The Clarkl Soup Kitchens Part 11

Buckwheat is going to be in good supply, with mid-western producers. We will use cherries from the Carolinas.

Can't get people hooked on what we are short of. They'll try to find things elsewhere and may change brands for other products, too.

July 8, 2134 Spending the week around Springfield, Ohio. These people are very warm, anxious to talk about the big quake. I have a hard time keeping my composure, but it has been nearly a month since I cried in public.

There are problems with the insurance, it appears. I had signed up for all I could buy, and the company is wondering why.

Because I come from a long line of worriers, that's why! Our family probably kept the term life insurance carriers in business. We bought lots of insurance and lived a long time. Until this April, my relatives have always lasted at least ninety years.

Is the company a.s.suming I had something to do with this quake? I am outraged!

July 17, 2134 There's still no place for me in Placerville. The company is "rethinking its California business plan," according to the message from the president.

h.e.l.l's bells! There's nothing to think about! The legislature of California is scurrying around, trying to come up with a scheme to save the state's credit rating. We just need to develop other suppliers and other markets until the dust settles.

Meanwhile, I'm still writing orders in Ohio. These people are big on the high-protein wheat flour and pasta. They say a dinner with a roast is only a memory, and the main dish now is very likely to be something from our pasta-and-fake-cheese line. Buckeyes say our fake cheese, Gheddar, is much better than the General Mills fake cheese, Monterey Jill.

Developed cheese. That's the euphemism. Keeping it on the tip of my tongue.

California is planning a big memorial service in September. I am thinking about that empty plot in the cemetery in Fresno. I would like to erect a nice stone with the names of my parents, my wife, and my children. I'll put my own name next to Lucille's and have the mason stand it next to my grandparents. Then, that plot will be waiting for me. I hope they will look down and smile.

Nothing has been recovered, of course. Probably all out to sea. The floor of the Sacramento Bay is washed to the Pacific Ocean twice a day. My house is now about a half mile from the sh.o.r.e, under at least twenty feet of water.

July 28, 2134 The president has called a special all-hands meeting for tomorrow. There is bad news. He never sees anybody unless there is trouble.

I think he believes it is his responsibility to look people in the eye. You are fired. You are demoted. You were pa.s.sed over. These are his only topics when he calls you. Pick one.

I'll call in from my videophone. He will have about three hundred video calls and about a thousand people in the auditorium. And a large number of ghosts.

July 30, 2134 The company is essentially in bankruptcy. The directors had a.s.sumed about half the life insurance liability, and the claims have now exceeded the last fifteen years of income.

The other half of the liability has been a.s.signed to several large insurance carriers, but they have thrown in the towel, too.

"Each individual is being sent a proposal," the president said. "Your proposal will be available in early September, but I want to tell you now that the claims far exceed anybody's a.s.sets. Even the federal government cannot cover these claims."

Meaning, I guess, that the feds are not planning to pay Californians for their high-priced real estate, now under the water.

My own situation is complicated by the fact that my parents and my in-laws were insured, too, and I am the only living beneficiary. Adding all this up was difficult, but my current estimate of the value of my inheritance is $4,750,000. Lucille was insured for $3,000,000, making up the greatest part of my tally. The kids were covered for $500,000 each. My two parents and my two in-laws added on much smaller numbers to my total.

I'll never see any of it.

August 3, 2134 On to Cincinnati. The people of Springfield and their neighbors were certainly generous, and I wrote more orders per day than I have ever written before. I'm not sure how much of this is a feeling of sympathy over the loss of the California plant and how much is my own energetic sales techniques.

The president doesn't want me to hurry back. His secretary continues to pay my travel expenses expeditiously, so I am very comfortable. The orders flow to the warehouse every evening, and they appear on the president's sales reports the next morning.

I have returned to my pre-earthquake habits. Did you hear the one about the traveling salesman and the farmer's daughter? I can stay celibate just so long.

Actually, the kitchens of the hotels and restaurants are excellent places to meet dates. Some women want a good man for a stable relationship, and others want somebody who will flatter them for a few hours. Luckily for me, the latter kind seem to be attracted to the hospitality professions. A nice dinner and a bouquet of roses from the florist the next day.

One rule for the married philanderer is to never date the same woman twice. I have never broken that rule, not even now that I am a widower.

