by David Ohle
“Moldenke is the name. Burnheart and Eagleman arranged this. I got on at the last stop.”
“This was arranged by whom? And whom?”
“Doctor Burnheart and Doctor Eagleman.”
“It doesn't make much sense to me, Mr. Bufona. That combo escapes me. Wait, didn't Eagleheart promote a moon once?”
“Once, yes,” Moldenke said. “The name is Moldenke.”
“Shake hands.” Moldenke shook the hand, a rubber glove filled with jelly.
The Health Truck hit a chuckhole; Featherfighter sloshed.
“Someone else arranged this, Mr. Bufona. Burnman and Eagleheart had nothing to do with it.”
Moldenke said he was surprised, although he would take the job anyway, whatever it was, if it was available.
“Sit down, Bufona. A few questions, please.” Moldenke sat in a cup-chair.
“Let me ask you if you use a calendar?”
Moldenke said he didn't bother. He took out a cigar.
Featherfighter said, “No flames, please.” Moldenke put the cigar back and chewed his lip. “You don't use a calendar, you say. I can sympathize there, Mr. Bufona. Six technical months in a single day sometimes. It gets confusing. Do you watch the weather then?”
“I listen to the reports.”
“You listen to the reports...try this.” He gave Moldenke a dried weevil cake. Moldenke swallowed a bite and said he liked it. Featherfighter said, “You will be a good employee, Bufona. I can already see that. If you can swallow a weevil cake, you can swallow almost anything.”
The room widened at the top and became circular, although the floor was square, accommodating Featherfighter's desk and Moldenke's chair, nothing more. He followed the walls up, looking for the transition from square to circle, but missed it.
Featherfighter opened a drawer. “May I read you something from the book, Mr. Bufona? ”
“Moldenke. Yes, read it. I know the book myself.”
“In 1856 Claude Bernard noted the appearance of cloudy lymph in the duodenum... No, that isn't the page...”
If he leaned over Featherfighter's desk, his face reflected in its top. If he drew back, the reflection remained in the polish.
Featherfighter said, “Here it is: As a boy I often walked the graveways. Once I kicked open a rotted tomb and bees swarmed out. Until then, in my youthful ignorance, I had thought them dead in the winter. It was an important juncture in my career. I soon began to think in terms of human honey, and it wasn't long before..." Featherfighter stopped, looked at Moldenke.
Moldenke said, “And so on. I know the passage. Burnheart is exploring his youth for scientific indicators.”
“Who is?”
“Doctor Burnheart. The author.”
“The author?”
“Yes, what's the point of the passage?”
“The point is Insecta, Bufo. The class Insecta. Let me read from another section: Spread the wings of two or three flutterbys over a slice of pinebread, pass under the grille, top with honey if available, a basic recipe that even a... (deleted)... could accomplish”
Moldenke said, “Etcetera. I've read the book. I see you have a deleted edition.”
Featherfighter ignored him, continued reading: “As a child I was kept in a crumbling house. I would gather earwigs among the fallen bricks and make a tea. My father taught me to make an ant-trap. My mother taught me the piano. As a student under Professor... (deleted)...I read the book.”
Moldenke said, “I believe that deletion should read 'Eagleman.' Professor Eagleman. They get worse toward the end.”
Featherfighter closed the book, returned it to the drawer. “Would you like to start today, Mr. Bufona? ”
“Yes. I need the chits. What will I be doing?”
“You'll be eating various insects and dreaming up recipes. Let's get a frock on you and I'll take you down to the Tasting Lab.”
76]
Roquette opened a door. “This is your room, Moldenke. A bed, a chair, a sink, an oval lookout, a nightstand, a radio, a lamp, a closet, and a small fireplace with mock logs.” Moldenke said, “Very nice.”
Roquette said, “There's a common pisser down the hall. We share.”
Moldenke said that would be fine. “I think I'll take a nap and give my hearts a rest.” He went to the bed and fluffed a rubber pillow.
Roquette said, “No rest. I'll show you around part of the boat.”
