The Old Reactor by David Ohle

deformant on my person.”
    “So, where do you go from here?”
    Franklin bent over and held his abdomen. “Excuse me, please, but it’s time for me to make for the potty. I’m all loaded up. Got to dump it.”
    Two handlers grasped Franklin by the elbows and walked him to the gutter outside. Even at that distance, and with the doors closed, Saposcat’s patrons could hear Franklin’s apish grunting and smell the odor of his stool.
    “What a disgusting display,” Sorrel said.
    “It sounds like an angry bowel,” Moldenke said.
    Salmonella held her nose. “That is bad, bad, bad.”
    Moldenke wanted things to go well, despite Franklin’s display. He studied the menu with seeming calm. “Mmmm, the river sturgeon looks good.”
    Sorrel summoned a busboy. “Tell someone to turn on the ceiling fans. It smells awful in here.”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    After switching on the fans, a waiter came to the table, pad and pencil in hand. Sorrel said she needed a minute or two. “I’m torn between the mud fish and the kerd.”
    Salmonella elected to have the mud fish.
    Moldenke ordered sturgeon steaks. The waiter shook his head. “I’m so sorry, these steaks are driftwood-grilled outdoors and can only be served when the weather is fair.”
    “All right, give me the kerd with a side of the trotters and a pint of bitters.”
    Sorrel finally made up her mind. “I’ll have the trotters too, and a glass of bitters.”
    “Does the girl want anything to drink?”
    “Yeah, I sure do,” Salmonella snorted. “I want some green soda.”
    “I’ll get that order in right away.”
    When the drinks arrived, it seemed to Moldenke the right time for conversation. “Sorrel, tell me, what is your favorite color?”
    “Black. I like black best.”
    “Besides ugly, you’re pretty stupid,” Salmonella said. “Black isn’t a color. Everybody knows that.”
    Sorrel was offended and Moldenke grew impatient. “The whole idea of color is a human concept, a word. That’s all. Drink your soda and hush.”
    Even through Sorrel’s macramé veil, one could see her face flush in anger.
    “Her father abandoned her,” Moldenke said. “I took her in for a night. Call me soft-hearted.”
    “She belongs in the Young People’s Home.”
    Salmonella twirled her hair anxiously. “Don’t listen to that, Moldenke. I do not want to go there.”
    Just as the waiter set the plates on the table, someone from the press yelled out. “He’s had a heart attack! The great golfer is dying!” Six or seven of his handlers carried Franklin and placed him in his motor, which sped away. It was rumored that he would be taken to his yacht—the Blue Crab , docked at Point Blast—where his personal physician had been stationed.
    The Altobello Young People’s Home, run by the Sisters of Comfort, was a walled fortress of youthful freedom, a freedom thought by some to be more like neglect. Ordinary young people lived largely unsupervised among wild young jellyheads, who were ever ready to bare their blue teeth, spit at you, or squirt you with deformant. With the shape of an octagon, the Home surrounded a central commons, where young people of both sexes were set free without food, clothing, or shelter. It was everyone for him or herself.
    A healthy grove of pines grew there on a rise above a sizable fishing pond, an apple orchard, several acres of rich soil set aside for crops and enough of a meadow to graze a few animals. It was thought that in those surroundings and supplied with the tools of survival, that the young people would learn that life is what you make of it.
    Salmonella was glum and quiet as she and Moldenke rode the streetcar. He tried to both excuse himself from what he was about to do and at the same time explain why he was doing it.
    “First of all, you’re not my child. Your father abandoned you. The Home is where you belong. If I see your father, I’ll insist he come and get you.”
    When the conductor called out, “Young People’s