August 16, 2134 I dipped down yesterday into Kentucky to call on customers in Lexington. The woman who has the territory wanted me to try to open the doors at three select hotels. I wrote some orders but not enough to pay me to leave my own customers. Back to Ohio tomorrow.

A call today from Warren, Pennsylvania, for more stock. If I hadn't holed up there, I never would have been able to sell to that customer. At last, a small silver lining to my terrible cloud.

August 27, 2134 Just over the Indiana border now, headed toward Indianapolis.

September 3, 2134 I received my statement from the president. The company and its insurers will pay me $103,550.

It is time to look elsewhere for employment.

September 7, 2134 Still in Indiana, writing orders. The sympathy of these people exceeds that of the Buckeyes.

These customers have caused diners to become addicted to the wild rice flour, in pancakes, m.u.f.fins, and rolls. They are ordering enormous quant.i.ties now, to store until the wild rice fields are producing again. The price cannot hold for much longer.

September 10, 2134 A call today to the priest in Warren to find out more about the Clarkl business. I sent him my resume, and he will send it along to the people who run the project.

I would be a government employee. This is the same government that cannot bail out California. Can I expect that government to pay my salary?

September 14, 2134 The New Christian Congregation has sent me an offer. A yearly salary of $60,000, tax free, with room and board provided. I need to stay for at least ten years.

This offer is good for ninety days. That will give me enough time to get the gravestone in place in Fresno and negotiate with my current employer. My s.p.a.cecraft leaves on February 15, 2135.

I feel like a motherless child. I have no ties to anybody now. My heart is in heaven, but I have to serve my time here or in Clarkl.

February 20, 2135 A tiny, tiny single cabin on this enormous craft, one deck from the bottom. The shower is very small, too, and I have to step out to turn around.

Plenty of water, though. The craft makes water all the time.

I was amazed the president made a counter offer, but one that did not include any increase in my insurance settlement. "Can't change the payout," he said. "Too many others would be knocking on my door."

It would not surprise me if half his sales staff left over the next year. A company that does not live up to its commitments to its employees soon finds the good people looking for other opportunities. The poor performers, of course, just dig in and spend their time complaining at the water cooler.

There was n.o.body to say goodbye at the s.p.a.ceport, though. All the family has gone home to Jesus, and I need to find a new life for myself.

I am a.s.signed to the first-cla.s.s galley. I have responsibility for breakfast, although anything on the menu can be ordered on my shift. I have been using our wild rice flour in m.u.f.fins, and people are asking for the recipe.

The pantry contains a complete selection of our products. I feel very comfortable.

March 3, 2135 I am becoming more excited about my adventure. The people on this craft are either seasoned universal travelers with lots of money or middle-cla.s.s Christians who are expecting a life-changing experience. Everyone I talk to is just crazy to get to Clarkl.

The captain takes all meals in our dining room. He has a very fixed daily schedule, and I am getting used to it. During my shift, he has a light tea and, a few hours later, a gla.s.s of wine with some mixed hors d'oeuvres. He usually has some elderly couple at his table, regaling them with his travel stories. One of the desks in the lounge has a monitor with his complete slide show, and everybody in first cla.s.s has seen it.

These people are very nice, I think. The dress code here is not what you would see on a premier sailing vessel, so there is no fashion show at dinner. Instead, people are dressing comfortably throughout the day.

April 7, 2135 Still enjoying the voyage. I am working every day, with no day off, but I had expected that. The headwaiter is very helpful with suggesting things I already have prepared, and getting through the shift is now easy. The scullery help is thorough, and it is good to have everything in place at all times.

We have plenty of lettuce growing in the kitchen garden, something I was surprised to see. One robot chops vegetables and another cleans lettuce. These creatures work nearly full time. When I need carrots or celery of a certain size, it takes the robot about ten seconds before my request is fulfilled. I just say, "Half cup carrot julienne," and it is quickly on my worktable.

Not much action in the bedroom, though. The good Christians need to be courted for weeks, and the first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers are off limits. One woman, married to an old duffer, indicated she was interested, but I had to refuse. No use getting into trouble when there are so many weeks left to go.

May 5, 2135 Only a month until we land in Clarkl. Still hoping for some romance, but nothing looks promising.

I wish I had been a better husband. That's my only regret about my life prior to the great quake. I was unfaithful and really not very generous. If I had known the time was so short, maybe I would stayed closer to home. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of bouquets of roses I took home. I can't count on the fingers of one hundred hands the number of bouquets of roses I sent to various one-night stands.

