“Look, it even bites,” the jellyhead had said as the animal attacked.
In the commotion that followed, the jellyhead dropped the rat and ran from the bar. Bar patrons killed the big rodent by stepping on it and sticking it with pocketknives.
Moldenke opened his uniform jacket and slid the undershirt off his shoulder. There were teeth marks and beads of blood.
“This guy’s not Peters,” one of the patrons said.
The bar keeper tore up the card and flung the pieces at Moldenke. “Get out of here you impostering son of a bitch.”
Out on the street, Moldenke wondered if there were clinics open, a doctor’s office, some place where he might have the rat bite looked at. Even in the best of times, there would be no doctors’ offices open this time of night. There was Charity Hospital, run by the Sisters of Comfort, way up on Broad Street. He would have to catch a streetcar. No, that would be too strenuous. And he might find the Hospital’s doors closed. The only thing to do was walk back to the house on Esplanade, wash the bite, and hope it would heal cleanly.
Photographers’ bulbs flashed as two hundred jellyheads stood in the mud of City Park Wednesday night awaiting a miracle. They watched a nine-year-old jellyhead, Joseph Vitolo, pray at an improvised altar banked with pissweed and dandelion flowers, statuettes and dozens of guttering candles.
It was the sixteenth night the boy had seen a vision of the future in the rain clouds. He later told the press that in the vision he had foreseen a miraculous eddy opening beneath him, swallowing him entirely and admitting him into the ranks of the great saints and healers. The crowd saw no miracle yet, but several invalids and one or two with gel sack rot claimed their condition had suddenly improved.
At seven p.m. the boy rode through the waiting crowd on the shoulders of a neighbor in a hard rain. Paralytics, others with crutches and bandages followed, trying to be near the visionary boy. The parade of soaked jellyheads went along in a semi-circle until the boy grew dizzy and almost fainted.
“Look! Look!” a rumor spread through the lot. “He is not getting wet. The rain doesn’t touch him. It is a miracle. This is the one who has come to save us.”
But those closest to the boy said he was as wet as anyone.
The streetlights along Esplanade were out for the night, but a half moon lit the sidewalk such that Moldenke could step over any holes or wide gaps. When he got to the house, the door was locked and it was dark inside. He went along the porch to the tall window and looked in. A candle burned on a table in the parlor. Now he could see three jellyheads sitting there drinking bitters. He knocked on the glass. All three turned toward the window.
“Can you let me in? I’ve been bitten by a rat. I need to clean the bite.”
One of the jellies came to the window. “Who are you? What do you want? We have nothing to spare. Move on.”
“No, I’m Moldenke. This is my house. Ozzie must have told you.”
He turned to the others. “Did Ozzie say anything to you about this character?”
“Yeah, let him in.”
The jelly went to the door and unlocked it. “Come on in. I’m Jerry, those two are Leon and Jack.”
“Yes, Ozzie mentioned you all. I’ve met four others. How many are here?”
Jerry looked at the others.
Leon said, “Seven, I think. Maybe eight.”
Jack said, “We come and go.”
“You’ve done a great job on this place.”
“Yeah, we love to work. You want some bitters?”
“I’d like to go into the kitchen and clean this bite on my shoulder first.”
Jerry said, “You better. Rat-bite fever’s nothing to mess around with. People can die of it. We can’t.”
Moldenke moved toward the kitchen sink. “It was a big one, too,” he said, sliding his shirt down over his shoulder. “The teeth went in deep.”
The half-oval bite mark had a rosy ring surrounding it and a purple rash nearby. He turned on the hot water faucet and waited with a kitchen sponge in his hand.
“No hot water anymore,” Leon said. “The City turned off the gas today. It’s part of the liberation.”
Moldenke applied sponges full of cool water to the bite until the dried blood was gone, yet the look of the inflammation frightened him.
“They closed the hospital, too,” Jack said. “Pour some bitters on it.” He brought the bottle to Moldenke, who wrung the sponge dry and poured bitters into it. Though the application stung him acutely, it gave him confidence that dangerous germs were being killed.
“We got good honey, too, from the Old Reactor. Put some of it on there. It’s got radio energy.”
Jack said, “One of my sacks had a problem a while ago. The signals were not coming in. That honey took care of it. I’m telling you the truth.”
“I have chills,” Moldenke said. “I want to go to bed.”
“You sure you don’t need some honey on that?”
“No, no. I’m all right. Where should I sleep? Where’s Ozzie?”
“Maybe he’s up there tucking that orphan in.”
Fevered now and growing weaker, Moldenke only wanted to find a bed himself. “Where should I sleep?” he asked the jellies, who were sitting at the table again, looking at the candle, entranced.
Leon said, “Your old aunt’s room. It’s yours now. Go up there.”
Moldenke’s hands were cold and moist. Almost fainting and nearly collapsing at the top of the stairs, his legs ached terribly and he had no sensation in his feet, forcing him to take small, shuffling steps to his aunt’s room, where jelly-heads had been napping.
Without removing his uniform, he fell into the unmade bed, sank his head into a gel-smeared pillow, and pulled the covers up to his eyes.
During the night his fever worsened. When morning came, he awakened to find Salmonella sitting on one side of the bed and the jellyhead gardener on the other.
“Good morning,” the jellyhead said. “We need to talk to you about some things.”
Moldenke turned his head toward Salmonella. She was smiling. He saw that the blue spots on her teeth had grown even bluer.
“His name is Gus,” she said. “He’s the gardener. We mated last night so we’re together now, me and Gus.”
“She’ll have my babies,” Gus said. “They’ll be freeborn.”
Salmonella outlined the contours of an apple with her hands. “We’re going to grow apples in the back. He promised me we would.”
Moldenke said, “Please, I’ve got rat bite fever. Get me a doctor. Is there a doctor anywhere around?”
Gus said, “There’s that old man down the street. Maybe he can help you. I’ll go and get him. He lost his doctor’s license a long time ago, but he still knows a lot. He was trained under Zanzetti.”
“Please, go ask him to come here. I can’t possibly get out of this bed. I’m too weak. I’m afraid I’m dying.”
“Okay, we’ll see if I we get him to look at you.”
Salmonella took Gus’s hand and the two left together.
Moldenke went in and out of consciousness for the hour it took them to return with a gray-haired man who sat at the vanity and looked at Moldenke from a distance. “I’m Dr. Burnheart, former student of Zanzetti’s. Can you see straight? Do you have blurriness?”
“I’m not seeing straight and, yes, things are blurred.”
“With a high fever.”
“I’m burning.”
“And chills?”
“I shiver all the time.”
“They tell me a rat bit you.”
“A big one.”
“Is the bite infected?”
“Yes, and I ache all over.”
“Swollen joints?”
Moldenke felt his knee, then his ankle. “Yes.”