Anton's Odyssey (4 page)

“You
r mom feeds you well?” he asked. “Doesn’t take you to the Bruno Burger very often?”

“Sometimes if we’re
good, she’ll take us,” I said. “When Cotton and I go for a week without getting detention at school she’ll take us there for Saturday Lunch Special, but that doesn’t happen very often.” Usually Cotton was the one to blow the deal.

“I see,” he said,
“so your mother cooks for you most of the time?”

“Naw, mostly I cook for myself, if you call adding water to a box and nuking it cooking.”

“You mean the Division of Health Standards nutrition packets?”

“
Those the ones with the pic of the dorky kids on the front?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much all I eat. That and school lunches.”

“Really?
Every meal?”

“Pretty much
. Mother used to get us Super Sugar Cupcakes from the store she used to work at, but they fired her, so she doesn’t work there anymore. I usually gave mine to Cotton though.”

“Cotton’s your brother?”

“Yes.”

“You’re probably the only patient I’ve ever
seen who actually eats those nutrition packets regularly, and based on your growth chart it seems to have paid off. They are very nutrient rich, you know!”

The doctor
looked over at the monitor, frowned and then rotated it slightly so I could see. It saw Cotton, slouching, and picking his nose. Dr. Zanders zoomed in on my brother’s paunch.

“Your brother, does he eat the nutrition packets too?”

“Sort of,” I said, “we both add salt and butter. I add a little and mix it in. He adds a lot but just leaves it up top. He doesn’t ever reach the slop at the bottom, so pretty much all he eats is butter, and salt, and Super Sugar Cupcakes. He’s good at stealing them from vending machines.”

“From a nutrition standpoint, t
here’s nothing good about Super Sugar Cupcakes,” he said. “You best avoid them.” His voice had that annoying, condescending tone adults use to profess they know better than kids. “You’ve got to make sure your brother eats better,” he commanded. “You should take some of the salt and butter out of his diet.”

“Ok
ay,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“No reall
y!” he said. “Your brother is going to have serious health problems when he gets older if he doesn’t change his eating habits. He’ll probably have a heart attack at thirty-five.”

“Ok
ay,” I said, only with even less enthusiasm this time. Thirty-five years old seemed a long way off. I also feared that Cotton would chew off my hand if I used it to take way his salt and butter.

Dr. Zanders ran me through the same gamut of physical examinations as every other doctor I’ve
ever had. He “listened” to my heart and lungs with a digital auscultation device, ignoring the actually sounds and looking at the video feed of wave patterns. He looked in my mouth and throat, and made me show him my dong, feeling up my nut sack with a gloved hand after telling me to turn my head and cough. When he asked me to squeeze his fingers I tried to crush them. I knew not to twist them because that nearly got me arrested in the past. I just squeezed as hard as I could, trying to punish Dr. Zanders for feeling up my privates and making me legally responsible for my brother’s eating habits.

“Yes
, very good,” he said with a yelp. “You are very strong! Keep up the good diet and exercise. You’re doing everything right from a health standpoint, at least.”

“Thank you
.” I said, smiling, satisfied I had done enough damage to his fingers.

He looked back at
the live video feed of my brother. “We need to bring your brother back now. Do you two have the same father?”

I pondered the question a while before giving my response. As far back as I could remember, we never had a man in the house
either of us called “dad,” just a punctuated series of mother’s drunk, lowlife boyfriends, all of whom were flunkies from bands that “almost made it.” Cotton and I shared the same absence of a father figure regardless of the identity of our respective sperm donors, so I gave Dr. Zanders what I thought was the most appropriate answer. “Yes, we do.”

The docto
r nodded, dismissed me, and asked me to fetch Cotton. When the med-bot was done scanning him, the medical assistant asked if I wanted to be present during his examination. I didn’t really want to see Cotton’s shriveled dong and nut sack, so I said, “no.” She asked if I would give permission for the doctor to do whatever he thought was necessary for my brother without consulting me first. I said, “sure.” This was the privilege that came with medical durable power of attorney. My mother really wasn’t missing out on much.

It took Dr. Zanders much longer to examine my brother than for me. I figured he was probably telling Cotton not to eat s
o much salt, butter, and Super Sugar Cupcakes, and Cotton wasn’t listening because he never really listens to anyone about anything. Toward the end of the exam, I heard Cotton scream through the wall, but his cry didn’t surprise me because I was used to Cotton screaming all the time. Shortly afterward, Cotton came out of the doctor’s office, his face red and tears running down his cheeks. He cried, “He stuck his finger up my butt!”

“Well
, that’s what you get for telling him you had blood in your stool,” I said unsympathetically. I made no effort to console him. I had long ago reached the conclusion that Cotton was going to have to learn most of life’s important lessons the hard way. Someone could give him the best advice in the world, but he would never listen. He could be a real jackass sometimes, but I didn’t share the belief of everyone else in our old neighborhood that he was mildly mentally retarded or something. He was just different.

On
the way back to our living quarters, we ran into a group of men, women, and children following a guy in khaki clothes as he meandered down the passageways. He had a shiny silver badge on each of his epaulettes and a black canvas belt with a brass buckle. The man was an officer, one of the smart know-it-alls who made all the important decisions on the ship but rarely actually got his hands dirty (or bloody).

“I thi
nk they’re giving a tour,” Cotton said.

“Wanna check it out?” I asked,
indifferently. Cotton shrugged his shoulders.

The tour was pretty boring but did provide us with some useful information. The officer taught us about airlock safety and ho
w to avoid accidently jettisoning ourselves into deep space where our blood would simultaneously freeze and boil. More importantly, we learned how to determine our location on the ship from the little numbers stenciled on the walls of each passageway.

