The doorman had a wheelchair beside his station and he lent it to
Henry. As Henry carried her to the
wheelchair, Portia dribbled saliva onto Henry’s shirt and he nearly screamed
and dropped her. By the time he had
paid the cab driver with money from Portia’s purse and rolled Portia across the
lobby, into the elevator and down the hall to their condo, Henry had smiled at
5, that’s right, 5 (five) influential residents exiting from a condo-board
meeting. Not only were these people
the arbiters of who would reside in the building, they were prospects for
Henrys’ growing construction business.
He was embarrassed, he was humiliated, he was incensed.
After Henry pushed Portia into the front foyer of their apartment, he
just let Portia remain slumped in the wheelchair, belching occasionally, chin
on her chest. She sat there, passed
out, for almost an hour before the security guard called up insisting that the
wheelchair be returned.
Henry slammed down the glass of cloned wine he was drinking and the
stem broke off at the base. “Fine,”
he said to the intercom. “I’ll be
right down.”
Henry stopped leaning judgmentally on the wall and started carrying
Portia contemptuously to the bedroom.
About 3 feet down the hall she woke up from the discomfort.
“I won’t go!” she said.
“I wish you would,” growled Henry. “You could use a shower.”
“Oh, honey,” purred Portia and she wrapped her arms around his head,
cutting off his vision. Henry
walked into the bed-frame and bruised his forelegs. He dropped Portia unceremoniously and
she nearly bounced a foot off the bed.
She recovered by quickly wrapping her legs around his torso and pulling
his pelvis into a head-on collision with her own. “And where do you think you’re going?”
she said.
Henry glowered at her.
“Down to the lobby to return the …”
That’s when she remembered… and exploded into wretched wails
reminiscent of a loon. “Ooooooh.”
“What?” said Henry.
“What?”
“Aoowwh,” sobbed Portia as she stumbled off the bed and cried all the
way into the bathroom.
“What is it?” asked Henry.
Portia had locked the bathroom door. “I demand an explanation!”
“Go away,” came from inside the bathroom.
“Oh, now what have I done,” asked Henry, mostly to himself. He’d done something that he couldn’t
remember and she’d gone off and gotten really drunk, which Portia would never
do. What could it be?
Maybe she found out about the receptionist at the trade show in Hamburg
last month. But anyone who knew
about that lived on the other side of the planet, spoke another language and
was named Helga. How could Portia
know?
“Honey, what’s wrong,” pleaded Henry. No answer. “Portiaaa, tell me what’s wrong.”
No answer came except for the barely audible whimpers of a distraught
young woman. Henry sat down on the
carpet in front of the bathroom door.
He was fastidious enough to want to return the wheelchair despite
Portia’s obvious distress, but unwilling to invoke her fury should she
interpret his exit as an abandonment, even if momentary, despite her lack of
reciprocity in the whole locked bathroom door conversation department. In other words, Henry thought that
Portia had gone nuts and he didn’t want to make her more crazy.
The intercom sparked to life with a furious buzzing and Henry was
helpless to stop himself from racing to it. “Yes, what?”
“Meester Henry?” asked the doorman, sounding Spanish, which meant he
was under duress.
“Yes,” said Henry. “I
know, you want the wheelchair.”
“Yes, sir,” said the doorman.
“I’m afraid Mrs. Smith insists she wants it back.” He whispered, sounding very
pathetic. “Please, Mr. Stenzler, it
could cost me my job.”
“All right, hold your horses,” said Henry. Henry returned to the bathroom
door. “Portia, I have to return the
wheelchair I borrowed in order to get you up here. I’ll be right back.”
Portia sat on the toilet, listening as Henry walked out of their
apartment and closed the door. She
let her legs give out and she slid to the carpet in front of the tank and the
whirlpool bathtub. She was so
embarrassed that she wanted to crawl into the toilet and flush. She was green with the effects of the
drink and felt very comforted sitting with her head on the cold porcelain edge
of the bowl.
She was going to have to quit her job. The only way they could afford this
condo was if she had the job. If
she kept the job she could afford the condo but she wouldn’t be able to live in
the condo.
It dawned on her that the Waste-REL was probably not designed for
geo-synchronous orbit, which would only defeat its purpose, so she could
reasonably expect to float over her beautiful waterfront condo at least once a
day. She could wave to it through a
porthole, at least until the porthole was covered with junk. She didn’t think the Waste-REL had
portholes anyway.
Portia looked at the seahorses on the wallpaper, her seahorses that
she picked out herself. She let her
gaze fall on the new faucets she’d purchased; the faucets with the very classy sensors
that automatically started the water at exactly the right temperature. They were expensive but they’d been on
sale. That’s what she saw when she
looked at the faucets, the 30%-Off sticker that wasn’t there anymore.
“What do I do?” Portia asked the faucets. Her fiancée, her brother and her
brother’s friends were now wrapped up in this thing. She’d have to find a solution, but who
or what could save her?