A note in greenish ink was pinned to the pillow.
Moldenke,
I am on the boat. Don't show it if you see me.
Love,
Roberta
He folded the note and ate it. Roquette waited in the hall. “Hurry on, Dink. Leave your baggage here and we'll meet a few of the folks. Who knows, we might catch a movie.” He removed his packs and left them at the foot of the bed, followed Roquette to the elevator.
77]
Mr. Featherfighter,
Here is my first report:
(1) The cedar bagworm does not seem worth the bother of tearing it out of the bag. It is leathery on chewing and it has a tendency toward bitter excretions. However, if one were to allow them to pupate and emerge, they may then be soaked in potato milk and pan fried.
(2) Halictine bees, dried, make a hearty, bracing tea, good for the imagination. Eaten raw they leave blisters in the mouth.
(3) The cicada killer, boiled and iced, resembles the quahog of the old days.
(4) While the robber fly has a disturbing pungency and tends to irritate the chuffs, it does have beautiful eyes.
78]
Mr. Bufona, Tasting Lab
The Health Truck
MEMO
Your first report is now on my desk, etcetera.
Mr. Featherfighter
Mr. Featherfighter's Office
The Health Truck
79]
There were no lookouts in the Tasting Lab. At lunch break Moldenke turned to the wall and closed his eye until the time was up. Had there been lookouts he would have watched the sidewalks go by.
On the second day of work he arrived early and found an aquarium on his desk, and a note: An aquarium, Bufo, since you don’t have a lookout. Will send along the water and the fish later. I’ll read your report today
Mr. Featheretcetera.
On the third day, when he swiveled around from his lunch break and found a gallon of fleas marked “for tasting,” he wrote a memo:
Mr. Featherfighter,
MEMO
No. No fleas. I have hesitations.
Yours,
Moldenke (The name is MOLDENKE.)
80]
Mr. Bufo
Tasting Lab
The Health Truck
MEMO
I have read your first report, Mr. B. I find it lacking in seriousness, especially toward the end. I look forward to the second report.
Your employer,
Mr. Etcetera
81]
Mr. Etcetera,
My second report:
(1) Both fleas and cantharides lead to self-abuse.
(2) I feel I should resign.
(3) I feel. I feel. Therapy helped me.
(4) I do resign.
No longer yours,
Moldenke
82]
Roquette said, “Let's stop off at the hot room. Take off your clothes, son. We're all ourselves in the hot room.”
Moldenke undressed and hung his clothes in a locker. “My hearts, Roquette. I shouldn't be going in there.”
“Malarky, Dink. Step in. You'll never regret it.”
They bowed under a low passageway, entered a room lit dimly red. Wooden benches, a wood-burning stove, a woman attending the fire, the odor of wood sap.
“Sit down, son. Relax.” Moldenke sat on a bench, head between his knees. “Breathe it in, son.”
“What's the temperature, Roquette?”
“That would be hard to say. I wouldn't want to guess.”
Moldenke sat up. Another heart stopped. “May I h
ave water? Is there water in here? I need liquids.”
“Watch the fire-lady. Fire-lady, this is Moldenke. He'll be boating with us.” The fire-lady turned, smiled. Moldenke's eye was closed. “Let the poisons work themselves out, Moldenke. Let it come. Fire-lady, get this man a cup of water.” She carried a wooden bucket, dipped her hands in, splashed water over Moldenke's body. He opened his eye. Perspiration filled it.
Roquette whispered, “She likes you, son. Wouldn't you say her tit nipples resemble pencil erasers? Moldenke?”
“I don't know.” He tried to clear his eye. Her silhouette against the stove light seemed familiar. “Cock?”
“Pardon me, Moldenke,” Roquette said. “Do you know this lady?”
Moldenke said he didn't and closed his eye.
83]
Dear Miss Roberta,
Once they said there was nothing to do about the weather, then there was, then too much was done, and now it's out of control. Keep yourself warm, Roberta, no matter what comes down from up. Hide your thinking in the clouds where artificial winds do not exist. I'm sorry, Cock. Excuse me. I've strayed from the middle.