All those faces have disappeared, now. Each woman has become much like the others, with the flashy smiles and the short skirts and the heavy perfume.

I never allowed myself to take an interest in the shy, elegant ones. There was too much to lose.

I told myself I had never been unfaithful to Lucille. What I really meant was that I never found any woman who had caused me to regret my marriage vows. That was my definition of fidelity.

June 7, 2135 We landed two days ago in the capital, Gilsumo, a collection of small houses with the monarch's compound on the hill. I am amazed this place is so primitive. I had expected a certain level of sophistication from a species that builds s.p.a.cecrafts.

Instead, each house is essentially a few square feet surrounded by thirty-inch walls. Each ent.i.ty is a.s.signed to one of these houses according to its status.

Our frequent guests are the Drones, and they appear to be at the bottom of the totem pole. I understand they are sterile, so they don't reproduce generation after generation of hangers on. They do no work. They just gather together for their own amus.e.m.e.nt and come to our dining rooms.

There was no time to acclimate myself to this atmosphere. The place was without a chef since one died and the other left on the same s.p.a.cecraft that brought me.

Already I am in charge in the kitchen. The manager sticks to the stockroom and the dining room, and everybody in the kitchen looks eagerly toward me for instructions.

These kitchen workers are all good churchwomen, of a certain age. I see them, in my mind's eye, bringing covered dishes of macaroni and cheese to church suppers and pressing the inevitable leftovers onto their friends. I do not see them as suitable kitchen staff for a high-volume, five-star restaurant. They have one speed, and asking them to move their tails a little faster is not an option.

The lettuce-cleaning robot is here, too. How I admire it! The farmers bring produce each morning, always including about four dozen heads of iceberg lettuce, and the churchwomen place the lettuce in the robot's input refrigerated unit. Then, the robot starts its work, moving a head into a contraption in its center that removes the outer leaves, pares out the core, and breaks the head into individual leaves. Next, the robot washes and completely dries each individual leaf, much better than any salad chef I have ever worked with. Finally, the robot waits for an order for lettuce before it carefully tears each leaf into bite-sized pieces.

One churchwoman is clearly in charge of the robot. She empties its waste and makes sure its water hoses are free of dirt. She speaks to it in a soft, loving voice.

June 22, 2135 My cabin is the best of the lot here. It was vacated by the chef who went home, and he had a certain flair for interior decoration.

I wish it were warmer, but I need to get used to wearing several layers of clothes at home. The small bathroom has only a sink and a toilet, but it can be heated to about sixty degrees. When the temperature is really cold, I sit on the throne and read.

When I am in bed, I have my nose out above the covers, and that's all. The electric blanket is on the highest setting all the time, around the clock.

The kitchen and the staff lounge are always warm. Next to the lounge is a room for showers, and the water there is always hot. Many people stay in the lounge until they need to go to the cabins for sleep. There is always a card game in the lounge, but no money ever changes hands.

Two churchwomen are in charge of the kitchen laundry, and I have a clean uniform as often as I want one. I brought ten toques from the California Culinary Academy, and these are always neatly cleaned and ironed.

The good thing about working fourteen hours a day is that you forget you aren't getting any.

September 14, 2135 I am getting used to this terrible cold, and I think my colleagues in the dining hall are getting used to me.

I have had seven s.e.xual encounters with various churchwomen, all from other dining establishments within forty miles of this place. All these women are older than I, but I have so little to select from otherwise. There are no florists here to visit, but I don't think that is necessary after these a.s.signations.

Clearly these women are interested and they go out of their way to make themselves known to me. Mostly I meet them when I go into the capital on my day off. I think there is some information network that alerts women to my travels because these meet-by-chance incidents are too frequent.

Nevertheless, it is what is here for me now. Gone are the days of the floozies and their incessant giggles. Now I am the escort of hungry older women with money in the bank.

No fancy stuff here. Slam, bam. Missionary position only. Undress in the dark. Sometimes a lighted candle. Sometimes a fancy bustier. Sometimes some Chanel perfume from a very old bottle. Always a request for a repeat performance.

And my performance is somewhat enhanced here, but I don't know why. I am a little stronger now because of the atmosphere, but I can't figure how that results in a harder erection and a longer s.e.xual congress.

Of course our guests the Drones are known for fornication, early and often. Maybe something is in the air.

