The Harvest

by John David Krygelski

  Suddenly, the barricades, riot gear, and body shield, as well as the demeanor of the stranger across the line from him, made Cavalino feel like a bully. As Cavalino’s eyes swept the group who had approached their station point, he saw other members chatting with officers, lifting their small children up for a better view of the police equipment, showing family pictures from their wallets and purses. One of Stanley’s group had brought a bright pink Styrofoam chest and, after placing it on the asphalt and removing the lid, was pouring coffee for everyone around her, including the riot cops, and offering cheese Danish.

  The normal stance for riot control was to hold the shield forward with the left hand, if right-handed, while keeping the right hand free to draw a gun loaded with rubber bullets. Cavalino snapped the leather thong closed on his sidearm, shifted his shield around so that it was no longer between him and Witherspoon, and stuck out his hand. “I’m Nick Cavalino.”

  The effect was instantaneous. Either because the other officers felt as Cavalino did or because they simply reacted to his first move, like a wave rippling outward in both directions, the rest of them tucked their shields away from the group, relaxing their stances. Stanley gripped Nick Cavalino’s hand firmly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nick.” As he released himself from the handshake, Witherspoon glanced down and saw that Cavalino also had the mark. “You’re one of us,” he said, feeling an immediate camaraderie.

  Smiling, Nick answered, “Yes, it was a bit of a surprise.”

  “Yeah, same here.” Looking down the line of police, Stanley asked, “How many of your colleagues…?”

  “A few. You know, it’s a little weird, but there really weren’t any surprises there. I watched Elohim’s statement like everyone else. I was working at the precinct when it was on, instead of being at home with my family, and watched the TV in the bullpen. Afterward, everyone started asking everyone else…then it kinda stopped. It was just too sad, you know, for the guys who didn’t have it. Those of us who did just sort of found each other, privately. In our precinct there were four I would have pegged to get it. Three of them did.”

  “It’s the accountant in me, I guess, but I have to ask…that’s out of how many?” Witherspoon asked.

  “About two hundred in our station.”

  “Wow. One and a half percent. I figured for police and firemen it would have been higher.”

  Cavalino smiled. “We actually didn’t do too badly. My wife works as a paralegal at the DA’s office. Among the lawyers there…not one.”

  “Well, that makes sense. How could it be Heaven…?”

  They both laughed again as the nearby woman with the pink Styrofoam chest brought two cups of coffee to them. Stanley took a sip and felt the warmth spread down his chest and abdomen. “Nick, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “What’s the deal here? I mean, why won’t they let us in?”

  “Didn’t you hear the news about the other groups? Didn’t you get the e-mails?”

  “Not really. I’ve got a very aggressive spam filter. I also don’t get any e-mails unless they come from a pre-authorized list of senders. I’m not much on news, either.”

  “Well, how did you find out about this event?”

  “I was searching the net about Elohim and the mark. After His statement, I’ve spent quite a bit of time doing that. I just came across the blogs that were organizing this. Why? What’s going on?”

  “Europe, since they are several hours earlier than here, had some overnight and early morning gatherings, you know, like this but smaller. Same deal…people with the mark wanting to get together, to meet. Once they assembled, shootings or bombings started…most of them were killed.”

  “By someone in the group?” Stanley asked incredulously.

  “Nobody knows yet, but my guess is probably not.”

  “Who would do that?”

  “Like I said, I’m Italian. So, guess what? Big surprise – I’m a Catholic. From all those hours in catechism classes, I remember they taught us that God isn’t the only player.”

  “The devil?” asked Witherspoon, saying the words softly.

  “Not necessarily the guy in the red suit with the horns and tail, you know…but evil…bad…the other end of the spectrum from God.”

  “Yin and Yang.”

  “Yep. In my business, that’s what we deal with all the time. In my old neighborhood it’s a cliché, you know, the Italian brothers – one becomes a cop and the other a priest. Doesn’t actually happen that much, but it stuck. Anyway, the old joke was that they both worked opposite ends of the same street. But that’s basically all we see. We’re up to our eyeballs in it every day. Soon enough a lot of the guys start to think that the whole world’s that way…’cause it’s all around them. They start to sour.”

  “Maybe that’s why so few are going…uh…got the mark.”

  “Could be. Yeah, you’re probably right. Anyway, to answer your question, there are a lot of people who just can’t stand to see anything pretty…can’t stand to see anyone happy. They have to vandalize the nicest places. They have to do something to make a happy person miserable. It’s like they want to even the score…to make everyone feel as crappy as they do. Well, this mark…this announcement from Elohim…has made a small group of people very, very happy. And there won’t be any appeals. Nobody can go to court and claim unfairness and get added to the list by some judge.”

  “They can try! Imagine Elohim being handed a court order requiring Him to take an additional group to Heaven.”

