Resurrection Day

by Brendan DuBois

  A couple of soldiers at the gatehouse—MPs in shiny helmets and shoulder brassards—smiled and shook their heads as they saw the group approaching. Carl knew from his Army days what they were thinking: dealing with reporters always meant dumb questions, wasted time, and the possibility of getting into serious trouble with your commander. Therefore, reporters were trouble and were to be avoided at all costs. Sure enough, as the group of journalists got closer, the MPs quietly turned on their heels.

  On the gatehouse was a red, white, and blue sign in large letters:

  YOU ARE NOW LEAVING WESTCHESTER COUNTY

  YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE

  NEW YORK METROPOLITAN RESTRICTED ZONE

  ENTRY TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED

  And below, in smaller white letters: ‘c’ COMPANY, 2nd BATTALION, FIRST DIVISION, ‘THE BIG RED ONE.’

  Carl took a number of pictures of the entry sign, then walked away from the crowd which was now clustered around the gatehouse. He walked toward the fence and saw that he had been wrong about the leaves and branches in the Fence. It was something else, and his throat caught for a moment.

  All along the fence were tokens and talismans, left by the untold numbers of visitors who had come here. Ribbons of all colors were tied on the chain link, and birthday cards and greeting cards, some faded by the weather, had been placed on the ground. Dried flowers and plastic flowers and fresh flowers were stuck through the fence and there were handwritten messages and notes. He took a number of pictures and then stopped. The mementos were placed on and around the fence as far as he could see. A bottle of scotch. Some playing cards. A Zippo cigarette lighter. A card was stuck in the fence by his feet and he picked it up. It was a Peanuts birth-day card with a picture of Snoopy pretending to be Joe Cool, and inside was a note: ‘Tommy, you were always the coolest. We still miss and love you so much. Jack.’

  Next to the birthday card was a Playbill magazine, ten years old, faded and taped together. It felt brittle in his hands, like it had come from an ancient Egyptian tomb. A white card was taped to the front, and he could just barely make out the handwriting: ‘Les, when we get back to Broadway, we’ll host one for you and make sure your name is back in lights. Bill and the rest of the gang.’

  Behind him he heard people walking by and he ignored them. Everything he wanted to see was right here. He softly put the Playbill down on the ground and nearly jumped when a man behind him said: ‘Pretty wild stuff, hunh?’

  Carl turned and next to him was a young soldier, standing there, rubbing his hands together. He looked to be about eighteen or nineteen, in Army winter gear, with an M-14 slung to one side. He had on a black watch cap and his helmet was hanging from a utility belt at his side, along with a canteen and a small field pack. A square piece of plastic that Carl recognized as radiation dosimetry hung from a clip on the left breast pocket of the soldier’s jacket. His skin was white and splotched with freckles. Carl looked back up at the gatehouse and saw that the rest of the soldier’s squad was slowly walking across the parking lot.

  ‘Yeah,’ Carl said. ‘Pretty wild stuff.’

  ‘You with that bunch?’

  ‘Sort of. I’m taking pictures for a newspaper.’

  The soldier laughed. ‘No shit, really?’

  ‘No shit, really.’

  ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘Well, the Fence for one. And this afternoon, we’re going into Manhattan.’

  ‘Far out,’ the soldier said, and laughed again. ‘Man, that’s the deadest place I’ve ever been. Can’t believe anybody would want to get in there to that dead island.’

  Carl nodded to the Fence. ‘You coming back from patrol?’

  The soldier was still smiling but there was something guarded about his look. ‘Is this an interview?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘It sure sounds like it. You asking questions and all that.’

  ‘No, I’m just curious, that’s all. A few years back, I was doing the same thing you were doing.’

  ‘The hell you say,’ the soldier said. ‘You were in the Big Green?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘When were you drafted?’

  Carl gave him a rueful grin. ‘I wasn’t. I enlisted. Back in 1960.’

