by Jake Packard
Inside the Hummer, Jamal gazed out the window in silent awe at a city in which he lived but never saw before. Herbie and Maria sat in silent reflection from the mind-boggling phenomenon that they not only witnessed but played such an instrumental part in unveiling. With so many people out on the streets to look at and so much more in their minds to think about, neither needed to speak. They did not need conversation to help water the garden blossoming in their souls.
Herbie drove with a gentle smile on his face that Maria had never seen before. It made her feel safe and secure; she realized she had always felt that way around Herbie. She always had the quiet confidence on the job that he was going to be there, to support her, and it had warmed her to think she never had to worry about that. Why in the middle of a modern miracle is she thinking about him in this way?
When they pulled up to Maria’s luxury high-rise near the river, the streets were relatively quiet; all the commotion was in the middle of the island. Maria stepped out of the Hummer, Jamal naturally followed. All of a sudden reality kicked in. She looked at Jamal’s imploring little baby face looking back up at her and Maria had a sudden moment of panic. She leaned back in through the passenger’s window so Jamal couldn’t hear. “What do I do now?”
Herbie looked at Jamal, mum in the glow of the streetlights, and gave him a fatherly smile, dredged up from some deserted shipwreck lying barnacled on the underwater plains of the ocean of his emotions. He twinkled at Maria, “Give him dinner. TV. A bedtime story. He’s just a kid. Be like a mom.”
“I really don’t know how to do all that. I never did this before.”
“It comes easy when you just have to.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go.” She blushed because she meant it. “I could really use your help.”
There was nothing else he would rather do than go up the elevator with this beautiful woman and play house in her warm and comfortable home. His soul had the kinetic charge of an entire school of salmon swimming up the rapids, knowing somehow that at the end of the journey there would be a cool mountain stream dazzling in pure sunlight, where creation in its grand wonder is transmitted with pure joy from one living body to the next. All he wanted to do was park the car, turn off the ignition, pull the key and follow her in.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”
* * * * *
The General’s Broadcast
The newsroom at ABCNN, which just shortly before was a riotous scene of anarchic jubilation, was now transformed into something very different. It was oddly disquieting, because this recent event was even bigger news than when the Jihad blew up the nuclear reactors at Indian Point in Westchester ten years after the Exchange. Back then, this newsroom was really hopping in anticipation of great revenue. But nothing close to what it was like today when it was center stage for modern miracle numero uno. Now almost all the techies, the producers, and the talent were out on the street marveling amongst themselves. Ira was left with only a forcibly conscripted few as crew. Pellet was at the podium, one solitary camera trained upon his face.
“Good evening. Today we witnessed a great changing point in our city’s history. By the time the seditious transmissions were ended by the authority invested in me through the Emergency Statutes, we all witnessed the so-called miracle video. We heard the claims that the headbandcam and the biopod were both synched up to the world clock, verifying that a natural healing of an incurable disease took place today, right here in New York City. My fellow citizens, there is no doubt that some of you might want to take solace in the false promise this kind of terrorism makes. But hear me out. I am not going to let my guard down for even one instant for the people of this city, this state, and this region. At this very moment, a team of experts are looking carefully at the memory stick on which was recorded the so-called miracle clip for signs of editing of any kind. Do not discount for one moment that our enemies take pride in being very clever in the ways they try to destroy us. As the commanding officer of the armed forces that are sworn to protect this city and all its law abiding citizens, I am not going to rest one minute until I can disprove the these unsubstantiated claims of a modern miracle in our midst.”
Ira stared at Pellet’s face on the monitor in the control room trying to not look as nervous as he felt. He ignored the sullen TV techie who was pulled at gunpoint from some spontaneous festivity celebrating the transcendental by some very persuasive squirrel killers demanding his special techie expertise. Ira’s blood curdled from the laughter coming from his office down the hall, where several of these soldiers were now wiping Marty’s brains off the walls.
# # #
Double-parking the Hummer in front of the pawnshop, Herbie in a headlong rush forced himself to pause, to take it in, to look about. On the streets, all around him he saw the city in a state of collective shock. There were those hanging onto each other on the sidewalks, arm in arm, beaming like all Hosanna, faces to the sky, amen on the tips of their lips. Others were running helter skelter across streets and through the traffic now jammed at every corner. Extemporaneous oration erupted from benches and the roofs of cars, street priests preaching to crowds anxious to hear Salem’s written words that they prayed would save them for all eternity. Some people were rejoicing as if they were just freed from any further burdens of survival or existence itself. But it was getting hard to tell if their ecstasy was chemical or Salem Jones induced.
He entered the store and immediately found the case he was looking for, but looking around, there was no one to pay. The owner of the pawnshop, who was usually so suspicious and wary of each customer that he kept a loaded piece plainly visible by the cash register, had just walked out the door and abandoned his business to join the instant holiday that was New York. Above the counter the TV was still on. Herbie looked up to see Pellet’s talking head.
