Dark City Lights

by Lawrence Block

  THAT WAS HOW IT WAS all over the city on Crazy Sunday, and on Monday and Tuesday, too. The behemoths were outside the park, roaming at large from Harlem to Wall Street. Wherever they went they drew tremendous crazy crowds that swarmed all over them without any regard for the danger. Some famous news photos came out of those days: the three grinning black boys at Seventh and 125th hanging from the three purple rod-like things, the acrobats forming a human pyramid atop the Times Square beast, the little old Italian man standing in front of his house in Greenwich Village trying to hold a space monster at bay with his garden hose.

  There was never any accurate casualty count. Maybe five thousand people died, mainly trampled underfoot by the aliens or crushed in the crowd. Somewhere between three hundred and fifty and four hundred human beings were gobbled by the aliens. Apparently that stoop-and-swallow thing is something they do when they’re nervous. If there’s anything edible within reach, they’ll gulp it in. This soothes them. We made them very nervous; they did a lot of gulping.

  Among the casualties was Tim, the second day of the violence. He went down valiantly in the defense of the Guggenheim Museum, which came under attack by five of the biggies. Its spiral shape held some ineffable appeal for them. We couldn’t tell whether they wanted to worship it or mate with it or just knock it to pieces, but they kept on charging and charging, rushing up to it and slamming against it. Tim was trying to hold them off with nothing more than teargas and blooglehorns when he was swallowed. Never flinched, just stood there and let it happen. The president had ordered the guardsmen not to use lethal weapons. Maranta was bitter about that. “If only they had let them use grenades,” she said. I tried to imagine what it was like, gulped down and digested, nifty tan uniform and all. A credit to his regiment. It was his atonement, I guess. He was back there in the Gary Cooper movie again, gladly paying the price for dereliction of duty.

  Tuesday afternoon the rampage came to an unexpected end. The behemoths suddenly started keeling over, and within a few hours they were all dead. Some said it was the heat—it was up in the nineties all day Monday and Tuesday—and some said it was the excitement. A Rockefeller University biologist thought it was both those factors plus severe indigestion: the aliens had eaten an average of ten humans apiece, which might have overloaded their systems.

  There was no chance for autopsies. Some enzyme in the huge bodies set to work immediately on death, dissolving flesh and bone and skin and all into a sticky yellow mess. By nightfall nothing was left of them but some stains on the pavement, uptown and down. A sad business, I thought. Not even a skeleton for the museum, memento of this momentous time. The poor monsters. Was I the only one who felt sorry for them? Quite possibly I was. I make no apologies for that. I feel what I feel.

  All this time the other aliens, the little shimmery spooky ones, had stayed holed up in Central Park, preoccupied with their incomprehensible research. They didn’t even seem to notice that their behemoths had strayed.

  But now they became agitated. For two or three days they bustled about like worried penguins, dismantling their instruments and packing them aboard their ship; and then they took apart the other ship, the one that had carried the behemoths, and loaded that aboard. Perhaps they felt demoralized. As the Carthaginians who had invaded Rome did, after their elephants died.

  On a sizzling June afternoon the alien ship took off. Not for its home world, not right away. It swooped into the sky and came down on Fire Island: at Cherry Grove, to be precise. The aliens took possession of the beach, set up their instruments around their ship, and even ventured into the water, skimming and bobbing just above the surface of the waves like demented surfers. After five or six days they moved on to one of the Hamptons and did the same thing, and then to Martha’s Vineyard. Maybe they just wanted a vacation, after three weeks in New York. And then they went away altogether.

  “You’ve been having an affair with Maranta, haven’t you?” Elaine asked me, the day the aliens left.

  “I won’t deny it.”

  “That night you came in so late, with wine on your breath. You were with her, weren’t you?”

  “No,” I said. “I was with Tim. He and I sneaked into the park and looked at the aliens.”

  “Sure you did,” Elaine said. She filed for divorce and a year later I married Maranta. Very likely that would have happened sooner or later even if the Earth hadn’t been invaded by beings from space and Tim hadn’t been devoured. But no question that the invasion speeded things up a bit for us all.

