Anton's Odyssey (3 page)

“Yeah I think I saw him earlier
,” said the underling. “He was wearing combat fatigues. If he wasn’t so wimpy, you’d think he was about to charge off into battle.”

“Well,” the supervisor said, “look on the bright side. She’s not bad looking, and if her kids piss on the floor, at least we can find something for her to do.” They laughed.

The underling in orange walked back over to us.

“Is there a problem?” mo
ther asked, concerned.

“No problem, ma’am. We are very happy to have you aboard.
Go find the steward to get assigned to living quarters.”

Mom smiled at him as we walked by. I sneered menacingly
, and picked up my elbow as if I were about to throw a punch. The guy flinched, which felt rather rewarding after the verbal venom he just spewed about my family. What really hurt was that some of the things he had said about mother were true.

I was surprised to find that the passageways in the Magic Sky Daddy weren’t much different from the corridors in public housing. The floor of the ship was covered with almost identical carpeting; dreary, worn,
and grey but previously dull green or burgundy in a past life, and best ignored. There weren’t any square windows of course, just a few small round portholes at the peripheries of the ship. The passageways varied more in size than the hallways at our old place. Some passageways were very narrow, some were very wide. We got lost several times, but we were able to find the steward without my mother completely melting down.

The steward also wore an orange jumpsuit, the uniform of
an ordinary starman. He was skinny with thinning brown hair and well-trimmed side burns. On a white strip over his left front chest pocket were printed the words, “Bob Blunt, steward.” He authenticated our personal pocket modules so they would work as chip keys for our living quarters. He handed my mother an orange baseball cap and three orange jump suits, the adjustable one-size fits all variety.

“You must wear the cap and jumpsuit anytime you are on duty, but take the cap off when you eat.”

“Yes sir!” mother said with enthusiasm. Bob rolled his eyes. Like his two crewmates outside, he didn’t think much of us.

Our living quarters were right around the corner. Mom’s jaw dropped when the door slid open. The main livin
g space was quite small, only about two meters in width and three in length. A small table was bolted to the far corner. A vid screen was integrated into the wall on the right. There were four chairs that swiveled around on wheels.

“Hey those are the kind
with locking magnetic wheels!” Cotton yelped. He picked a chair up, flipped a switch on the side, and placed the wheels against the wall. The chair clung tightly, defying gravity.

“That’
s so cool!” I cried.

There were doors on both sides of the room. Beyond the right
door was a thin chamber that ran the length of the living room. A two-story bunk was bolted to the wall. Clearly this was the room for Cotton and me. We were used to sharing a room, so the cramped quarters caused us no distress. Beyond the door on the left was another room, slightly wider than ours but with only one rack, mother’s room.

“It’s so small!” m
other said, her voice trembling.

Somebody tapped on the door. It took mother a
minute to locate the button that opened it. Bob Blunt, steward, stood in the passageway looking rather impatient. He held a faded red bundle of cloth.

“I’ve just been informed by
the personnel officer that there’s been a mistake,” he said.

“Yes,
” mother responded optimistically, “in the packet it said we would have a two bedroom living space with full bath and kitchenette. This place is tiny and doesn’t even have a toilet or sink.”

“Those were the accommodations offered to you on the Larg
o. This is the Magic Sky Daddy!” Bob scoffed, arrogantly.

“But you can’t change the terms of the c
ontract, can you?” mother asked sheepishly.

“Your
official government-approved contract, and not the drivel printed in some other company’s info packet, specifies ‘living quarters for one nuclear family.’ These quarters exceed the United Nations Standards for Adequate Living Space for a refugee family of four by almost a square meter, and there are only three of you!”

“But
—” mother tried to protest, but the steward cut her off.

“Hey if you don’t like it, you’ve got four hours to change your mind and leave the ship!”

Mother looked dizzy. Still hopeful for mother’s sake, I asked the steward, “What’s the mistake?”

