Читать книгу More Max Danger - Robert J . Collins - Страница 15

Public Public Health

THERE IS usually one in every family. Max Danger's eldest son was the one in his family.

Putting vegetation and/or formerly living creatures of this earth into one's month, chewing or grinding the pieces into small mushy bits, and then consigning the small mushy bits via the throat into the stomach, is a process we call "eating." It is something that has been going on, it appears, for a very long time.

Mankind as a group has not been particularly fussy about what makes up the raw material in this routine—it is quite conceivable that every imaginable substance has at one time or another gone this route. (Let's stop and think about that. Hmm. Yes, that's right. Every imaginable substance.)

Mankind as divided into sub-categories has made refinements, however. Cultural, national, religious, or geographic factors enter the raw-material selection process. One seldom finds Amazonian Indians eating polar bear meat, or Eskimos munching mangos. (It is reported, nevertheless, that people in California do eat tofu.)

In Max's family, his son, as if embracing all mankind, has eaten everything in sight all his life. As an infant he ate part of his blanket and one leg of his teddy bear. As a young child he ate an entire banana—peel and all—and half a deck of playing cards. As a pre-teen he ate, on a dare, a tin of Ken-L-Ration mixed with Dog Yummies. In Japan he has eaten, believe this or not, a dish of natto.

None of this is to imply that he digests everything he eats—his stomach juices are the same as yours or mine. Pizza a la mode or the Kita Burgers across from the American School cause him the same problems as normal people. He has had, in one way or another, his share of the routine "digestive disorders" commonly afflicting all scavengers and birds of prey.

One Sunday evening, as the Dangers were shuffling their way through the Narita Airport routine (the forty-odd-mile trek from the airport into town), Max's eldest made a serious error in judgment. The family had been on a mini-holiday to Guam, courtesy of the Bird with the Proud Tail.

The recorded voice that greets arrives over and over and over and over and over again with the message about the necessity of reporting upset stomachs to the quarantine officers got to the kid. He mentioned to the nice man with the spiffy uniform that his bowels of late had been less than tight. (He did not mention the details of his recent diet, which included things like bean soup and chocolate ice cream for breakfast, a peanut-butter-and-fish sandwich for lunch, and curried rice garnished with liverwurst sausage for dinner.) The nice man made a note or two, and sent the youngster on his way. No one in the family had been paying much attention.

On the following Wednesday morning—at 7:00 am, precisely—the sound truck arrived outside the Homat Cornucopia apartment. The racket it made did not fade away. It sounded as if it were parked outside the building.

Well, as a matter of fact it was parked outside the building. It carried the two men in white coats who rang the doorbell at 7:01 AM.

Looking back on the episode later, it wasn't the spraying of the Danger apartment that caused the greatest discomfort. It wasn't the special attention paid to the eldest offspring's bedroom—the men in white coats sprayed under the bed, in the closet, and behind the bureau.

It wasn't even the tape put on the windows to keep whatever was being sprayed inside the apartment. It was actually rather interesting watching them do that.

It wasn't the fact that the eldest was escorted away for a full day of tests at a clinic over by TCAT (Tokyo City Air Terminal). The teachers at school were understanding, and a classmate brought that day's homework assignment to Homat Cornucopia later that evening.

What caused the greatest discomfort was the discovery of what the sound truck outside the building was doing. It was announcing at the top of its metallic lungs—to neighbors and passers-by alike—that the Dangers should be shunned for the next twenty-four hours. Over and over and over and over again the recorded message reported the simple fact that someone in the house had diarrhea!

Max left for work through the service entrance.