I will tell you about an interesting thing I saw in the papers. LAST NIGGER DIES IN GREAT CHICAGO. Cock, the very last one is gone. Roosevelt Teaset. The article says they'll clean him up, prepare him, and show him in a case at Preservation Hall. I don't doubt they'll also sell popcorn, and put him next to the banana plant. They had stuffed him with twenty odd hearts before the blood rush drowned his brain.
I am wired today, Roberta. I may go on. My feelings are greatly improved. I find it hard to acquaint myself with the new condition, but I don't hesitate to take advantage of it.
Roberta, do you remember the morning I scattered sesame on the window sill and the mock birds came along to feed and woke you up? Remember the night we slept in a rubber house at the edge of a marsh in the worst of summerfall? I showed you foxfire and we watched it follow an army train across a bridge.
Cock, it seems that whenever I'm looking for you, you're out, and whenever you're in, I'm never looking. It reminds me of the ghost crab relationship. He'll crawl to her hole with his claw raised, she'll be gone, and he'll crawl away, his claw trailing in the sand. Then she'll return to the hole, wait for him, grow impatient and leave. Then he'll come back to the empty hole. That's the way they do it, Roberta. And we have doorbells and telephones. I suppose, judging from the younger ghost crabs I've seen, that eventually their periods of being at the same hole do coincide, although I've never seen it happen. Nor has Burnheart.
I don't remember much about the mock War, Roberta. I do have a recollection of being found by a lost dog. Because I could feel the heat of the earth I knew I was in a hole. There were government noises over the ridge, loudspeakers broadcasting airbursts. I looked up from the hole and saw the dog's face, his teeth showing ricelike in the battle light. I pulled him in with me and we shared fleas and heat for the night. In the morning I followed him back to my tent, then lost him in the smoke and confusion. At one point someone opened my tent flap and said, “Go home, Moldenke. Your war is over. The injury qualifies. Please don't mention the particulars. Say you were away at camp and you fell in a chuckhole.” Don't ask me about the War, Cock.
I'll close now. I've been writing on my lunch break for a change. I have to get back to my weevil butter and cream of ips.
Some time I'll find your deepest hole.
With feeling,
Moldenke
84]
Dear Moldenke,
I'm sorry to say they warehoused all the pianos. I would love to hear the Buxtehude again.
When I go to my Doctor with shivering, he recommends a coat. The nurses read my thermogram and tell me how cold I am, as if I didn't dream an icestorm every night and watch my fingertips freeze against the lookout pane. I would not like to grow any colder than this, Moldenke. Do something.
Love,
Cock
P.S. They say my punctuation improves, period.
85]
“Roquette? ”
“Yes?” Roquette half-slept, perspiration dripping from his toes to the floor.
“My hearts, Roquette.”
“Change the subject, son. That one bores me. You act like the only man on earth with heart pains.”
“I'd like to leave the hot room.”
“No!” Roquette's eyes apparently melted and drained down the cheeks. His whiskers flared and burned to small, glowing stumps. Moldenke blinked the apparent illusion away.
“I should see a Doctor, Roquette. You mentioned before that I might see a Doctor.”
“Did I? Who installed those hearts?”
“Burnheart.”
“Is he the family Doctor?”
“I can't say. There's no family.”
“I see. Then I don't know what we can do. All of our Doctors are family Doctors. They wouldn't be able to help you. I'd go back to the original mechanic if a vehicle went bad, wouldn't I? You should get back to Burnheart, shouldn't you?”
“Yes.” Another heart fluttered. “I may not have time to get to Burnheart. They're going at a clip. When will we be in Burnheart's neighborhood?”
“I don't know. I wouldn't guess about that.”
“Let me off the boat.”
“Let him off the boat, he says.”
“Off the boat. I'd like to get off the boat.”
“He'd like to get off the boat. You'd freeze yourself. Stay on the boat. You'll meet the folks. We'll take a walk through the arboretum.”
