An Atomic Romance

by Bobbie Ann Mason

  “Is this what the blue fire is all about?” Reed asked. He knew that plutonium could ignite spontaneously in the air, a thought too dreadful to voice aloud.

  Several guys gathered by the tool shop, reluctant to speed to their jobs.

  “Fucking unbelievable.”

  “What are they doing to us here?”

  “How am I going to explain this to my wife?”

  “I wasn’t really shook up before, but what the fuck is going on?”

  Jim rode up on his bicycle. “Hey, boys. I guess you know they’re looking for plutonium now. I swear, this whole thing’s turning into a treasure hunt.”

  “If it’s plutonium, what keeps it from going critical?” Teddy demanded.

  “Oh, it wouldn’t,” Jim said reassuringly. “There couldn’t be enough in one spot. I doubt if it amounts to much of anything.”

  “You’ve been repeating yourself a lot lately, Jim,” Reed said.

  “I’m just doing my job, Reed. We don’t want a panic now, do we?”

  “Always the mother hen,” Reed said. He was kidding, and he thought Jim knew that.

  Jim said, “This is the solid truth, Reed. If I knew we were really in danger, I’d be the first to let you know.”

  “I bet the PR office is working overtime,” Teddy said.

  Reed wondered if the plutonium could be involved somehow in the manufacture of bomb triggers. Could that have been some of the plant’s secret work in the fifties? He suspected that this latest report was true. When he had his worst exposure more than fifteen years before, he had tested positive for neptunium, a transuranic element, like plutonium. The transuranics, heavier than uranium, were fission by-products, part of the indiscriminate spray that occurred when atoms were fractured. He wouldn’t ask then where the neptunium had come from. Plutonium had not been mentioned.

  A couple of instrument mechanics bound for their shop lingered, caught up in the talk. One of them was wearing a purple-print do-rag and the other had a bucket of bolts in his hand.

  “Where is this stuff coming from anyway?” asked the bolt guy. “Does anybody know?”

  “I bet it’s the scrap in the waste dump,” said the other. “They must have found it there when they were cleaning it up. What do you know, Reed?”

  “Hell, we’ve got all kinds of shit here,” Reed said. He was sipping coffee. “We’ve had neptunium all along. And americium. They’re all transuranics. You know there’s a transuranics office on the second floor of Health Physics.”

  “That’s next to where you go piss in a cup to see what you’re picking up,” one of the guys said.

  “That’s just for uranium.”

  A cell rat called Hot Nuts spoke up. “I’ve had neptunium on my body scan,” he said. “They never said anything about it. It was no big deal.”

  The guys went on talking, but Reed grew quiet. The coffee tasted bitter and bad, as though it had been recycled.

  One of the younger guys, an electrician named Mike, said, “I know about that transuranics office. They wouldn’t just come out and say ‘plutonium.’ But it’ll be all right. I know we’re trying to clean it up. That must be what all the new ventilation systems are about.”

  “We’re getting a royal house-cleaning.”

  “I wonder if the plutonium is in the underground plume that goes to the river,” the big guy known as Beau said. “With the technetium.”

  “Isn’t plutonium real heavy?” asked Mike. “Wouldn’t it be slow?”

  “The Transuranics, a heavy-metal group,” Reed said. He thought he was joking, but his tone was flat.

  “It’s just a big scare to get the D.O.E. to shell out the money for cleanup. They’ve been promising that incinerator for years.”

  “Plutonium’s not supposed to be here. What’s it doing here anyway?”

  “That’s what everybody’s wondering.”

  “It’s just rumors. Hey, let’s wait and see.”

  Jim had been parked there, straddling his bicycle, listening. “Hey, guys, let’s calm down,” he said. “This kind of thing gets blown up like a hot-air balloon. It’s just some kind of accidental contamination. We’ll straighten it out. Hell, this ain’t Rocky Flats.”

  In the cramped, windowless break room of the maintenance division, Reed found a printout of the story from the Chicago newspaper. It said that four hundred picocuries of plutonium per kilogram had been found in soil samples outside the fence.

  He whistled. “Those must be some hot hot spots!”

  “Wonder what would happen if you stepped on a hot spot?” an instrument mechanic called Woolly asked, reading over Reed’s shoulder.