“In the meantime, I am dispatching units of the First Army to patrol the streets of the city in anticipation of the looting and rioting from the violent, anti-social elements in our city that will be sure to follow these acts of terrorism. My orders are very clear. My men are going to take whatever action is necessary to prevent and control any acts of a criminal nature against the people and property of this city that is now under my complete jurisdiction.”
Herbie threw a fifty on the counter and galloped back to the Hummer. Grandma was right. The dark side did not take long to emerge. As the usual rules and regulations guiding a rigid society were suspended, much misanthropy was indeed breaking out. When just before there was only an angelic countenance to the smiles in the streets, now the other side of human nature was showing its snide and sneering self. For some this mighty day was a signal to spew perversion. Already he could hear glass shattering. People were running wanton in maniacal glee, smashing windows, violating storefronts and racing back out with their arms filled with unpaid-for stuff. There were shouts and screams, some in pain and terror, others cabalistic, coming from obscure alleyways and open doorways. Herbie could easily imagine squads of squirrel killers appearing on the scene and what they would do to these besieged people with their latest given orders. It was only a matter of time before overt violence on a larger scale would follow.
He had one more thing to do and then he had to get back to Maria. He split with celerity.
* * * * *
The Apartment
High above Manhattan, in her commodious apartment, all of her fears about entertaining a taciturn little boy from the ghetto dissipated before the can of chicken soup even came to a boil. The elevator up to the twenty-second floor seemed to fascinate him, never having been in one before, never having been above a ground floor. He was a little frightened with her view over the East River, but loved her state-of-the-art computer with the few games on it that he could play. He also was very impressed by the marvelous material comforts her apartment contained, mostly the big comfy bed in her guest room. The one she was tucking him into now because he was already fast asleep by the time she brought him the bowl of soup with
a toasted English muffin. She smiled to herself as she watched his little body expand and contract under the comforter with each contented breath. She wondered how he understood the things that just happened. She shut the light and closed the door gently behind her. That was easy, she sighed. But, you never know what comes next.
For some reason both her cell phone and landlines were useless. She really wanted to call Herbie, but that was impossible now. She would just have to wait till he got back, and she hoped it would be soon. She wandered through her lovely flat not knowing what to do next, when her eyes landed on the blinking red light of the video answering device on her desk. For some reason the flashing seemed ominous, and because of the strange feeling, she didn’t want to know who called. Whatever was waiting for her on memory in that hard drive may be something she didn’t want to hear.
* * * * *
Only Hope
Milos, the mayor’s Slavic techie, was still waiting to mumble his usual viscous goodbye and shut the door to the studio behind him. He knew the general’s latest broadcast was not going to have favorable reviews with his boss. Besides he wanted to witness the streets firsthand. He didn’t know if there would be sunshine or dark clouds outside of this safe room. More importantly he wanted to be near his wife and kids, and he couldn’t get through with his cell phone. The emergency regulations seemed to have knocked the system out again. The general could be a real pain in the ass.
Milos had a job to do here, and he was the only one who could do it. Yet it wasn’t easy getting a signal in from Singapore with all these brownouts. He kept trying to bounce a transmission off the few satellites that might be hot, but that took too long, and each attempt already failed. But what the fuck? Why should he care if New York could communicate with the rest of the world? The mayor looked like he was going to go into one of those goofy personal brownouts of his own soon anyway. He lowered the speaker from the operation room’s volume so he didn’t have to listen to the sound of Sam laughing. He went back to searching the skies above the earth for a metal billiard ball to bounce a phone call off to the other side of the world, all the while worrying what Lydia and the kids were doing. He hoped they had the sense to lock their doors.
Notwithstanding the fact that monumental history was in the making, the whole thing was actually kind of ironic to Sam. He muted the volume on the general’s special newscast after he heard it loop the first time through, but let Pellet’s incendiary flapping lips go on silently ad nausea as backdrop to his own personal black comedy. He turned to Jack who seemed to be going again. “The pharmagiants will really want to wrap this guy’s ass in a sling. They have been leading the world on for decades, dragging out the hope of a breakthrough cure for AIDS that could come from something they could package and sell, meantime they’re the fattest cats on the planet offering snake oil to prolong the agony. I mean, look what’s left of Africa. Then this totally random ex-con gets all this attention only one day out of the slammer by doing the impossible with just a heartfelt hug and a kiss. Does anyone have any real idea how many people are infected with some kind of incurable condition worldwide? All we do know is where they’re going to come if they can get cured with just a big wet kiss! Zappo, there goes all that money, there goes all their power; and Shantypark, which has been one huge fomenting leper colony since its inception, now looks like the Garden of Eden. You know what? I think the chemical titans should have been working on their own holistic approach.”
