Read Online The Glass Factory by Kenneth Wishnia - Free Book Online Page B

got stuck with cleaning up all the toxic waste in New York and New Jersey, which is a bit like having to clean up the tiger cages at the Bronx Zoo—with the tigers still in them.
    They think I’m just another hysterical mother whose drinking water tastes like brake fluid but they promise to put me on “the list.” I ask to speak with the supervisor, who listens patiently for details, then announces, “Drinking water is local jurisdiction, call your County Board of Health.”
    Okay, so I call up the County Board of Health. Sixteen minutes on hold listening to the bulldozers rearrange the jagged metal landscape outside my window before some guy gets on and says, “Yeah?”
    “I’m a homeowner right across the street from the Kim Tungsten Steel and Glass factory on Pleasant Valley Road. There’s this terrible smell coming from the plant.”
    “You just move in?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “I figured. Newcomers’re always callin’ up the first week. But you’ll notice it don’t bother none of the regular people. See, the diesel-powered generators give off some carbon monoxide exhaust, but it’s no worse than you just runnin’ your car, ma’am.”
    “Thanks. Carbon monoxide fumes can kill you.”
    “Huh?”
    “Even from just running your car. Anyway, the tap water’s so volatile you could use it for jet fuel.”
    I can almost hear him shaking his head. “Now listen, miss—”
    “No, you listen: This is a complaint about the water across from the Tungsten plant. It’s your job to investigate that complaint, right?”
    Pause.
    “What’s your name and exact location?”
    I use Colomba’s name, then take down his name and title. He promises to get right on it sometime before the next ice age.

    Elvis moved out today, and I took his room. Colomba was pissed, but Elvis has wanted his own place for a while and I just gave him the excuse. With the warm weather coming, he’s been getting a lot of work doing landscaping and lawn maintenance for independent contractors, but I don’t know how he’s going to get through the winter.
    I figure I can safely take Antonia onto the State University campus. Besides, I’ll need her afterwards to protect me from Jim Stella. I put on some serious business clothes and head out to the car.
    I give the die a spin for luck. I’m getting used to the drive up now—except for when we almost get run off the road by a shirtless suntanned teen with a crew cut driving a jeep with a cruise computer that’s better educated than he is. Parking on campus turns out to be almost as difficult as finding a spot in midtown Manhattan on St. Patrick’s Day, and when I get out and look around, half-expecting to see a college green surrounded by ivy-covered Victorian brownstones, I notice that half the buildings look like they were designed by the same guy who built Hitler’s stadium in Nuremberg. I take Antonia up to the first big building I see that doesn’t look like it was primarily designed to withstand an air raid. It’s the Vaughan Carter Memorial Library. I ask at the reference desk for the Business Liaison Office, and they tell me to turn around, go straight back out the door, past the Benjamin Carter Social and Behavioral Sciences Building and the brand-new Lillian Carter wing of the Indoor Sports Complex to the Administration Building.
    “Just the plain old Administration Building? No Carters?” No answer.
    Only about half the ceiling lights are on, and the “Down” escalators aren’t working. Add a volcano out back and it’d be the State University of Ecuador. I find a nice, helpful guy, a graduate assistant in the Academic Vice President’s Office. He’s kind of cute, and I can see that he likes Latin women (he lets Antonia play with his computer), but I can also see the photos of his wife and two kids on the desk. He tells me the person I need to see is Phil Gates down in the Business Office. He shows me the way, leading us down the stairs to a bunkerlike suite of