BY PAUL GARSON
Copyright is held by the author.
KVORPE’S LIFE was falling apart.
It all seemed to start when his wife ran off with a shaggy fellow on a motorcycle. All Kvorpe knew was summed up by a postcard from Gretna, Louisiana, a polychrome of the Mississippi River Bridge. “Having wonderful time. Glad you’re not here,” signed Candy Cane. For a moment he didn’t know who the card was from. His wife’s name was Christine as far as he knew.
Kvorpe now sat at the kitchen window of his apartment, its brownstone building located in the inner city, conveniently close to shopping centers, schools and places of worship, all of which were inconveniently disintegrating around him. He looked out onto the street below cluttered with junk cars. The street itself gaped a bomb cluster of potholes, piles of shattered asphalt and uprooted sidewalks, unfinished excavations for a broken sewer main. The Neighbourhood was in a shambles. The world as he knew it had come unglued.
Turning to the old Zenith television, its glass face feebly reflecting his own image, he switched it on to find a news update on the latest recalls from cars to heart pacemakers. Kvorpe watched until the TV picture broke up into vertical stripes and then popped, imploding inwardly like a miniature Black Hole.
Shuffling into the bathroom and noticing his face in the mirror he realized he hadn’t shaved in a week. Then he remembered why. He couldn’t get the 47 little blades of his electric shaver to work. They had lost the will to whirl. Kvorpe stepped back to the mirror. One of his ears seemed lower than the other, as if it had slipped during the night. He decided to take a hot bath. That would make him feel better. The hot water knob came off. He held it in his hand a moment then put it down.
Back in the living room he sunk into his favorite chair, its old cushion wheezing. He sat there for several minutes, unaware his old dog, an orange coloured Chihuahua-Shih Tzu mix he called Cheetos, had crawled under the cushion. When Kvorpe finally felt the extra lump, it was too late. How long the dog had been under the cushion was unknown. Kvorpe did remember the food dish had gone strangely untouched for several days.
Kvorpe buried Cheetos in a shoe box behind the apartment building’s broken trash incinerator, doubly troubled since he felt his old pal would have preferred cremation. He kicked the metal grating to the incinerator on his way up the long flights of steps. The heel of his right shoe broke off. The elevator hadn’t worked in months so he climbed the stairs, limping on his right foot. Panting and out of breath Kvorpe staggered back into his apartment. Never mind the broken key in the lock he told himself.
2
Never mind. Besides there was nothing worth stealing in his apartment.
No use resisting anymore. What did they call it, the scientists? The Entropy of the Universe? Or was it atrophy? He couldn’t remember. Stars went out like his light bulbs. Galaxies dimmed like his broken TV. What could he possibly do? Kvorpe decided to sit back onto his favorite chair and wait for the end. For his ears to fall off. For the world to fly apart into cosmic confetti. But not for the leg of his favorite chair to suddenly break. Both he and the chair lay sprawled on the floor, he face down on the old green rug, his fingers pulling at the balding pile. Enough was enough! He told himself. Kvorpe do something! Just don’t lie there like a broken man in a broken-down world. Fix it. Yes fix it! Fix the whole damn thing!
He went to the closet. Inside was the red metal chest of tools, the sliding trays full of shiny unused sockets, chrome-vanadium open-end wrenches, vacuum gauges and a tune up kit for his car, one of the ancient V-8 carcasses now slouching on flattened tires in the street. The tools seemed to glow, beckoning. He touched the mint set of vice grips with tenderness. A gift from his son who worked in an Auto Parts shop the other side of town. The other side of the moon. What was the difference? When did he ever see him?
Kvorpe found what he was looking for. He pocketed a couple screw drivers. He knew himself well enough to forget about using the more complicated tools. He was no mechanical genius. He held the large box of glue tubes he had bought years ago. Taking one golden tube from the box, he turned it over and over. The label read “Midas Magic Golden Glue.” According to the As Seen on TV ad, it was the best glue on the market, used by the Pentagon on tanks and by NASA on rocket ships. Works on any materials, porous or non-porous, organic, inorganic, water proof, shock proof, and never dries out. A dozen tubes for only $19.95. Plus shipping and handling. Enough glue for a million chores, said the accompanying pamphlet. Money back guarantee if not completely satisfied.
It had a nice heft to it, the golden tube. Like a well-balanced revolver or throwing knife, not that he had any experience with either. But it felt good. And like it said, enough glue for a million chores. He realized here was the power to heal the world, to fix all its broken fixtures, attach all the disassociated parts, repair all the Dismal Brokenness cluttering up the neighbourhood, to get it all up and running smoothly, efficiently, happily.
Kvorpe set to work immediately. He changed into an old pair of overalls, popped on a Yankees baseball cap and laced up a slightly mildewed pair of work boots. And gloves, very important, the gloves, he reminded himself after reading the warning label on the golden tube. “Avoid Skin Contact!”
First things first. He glued the heel back on his shoe. It dried instantly, solid as welded steel. He no longer limped. Next he tended to his favorite chair. Leg good as new, better even. But he only sat for a minute before jumping up, eager for the work at hand. He squeezed a tiny drop on the bath tub’s hot water handle, slipped it over the worn splines of the shaft. Presto! It worked. He let the bath run, steam rising. He almost succumbed to the caresses of the warm water, but the bath could wait. He turned the handle. It held.