  “You wouldn’t know it,” said Reed. “Not like you’d know if you stepped in a puddle of puke.”

  “Reed’s the big expert on exposures,” Woolly said to a couple of guys hanging around the break room.

  “I’ve been hotter than Reed has,” said Beau. “When I worked at product withdrawal. Doesn’t it stand to reason that would be the hottest place? You’ve got the assay up to five-and-a-half percent. That’s as hot as you get here.”

  “U-235’s chicken shit compared to plutonium,” said Woolly.

  “If one of these hot spots glowed, you could probably see it from the moon,” Reed said, kidding along.

  But inside he was raging. A Vesuvius of memory and awakening bitterness caused his guts to churn. He remembered the blaring siren, the rush to the de-con room, the sudden car-wash sensations from the force of the hot spigots trained on his body. The rawness of his skin, the scrubbing, the grittiness in his mouth. His skin felt as though he were being spray-painted with a high-pressure nozzle. And then it was over. He was naked, his hot scrubs sealed in a yellow rad bag. Someone handed him an old sweat suit to wear home.

  The Chicago story offered little explanation for the plutonium, so he discarded it and picked up the local newspaper. Scanning headlines, he noticed a small story on page three that said a federal team had dismissed the blue-flame scare; there had been no criticality. I knew that, Reed said to himself. The federal team still was not sure what the blue flames were. He flung the newspaper onto the cabinet where he had found it. It seemed that everything nowadays was a pattern of hype and then deflation. It wearied him.

  Reed’s first job that evening was unclogging a section of barrier sieve with chlorine trifluoride, which, until he heard of the plutonium, he would have said was the most dangerous substance at the plant. He worked with a new gingerliness, handling the cylinder of CLF3 with unusual precision and care. On the break, when half a dozen guys cornered off to smoke, he didn’t join them. He stood outside the building alone and observed the sky, illuminated by strings of floodlights. The plumes of steam from the cooling towers flowed like gauze-veiled dancers through the lights. Plutonium was first named ultimium, he recalled, because it was thought to be the ultimate element. The symbol, Pu, was a joke. It should have been Pl. Reed appreciated the sense of humor, even though plutonium was not amusing. He was bothered by the thought that the transuranics might have been present when his father worked at this place. They could have been part of the atomic secrets so carefully guarded, and if they had been around so long, they could have permeated the place.

  In the cafeteria at one a.m., Reed selected roasted chicken, lima beans, mashed potatoes, and salad. He ate perfunctorily, Atomic Man stoking himself with fuel. The chicken seemed undercooked, and the gravy on the potatoes tasted like paste. The chatter around was quieter than usual, threaded through with murmurs of disbelief. Later, he joined a bunch of guys gathered around a bicycle on the operations floor. It was slowly turning a circle on its kickstand, motivated by the vibrations of the Cascade.

  At the end of his shift, he paused by his truck to watch the early light. He glanced toward the largest classified burial mound, the grassy rise where a mystery mix of toxic waste was buried. It was yellow-taped, off limits. An anthropologist studying the ancient Mound Builders might regard that mound as a likely target for study—a m
olded bank of dirt with a rich, intricate history, layers of houses and bones and garbage and pottery. One wouldn’t expect it to hold a hidden curse, like something in a horror movie.

  20

  Another shock: Julia was waiting for him when he arrived home from his shift, soon after seven. After he quieted Clarence, she emerged from her chartreuse Beetle dressed for work and appearing fresh scrubbed, her hair still a bit damp.

  “Plutonium!” she cried. “What’s all this I’m hearing about plutonium?” Her face was pinched and anxious.

  “Somebody forgot to mention it,” he said, giving her a quick hello kiss. He noticed yesterday’s paper and today’s lying together, an intimate couple, under a weigela bush.

  “Is there a lot?”

  He stooped for the papers. “No, no. We would have known. It would have registered on our TLDs.”

  She reached for him and pulled him close. “I hate this,” she said. “I’m afraid you’re not safe.”

  “Don’t worry, honey.” Fumbling with the papers, he tried to embrace her.

  Suddenly she loved him, he thought. Clarence was barking, as he always did whenever he saw Reed with his arms around a woman.

  Julia said, “You know, we’re going to pull the lid off of something one day and the whole world is going to collapse into it. What do you know about this plutonium?”