  ‘Must’ve seen some serious shit, then.’

  ‘That I did.’

  ‘Where were you stationed?’

  ‘Most of the time I was on detached duty, relief and recovery, from Fort Ord, in California.’

  The soldier shook his head. ‘I heard that California after the nukes fell was definitely not the place to be. Is it true that Governor Brown was fragged by the military commander and that they covered it up, said it was a traffic accident?’

  ‘Can’t say,’ Carl replied. ‘Truth is, I heard that rumor a lot, and it’s the kind of rumor it’s not healthy to look into, if you know what I mean.’

  The young soldier grinned. ‘Yeah, I know that ride. Things are pretty quiet nowadays but you learn quick not to ask too many questions.’

  ‘So,’ Carl said, motioning to the fence. ‘What was your job today?’

  ‘Pokin’ and strokin’, that’s all,’ he said. ‘We walk the fence down and meet another patrol, sent up from the Hudson River station, and we make sure that the fence is one piece, that no one’s cut holes in it, and that things are fine.’

  ‘And are things fine today?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, things are great. Fence is nice and tight.’

  ‘You still trying to get people going across?’

  The soldier nodded. ‘All the time, man. You’d think they’d give it up, ten years later, but it’s their homes in there, you know? Every few weeks, either we find the fence cut through or we catch some family trying to head south. Pretty sad. And then there’re the people that come by to leave stuff at the fence. Brrr,’ he said, mimicking a shiver. ‘Makes you think this fence surrounds the biggest graveyard in the world.’

  ‘Seems to be a lot of stuff here.’

  ‘Yep. A couple of the old-timers, they told me about a checkpoint commander here a few years ago, a real hard-ass. Every week he made the patrols sweep through the fence and pick up all the stuff that the families dropped off. He wanted this place to look sharp or something like that. So each week, we got piles of this stuff and we started putting it in one of the warehouses, ‘cause nobody could bear the thought of tossing it out.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘Oh, he ordered the stuff to be burnt and next morning, he was out taking a dump in the officers’ latrine, and the place blew up. Busted his eardrums real good and broke his legs. Funny thing, how that place exploded. Must’ve been a buildup of methane gas or something.’

  ‘Or something.’

  ‘Yeah, and that was it for cleaning up the fence.’ Carl looked again at the soldier’s eyes and saw how tired he was. He had seen that resigned look before, during duty in the States. Ten years, he thought. Ten years later and we’re still teaching our soldiers not to soldier, but to be policemen in green uniforms.

  Carl motioned to the land on the other side of the fence. ‘What’s it like in the RZ?’

  The soldier shook his head. ‘Don’t rightly know. Only a few patrols get sent in there and that’s just for the day. Most of the time, it’s just fence watching.’

  ‘I thought the RZ was regularly patrolled.’

  A knowing smile. ‘Right. And the draft is a fair and equitable way for everyone to serve this wonderful country of ours. Look, besides the regular contamination, the RZ has a lot of crap inside that can bite you in the ass, especially at night, and we leave it pretty much alone unless we have to.’

  ‘Really? So what’s in there?’

  ‘Sorry. Rather talk about fence walking, ‘cause that’s what I’ve been doing, all these weeks. Pretty boring stuff, but the good thing is, it looks like I’m going to be bored for just another seven months and twelve days.’

  ‘Enlistment’s up?’
<
br />   An enthusiastic nod. ‘That’s right, pal. Seven months and twelve days from now, my term is up and, can you keep a secret?’

  ‘Sure can.’

  The soldier laughed and moved a bit closer. ‘Truth is, I learned a lot about fences and how to cross over in my duty here, and I’m gonna use that in good practice. Day after I’m out I’m gonna screw being in the reserves, m’man, I’m going up North, maybe Michigan or Montana, and I’m gonna cross the Canadian border. Get up to the Canadian Rockies and relax and drink a lot of beer and flush this place out of my system. My dosimetry tells me I’ve picked up minimal, but since the Army checks the dosimetry, well, I’m still going to flush it out.’

