Bonds in 60 Seconds

Paul Garson (Fiction)

Kvorpe’s life was falling apart.

     It all seemed to start when his wife ran off with a shaggy fellow on a motorcycle. All Kvorpe knew was summed up by a postcard from Gretna, Louisiana, a polychrome of the Mississippi River Bridge. “Having wonderful time. Glad you're not here,” signed Candy Cane. For a moment he didn't know who the card was from. His wife's name was Christine as far as he knew.

     As the sun crept up between the buildings, Kvorpe sat at the kitchen window of his apartment, the brownstone located in the inner city, conveniently close to shopping centers, schools and places of worship, all of which were inconveniently disintegrating around him. He looked out onto the street below cluttered with the hulks of junked cars, all going nowhere. The street itself gaped a bomb cluster of potholes, uprooted sidewalks and unfinished excavations for a broken sewer main. The neighborhood was in a shambles. The world as he knew it had come unglued.

     Turning to the old Zenith television, its glass face feebly reflecting his own image, he switched it on to find a news update on the latest recalls from cars to heart pacemakers. Kvorpe watched until the TV picture broke up into vertical stripes and then popped, imploding inwardly like a miniature Black Hole.

Shuffling into the bathroom and noticing his face in the mirror he realized he hadn’t shaved in a week. Then he remembered why. He couldn't get the 47 little blades of his electric shaver to work. They had lost the will to whirl. Kvorpe stepped back to the mirror. One of his ears seemed lower than the other, as if it had slipped during the night. He decided to take a bath, even if the water never got hot. That would make him feel better. The knob came off. He held it in his hand a moment then put it down.

     Back in the living room he sunk into his favorite chair. He sat there for several minutes before he became aware his old dog, an orange colored Chihuahua-Shih Tzu mix he called Cheetos, was not sitting on the chair's arm, its favorite resting place. There was only an orange splotch in the fabric. How long the dog had been gone, he couldn't remember. Kvorpe did remember the food dish had gone strangely untouched for several days. Had Cheetos left with Christine or just left? Maybe he had wandered into the elevator and got stuck inside. It had stopped working... when?

     He got up and went out into the corridor. He closed the door. Never mind the broken key in the lock he told himself. There was nothing in his apartment worth stealing. He stood at the elevator door. He pushed the button. The door didn't open. He kicked at it. The heel of his right shoe broke off. He limped back into his apartment and sat back in the chair staring at the blind eye of the TV. He saw himself looking back. A blur looking at a blur.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

     No use resisting anymore. What did they call it, the scientists? The Entropy of the Universe? Or was it atrophy? He couldn't remember. Stars went out like his light bulbs. Galaxies dimmed like his broken TV. What could he possibly do? Wait for the end? For his ear to fall off. For the world to fly apart into cosmic confetti.

     But not for the leg of his favorite chair to suddenly break. Both he and the chair sprawled on the floor, he face down on the threadbare green rug, his fingers pulling at the balding pile. Enough was enough! Kvorpe do something! Shrink the chaos. Make it small enough to ball up and toss into the trash can. Just don't lie there like a broken man in a broken-down world. Fix it. Yes fix it! Fix the whole darn thing!

     He went to the closet. Inside was the red metal tool box, the sliding trays full of shiny unused sockets, chrome-vanadium open-end wrenches and a tune-up kit for his car, one of the ancient V-8 carcasses now slouching on flattened tires in the street. The tools seemed to glow, beckoning. He touched the mint set of vice grips with tenderness. A gift from his son who worked in an auto parts shop the other side of town. The other side of the moon. What was the difference? When did he ever see him?  

     Kvorpe found what he was looking for. He pocketed a couple screw drivers. He knew himself well enough to forget about using the more complicated tools. He was no mechanical genius. But there was the large box of glue tubes he had bought at some point. Taking one golden tube from the box, he turned it over. The label read “Midas Magic Golden Glue.” According to the As Seen on TV ad, it was the best glue on the market, used by the Pentagon to repair bullet-riddled tanks and by NASA to patch up rocket ships. Works on any material, porous or non-porous, organic, inorganic, water proof, shock resistant, and never dries out. A dozen tubes for only $19.95. Plus shipping and handling. Enough glue for a million chores, said the accompanying pamphlet. Money back guarantee if not completely satisfied. He did notice the guarantee had expired a year ago. But he figured, like milk's expiration date, that was usually flexible. Like the glue itself.

     It had a nice heft to it, the golden tube. Like a well-balanced hammer or power saw, not that he had much experience with either. But it felt good. And like it said, enough glue for a million chores. He thought he saw one of those light bulbs go off inside his head. Here was the power to heal the world, at least his world, to fix all its broken fixtures, attach all the disassociated parts, repair all the Dismal Brokenness cluttering up his apartment. Yes, Kvorpe, shrink the chaos!

     He set to work immediately. He changed into an old pair of overalls, popped on a Yankees baseball cap and laced up a slightly mildewed pair of work boots. And gloves, very important, the gloves, he reminded himself after reading the warning label on the golden tube. “Avoid Skin Contact!”

