An Atomic Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

maintenance engineer! Yes! It’s Atomic Man!”

3
    Reed drove his truck to work early, to beat the rush. He followed Constitution Avenue past the Jewish temple, the medical-supply stores, the farm store with a forest of spring bushes and hanging baskets outside, a line of auto-hardware stores, then a fast-food strip. He dipped under the viaduct just as a train trundled overhead. The sunrise at the end of Constitution flashed in front of Reed as he emerged. A soft luster surrounded the sun.
    At work, the buzz of the day was beryllium. Lately, it was one alarm after another. The morning TV news had reported that over the years a number of workers at the plant had been exposed to beryllium, which could cause a lung disease. Reed, whose TV had broken a year ago, had missed the latest revelation. A group of his coworkers in the main process building were talking about it, but no one seemed especially concerned except Teddy, an instrument mechanic who had been there for only ten years, fewer than most of the guys.
    Teddy followed Reed into the process workers’ break room. “I’ve got all the symptoms,” he said. “It’s in my lungs. I wheeze and spit.”
    “I thought beryllium disease was an allergy,” Reed said. “Not everybody gets it.”
    “I never even heard of beryllium before.”
    “It comes from emeralds.” Reed released coffee from a spigot into a foam cup.
    “How do you know that?”
    “Chemistry 101.”
    “They say you have to breathe it.” Teddy coughed for emphasis, and his coffee dribbled down the side of his cup.
    “It’s spring,” Reed said. “It’s pussy willows.”
    “Aw, Reed, you’re not taking this seriously.”
    “If I’ve got it, I don’t want to know about it.”
    Reed tasted his coffee. It resembled sewage sludge and tasted worse. He stored his sandwiches in the refrigerator and his cap and keys in his locker.
    “Don’t worry, guys,” said Jim, the shift superintendent. He entered the break room, with his newspaper rolled into a tube. Jim was a small, pale-skinned man with a prissy little goatee that Reed never could match with Jim’s congeniality or complexion. Dispensing reassurance like baby oil, Jim said, “We don’t have enough beryllium to be scared about, and even if we did, by God”—he used his newspaper like a light-saber to stab at the air—“if we did, we’d kill that snake dead.”
    “Is it radioactive?” Teddy wanted to know.
    “I wouldn’t think so,” Jim said. “Not like the scrap piles.”
    He distributed the work packages containing the permits and other paperwork for the day’s jobs. Reed went out to the floor. A bunch of guys were laughing near a supply office.
    “Hey, Reed, how hot did you get that last time?” said Kerwin, one of the guys Reed had worked with for years.
    “Don’t remember. I didn’t pay attention to the numbers,” Reed said, sounding like a politician insisting that he ignored polls.
    “I’ve been hot four times,” Alberto bragged. “Hell, the numbers were higher than the stack, but I thought, hey, what the hell.”
    “I figure the company will take care of us,” Kerwin agreed. He was writing on his work papers, turning them sideways to write marginal notes, as if he were writing personal commentaries.
    “The union will,” said Alberto.
    “You get more in a year from doctors than from what we do here,” Jim said, hurrying past. “X-rays. Dental stuff.”
    “Oh, hey, Jim,” said Alberto. “We figure you’re watching out for us.”
    Jim waved his light-saber, grinned, and walked away.
    Reed dismissed beryllium, as if it were an annoying insect. But he liked knowing it was derived from emeralds.
    He changed into pale-green doctor scrubs and whammed his clothes into his locker. After chugging a cup of water, he ascended to the second floor, where it was at least a hundred and ten degrees and eighty-five decibels. It sounded like jets taking off. Although the fourteen-acre building was probably large enough