  ‘It probably won’t work,’ he said, knowing he should be horrified at this tale of desertion, but instead finding himself liking this soldier’s spirit.

  A shout came from the parking lot, and the soldier waved. ‘Yeah, but it sure will be fun. Sorry, man, my sergeant’s yellin’ at me and it’s time to go.’

  ‘Good talking to you. Thanks for your time.’

  A brief wave back and the soldier started to the parking lot. ‘Always nice, talking to someone who’s been there, you know? Don’t get too many zoomies while you’re in Manhattan.’

  There was something about the soldier, as he trudged over to the parking lot, his uniform and gear and M-14 and helmet hanging off his belt. Carl knew what it was. For a moment, it had almost been like looking in a mirror, seeing himself when he was back in California. And he remembered a lot of other things, like the slang for radiation exposure.

  Zoomies. Must be lots of zoomies out there, beyond the Fence.

  A horn blew twice, from a truck out in the parking lot. Time to get back. He started back and saw something white among the red and orange and yellow of the leaves. It was a prayer card and he picked it up. On one side was an illustration of the Virgin Mary, and on the other was a set of prayers and a handwritten scribble, in Spanish. He didn’t know Spanish but that didn’t matter. Neither did the Fence.

  He put the card back against the chain link and walked to the parking lot.

  ~ * ~

  FIFTEEN

  He clambered into the dark green U.S. Army Huey helicopter next to Sandy. The interior was shaking with the noise, and then a crew member entered, slid the door shut, sat, down across from them, and with an unsteady motion, they were off the ground.

  The inside of the helicopter was greasy and stained, and their overnight luggage and camera bags were strapped down in one corner. There were two other reporters on board, from Japan, and they nodded and smiled at him and Sandy. There was also a cameraman from ABC news who muttered to himself and sat with his arms crossed, looking grimly out the window. Carl looked out the other window and caught a view of four other helicopters, taking off, one after another, from Tyler Air Force Station. It was late Wednesday afternoon and they were heading into Manhattan.

  Being back in a helicopter with the smells of the oil and canvas and the sounds and motions of being lifted and then propelled forward into the air brought back such a rush of memories that Carl had to close his eyes for a moment. He remembered training missions at Ft. Bragg, in North Carolina, flying treetop level over the hot pine forests. Back in South Vietnam, heading out to hamlets with other advisers, smiling and nervous and excited all at the same time, flying low over the steamy rice paddies. And back in California, in the tall rugged hills, chasing militia units, dropping off food caches to remote towns still in shock after the war, and making illegal middle-of-the-night raids into Mexico.

  There had been one particularly memorable helicopter trip. It had been routine, ferrying three congressmen around the edge of the San Diego crater. Then there came a high-pitched whining noise as something went wrong with the engine and they started spiraling in. Carl had been surprised at how calm he felt. All he could think was, well, this is where it’s going to end. He remembered seeing the congressmen hang on to the sides of the bulkhead, eyes wide open. One of them vomited and because of the G-forces, it sprayed the ceiling. Carl had closed his eyes, waiting for impact, when the pilot managed to regain control and they landed hard, cracking one of the landing struts. Another of the congressmen had wet his pants, but the third—some guy named Bush from Texas—had just grinned and said that was the second-wildest ride of his life, the first being when he was shot down by the Japanese over the Pacific, in World War II.

  Carl opened his eyes and he looked out the side window. Below was the Hudson River and to the right was New Jersey and further, to the south, was the black and gray streak that marked the New Jersey nuclear detonation zone, the NUDET. There were a handful of boats on the gray water and he could see a few cars and trucks on the roads on the New Jersey side of the river, just north of the Restricted Zone. He wondered how anyone could live and work across the water from such a huge and dead city.