  Nick’s eyes lit up. “Oh, wouldn’t that be great? From the ones I’ve worked around all these years, I can tell you that there are some judges who believe they have that much power.”

  Stanley could hear Nick’s earpiece crackle slightly. Cavalino reached up and pressed the earbud slightly. After a moment he tapped the button to respond. “I’ll take a look and report back.”

  Turning to the younger officer to his left, Cavalino said, “Peterson…climb up on something…higher…and get a feel for how many we’ve got here.”

  Obviously quite athletic, Peterson handed his shield to another and hopped onto the lower railings of the barricade. Spreading his arms for balance, he stepped up to the top rail and looked over the heads of those closest. Still staring down the boulevard, he said to Cavalino, “I have no idea, Nick. It’s solid all the way for at least seven or eight blocks.”

  Nick Cavalino again tapped the transmit button and reported the rough size of the group, listening intently for a minute. As he listened, a helicopter, flying just above the building tops, passed over the street. Nick acknowledged his instructions and turned his attention back to Stanley. “It looks like we’ve got a pretty similar situation on several of the approaches. Now they’re worried about being able to provide security to everyone with the crowd all spread out like this.”

  Several of the others on Stanley’s side of the line had moved a little closer to try to listen to Cavalino’s update. One of the others, the woman with the pink Styrofoam ice chest, asked, “Why not just let us in?”

  “Actually,” answered Cavalino, “they’re considering that. At least if you’re all in one spot…in Times Square…we can set up some kind of a security net. We’ve got the routines from all of the New Year’s bashes; everyone would know what to do…have an established station. Plus, since we’ve had it closed all morning, they’ve had a chance to sweep the square, at least fairly well, and haven’t found anything planted.”

  “So we wait,” said Witherspoon, looking over his shoulder at the others near him. “It looks like a pretty patient group.”

  Chuckling, Nick answered, “Yeah, a little too patient. Apparently, on some of the approach streets, the groups have just decided to have their get-togethers there. They are making the best of the situation, I guess. They’re just milling and shaking hands and chatting…basically ignoring the cordon. It’s playing hell with the traffic in the rest of Manhattan.” Smiling, he continued, “W
e’re just not used to this from a crowd. There’s no pushing against the police line, no shouting or arguing. None are even trying to cajole the cops to let them through.”

  “It’s a different kind of group,” said Stanley.

  “You can say that again. I’ve been listening to the chatter on the radios. The other guys working the lines feel as silly as we do, wearing all the riot gear. One of the captains in charge of this detail made the comment that with this group, we probably could have just strung up caution tape across the streets, and all of you would have just stopped at it.”

  Smiling, Stanley answered, “I guess that’s one of the reasons we’re in this group.”

  “Reminds me of the way my uncle has described things. He likes to talk about how much has changed. When he was a beat cop years ago, the newspaper vendors used to throw bundles on street corners, and people would just take a paper and leave a nickel on top of the pile. No one swiped the papers…no one took the cash. The vendors would come back at the end of the day and get their pile of nickels.” He smiled ruefully. “That really was a different time.”

  “They had their share of bad guys,” Stanley responded.

  “Oh, yeah. From the way he talks about those days, it just seems like things were more black and white.” Cavalino stared off in the distance for a moment, sadness flickering across his face. “I’m really going to feel sorry for my men four days from now…you know…the ones who are staying.”

  “Nick, I think we are all going to feel bad about the ones who don’t get to go.”

  “Yeah…that, too. But I’m talking about the cops left behind. In any neighborhood, in any city, there are really good guys and really bad guys, and the rest are in the middle.”

  “A bell curve.”

  “Yes. Well, that big group in the middle are followers. They follow the role models, the examples. A lot of them see the quality of life and the happiness and the relative security of the good bunch, and they want that. So they’ll emulate that group.” He paused and waved his hand to include the mass of people on Stanley’s side of the line. “This group. There are a lot of people here this morning…without the mark. They aren’t leaving in four days. Yet they’re here, hanging out with you, wanting to be like you, wanting to associate with the group they could have joined…maybe almost joined, except for a few bad decisions in their lives. And they are acting like you. They’re calm and peaceful, respectful of authority and the rules.

  “You know, in one of the crummier neighborhoods, there’s an old guy…he’s probably seventy by now. When he was young, he was relatively famous. Played jazz and pop, toured a lot, even made some albums. One day, I guess, he just quit recording, quit touring, and moved back into the neighborhood. All the kids then thought he was so cool. He taught them music, taught them how to play instruments, but he also tutored them on their school work. They loved him. He walked the streets whenever he wasn’t working with one of the kids or sleeping, just walked. He would see the neighborhood kids spraying graffiti, acting up…whatever it was…and he would nail them right then and there. I saw him march into the middle of a gang who scared me and grab the leader of the gang by his ear, pulling him off the curb and into a doorway.”