  And now, of course, the invaders are back. Four years to the day from the first landing and there they were, pop whoosh ping thunk, Central Park again. Three ships this time, one of spooks, one of behemoths, and the third one carrying the prisoners of war.

  Who could ever forget that scene, when the hatch opened and some three hundred and fifty to four hundred human beings came out, marching like zombies? Along with the bison herd, half a dozen squirrels, and three dogs. They hadn’t been eaten and digested at all, just collected inside the behemoths and instantaneously transmitted somehow to the home world, where they were studied. Now they were being returned. “That’s Tim, isn’t it?” Maranta said, pointing to the screen. I nodded. Unmistakably Tim, yes. With the stunned look of a man who has beheld marvels beyond comprehension.

  It’s a month now and the government is still holding all the returnees for debriefing. No one is allowed to see them. The word is that a special law will be passed dealing with the problem of spouses of returnees who have entered into new marriages. Maranta says she’ll stay with me no matter what; and I’m pretty sure that Tim will do the stiff-upper-lip thing, no hard feelings, if they ever get word to him in the debriefing camp about Maranta and me. As for the aliens, they’re sitting tight in Central Park, occupying the whole place from Ninety-sixth to 110th and not telling us a thing. Now and then the behemoths wander down to the reservoir for a lively bit of wallowing, but they haven’t gone beyond the park this time.

  I think a lot about Hannibal, and about Carthage versus Rome, and how the Second Punic War might have come out if Hannibal had had a chance to go back home and get a new batch of elephants. Most likely Rome would have won the war anyway, I guess. But we aren’t Romans, and they aren’t Carthaginians, and those aren’t elephants splashing around in the Central Park reservoir. “This is such an interesting time to be alive,” Maranta likes to say. “I’m certain they don’t mean us any harm, aren’t you?”

  “I love you for your optimism,” I tell her then. And then we turn on the tube and watch the evening news.

  JIMMY TAKES A TRIP

  BY ELAINE KAGAN

  “SO, SHE PICKED HIM UP, right?” Stan said. He looked around the restaurant. It was already crowded at six thirty.

  “What?” Al said.

  “I said she picked him up,” Stan said, pushing a crust of bread through a pool of olive oil on his plate.

  “No.”

  Stan lifted his eyes to Al. “No?”

  “I said no,” Al said.

  “No.”

  “No—she—didn’t—pick—him—up.” Al said the words slowly and separately as if he were speaking to someone Chinese. He had a distinctive voice—strong and resonant. Once upon a time he had auditioned for the Met. The Metropolitan Opera—his mother used to say it as if it were in all caps. He’d made it to the second-to-final round singing the role of the father in Verdi’s La Traviata. The baritone part. Not too many people knew that.

  “Well . . .” Stan said, straightening his shoulders, “Maury said . . . you know . . . that she picked him up.”

  Al swirled the scotch around the melting cubes in his glass and gave Stan a long look. “Maury’s got a hell of a lot of nerve saying that’s what happened. He wasn’t even there.”

  Stan frowned. “He wasn’t?”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  “Well.” Stan said. “I thought it was the six of you.”

  Al settled himself; moved his broad back against the sl
ick red leather booth. He cracked the knuckles of his left hand and then his right. He readjusted the quarter-inch of white French cuff at the end of his gray suit jacket sleeve on each wrist and folded his big hands neatly in front of him. The muscles in his upper arms strained against the gabardine. The diamonds in his cuff links flashed. His fingers were large and stubby, the skin of the third finger of his left hand deeply indented by a thick gold wedding band. He was a formidable man with ice-white hair, chopped into what once would have been called a flattop. “Maury wasn’t even in the city,” Al said.

  Stan shook his head. “Well, I’ll be . . .”

  “You believed him?” Al said, “That he was there? That fat jerk.”

  Stan shrugged.

  “He was on the island. He had a family to-do.”

  “Uh huh,” Stan said.