-----
When she woke up at 3 in the morning, Portia was on the floor in the
bathroom with a rolled up towel under her head. She was shivering from sleeping on the
cold tile. She did her best to
stretch herself out of the fetal position and jerk to a sitting position, her
brain feeling like someone had jabbed it repeatedly with a jagged bowling ball.
Portia pulled open the medicine cabinet and grabbed some stomach
medicine, some head medicine and some additional head medicine to act as back
up in case the first head medicine’s advertising company turned out to be a
bunch of liars. She swallowed all
these medicines in rapid succession and then tried to remember why she was in
this condition.
“Alcohol,” said Portia. “I
drank real alcohol.”
Portia was accustomed to imbibing a hollow leg’s worth of alcoholic
beverages in an evening, but the alcohol didn’t include any ethanol, at least
not the kind preferred by aging astronauts. She was used to a synthetically
formulated ethanol-like compound that had an entirely different molecular
structure, making it less damaging to the liver and brain and less intoxicating,
while still providing enough euphoria to lubricate a party. It would have been illegal if it hadn’t
been invented by the Alcohol Industry in a desperate attempt to regain the
market lost to designer drugs, which were still illegal, if plentiful.
Alternahol®, as it was known in the trade, had taken over the industry because it was the only thing the 18 to 35 crowd would drink.
For those who preferred their high with a hangover, it was fortunate that 18 year old scotch had to sit around in barrels for 18 years because 18 years after the patenting of the Alternahol process, no one was going to be able to find any of the “real” stuff. With that much forewarning, many a basement became ridiculously over-stocked as the remaining inventory sold out to old-timers in a yearly frenzy.
Portia, on the other hand, had never had a “real” drink in her
life. She thought: “that boomer
astronaut, that Cliff, he must have known!” She would have cursed Cliff, but she
couldn’t remember any good old-fashioned curses. Then she vindictively croaked out
“boomer boozer.” She was certain
that such a vicious taunt would have cut him to the quick!
Portia stumbled into the kitchen in search of a glass of water and
instead found a note on the counter.
Her vision was blurry but she managed to read it.
Darling Portia,
After
tonight, I guess you must have figured it out. I never meant to drive you to this, but
you’ve made me think about what I ought to do to be honest to myself… now that
you know the truth.
I’m going
back to Germany. There’s a boy
there named Helga who I’ve fallen in love with. I guess this won’t come as a shock to
you, and I’m glad I won’t be responsible for that.
I never
meant to hurt you, please believe me.
If you tell the lawyer what to do, he can take care of forwarding my
share of the proceeds from selling the condo. I’ve taken all the things I care
about. The rest are yours to do
with as you please.
Let’s try
to stay friends,
Yours
truly,
Henry
Stenzler.
Portia’s mind cart-wheeled.
She read the note again. She
looked around the kitchen and then went into the living room. The only thing that was missing was a
small black statuette in the shape of a bird. Henry had said something about the blob
of metal reminding him of the movie “The Melted Falcon”. Henry was into things like ancient
videos, that’s why she’d liked him – opposites attracting and such. Except now he was gone, to Germany, to
his trans-sexual, transgendered, transatlantic boyfriend, whatever they call
it.
Henry was Gay. Henry left
her for a guy. What was wrong with
her? She’d been a guy once, hadn’t she, for a few seconds? How could Henry be homosexual? Half the time, he didn’t appear to be
sexual.
Portia’s mind imagined Henry naked with another guy and then she
changed her brain-channel to puppy dogs and little kittens like the ones in the
picture on the wall beside the loveseat in her living-room and she promised
herself that she’d think about puppy dogs and kittens until her imagination
smartened up.
The SPECTACLE flashed and rang a bell. It was 3
in the morning, Portia was hung over and her fiancée had left her for a guy
name Helga. “If this is Edgley,” she said to herself, gritting her teeth. She stormed over to her purse and put on
her SPECTACL. It wasn’t Edgley.
“What is it, Mickey?”
“I think you better get over here.” Mickey was in earnest. “We’ve checked it out every way we can
and there’s no question about it.
As it sits, the Waste-REL is doomed.”
“What?” said Portia, losing her patience. “Look, you’re not qualified to make that
assessment. If you don’t want to
go, just say so, you’ll make things infinitely more easy for me!”
“No, I think we can go,” said Mickey. “I think we figured out how to make it
work.”
“Look,” said Portia.
“Let’s talk in the morning, at breakfast all right.”
“Sure,” said Mickey. “Come
on over for room service.”
“All right,” said Portia.
“I’ll do that. See you in
about 5 hours. Now disconnect the
Pheelybox and go to bed.”
“Okay,” said Mickey, but it didn’t sound like he intended to do any
such thing.
Portia drank copious amounts of water and lay down on her bed, but the
room started spinning and she got up and returned to the bathroom to rid
herself of the water.
“Some astronaut I’d make,” she mumbled through spit.
Next: The Waste-REL Conspiracy
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