The Water Eater Read online

found a condition to its liking and had decided to give uphibernating in favor of reproduction.

  What drove me on was the thought that I must have something here thatwas commercially important--a new culture of something that wouldrevolutionize some branch of chemistry or biology. I wouldn't evenstop to fry an egg. I chewed up some crackers and drank a few morebottles of beer when my stomach got too noisy. I wasn't sleepy,although my eyes felt like they were pushed four inches into my skull.

  Junior's little chemistry set didn't tell me very much when I made thefew tests I knew how. Litmus paper remained either red or blue whenstuck into the jelly. This surprised me a little because this wholemass of de-sudsed washing compound mixture had started out with apretty good shot of lye in it.

  So my notes grew, but my useful information didn't. By midnightSunday, it appeared that my jelly invention had only one importanttalent: The ability to drink endlessly anything containing water. Andonly the water was used, it seemed. Dissolved solids were cast asidein the form of variously colored dusts.

  By now, the goop had outgrown the pail and was two-thirds up in thelaundry tub. A slow drip from the faucet kept the surface of mymonster in a constant state of frenzy, like feeding a rumpot beer bythe thimbleful.

  It was fascinating to watch the little curleycues of jelly flip upafter each drop, reaching for more, and then falling back with acranky little lash.

  * * * * *

  At two o'clock this morning, I began to get a little sense in me. Ormaybe it was just the fear finally catching up again.

  _There was danger here._

  I was too fuzzy to know exactly what the danger was, but I began todevelop a husky hate for the whole project.

  "Kill it!" came into my mind. "Get rid of it, Charlie!"

  Lottie's scream shrilled back into my ears, and this command becamevery important to me. I became angry.

  "Want a drink, do you?" I shouted out loud. I put on the tea kettleand when it was to full steam, I took it back to the tub. "I'll giveyou a drink with a kick in it!"

  What happened, I would like to forget. Ten times as fast as it hadclimbed up the cold water spout, it ran up the boiling water stream,into the tea kettle, blew off the lid and swarmed over my hand with ascalding-dry slither that made me drop the kettle into the tub andscream with pain.

  The jelly steamed and stuck to my flesh long enough to sear it half tothe bone. Then it slopped back with the rest and left me grabbing mywrist and tearing at the flesh with my finger-nails to stop the pain.

  Then I got insane mad. I got my big blowtorch I use for peeling paint,and I lit it and pumped it up as high as it would go and aimed it downinto that tub.

  Not too much happened. The jelly shrank away from the roaring blast,but it didn't climb over the edge of the tub. It shrank some more andI poured the flame on.

  It didn't burn. It just got to be less and less, and what was leftbegan to get cloudy. And when I hit the bottom of the tub, the lastglob moved around pretty active, trying to escape the heat, but I gotit. Every damned last shred of it, and I was laughing and crying whenI dropped the torch into the tub. I had been holding it with myscalded hand and I guess I fainted.

  I wasn't out long. I got up and dressed my hand with lard, and it feltpretty good. Took a couple of aspirins and sat down at Lottie'stypewriter. I know I won't sleep until I get this off my mind in aboutthe way it happened, because I probably won't believe all of it myselfwhen I get back to normal.

  I just now went out and fished the blowtorch out of the laundry tub.All there was left in the bottom of the tub was maybe half a pound ofsinged-looking--soap flakes?

  * * * * *

  There, I've finished writing this all down. But I'm still not sleepy.I'm not worried about patching things up with Lottie. She's the mostwonderful, understanding wife a guy ever had.

  My hand feels real good now. I got it wrapped in lard and gauze, and Icould drive the truck if I wanted to.

  I'm not afraid of getting fired or bawled out for not coming to workon time this morning.

  No, the reason I haven't turned a wheel on my beer truck today issomething else.

  Friday night, when Lottie wanted to wash the roaster, I saved only acup of the jelly for my experiments. The rest she washed down thedrain.

  The sewer empties into Lake Michigan.

  The brewery where I load up is right on the shore of Lake Michigan.

  I'm afraid to drive down there and look.

  --WIN MARKS

  * * * * *

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