In the living room, he removed the back of the TV and peered inside at the jumble of dusty tubes. He felt among the sockets with fingers growing more sensitized by the minute. He found the loose wire. Not a blown picture tube after all. The tiny drop of Midas Magic healed the severed connection.
3
Kvorpe hooked up the back panel and switched on the set. The screen shimmered for a moment then locked clear and tight, a perfect picture, a commercial for motorcycles. “You meet the nicest people on…” Kvorpe quickly switched off the set remembering with a grumble how Christine had been turned into a Candy Cane by a motorcycle.
He threw himself back into his work. On the kitchen table he tinkered with his electric shaver. Part of the plastic thingamajig near the rotary head was cracked. A touch of Midas Magic and the fissure disappeared seamlessly. The Swedish steel blades spun again and soon his face shone. He put the shaver back into the medicine cabinet, pausing at his reflection in the mirror. Even his ears seemed back in alignment. He was beginning to look like his old self, before…before Christine had left him. Good work. Keep it up, he told himself.
He looked around his apartment after a very busy hour. Everything was fixed, repaired, healed, the place now healthy and whole. Now what? He paced a moment. He stopped pacing. He had a thought…why not? He took himself out of the apartment, climbed down the stairs and into the broken elevator now permanently stationed on the ground floor. The service panel was easily removed with a Phillips head screwdriver. He quickly found the faulty connection at the emergency button that had shut down the whole operation. A squeeze on the golden tube and all was well again. He took a quality control tour of the building, stopping on every floor. People came out when they heard the old murmur of the elevator. Kvorpe responded to their questions. Yes, he had fixed it. He and his Midas Magic. He held up the golden tube, held it high. They applauded him. Why wasn’t Kvorpe the building manager they all asked, immediately voting him into the long vacant office. Kvorpe felt good, better than good.
Outside he took a look at the incinerator. A pulley belt housing had sheared off at the shaft. A couple dabs of glue and it held solid. Soon flames flared once again. Kvorpe disinterred his late lamented pet and put the shoe box into the cherry red mouth of the incinerator. He stood quietly watching the pink glow until the incinerator’s work was done, then picking up the box of golden tubes, hurried with renewed vigor out into the street.
It was almost dark before he finished. He had used up one complete tube, but his old Dodge no longer dangled a grill bumper, strands of loose weather stripping and torn vinyl. Even if it didn’t run… yet… it was no longer an eyesore like the rest of the derelicts parked on the street. The neighbours came out and sat on their stoops watching in amazement. Then one by one, they asked for a little glue to work on their battered cars and crumbling apartments. Kvorpe was happy to hand out the tubes for all neighbours to share, keeping the last one tucked in his overhaul’s pocket.
Soon all up and down the street, people were mending, fixing, repairing, both inside and outside their homes. Even the street and sidewalk were cleared of debris. People worked by flashlight late Into the night, Kvorpe moving about helping where he could — the lamp post on the corner, the coin machine in the laundromat, even the neighbourhood’s last pay telephone.
The reclamation project, spontaneous and epidemic, spread throughout the neighbourhood. Card tables were set up, food brought out, musicians played, all the while people working, gluing, restoring, and there guiding the administration of the precious glue was Kvorpe — even down to his own last remaining tube, soon down to its last few drops.
Finally, the neighbourhood, tired yet feeling accomplished, took themselves back to their beds until only Kvorpe stood on the now well-manicured street. He made one more inspection loop around the block adding a touch here and there, mending a broken hand rail, a cracked tail light, until all was done, all fixed.
Kvorpe rode the elevator up to his apartment. He put his newly repaired key into the newly repaired door lock. Once inside he took a nice long bath and then got into bed. Just before turning off the light, he looked at the last tube of Midas Magic Golden Glue. It lay crumpled, as if exhausted, on the nightstand.
He was almost asleep when a loud rumbling had him sitting up, rubbing his eyes. Then he heard the apartment front door open and close. For some reason he reached for the tube of glue. Someone stood silhouetted in the bedroom doorway. “Hi . . . uh, it’s me, Christine. I’m back.”
Kvorpe stared at his wife, pointing the tube at her. Something made him squeeze out the last few drops. They fell golden on him.
“Can I stay?” asked his wife, waiting in the doorway.
***
Paul Garson lives in a one-bedroom L.A. apartment with a bad rug and a good cat. His works include 10 nonfiction books traditionally published in the U.S. and U.K. along with a sci-fi novel published by Doubleday. His nonfiction articles and short fictions have appeared in some 90 U.S. and international publications, print and digital. Two sci-fi screenplays were produced by CineTel and American Independent. He also created and co-hosted a live-streamed Internet series of some 40 two-hour episodes focusing on mysteries and the paranormal titled Aliens Ate My Motorcycle. More recently he appeared on a segment of the History Channel series The Proof is Out There. Professionally he served as editor and feature writer at several national motorsport magazines and also taught composition and writing at USC and Cal State Fullerton. He has travelled 150,000 miles on motorcycles, visited some 20 countries including Russia and Japan and enjoyed many years as an amateur astronomer and student of martial arts. MA Johns Hopkins; MFA USC.
A metaphor for Washington, D.C. post 2028? An entertaining read.