“Oh yes, thank you
,” he said. He snatched the orange jump suits from mother’s grasp. “I just got word from the personnel officer that you are not permitted to wear these.” He thrust the red bundle into my mother’s hands. “This is your uniform. You only get one set so be careful not to get stains. You can keep the cap so your hair doesn’t get caught in heavy machinery.” He turned to leave, paused for a second, turned back around, took our fourth extra chair and left.

Mother unfolded the bundle.
It was a faded red jumpsuit, the un-adjustable kind our school janitor used to wear. It looked like it would fit loosely on a tall male bodybuilder. There was no way it was going to fit mother’s slim figure. If mother got lost in the woods, she could use the jumpsuit as a tent if she could find a long enough stick to prop up the middle. It was well worn and patched awkwardly on the arms and leggings, each patch causing the surrounding fabric to fold and wrinkle. Mom howled, dashed into her room, and slammed the door.

Cotton and I just stood there looking at each other, not sure what to do. We could hear mother whimpering through the wall. An hour passed.
I tapped on mother’s door, not because I thought of something clever to say that could cheer her up but because I knew that there were important errands we were supposed to complete before liftoff. It took several loud efforts on my part until she finally yelled, “WHAT?”

“Aren’t we supposed to do stuff before the ship takes off?” I asked.

After a pause, mother replied, “Yes, take your brother to the medical center.”

“But he’s not sick!”

“Take him anyway, and while you are at it, there’s a document in the side compartment of my bag. Take that with you too.”

I found the document and inspected it in the passageway where mother could not hear or see what I was doing. It was pretty official looking, made out of the same indestructible translucent micro fibers as hard currency. When I held it up to the light, I could make out a hologram of two snakes
coiling around the side of a stick. Written up top were the words “Official Medical Document, CONFIDENTIAL.” I read the document, even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to.

“
To whom it may concern, Melinda D. Dullwid is currently under my medical care. Her current prescriptions include Ketomorphone for fibromyalgia, methylphenidate-bis-phosphate for chronic fatigue syndrome, and long acting quadrazapam hydrochloride for generalized anxiety disorder. In the event Ms. Dullwid tests positive on an employment-related drug screen, clinical correlation is recommended. Peter Q. Maltort MD, Yucaipa Community Medical Center.”

“What’s it say?” Cotton asked.

“Nothing really.” I knew exactly what it said though, that my mother just could not cope with life.

With a fair amount of help from people in white and orange jumpsuits, we were able to find the medical center. We were greeted by a short, pudgy middle-aged medical assistant with a big black hairy wart on her chin. Evidently, she didn’t have to wear a
jumpsuit. Her name tag read “Mary, Certified Medical Assistant.” Apparently she didn’t have a last name.

“Why are you here?” She croaked in a throaty voice. “You sick already? We haven’t even left the ground yet!”

“No, we’re okay. My mother sent us here.”

“Did she say why?”

“No.”

“Is she a new hire?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay then. Go sit down over there and fill out these forms,” she
handed us a small tablet and pointed at a row of seats against the wall. “One copy for you and one for your brother. Be sure to tell your mother if she doesn’t take her drug test by T minus one hour, she will be escorted off the ship.”

“What’s all this for?” I asked,
“I think we had our regular doctor sign a form that said we’re not contagious or nothing.”

“Standard procedure,” she said, “required by law for continuity and portability of medical care for all minors during prolonged star travel.”

We worked on Cotton’s form first. Most of it I didn’t understand such as whether or not Cotton was menstruating. I answered all questions I didn’t understand in the negative. A few I could comprehend. “Do you have blood in your stool?” I asked.

“What’s that?” Cotton asked.

“Do you make bloody poops?” I clarified.

Cotton giggled.
“Let’s say I do to play a joke on the doctor.”

“You sure?”
I asked. It didn’t seem like a good idea to me.

“Yeah
,” he snickered, so against my better judgment I checked, “yes.”