First things first. He glued the heel back on his shoe. It dried instantly, solid as welded steel. He no longer limped. Next he tended to his favorite chair. Leg good as new, better even. But he only sat for a minute before jumping up, eager for the work at hand. He squeezed a tiny drop on the bath tub’s water handle, slipped it over the worn splines of the shaft. He turned the handle. Presto! It worked.  But the bath could wait. He had work to do.

     In the living room, he removed the back of the vintage TV and peered inside at the jumble of dusty tubes. He felt among the sockets with fingers growing more sensitized by the minute. He found the loose wire. Not a blown picture tube after all. The tiny drop of Midas Magic healed the severed

connection. Kvorpe hooked up the back panel and switched on the set. The screen shimmered for a moment then locked clear and tight, a perfect picture, a commercial for motorcycles. “You meet the nicest people on...” Kvorpe quickly switched off the set remembering how his Christine had been turned into a Candy Cane.

      He threw himself back into his work. On the kitchen table he tinkered with his electric shaver. Part of the plastic thingamajig near the rotary head was cracked. A touch of Midas Magic and the fissure disappeared seamlessly. The Swedish steel blades spun again and soon his face shone. He put the shaver back into the medicine cabinet, pausing at his reflection in the mirror. Even his ears seemed back in alignment. He was beginning to look like his old self, before… before Christine had left him. Good work, Kvorpe. Keep it up, he told himself.

     He looked around his apartment after a very busy hour. Everything was fixed, repaired, healed, the place now healthy and whole. Now what? He paced a moment. He stopped pacing. He had a thought…why not? He took himself out of the apartment, climbed down the stairs and to the broken elevator's power box on the ground floor. The service panel was easily removed with a Phillips head screwdriver. He quickly found the faulty connection at the emergency button that had shut down the whole operation. A squeeze on the golden tube and all was well again, the elevator elevating. But he didn't find Cheetos trapped in the elevator, which in one way was a good thing considering.

     He took a quality control tour of the building, stopping on every floor. People came out when they heard the long silent grumbling of the elevator. Kvorpe responded to their questions. Yes, he had fixed it. He and his Midas Magic. He held up the golden tube, held it high. They applauded him. Why wasn't Kvorpe the building manager they all asked, immediately voting him into the long vacant office. Could he take a look at the building's water heater? Yes, yes, I will. They applauded again. Kvorpe felt good, better than good.

     Outside he took a look at the aged machinery. A pulley belt housing had sheared off at the shaft. A couple dabs of glue and it held solid. Soon flames flared once again, warmth spreading through the building. Kvorpe stood quietly watching the pink glow, then picking up the box of golden glue tubes, hurried with renewed vigor out into the street.     

It was past noon before he finished. He had used up another of the tubes, but his old Dodge no longer dangled a grill or strands of loose weather stripping and torn vinyl. Even if it didn't run… yet… it was no longer an eyesore like the rest of the derelicts parked on the street. The neighbors came out and sat on their stoops watching in amazement. Then one by one, they asked for a little glue to work on their battered cars and crumbling apartments. Kvorpe was happy to hand out the tubes for all neighbors to share, keeping the last one tucked in his overhaul’s pocket.

     Soon all up and down the street, people were mending, fixing, repairing, both inside and outside their homes. Even the street and sidewalk were cleared of debris... the lamp post on the corner, the coin machine in the laundromat, even the neighborhood’s last pay telephone. The reclamation project, spontaneous and epidemic, spread throughout the neighborhood. Card tables were set up, food brought out, musicians played, all the while people working, gluing, restoring, and there guiding the administration of the precious glue was Kvorpe. People worked by flashlight even into the night, Kvorpe moving about helping where he could.

     His neighbors, tired yet feeling accomplished, finally took themselves to their beds until only Kvorpe stood on the now well-manicured street. He made one more inspection loop down the block adding a touch here and there, mending a broken hand rail, a cracked tail light, until all was done, all fixed, but now down to his last remaining tube, its last few drops.

     Kvorpe rode the elevator up to his apartment. He put his newly repaired key into the newly repaired door lock. Once inside he took a nice long  hot bath and then got into a warm bed. Just before turning off the light, he looked at the last tube of Midas Magic Golden Glue. It lay crumpled, as if exhausted, on the nightstand.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

     He was almost asleep when a loud rumbling had him sitting up, rubbing his eyes. He heard the apartment door open and close. A figure stood silhouetted in the bedroom doorway, holding something in its arms.  For some reason he reached for the tube of glue. Then he heard,  “Hi…uh, it's me, Christine. I'm back. We're back.”

     Kvorpe stared at his wife and Cheetos, pointing the tube at them. Something made him squeeze out the last few drops. They fell golden on him.

     “Can I stay?” asked his wife, waiting in the doorway.

     Kvorpe held out his arms.

About the Author

Paul Garson lives in a L.A. apartment with a bad rug and a good cat amidst a forest of vintage telescopes. His work includes ten nonfiction books via US and UK publishers, a sci-fi novel via Doubleday plus feature articles in several dozen international periodicals.