  “Cancelled at the last minute. Some family thing that Suze had to do,” Al said. His eyes narrowed. Pale blue eyes. “Which you’d think he would have known about in the first place and we wouldn’t have made the date in the first place and we wouldn’t have even gone there.”

  “Right.”

  “The whole thing was Suze’s idea anyway. She read about it in some magazine.”

  “No kidding,” Stan said.

  “No kidding,” Al said. “Would I go into the city if I didn’t have to?” he said in his booming baritone, and polished off the scotch. “Would I go to a fucking hotel? Where I could look across at Jersey?” He shook his head. “I’m already in Jersey. Do I need to look at it?”

  “I guess not,” Stan said.

  “Suze got Lil and Cheryl all excited with the idea. I couldn’t talk Lil out of it. And Jimmy said, oh, c’mon, we’ll take ’em, what’s the big deal?”

  “Uh huh,” Stan said.

  The waiter put thick white plates down in front of them, the china making a thunk sound against the tablecloth. New York strippers sizzling, baked potatoes the size of rats, and creamed spinach, individual bowls of creamed spinach to the left of each plate. Sorrentino’s had excellent creamed spinach. The secret ingredient was nutmeg. Everyone knew that.

  “Ketchup,” Al said to the waiter, lifting his knife and slicing through his potato. It let off a cloud of steam like a volcano.

  “Ketchup?”

  ‘That’s what I said.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He always does that, Maury, acts like he knows everything, tells everybody else’s goddamn story like he was the one standin’ there . . .” Al kept his eyes on the back of the waiter as he went to get the ketchup.

  “Well, Maury didn’t say he was standing there. He just said she picked him up,” Stan said. He trimmed an edge of fat off the hunk of meat and carefully moved it to the side of his plate.

  “Well, she didn’t,” Al said.

  “Okay.”

  “It was me and Lil and Cheryl and Jimmy. That’s all who went. The four of us. And I was the only one with him at the bar.”

  The waiter returned and set down a small silver bowl of ketchup. Al looked at the bowl; he looked at the waiter.

  “Sir?” the waiter said.

  “You poured this from the Heinz bottle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, okay then,” Al said. The waiter turned and took off. “I don’t know this guy,” Al said, gesturing towards the parting waiter. “Must of just got out of the Army.”

  Stan gave a little chuckle.

  Al lifted the silver bowl and spooned ketchup all over his steak. He looked at Stan. “Anyway, it was just the four of us,” he said. “No sign of Maury.”

  “Who was on the island,” Stan said.

  “Yeah.” Al made a face that was half smirk, half smile. The dimple in his left cheek was ironic—it gave the impression that he was sweet as a cupcake.

  Stan picked up his knife and fork. “So . . .”

  “So?” Al said.

  Stan smiled. “So, go on.”

  “So, it was Saturday, you know that . . .” Al said, dropping two inches of butter onto his potato.

  “Yeah, I know that. Saturday . . .”

  “Nobody in their right mind would come into the city on a Saturday. You could lose your mind in the tunnel.”

  “Right,” Stan said.

  “You could shoot yourself in the head in the tunnel.”

  “You bet,” Stan said.

  Al took a deep breath, as if to steady himself. He looked at Stan.

  “Hell of a thing,” Stan said.

  “Yeah,” Al said. He wiped his mouth on his napkin.

  Stan pushed his fork through the creamed spinach. “How long you two know each other?” he asked.

  “Me and Jimmy?” Al spread the napkin carefully on his lap, took another swig of the melted ice. “Since Immaculate Conception,” Al said.

  “THE Immaculate Conception?” Stan said, eyes wide.

  “What are you? Crazy?”

  “I beg your pardon,” Stan said, frowning.

  “That was the name of our high school.”

  “In Short Hills?”

  “No, Verona. I lived in Verona, Jimmy was in Newark.”

  “No shit.”

  “Where were you then?” Al asked.

  “Boston,” Stan said.

  “Really. You a Red Sox fan?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Al smiled. “We were fourteen.”

  “Wow,” Stan said, “I don’t think I know anybody from when I was fourteen.”