  Stanley laughed at the image. Nick continued, “Yeah, it’s funny now. At the time, I thought he was going to get killed; I was calling for backup. But he read that kid the riot act. I didn’t hear the words, but I could see the expressions and hear the tone of the thing. When he was done, he stuck out his hand and the kid handed over his knife and his gun, just gave them to the old man. Then the two of them walked back out to the gang. The kid, the gang leader, said something to the others, and they all disarmed. Every piece! On a pile on the sidewalk! Then they split – and not together; they all went off in different directions. We never had another problem from that gang. The old man pulled a paper bag out of a trash can and loaded it up with all of the weapons, picked up the bag, and marched down the street to where I had been watching, handing it over.”

  “Sounds like quite a guy.”

  “Stanley, that’s not the point. For more than thirty-some years that guy has kept his little piece of the world in check. It’s not a perfect neighborhood. No place is, but it’s a hell of a lot nicer place to live than all of the neighborhoods around it. That tiny little piece of real estate has produced more high school graduates, more college graduates, more cops, more teachers, more firefighters, you name it, than any comparable neighborhood in town. And that’s not because of us, and it’s not because of the mayor or any outreach programs by do-gooders. It’s because of one old man who happens to be good to the bone…and who also happens to care. I don’t know because I haven’t gone to visit him, but if anybody deserves to have the mark, to have a ticket to Heaven, it’s that old man. And in four days he’ll be gone.

  “It’s people like him…and people like you, Stanley, who make our job…out there in our patrol cars and blue uniforms…a lot easier. It stops the scales from tipping the other way.”

  “You keep saying ‘you’ as if you aren’t one of us.”

  “In my mind I know I am. I just still can’t believe I am. Maybe that’s part of it. I don’t know. Anyway, in four days, I’m afraid the scales are not only going to tip…I’m afraid they’re going to shatter. That one sweet end of the bell curve is just going to be lopped off, taking away all of that influence, all of those examples.”

  Stanley looked at the sadness in Nick’s eyes for a long time before answering, “He doesn’t have to go, you know. Neither do we. Elohim told us that we can stay if we want. I don’t know this guy, but from the way you’ve described him, I’ll bet he stays.”

  Stanley’s words did not comfort Cavalino. “That sucks. He deserves it. He should go. But my point is…he isn’t the only one. They’re scattered all over the world, each one doing his or her thing. They are like tent poles; remove them and the whole thing comes down.”

  Stanley had not given too much thought to the aftermath. Nick’s description worried him deeply. He saw Nick’s hand rise up to touch the earbud again. Acknowledging the orders, Nick turned to Peterson again, saying, “Take ’em down. Spread the word. Remove the barricades and organize a flank formation. Let’s try to escort our party to the Square.”

  Stanley watched as the police officers began folding the barricades and started moving them to the sides of the street. Many of the group lent a hand with the equipment. After the obstacles were cleared, Stanley’s group slowly proceeded forward as the officers split into two roughly equal groups and moved to the sidewalks, checking doorways, windows, and alleys, until they had traversed the remaining two blocks and arrived at Times Square. Witherspoon could see orderly streams of people coming into the area from other directions, and the sheer quantity of people overwhelmed him. Before immersing himself in the mass of humanity, Witherspoon found Nick Cavalino, standing at the last corner they had passed, issuing orders to his officers. He noticed Stanley approaching and paused, sticking out his hand. “See you soon, Stanley.”

  “You, too, Nick. A pleasure to meet you.”

  א

  Nick Cavalino watched his newly made friend wander into the crowd for only a minute and then returned to his heightened sense of alertness. Typically, in a situation like this, most of his attention would be on the crowd, scanning faces for an expression that did not fit, watching hands and coats for the sudden appearance of a weapon. But today he felt as though he was on bodyguard duty, except that instead of one body it was tens of thousands.

  All of the feeder streets had drained their loads of people into the central square. More continued to arrive in a steady stream as the number of the group grew. They seemed oblivious to the garish megatrons and word-crawls that flashed above them as they chatted, shook hands, and hugged. It was approximately 8:30 when an excited voice burst from Cavalino’s earpiece, blurting a message that instantly chilled him. “Windows opening! Weapons! Third, fourth floor windows!”

  Nick’s e
yes darted upward as he spun around to face the building he was standing near, simultaneously hearing the crack of rifle fire, hoping it was their own rooftop and high-window snipers acting on the information and taking out some of the assailants. Behind him he heard the “WHOMP!” of a gas grenade exploding in the crowd, followed immediately by screams. Desperately scanning the windows immediately above him, he saw the large muzzle of a launcher emerge from a window two stories up. Ignoring his piece loaded with rubber-tipped rounds, he pulled his Glock and aimed upward, also shouting to the other officers nearest him. Whether it was a round from his clip or from one of the others who had quickly joined him in the barrage, he saw a flash of sparks from the muzzle, and the launcher dropped out of the window, falling to the sidewalk apparently before getting off a shot.