The fire whistled.
86]
The taxi man had turned to Moldenke and said, “Excuse me in the back. Don't yell if I stop and pick up that couple there by the stadium. The lady looks like she's in a spot.” His teeth had been ricelike, his face doglike. Moldenke sat middled in the back seat, feeling diminished.
The k-taxi pulled out of the flow of traffic and stopped near the couple. Moldenke said he had his doubts about them. The taxi man said, “I like silence in the back.” Moldenke fell quiet, doubtful.
The woman knelt over a puddle of jelly in the gutter beneath her, favoring her stomach. The man, professorlike, approached the k-taxi, asking to be taken to a drugstore for a tin of “charcoal tablets” for the woman's stomach.
The taxi man said, “Is it raining?”
The professor said, “The weatherman said it was.”
The taxi man said, “Good enough. Get in.”
Moldenke sat forward. The taxi man said, “No yelling from the back. I always pick up extras in the rain.” Moldenke said it wasn't raining. The taxi man said, “And who are you?” Moldenke said never mind, sliding over in the seat.
The professorlike man pushed his woman into the back seat, sat himself in the front, his breath filling the k-taxi with the suggestion of peanuts. When the k-taxi made a curve in the boulevard the woman, in a stupor, leaned over on Moldenke, vomiting a jellylike substance into his trenchcoat pocket, her eyes like the eyes of boated fish. In the front the professor went to sleep.
The taxi man said, “You in the back. What do you think of these two?”
Moldenke said he wasn't thinking.
The taxi man said, “Watch this.” He peeled off one of the professor's eyebrows as he slept, threw it into the rear seat. “Check that, jocko. I don't like the way these two champs smell.” The eyebrow fell to the floor, lost itself in chewed pinegum, dirt, and flattened popcorn puffs.
The jelly soaked through Moldenke's coat and stuck one of his shirts to his chest.
The taxi man said, “The k-rules are clear on this point. I'll have to take these champs for a ride through the bottoms. No yelling in the back.”
They drove out of the city, down mud roads, down narrow roads of oyster shell, reflecting white, far from any suggestion of architecture. Mock pollen dusted the road hedge.
The professor continued to sleep, his lips hanging on his tie by a strand of latex.
At the end of roads the k-taxi stopped. The taxi man
opened the glove box and took out a screw driver.
Moldenke said, “What now?”
The taxi man said, “Now we'll take a walk. You carry the woman.”
They walked into a grove of ethers, Moldenke carrying the woman over his shoulder, jelly dripping down the back of his trenchcoat. The taxi man pushed the professor along in front.
Two suns were up, close together.
They stopped walking, Moldenke put the woman down. The taxi man said, “Now you take a walk and never mind what I'm doing.”
Moldenke walked aimlessly under the ethers, snipes whistling above him. He sat on a log and waited. He heard the k-taxi drive off. He chewed a stonepick and forgot.
87]
Out of the hot room, dressed, Moldenke's hearts improved.
On a sawdust path in the arboretum he said, “I see you have banana plants. I thought they were gone forever.” He snorted, mock pollen on his hair and shoulders.
“So, Dink. Still you have the snorts. You're a plague, son. Just like the old days.”
“Old days? You seem to know me, Roquette. How well do you know me?”
“Roquelle, son. With two l's. I don't know you at all. One doesn't need a long-standing personal acquaintance to notice a snort, does he?”
“You mentioned the old days.”
“What about them? Tell me, who found whom in the bottoms? I could have left you there pissing your name in the pollen. Consider that.”
“How did you know about that? ”
“About that? What?”
“About pissing in the snow.”
“Did I say snow? I meant pollen. Pissing your name in the pollen. My apologies.” He extended the corn cob and Moldenke shook it.
“No, Roquette. You said pollen, but you meant snow. You know about that? How well do you know me?”
They passed a circle of jujube trees, Roquette picking a jujube fruit and eating it. “Eat a jujube, Dink. Put your hearts in shape.” Moldenke wasn't hungry.