“Once the apple was bitten, there was no return to the garden.” Jack barely grunted.
Sam stood up from the tabletop he was sitting on and wheeled 360 around on his heels. All the other monitors in the room, except the general’s newscast, were dark. At a time like this Jack should have been in world conference mode with every leader in the Alliances. But he was silent. This time it wasn’t all Jack’s fault. The mayor had been ready to act, ready to lead. He knew that by now Milos could have by-passed the browns with the satellite technology installed here in this office, but there was something much bigger happening. This was Pellet’s doing. There was a unilateral usurpation of power going on. Mutiny.
Jack shuddered as if ripped apart from a secret conversation. “Sam, you have to listen to me. You have to get out of here tonight. It’s our only hope.”
* * * * *
Guitar
Returning to his apartment Herbie couldn’t believe that only twenty-four hours ago he lived in this pigsty. Empty pints of tequila in soggy brown paper bags were rotting in the garbage, discharging a sour, fermented odor that made the room smell like vomit. Green, fetid water accumulating in the bottom of saucepans in the kitchen sink were breeding grounds for all kinds of life directly repugnant to man, now crawling through the crevasses of dirty dishes and hardened, rotten food.
Herbie grabbed the vintage guitar leaning against the wall and put it in the case he just bought at the deserted pawnshop. He looked the apartment over one last time with disgust and, without regret, closed the door behind him and walked out of there forever.
Back on the street he felt things were deteriorating. His cell phone was useless. He could try getting through on Maria’s landline by dialing into the data banks and spidering through the coordinates, but that would take some time, which he didn’t have. He figured the emergency regs would be in effect anyway, which would knock out any chance of picking up her security codes.
He put the guitar case in the back seat and pulled the Hummer out onto Broadway. The crush of people swarming uptown towards Shantypark was hard to believe. Throngs were streaming across the wide avenue carrying backpacks and sleeping bags and paraphernalia towards Shantypark as if on a sacred pilgrimage. On the sidewalks however, it looked like a parallel planet in a visible sideways dimension; people were rioting and reveling in lawless abandon. Human yin and yang.
He couldn’t even turn off Broadway and take the side streets, because they were also packed with people. He was just too close to Shantypark.
A rock hit the windshield. The bulletproofing absorbed the shock, but this was not a good sign. He heard another sharp thud against the side of the Hummer. If he floored it, maybe he could lose whatever maniacs were attacking him, although he would no doubt run over people doing so. He saw something through the rear-view mirror that made his pulse quicken. Squads of SKs were moving in, most likely curious as to why a Hummer with the ABCNN logo was driving away and against the grain. Pellet had probably closed down all the media along with the cell networks, and here he was, the big and obvious fool, trying to sneak crosstown in the largest vehicle on the road with a huge ABCNN logo painted on all sides.
He had to move fast, so he put the Hummer in reverse, grabbed the guitar and one of the production cases and jumped out of the moving vehicle. It backed away, driverless, banging into parked cars in spaces along the parking meters, people screaming at him as they jumped out of its way. As he melted into the crowd he saw over his shoulder some miscreant fools trying to jump in to the big jeep to see what they could find inside before the squirrel killers took over. This could leave them as bloody messes all over the dashboard; but what else was there for some people to do?
Herbie moved as quick as he could, trying to blend into the teeming dusky night, carrying his gear the way the thousands brushing against him were carrying theirs. At this pace it could take him forever to get back over to the East Side. His concerns for Maria began to mount, but he got another good idea.
Herbie knew the entrance to the tunnel would be easy to find because he was part bloodhound and had been there once before. When Ibrahim had lead the way, he climbed out of the dark onto an empty street only a few blocks away from their ABCNN home station. This time however, the streets were packed and squirrel killers were everywhere, several stationed right on top of the manhole cover. Shantypark was just a couple of blocks away, and these guys knew what kind of angry animal could come out of that hole at any time.
When the squirrel killers stationed there turned to sniff at him
and cogitate about his suspect presence on this untouchable turf, he went into a quick act and seemingly careened off a parked car and into a wall as if he was freaking on some smizz and got himself lost along the way. He heard them snicker, “Dumb Jones freak,” as he doubled back towards Broadway, losing even more valuable time, but still footloose and able to make his own way.
There seemed to be no other recourse. He’d have to go overland, around Shantypark and through the crowds. He would have loved a guiding hand from one of those newly anointed Shantypark saints that were lurking somewhere near him underground, but some things a man has got to do for himself.
* * * * *
Milos
Milos was glad he was finally allowed to go home. No matter what he did he could not find a satellite. There was something spooky going on and what it was he did not want to know. He tried to shrug it off hoping it was solar flares or something. He couldn’t afford to take sides in this.
