2
“Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears.”
Walker the electrician bent over a cluttered workbench and adjusted his magnifier. The great bulbous lens was attached to his head with a hoop that might’ve been uncomfortable had he not been wearing it for most of his sixty-two years. As he pushed the glass into position, the small black chip on the green electronics board came into crystal focus. He could see each of the silver metal legs bent out from its body like knees on a spider, the tiny feet seemingly trapped in silver puddles of frozen steel.
With the tip of his finest soldering iron, Walker prodded a spot of silver while he worked the suction bulb with his foot. The metal around the chip’s tiny foot melted and was pulled through a straw, one little leg of sixteen free.
He was about to move to the other—he had stayed up all night pulling fried chips to occupy his mind from other things—when he heard the recognizable patter of that new porter skittering down his hall.
Walker dropped the board and hot iron to the workbench and hurried to his door. He held the jamb and leaned out as the kid ran past.
“Porter!” he yelled, and the boy reluctantly stopped. “What news, boy?”
The kid smiled, revealing the whites of youth. “I’ve got big news,” he said. “Cost you a chit, though.”
Walker grunted with disgust, but dug into his coveralls. He waved the kid over. “You’re that Samson boy, right?”
He bobbed his head, his hair dancing around his youthful face.
“Shadowed under Gloria, didn’t you?”
The kid nodded again as his eyes followed the silver chit drawn from Walker’s rattling pockets.
“You know, Gloria used to take pity on an old man with no family and no life. Trusted me with news, she did.”
“Gloria’s dead,” the boy said, lifting his palm.
“That she is,” Walker said with a sigh. He dropped the chit into the child’s outstretched and youthful palm, then waved his aged and spotted own for the news. He was dying to know everything and would have gladly paid ten chits. “The details, child. Don’t skip a one.”
“No cleaning, Mr. Walker!”
Walker’s heart missed a beat. The boy turned his shoulder to run on.
“Stay, boy! What do you mean, no cleaning? She’s been set free?”
The porter shook his head. His hair was long, wild, and seemingly built for flying up and down the staircase. “Nossir. She refused!”
The child’s eyes were electric, his grin huge with the possession of such knowledge. No one had ever refused to clean in his lifetime. In Walker’s, neither. Maybe not ever. Walker felt a surge of pride in his Juliette.
The boy waited a moment. He seemed eager to run off.
“Anything else?” Walker asked.
Samson nodded and glanced at Walker’s pockets.
Walker let out a long sigh of disgust for what had become of this generation. He dug into his pocket with one hand and waved impatiently with the other.
“She’s gone, Mr. Walker!”
He snatched the chit from Walker’s palm.
“Gone? As in dead? Speak up, son!”
Samson’s teeth flashed as the chit disappeared into his coveralls. “Nossir. Gone as in over the hill. No cleaning, Mr. Walker, just strode right over and out of view. Gone to the city, and Mr. Bernard witnessed the whole thing!”
The young porter slapped Walker on the arm, needing, obviously, to strike something with his enthusiasm. He swiped his hair off his face, smiled large, and turned to run along his route, his feet lighter and pockets heavier from the tale.
Walker was left, stunned, in the doorway. He gripped the jamb with an iron claw lest he tumble out into the world. He stood there, swaying, looking down at the pile of dishes he’d slipped outside the night before. He glanced over his shoulder at the disheveled cot that had been calling his name all night. Smoke still rose from the soldering iron. He turned away from the hall, which would soon be pattering and clinking with the sounds of first shift, and unplugged the iron before he started another fire.
He remained there a moment, thinking on Jules, thinking on this news. He wondered if she’d gotten his note in time, if it had lessened the awful fear he’d felt in his gut for her.
Walker returned to the doorway. The down deep was stirring. He felt a powerful tug to go out there, to cross that threshold, to be a part of the unprecedented.
Shirly would probably be by soon with his breakfast and to take away his dishes. He could wait for her, maybe talk a bit. Perhaps this spell of insanity would pass.
But the thought of waiting, of the minutes stacking up like work orders, of not knowing how far Juliette had gotten or what reaction the others might be having to her not cleaning—
Walker lifted his foot and leaned it out past his doorway, his boot hovering over untrammeled ground.
He took a deep breath, fell forward, and caught himself on it. And suddenly, he felt like some intrepid explorer himself. There he was, forty something years later, teetering down a familiar hallway, one hand brushing the steel walls, a corner coming up around which his eyes could remember nothing.
And Walker became one more old soul pushing into the great unknown—his brain dizzy with what he might find out there.