January 22, 2136 Over six months on the job, and I am getting used to the long hours.

I get up about five in the morning and shower. By the time I am dressed and into the kitchen, the churchwomen have prepared all the fruits and vegetables we use at breakfast. Grapefruit or orange juice is made and is in the dispenser. Syrups are heated and are ready in the soup wells on the buffet line.

When the doors open a little after six, the hot m.u.f.fins are on the trays and we are ready for orders of omelets or pancakes. For three or four hours, the guests noisily move through the line and to the tables. Some go back for seconds or thirds.

After each table is vacated, our churchwomen quickly clear it and reset it for the next group. They use very nice china and real silver, certainly better than anything I have ever seen at an American hotel's dining room. For some meals, the tables are set with linen cloths and napkins, all laundered with my toques.

There is a brief lull about midday, but then the crowd returns, often including those same ent.i.ties who had been back for seconds earlier in the day. For this meal, we serve salads, vegetables, sandwiches, and more fruit. We always have both pie and cake, usually three or four kinds.

How our Drones love their sugar! The churchwomen who prepare the cakes are busy all day, often staying into the evening to get a start on the next day's offerings.

We have really no period between lunch and dinner. As things for dinner are ready, they are brought to the buffet line and are quickly selected. The typical dinner consists of a pasta dish, three or four vegetables, more lettuce salad, and more pie and cake. There is a bitter tea the locals like, and we always have a big pot of that and a companion pitcher of iced orange pekoe tea. Both are refilled frequently during the dinner service.

I tend to supervise nearly everything but the cakes. I stay at the stove during breakfast, but I am all over the kitchen and the dining room during the other meals.

After the guests have gone, I go back to my cabin while the churchwomen clean the facility. No other person is on duty as long as I, but I am able to get to bed earlier than anyone else.

The guests are fairly happy, I think. Certainly the numbers of meals served per day has gone up about five percent since I arrived.

I ordered great quant.i.ties of all the flours from my former employer, and I believe the Drones like the cakes we make from them. They also like the syrups, in keeping with their sugar addiction.

January 1, 2137 Celebrating our New Year's Day in the dining room today. We still have the makeshift tree from Christmas in the main window, and we added some noisemakers, funny hats, and streamers.

I remember all those New Year's dinners with sauerkraut and pork. Nothing like that here, of course, with these vegetarians. We prepared a Yule Log cake, making it about five feet long, and the locals were too pleased with it to eat it.

My love life has picked up somewhat. I have regular dates on my days off now, with other Americans who also have the same holiday. I have gone through the twenty-four dozen condoms I brought, and my order for more was filled just in time.

The Clarklians don't use any form of birth control at all. So many of them starve to death in the first years that everybody is happy to help repopulate the planet. I understand that for every Drone we see, four others have succ.u.mbed to famine.

The Monarchs seem to be well fed, and we have heard that their offspring always have enough to eat. Of course, the Monarchs don't come to our dining room, even though it is managed by their agents, the Batwigs.

From time to time, we will see a group of Batwigs in the dining room. They stick together and avoid the rough and poorly clad Drones. Last October, ten Batwigs came for dinner one evening and polished off a German Chocolate cake within ten minutes. The churchwomen quickly iced and decorated two more, one more for the Batwigs and one for the usual clientele.

I can't understand why the Monarchs don't come, though. I would like to see what they eat that is so superior to what we serve. If they don't eat meat, and I have been a.s.sured they would not consider it, they can't have better food than the produce grown on our farms and the baked goods prepared in our kitchen.

November 18, 2137 Still working my tail off in our dining room. My stamina has improved over the last two years, and I no longer fall into bed after my long shift.

Sometimes I have a date after work now. The women come from the farms and the other dining rooms to meet me in my cabin, and they go back to their own quarters before midnight.

The dates are still very simple. There is nowhere to go for a nice dinner, so we meet and have s.e.x. The few women under forty are a bit more in demand, so I see mostly women between forty and sixty. These women tend to save their best underwear for our dates and are very ready for foreplay when they arrive.

One of the best things about older women is their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They are larger. Sometimes the v.a.g.i.n.a is quite loose, the result of childbirth, but the large b.r.e.a.s.t.s make up for it.

I brought a vibrator from home, and the women always want me to use it, even if I have kept up the s.e.x act for a very long time. I run the vibrator over their c.l.i.torises while I bury my head in those large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and everybody has a good time.