  “Yeah,” Al nodded. “He was standing next to me when I passed out at mass.”

  “You what?” Stan said, pulling another piece of bread out of the basket and using it to scoop up the rest of his spinach.

  “Oh, I hadn’t eaten and I passed out at mass.” Al smacked his meaty hands together making a big slap sound. “Splat,” he said, grinning. The couple at the table closest to their booth turned their heads to look at him. He laughed. “Face down across the marble. Like LaMotta with Danny Nardico.”

  “Wow,” Stan said.

  “That’s when they found out I was hypoglycemic.” Al gave Stan a look.

  “That’s the blood sugar . . . you know, if I don’t eat . . . blood sugar goes down . . .” he slapped his hand on the table, “kaboom.”

  “No kidding,” Stan said. He set down the empty bowl. “Does it bother you?”

  “No. I carry nuts in the car. You know, nuts, a Mars bar, things like that. Lil makes sure.”

  “Uh huh,” Stan said.

  “So . . . anyway . . . then . . . when I went down . . . I broke my jaw.” Al said. “Big time. Wired for months.” He laughed. “And Jimmy was standing next to me. He could sing a hell of a bass. Even then, when we were kids. Like in Gloria en excelsis Deo, you know? At the end.”

  “Who?”

  “The Christmas carol, you know, in Latin. About the angels.” He leaned forward and sang, “En excelsis daaayyyyy ohhhhh,” he held the last note. He didn’t belt it out or anything but it was definitely clear and strong and heard across most of Sorrentino’s Steak House. People turned in their chairs. Stan’s mouth gaped open about a half inch.

  “Anyway,” Al said, “Jimmy was next to me, and for some reason we never figured out, he went with me in the ambulance. It was probably Sister Mary Innunciatta’s idea. She was great with ideas.” He ate some of the inside of the potato, avoiding the skin. He cut another piece of steak. He polished off the scotch and raised his glass in the air. He didn’t move the glass or anything; just held it high in the air in front of him like a running back does with the football after a touchdown.

  Stan gazed at Al, transfixed.

  “Did you want another drink, sir?” the waiter asked. He’d appeared out of nowhere like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

  “Yeah,” Al said. “A double.”

  “Two doubles,” Stan said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Al kept his eyes on the back of the waiter. “He’s a regular lieutenant.”

  “Maybe just a sergeant,” Stan said
.

  They both smiled.

  “Well, so . . .” Stan said. He ran his hand across his face. “So, you and Jimmy all these years, huh?”

  “Yep,” Al said, nodding. “A wild and crazy guy.”

  “Who said that? A wild and crazy guy—Robin Williams?”

  “No. Steve Martin.”

  “Oh, yeah, Steve Martin, that’s right,” Stan said. “I saw him once. He did that arrow thing through his head. Did you ever see that?”

  “Not that I remember,” Al said. “He’s no Robin Williams, Steve Martin, that’s for damn sure.”

  “No, well . . . who is?” Stan cut a piece of steak.

  They both ate for a few minutes.

  “It’s downtown, huh, the Saxony Hotel? I never went there. I’ve seen it lots of times but I never went in.”

  “West Village. Did you ever try to find a garage in the West Village?”

  “You didn’t give it to the hotel guy?”

  “Well, finally,” Al said, “finally I gave it to the hotel guy because Cheryl was having a fit. Like we were gonna be late or something. We’re gonna be late, we’re gonna be late, she kept harping at Jimmy. Like we were gonna miss the skyline. The skyline is forever, right? Or always. Always is what I said. No matter when you look out you see the goddamn skyline. Night or day.”

  “Maybe she meant the sunset. Were you trying to get there in time for the sunset?”

  “The sunset in October? We would have had to leave Short Hills at what? Three? Three thirty?” He shook his head, took a breath. “Look, Cheryl’s okay . . . I mean, we made our peace a long time ago . . . about a lot of things . . . whenever Jimmy went awry. Astray. Whatever. On many occasions . . . Lil used to say to me, take it easy, take it easy, but Cheryl always went against my grain . . . little things . . . I don’t know.”