  “It’s made in a nuclear reactor,” he said, opening the side door for her. “Hush, Clarence.”

  “Well, I know that! And I know the plant doesn’t have one.” She stood in the open door, forgetting to go through. Clarence entered before her. Reed guided Julia in, lightly touching her trim, firm behind.

  In the kitchen, while he worked on coffee, he tried to soothe her fears. Had she lost a little weight? Her eyebrow pencil had been applied unevenly, making her left eyebrow seem fashioned with a T-SQUARE. Clarence stayed beneath the kitchen table, near Julia.

  “How much plutonium do you think is out there?” she asked.

  “It can’t be much. Just a smidgen.” He grinned. “About as much as you could get in your pocket.”

  “I wouldn’t put any in my pocket!” She laughed. Again, she held on to him, her head on his chest. He hugged her tight. “I’m so worried,” she said.

  “I don’t think it will amount to much. Anyway, it’s not gamma rays. You can be in the same room with it and not get dosed.”

  “But I still wouldn’t want to be around it.”

  He stroked her hair and tried to utter assurances. “There’s fifty million gallons of all kinds of radioactive waste at that plant in Hanford, Washington. And what about Rocky Flats? They had Dumpsters overflowing with it. But they cleaned it up, and we will too. This is nothing compared to all that. It can’t be that bad.”

  He broke away from her to pour water into the coffeepot.

  “There’s no safe level,” she said.

  He measured the coffee grounds slowly, precisely, as if he were still working with dangerous chemicals. “It can’t have been much, or we’d all be dead by now,” he said.

  “Damn, Reed, I’m outraged! Why aren’t you?”

  “What good would that do?”

  “I hope you haven’t been in contact with it,” she said.

  “You know I’m always careful. I shower and scrub at work like I was trying to get cat piss out of upholstery.”

  He turned on the coffeepot, then held her shoulders and gazed directly into her eyes. “I don’t like it—and sure, I’m a little rattled.”

  “What are they saying at the plant?”

  “Oh, they’re downplaying it. PR’s working overtime.” He selected two clean coffee mugs from the dishwasher. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure everybody there knows much about plutonium. Anyhow, they’re not going to get their jockstraps tied in a knot over it. It might cut off circulation.” He grinned. “They don’t know what to think.”

  She had hung her shoulder bag on one of the ladder-back chairs. She lifted it and began rummaging in it, as if she had brought along some cancer statistics. He stared out the kitchen window and thought about his love for her. It was as though he were meditating, holding a single thought, to steady himself. We’re in this together, he thought. But he would never tell her about his exposures. He didn’t want her to feel sorry for him, and he didn’t want to scare her off. She zipped her bag and hung it on the chair.

  “Did you want the blue mug with flowers on it or this tall, skinny one?” he asked when the coffee was ready.

  “The blue one’s fine. Thank you.”

  “You pick up a couple of hundred millirem a year just for living, you know,” he said, pouring coffee. “Hell, there’s americium in smoke alarms. Americium, the patriotic transuranic.” He grinned.

  “You still don’t have a smoke alarm,” she pointed out, glancing at the kitchen ceiling.

  “So you want me to invite more carcinogens into my home?”

  She smiled, acknowledging the contradiction in her thinking. She sat at the table, sipping her coffee. In her lab coat and Dutch clogs, she seemed surprisingly fragile. Her concern for him made him feel elated; his fear that she didn’t want to be around him because she might get contaminated took a twist.

  He sat down in the chair nearest her and touched her forehead lightly. “I don’t like to see your pretty face all scrunched up with worry.”

  She sipped more coffee. “How’s your mom?”

  “She’s better, but she just sits in her apartment.”

  “Is she able to go out to lunch?”

  “I guess so. We haven’t tried it.”

  “I’m disappointed in you, Reed! You should take your mother out to eat or for a drive, if she’s doing so well. And you have to keep her mind active.”

  “Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Do you feel all right?”

  “I never have anything wrong with me but my usual minor maladies. Or Merry Melodies.”

  “You mean Porky Pig? Or Bugs Bunny?” She smiled, warming to him.

  “Bugs was my guy.”

  “I think Clarence loves me,” she said distractedly, pushing the dog’s nose from her lap.