I handed the tablet back to the medical assistant. She asked us for our pocket modules and downloaded our medical records
onto the clinic’s computer system.

I gave
Mary my mother’s document. She read it and rolled her eyes. “Tell your mother she need not bother with the drug test,” she croaked. “She pretty much has all her bases covered.”

We sat back down, and within ten minutes
Mary told me to follow her. It was the shortest wait I ever had at a clinic. Usually, I waited hours. Cotton followed like a loyal puppy. “Just Anthony!” she snapped at Cotton. “The doctor will see you one at a time.”

Mary
made me take off my shoes and sit on a chair built onto an elevated podium. A med-bot wheeled over, squeezed my arm to take my blood pressure, and pressed a soft probe against my temple to get my pulse and temperature. Billy once told me that in the olden days they used to stick a hard glass thermometer up your butt, and I was really glad they didn’t do that anymore. The chair recorded my weight. The robot scanned me with a laser, adjusting my weight for the clothes I was wearing and estimated my standing height. Mary herded me into an exam room and told me the doctor would be with me shortly. I sat on the exam table for about five minutes wondering if the doctor was going to ask me to take out my dong and turn my head and cough. The door opened as someone knocked on it. The doctor entered. “Hello,” he said, “I am Doctor Zanders.”

His attire
reaffirmed the derogatory comments made earlier by the two crewmembers outside the ship. Though short and wimpy, the doctor was obviously a space marine. He had an unfashionably short hairdo and wore forest green camos as if some commanding general had ordered him to go out into the woods to search for my long lost mother as she rocked back and forth and cried in her red jumpsuit-pup-tent. He had a little pin on his front pocket with the same coiling snakes that were on my mother’s medical document, which I guessed authorized him to do doctor stuff like ask to see your dong.

He looked at me,
frowned, and said, “You are supposed to have a parent or legal guardian with you during the examination.” He walked over to a desk, turned on a small computer and swiveled the video monitor around so that he could look at me and at the display at the same time.

“Ye
s, I know,” I said. “All the doctors tell me that.”

“Your p
arents do this often?” he asked. “Send you to the doctor all by yourself?”

“Pretty much
every time,” I said.

“You have a brother, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “he’s in the waiting room right now as we speak.”

“When your brother is sick, does he go to the clinic all alone?”

“No, usually I take him.”

Th
e doctor scratched his chin and was silent for a while as he contemplated a thought. “How would you like, in terms of medical care and medical care only, to be an emancipated minor with durable power of attorney for your brother?” he asked.

I had no idea what he was asking me but it sounded important. Maybe I’d even get to wear a white jumpsuit.

“Can you do that?” I asked hopefully.

“I su
re can,” he said, “in addition to being a fully licensed physician, I hold the rank of lieutenant-colonial in the Space Marines Health and Sanitation Reserves. That makes me a senior officer.”

“Sure,” I said, “w
hat do I have to do?”

He pecked away at the
data pad on his computer. “Done!” he said.

The whole promotion seemed a little anti
climactic. “Really?” I asked. “What just happened?”

“You can now make all the health care decisions for yourself and your brother without consulting your parents.”
So much for a white jumpsuit,
I thought.
Usually the doctors made all the decisions for me and my brother anyway, so nothing had really changed.

Dr. Zanders scrolled through my medical records. “Looks like you’ve been pretty
healthy,” he said, “no hospital admissions or surgeries. I see you broke your arm when you were ten. Heal okay?”

“Yes,” I said, flexing and extending my left elbow. In public housing, the monkey bars in the playground were hung over concrete. At best you had broken glass to cushion your fall.

“Your immunizations are up to date,” he said. “That’s pretty rare for a boy in your demographic.”

I didn’t
really understand what he said, so I just nodded.

“You’re at the ninetieth percentile for height, ninetieth for weight
, but forty-fifth for waist circumference. That’s good, very good!”

I was
terrible at math, so again I just nodded.