The officer guided us
to the engine room at the back of the ship. Crewmembers with oil-stained jumpsuits scampered around, making last minute preparations for takeoff. The officer made large exaggerated gestures with his arms to emphasize the grandeur and complexity of the electrostatic ion thrusters, bipropellant phase reactions, DC arc jets, and differential sails that would propel the ship foreword once we left Earth’s gravitational pull. I had never seen so much technology in a single room before. There must have been over a thousand different machines and dozens of computer terminals. Cotton’s face contorted as his mind desperately struggled to restrain his hand from reaching out and pushing a bright red button that flashed nearby. Averting disaster, I pulled Cotton back into the passageway before he could completely lose what little self-control he possessed. On the way back to our living quarters we smelled food.

“Mmm
,” said Cotton, “meat!” His sense of smell rivaled that of the average dog. Most people were surprised that he could smell anything beyond his own powerful body odor.

Cot
ton bolted, followed the scent. Despite his girth, he could run surprisingly fast when motivated. I caught up to him at the mess hall. He stood there, his eyes goggling, his mouth open, drooling. Even though it was a bit early for lunch, there were many people already seated at tables. Most wore orange or white jumpsuits. A few wore khakis or regular street clothes.

“Got any money?” Cotton asked.

“No, you?”

“Uh—
uh,” he said, shaking his head.

Cotton shrugged his shoulders and joined the serving line. Against my better judgment, I followed him. The line moved quickly. A server in a hairnet and stained smock slopped
meat onto a bun using a ladle. A second server wrapped a sandwich and hand it over the counter to the person at the front of the line.

We took our sandwiches and huddled together at the condiment table. I looked over my shoulder discretely, and when I thought no one was looking I shoved the sandwiches down the front of Cotton’s shirt. As we walk out, Cotton thought he could make himself look innocent by whistling to himself, but his eyes darting back and forth were a dead giveaway that he was up to no good. We made it out the door and into the passageway, but
only walked a short distance before a fat man in a white jump suit came running after us. He wore a black nylon tactical vest that was way too tight for his morbidly obese physique. His voluptuous man boobs rivaled those of Fiona Mammalot, the world’s most famous skin mag model. With no bra to restrain his man boobs, they spilled out the sides of his tactical vest and jiggled as he ran. He had a moderate range taser pistol strapped to his hip. Partly lost within the concavity of his ample cleavage was the word “security” written in large white letters. We were busted!

“You boys know damn well you can’t
take food out the mess hall!” he barked.

“What food?” I protested,
feigning innocence.

“The sloppy j
oes you stuffed down your friend’s shirt!” he said angrily.

“We were going
to pay for them, honestly!” Cotton squeaked sheepishly.

Confused
, the man said, “What are you talking about? ‘Pay for.’ The food’s already ‘paid for.’ The cost comes out of your parents’ housing and provision fee each pay period.”

“Honestly
—” Cotton protested again, but I cut him off and pulled him back into the mess hall.

“Sorry, sir!”
I said. “It won’t happen again.”

“Yeah
, it better not! Once we get a rodent problem, the whole ship is doomed.”

Back in the mess hall Cotton eventually figured out we weren’t in any trouble
and munched away guiltlessly on his “already paid for” sloppy joe. I tried for seconds but only made it halfway through the sandwich before my stomach became uncomfortably full. Cotton greedily ate three.

“Come on, let’s go!
” I said.

“But I
wanna get another sloppy joe!” Cotton whined.

“No, you’re full,”
I said.

“No I’m not, I want another one.”

“No,” I said, pulling him to his feet. “We better get back or mom will scream at us for being late.”

Mother
screamed at us anyway. Not because we were late returning from the medical center but because she never got word that she didn’t need to take her drug test.

“I told them I was on my period
and asked if it would interfere with the test!” she scolded. “Could you imagine the embarrassment?”

I imagine the doctor and the medical assistant, who were used t
o all sorts of nasty bodily functions weren’t nearly as embarrassed about my mother’s period as I was.

Mother
screamed at us to unpack our bags. When we were done, I noticed the flashing white letters on the vid screen that gave instructions: “Welcome to the Magic Sky Daddy. Newly embarked staff please stow all luggage under racks. Do not unpack until artificial gravity is established after liftoff.”

Mother
screamed at us again to make us repack. Cotton’s repacking was lackluster, shirttails and underwear waistbands sticking out the top of his bag.

Without warning, a yellow light built into the ceiling flashed and a loud siren blared. Mother jumped, and Cotton shrieked. The vid screen flashed
, “liftoff instructions to follow in 3… 2… 1…”

A
perky blond woman appeared on the vid screen wearing some sort of strange uniform. It was dark blue, kind of like the ones the Cub Scouts wear, and looked like nothing worn by any of the actual crewmembers onboard the ship. She wore no insignia or badge of rank on her epaulettes, and the tight shirt accentuated the contours of womanly boobs that protruded forward and out like grain storage silos. Her blond froofy hairdo was at least thirty years out of date. The white and orange floral silk scarf wrapped elegantly around her neck certainly helped to extinguish any military feeling from her overall appearance.

“Hello,” she said with way too much enthusiasm, “and welcome to our ship. In this video, I will describe important liftoff safety instructions, so please listen carefully.”

“Hey look at that!” Cotton pointed. The chairs rolled, pushed by some sort of magnetic ghost hand to the wall opposite the vid screen, seatbacks set square against the wall. Small ports opened in the wall behind the chairs with a faint whirring noise revealing the straps and buckles of retractable restraints.