  “Let him sniff your hand. There. Good Clarence. Good boy. Julia’s sweet.” Julia gave the dog her hand, then moved it to Reed’s leg. He said to Clarence, “She’s so good I’m going to take her in my bedroom and love on her and leave you outside. You’ll just have to be jealous!”

  He was embracing Julia, and she was responding, her hands caressing his face. He was glad he had showered at work, and again he reassured her about that. She had come back to him. He relaxed, and they let some kind of mutual grief flow between them.

  “I’ve missed your lip gloss so much I was tempted to go buy myself a tube of it.”

  “You can borrow mine,” she said, as he was kissing her.

  “I want you,” he mumbled.

  “I have to go to work,” she murmured.

  “This won’t take long,” he said.

  She laughed. “Hey, not that fast!”

  A memory of a cartoon, Pluto the Dog, flashed through his mind. He felt like Pluto, feeling a bit dumb and simple at the moment, overcome with stupid desire. Hastily, he shooed Clarence into the backyard, promising him his breakfast soon. When Reed returned and saw her standing by the door of his bedroom, he thought too late of his dirty sheets.

  “Do you want to see a movie this weekend?” he asked, trying to slow down his approach.

  “No, I’ve seen enough movies for a lifetime.”

  “Friday night let me take you to that fancy place where you dab your bread in a puddle of olive oil.”

  “I want their lobster penne,” she murmured, as she began removing her lab coat.

  “You got it.”

  On Friday, after his shift ended, he didn’t sleep. Jacked up on coffee, he whirred through his house, cleaning it for Julia. He laundered the sheets, scoured the tub. He mowed the yard, trimmed the hedge, washed his truck. Sex on Tuesday morning had
been so spontaneous that they both gasped at its pleasure.

  “What a swell idea,” she had said.

  Mr. Como’s was a white-tablecloth restaurant known as a combo-bistro. Historical photographs of the town covered the walls—old street scenes with department stores, even a series of construction scenes from the plant. Reed and Julia sat next to some 1930s photographs of factory workers.

  Mr. Como was not serving lobster penne that night. The seafood special was grilled salmon drenched with lemon aioli sauce and rosemary orzo studded with yellow-pepper-and-portobello tidbits.

  “I think I had a date once with Rosemary Orzo,” Reed said as the waiter recited the specials.

  “She was my roommate,” Julia said, flirting with Reed.

  The salmon was good. The breakfast-hour sex in the dirty sheets earlier that week had been exceptional. If he were writing a review, Reed would say it was delectable, with the pièce de résistance coming last. The restaurant was noisy, blaring like heavy-metal music, but he didn’t mind.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  He could not hear her reply. She was savoring her rosemary orzo. “What a neat picture,” Julia said, touching an old photograph on the wall beside her. Workers posed at a pants factory—mostly women in thin floral dresses. “All these women with their eager country faces. This would be during the Depression? And see that man up there at the top, with his arms folded and his elbows sticking out? I guess he’s the paterfamilias.”

  “The pot of what?”

  “Paterfamilias.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I thought you said ‘pot of camellias.’ ”

  “It’s noisy in here,” she said, laughing.

  “I’m deaf,” he said.

  The background music was drowned out by the loud chatter in the crowded room. He stopped trying to speak. He wondered whether she had thought he didn’t know the word paterfamilias and so was covering for his ignorance. He concentrated on his salmon and braved the mound of tricolored, julienned roots. He smiled at Julia. She smiled back and mouthed something. He couldn’t hear her words. He felt anxious, as if something were closing in on him, filling up his ears with cotton. The place was so loud. He began to sing. He sang “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.” She kept smiling at him, kept eating. He chugged through a couple of the verses, feeling that he was boarding the train. The pants makers in the photograph seemed to shoot glances at him. He launched into his next selection, “Wake Up Little Susie.” No one in the restaurant—not the waiters, nor the patrons, nor the bartenders—noticed that he was singing. Everyone was busy—jawing, guffawing, gossiping, gulping, guzzling. Julia was smiling at him as though she loved every note. But no one else seemed to hear. He switched to “The White Cliffs of Dover,” an unexpected challenge. He was sweating, and little caffeine-powered butterflies fluttered around his heart. When he finished, Julia applauded, and the waiter came and cleared away the dishes.