spleen puff. WHAT NOW? (See below)

  (USE THIS SPACE)

  21]

  He called the Power Co-op:

  “Good afternoon, sir. Power Co-op. May I help you this afternoon, sir?” The voice was feminine, high pitched, a refined whistle.

  Moldenke was puzzled. Something already wasn't exactly right. “Miss, how did you know I was male?”

  “Sir?”

  “I wanted to know how it was that you knew I was a 'sir,' instead of a 'miss,' or a 'little boy,' or something like that.”

  “Sir?”

  “That's right. You pinned it down as soon as you answered. I hadn't even opened my mouth. But you knew I was male. I wanted to know how you knew. That's all.”

  “Sir? Didn't you say your name? You said something.”

  “No, ma'am. Nothing. Was it my breathing? A man's breathing is a touch huskier than a woman's, or a child's, is that the trick?”

  “No, sir. Please excuse my enthusiasm. It's my first day on the job, sir. If I've made an error, then we apologize. We beg your pardon.”

  “Fine, that's fine, miss. Now, what I called about is my electricity. It suddenly went off a while back. No radio, no weather reports, no heat, nothing. I need some service out here.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Moldenke. We'll do what we can to-—”

  “Miss?”

  “Sir?”

  “Now I'm more than a little bit puzzled. First there was the 'sir.' Now you give me a clean, crisp, Mr. Moldenke, as though I had actually told you my name. I haven't mentioned the name yet, have I, miss?”

  “Yes, sir. You did...you must have. Didn't you?”

  “No, ma’am. I haven't. I'm sure of it. Let me speak to the supervisor.”

  “Please, sir. We apologize. This is my first day.”

  “Don't worry, miss. You'll keep the job. You're very good at it, but a little too fast for me. Your supervisor, please.”

  “Sir, he's not in the building at the moment.”

  “Does he have a supervisor?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I'll speak to him. Connect me with him.”

  “Yes, sir. That would be Mr. Bunce. Just a moment.”

  “Miss?”

  “Sir?”

  “Never mind. Cancel the whole thing. Goodbye.”

  “Sir?”

  The only outgoing, thrown to the winds.

  22]

  Moldenke sat henlike in his chair, brooding in the dark, chewing a stonepick. The door opened halfway, showing an obelisk of hall light, and Burnheart came in, striking matches.

  “Burnheart? Is that you, Burnheart?”

  “Moldenke?” He held the match an inch from Moldenke's chin. “Why do you live like this, Moldenke? You get more like a rat every season. What do they pay you to live here? I smell urine. Where's the straw?” The match went out. He struck another one, moving it up and down, looking at the whole Moldenke.

  “Burnheart. I'm happy to see you. Sit down somewhere. Let's talk. I thought you were in the country with Eagleman.”

  “I was. I was in the country. However, now I'm in the city. I move with my moods. My mood said city, and here I am, a toad in the frog pond, as they say. Why am I striking matches like this? Turn on the lights.”

  “I can't. They're off. That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What do I know about practical electricity? It's not
my field. What could I say? ”

  “No no. I'm concerned about why they're off, not that they're off. I think it's Bunce.”

  “Bunce?”

  “You know the man?”

  “Bunce. Yes, I know Bunce...You must have a candle around. Is there a candle, Moldenke? Some kind of light source?”

  “I'm afraid not. Burnheart, tell me what to do. I don't know of anyone else who can advise me. What should I do about Bunce?”

  “What a season this has been, Moldenke. What a season. My old heart won't stand another one like it. So many loads in the old gun and so on. I sometimes consider retiring, quitting the whole thing. Of course, someone always steps in and reminds me that I have nothing to retire from. So I never do. I continue slaving and worrying over nothing substantial. I'm plumb tired. The system is wearing out. I plan to get back to the country as fast as I can. Sometimes, there, I hear the chirp of a snipe, and that reminds me that I'm still alive. What does it all matter?”

  “Sit down, Burnheart. Talk.”

  “Where, Moldenke? Are there chairs in a rat's den? Where shall I sit?” Moldenke occupied the only chair.

  “Take this chair.”

  “No, Moldenke. You stay there. You need the rest. You're still young. Rest while you can. There's nothing ahead but rattles.” Another match went out. “Some light is better than none. We'll smoke cigars.” Burnheart lit two blue cigars with his last match and gave one to Moldenke. “Here, Moldenke. Puff hard and constantly. We'll get close to one another and puff rapidly.” Burnheart knelt, squaring his height with Moldenke's. Moldenke remained in the chair. They studied one another in the wavering orange swells of light, through smoke and running eyes.

  “Burnheart, I may have broken an unwritten rule of some kind. I'm not sure.”

  “Well, then. If you're not sure, how can I be sure? How can we talk about it? Tell me more, Dinky.”