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8
Through the open window rolled the heat and stench, the sound of the city, a multivoiced roar that rose and fell with the hammered persistence of waves breaking on a beach; an endless thunder. In sudden punctuation against this background of noise there came the sound of broken glass and a jangled metallic crash; voices rose in shouts and there was a long scream at the same instant.
“What? What…?” Solomon Kahn grumbled, stirring on the bed and rubbing his eyes. The bums, they never shut up, never let you grab a little nap. He got up and shuffled to the window, but could see nothing. They were still shouting — what could have made the noise? Another fire escape falling off? That happened often enough, they even showed it on TV if there was a gruesome picture to go with it. No, probably not, just kids breaking windows again or something. The sun was down behind the buildings but the air was still hot and foul.
“Some lousy weather,” he muttered as he went to the sink. Even the boards in the floor were hot on the soles of his bare feet. He sponged off some of the sweat with a little water, then turned the TV on to the Music-Time station. A jazz beat filled the room and the screen said 18:47, with 6:47 P.M. underneath in smaller numerals for all the yuks who had dragged through life without managing to learn the twenty-four-hour clock. Almost seven, and Andy was on day duty today, which meant he should have been through by six, though they never left on time. Anyway, it was time to get the chow going.
“For this the Army gave me a fine fifteen-grand education as an aviation mechanic,” he said, patting the stove. “Finest investment they ever made.” The stove had started life as a gas burner, which he had adapted for tank gas when they had closed off the gas mains, then had installed an electric heating element when the supplies of tank gas had run out. By the time the electric supplies became too erratic — and expensive — to cook with, he had installed a pressure tank with a variable jet that would burn any inflammable liquid. It had worked satisfactorily for a number of years, consuming kerosene, methanol, acetone and a number of other fuels, balking only slightly at aviation gas while sending out a yard-long streamer of flame that had scorched the wall just before he could adjust it. His final adaptation had been the simplest — and most depressing. He had cut a hole in the back of the oven and run a chimney outdoors through another hole hammered through the brick wall. When a solid-fuel fire was built on the rack inside the oven, an opening in the insulation above it let the heat through to the front ring.
“Even the ashes stink like fish,” he complained as he shoveled out the thin layer of powdery ash from the previous day. These he threw out the window in an expanding gray cloud and was gratified when he heard a cry of complaint from the window on the floor below. “Don’t you like that?” he shouted back. “So tell your lousy kids not to play the TV at full blast all night and maybe I’ll stop dumping the ashes.”
This exchange cheered him, and he hummed along with The Nutcracker Suite which had replaced the nameless jazz composition — until a burst of static suddenly interrupted the music, drowning it out. He mumbled curses under his breath as he ran over and hammered on the side of the TV set with his fist. This had not the slightest effect. The static continued until he reluctantly turned the TV off. He was still muttering angrily when he bent to fire up the stove.
Sol placed three oily gray bricks of seacoal on the rack and went over to the shelf for his battered Zippo lighter. A good lighter that, bought in the PX when? — must be fifty years ago. Of course most of the parts had been replaced since that time, but they didn’t make lighters like this any more. They didn’t make lighters at all any more. The seacoal spluttered and caught, burning with a small blue flame. It stank — of fish — and so did his hands now: he went and rinsed them off. The stuff was supposed to be made of cellulose waste from the fermentation vats at the alcohol factory, dried and soaked with a low-grade plankton oil to keep it burning. Rumor had it that it was really made of dried and pressed fish guts from the processing plants, and he preferred this to the official version, true or not.
His miniature garden was doing well in the window box. He plucked the last of the sage and spread it out on the table to dry, then lifted the plastic sheeting to see how the onions were doing. They were coming along fine and would be ready for pickling soon. When he went to rinse off his hands in the sink he looked quizzically at his beard in the mirror.
“It needs trimming, Sol,” he told his image. “But the light is almost gone so it can wait until morning. Still, it wouldn’t hurt none to comb it before you dress for di
“Alcover’s Electronics,” was the muffled answer.
“I thought you died or your place burned down,” Sol said, throwing the door open. “It’s only been two weeks since you said you would do a rush job on this set — which I paid for in advance.”
“That’s the way the electron hops,” the tall repairman said calmly, swinging his valise-sized toolbox onto the table. “You got a gassy tube, some tired components in that old set. So what can I do? They don’t make that tube any more, and if they did I couldn’t buy it, it would be on priority.” His hands were busy while he talked, hauling the TV down to the table and starting to unscrew the back. “So how do I fix the set? I have to go down to the radio breakers on Greenwich Street and spend a couple of hours shopping around. I can’t get the tube, so I get a couple of transistors and breadboard up a circuit that will do the same job. It’s not easy, I tell you.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” Sol said, watching suspiciously as the repairman took the back off the set and extracted a tube.
“Gassy,” the man said, looking sternly at the radio tube before he threw it into his toolbox. From the top tray he took a rectangle of thin plastic on which a number of small parts had been attached, and began to wire it into the TV circuit. “Everything’s makeshift,” he said. “I have to ca
“Crook!” Sol said. “I already gave you thirty-five D’s…”
“That was for the parts, labor is extra. If you want the little luxuries of life you have to be prepared to pay for them.”
“The repairs I need,” Sol said, handing over the money. “The philosophy I do not. You’re a thief.”
“I prefer to think of myself as an electronic grave robber,” the man said, pocketing the bills. “If you want to see the thieves you should see what I pay to the radio breakers.” He shouldered his toolbox and left.
It was almost eight o’clock. Only a few minutes after the repairman had finished his job a key turned in the lock and Andy came in, tired and hot.
“Your chunk is really dragging,” Sol said.
“So would yours if you had a day like mine. Can’t you turn on a light, it’s black as soot in here.” He slumped to the chair by the window and dropped into it.
Sol switched on the small yellow bulb that hung in the middle of the room, then went to the refrigerator. “No Gibsons tonight, I’m rationing the vermouth until I can make some more. I got the coriander and orris root and the rest, but I have to dry some sage first, it’s no good without that.” He took out a frosted pitcher and closed the door. “But I put some water in to cool and cut it with some alky which will numb the tongue so you can’t taste the water, and will also help the nerves.”