  The spires and buildings of Manhattan crept into view as the helicopter tilted and swerved to the left. Off in the day’s haze were two more oval gray and black shapes, marking the UZs in Queens and western Long Island. The edges of the ovals weren’t sharp, because the borders were marked by mounds of rubble and other debris. They looked like large racetracks or horsetracks or something equally benign, and he felt nauseous at knowing the truth of what he was seeing. The fused graves of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Below him now were the narrow streets and crowded buildings of Manhattan and his chest started to tighten up. There it was, America’s first city, quiet and dead. If you took a quick glance the city still looked like the old postcards and photo books -the crowded buildings, tall and proud. It was when you looked closely that you saw all the details, the details that Carl knew he would never forget.

  There were jagged, black sections in some of the city blocks, where fires had broken out in some buildings and had been extinguished, but where nothing had been rebuilt. Some of the trees had grown so large that on some of the narrow streets, they had formed canopies of branches and leaves. There were craters of some sort in a few of the streets, from collapsed tunnels, perhaps. Other buildings had lost their brick or marble facades, exposing rusting steel beams into the air. He blinked as the helicopter descended. There was something odd about the streets below, there was traffic down there. A lot. Cars and trucks and buses and . . .

  He sat back against the bulkhead. How stupid could you be, he thought. None of the traffic was moving. It was a silent, deadly, rust-filled stillness of vehicles abandoned on that day ten years ago when firestorms and mushroom clouds seared the horizons, and when the city’s population began an exodus like none other seen in the world, millions of people taking to their feet, crowding the bridges and tunnels, some even seizing boats at the river’s docks in a desperate attempt to leave Manhattan.

  Sandy tightened her grip on his hand. They were lowering in altitude. He could see more details of the surrounding buildings. A lot of windows were missing, leaving gaps along the brick and concrete walls. Another pile of burnt rubble. Then there was a large swath of green, regular and rectangular. Central Park. Most of the northern section of the park was still wild and green, but the southern end looked like a military base. There were concrete pads with large, yellow H’s painted in the center, and Quonset huts and temporary buildings. There were rows of trucks and armored personnel carriers and jeeps, and other helicopters were taking off from other concrete pads as they came in for a landing. There was a swooping sensation in his gut as the pilot flared down and landed, and the engine noise changed pitch as the engine throttled back.

  The crew chief nodded and slid open the side door, and Carl hurried outside, still holding on to Sandy’s hand. They hunched over as they scrambled away from the helicopter and its rotating blades. The wind from the rotors kicked up dust and pebbles and he drew Sandy to a grassy area of the park and then turned around.

  ‘What are all those buildings?’ Sandy asked, raising her voice some.

  ‘Wish I knew,’ Carl said, feeling slightly ashamed that h
e couldn’t tell a foreigner the intricate details of his country’s first city, but he’d only been to Manhattan for two brief visits before the war. ‘I’ve got a map but it’s buried in my luggage. I know that’s Fifth Avenue over there. Used to be some very pricey real estate, before the war.’

  He turned around, trying to take everything in. There were trees along the edge of the park and between the buildings, and asphalt paths connected the huts and some older, brick structures that must have belonged to the park. He could make out tall office and apartment buildings beyond the trees. The sky was a brilliant blue and the leaves on the trees had changed, a jumbled collection of yellow, orange, and red. Squirrels ran along the tree trunks and pigeons moved in flocks along the ground. It was all so damn peaceful, if you could ignore the armored vehicles, the helicopters taking off and landing, and the Army lieutenant with a clipboard and swagger stick, trying to get everyone to walk to one of the older brick buildings marked ADMINISTRATION—MANHATTAN AFS. It looked clean and peaceful and orderly, and he knew that this was just a very small refuge of order in a larger sea of chaos, out there in the crumbling streets of this island city. He sniffed the air. There was a smell of aviation fuel and exhaust and something else. The smell of things that had gotten wet and burnt and rotten. A smell of decay, of things falling apart and no one possibly being able to clean it up.