Make Room! Make Room! (23 page)

At first night sticks and weighted clubs stopped the trouble, and when this failed gas dispersed the crowds. The tension grew, since the people who fled only reassembled again in a different place. The solid jets of water from the riot trucks stopped them easily when they tried to break into the Welfare stations, but there were not enough trucks, nor was there more water to be had once they had pumped dry their tanks. The Health Department had forbid the use of river water: it would have been like spraying poison. The little water that was available was badly needed for the fires that were springing up throughout the city. With the streets blocked in many places the fire-fighting equipment could not get through and the trucks were forced to make long detours. Some of the fires were spreading and by noon all of the equipment had been committed and was in use.

The first gun was fired a few minutes past twelve, by a
Welfare Department guard who killed a man who had broken open a window of the Tompkins Square food depot and had tried to climb in. This was the first but not the last shot fired—nor was it the last person to be killed.

Flying wire sealed off some of the trouble areas, but there was only a limited supply of it. When it ran out the copters fluttered helplessly over the surging streets and acted as aerial observation posts for the police, finding the places where reserves were sorely needed. It was a fruitless labor because there were no reserves, everyone was in the front line.

After the first conflict in Madison Square nothing else made a strong impression on Andy. For the rest of the day and most of the night, he along with every other policeman in the city was braving violence and giving violence to restore law and order to a city torn by battle. The only rest he had was after he had fallen victim to his own gas and had managed to make his way to the Department of Hospitals ambulance for treatment. An orderly washed out his eyes and gave him a tablet to counteract the gut-tearing nausea. He lay on one of the stretchers inside, cluthing his helmet, bombs and club to his chest, while he recovered. The ambulance driver sat on another stretcher by the door, armed with a .30-caliber carbine, to discourage anyone from too great an interest in the ambulance or its valuable surgical contents. Andy would like to have lain there longer, but the cold mist was rolling in through the open doorway, and he began to shiver so hard that his teeth shook together. It was difficult to drag to his feet and climb to the ground, yet once he was moving he felt a little better—and warmer. The attack on the Welfare center had been broken up, maybe his grabbing the bull horn had helped, and he moved slowly to join the nearest cluster of blue-coated figures, wrinkling his nose at the foul odor of his clothes.

From this point on, the fatigue never left him and he had memories only of shouting faces, running feet, the sound of shots, screams, the thud of gas grenades, of something unseen that had been thrown at him and hit the back of his hand and raised an immense bruise.

By nightfall it was raining, a cold downpour mixed with sleet, and it was this and exhaustion that drove the people from the streets, not the police. Yet when the crowds were gone the police found that their work was just beginning. Gaping windows and
broken doorways had to be guarded until they could be repaired, the injured had to be found and brought in for treatment, while the Fire Department needed aid in halting the countless fires. This went on through the night and at dawn Andy found himself slumped on a bench in the precinct, hearing his name being called off from a list by Lieutenant Grassioli.

“And that’s all that can be spared,” the lieutenant added. “You men draw rations before you leave and turn in your riot equipment. I want you all back here at eighteen-hundred and I don’t want excuses. Our troubles aren’t over yet.”

Sometime during the night the rain had stopped. The rising sun cast long shadows down the crosstown streets, putting a golden sheen on the wet, black pavement. A burned-out brown-stone was still smoking and Andy picked his way through the charred wreckage that littered the street in front of it. On the corner of Seventh Avenue were the crushed wrecks of two pedicabs, already stripped of any usable parts, and a few feet farther on, the huddled body of a man. He might be asleep, but when Andy passed, the upturned face gave violent evidence that the man was dead. He walked on, ignoring it. The Department of Sanitation would be collecting only corpses today.

The first cavemen were coming out of the subway entrance, blinking at the light. During the summer everyone laughed at the cavemen—the people whom Welfare had assigned to living quarters in the stations of the now-silent subways—but as the cold weather approached, the laughter was replaced by envy. Perhaps it was filthy down there, dusty, dark, but there were always a few electric heaters turned on. They weren’t living in luxury, but at least Welfare didn’t let them freeze. Andy turned into his own block.

Going up the stairs in his building, he trod heavily on some of the sleepers but was too fatigued to care—or even notice. He had trouble fumbling his key into the lock and Sol heard him and came to open it.

“I just made some soup,” Sol said. “You timed it perfectly.”

Andy pulled the broken remains of some weedcrackers from his coat pocket and spilled them onto the table.

“Been stealing food?” Sol asked, picking up a piece and nibbling on it. “I thought no grub was being given out for two more days?”

“Police ration.”

“Only fair. You can’t beat up the citizenry on an empty stomach. I’ll throw some of these into the soup, give it some body. I guess you didn’t see TV yesterday so you wouldn’t know about all the fun and games in Congress. Things are really jumping….”

“Is Shirl awake yet?” Andy asked, shucking out of his coat and dropping heavily into a chair.

Sol was silent a moment, then he said slowly, “She’s not here.”

Andy yawned. “It’s pretty early to go out. Why?”

“Not today, Andy.” Sol stirred the soup with his back turned. “She went out yesterday, a couple of hours after you did. She’s not back yet—”

“You mean she was out all the time during the riots—and last night too? What did you do?” He sat upright, his bone-weariness forgotten.

“What could I do? Go out and get myself trampled to death like the rest of the old fogies? I bet she’s all right, she probably saw all the trouble and decided to stay with friends instead of coming back here.”

“What friends? What are you talking about? I have to go find her.”

“Sit!” Sol ordered. “What can you do out there? Have some soup and get some sleep, that’s the best thing you can do. She’ll be okay. I know it,” he added reluctantly.

“What do you know, Sol?” Andy took him by the shoulders, half turning him from the stove.

“Don’t handle the merchandise!” Sol shouted, pushing the hand away. Then, in a quieter voice: “All I know is she just didn’t go out of here for nothing, she had a reason. She had her old coat on, but I could see what looked like a real nifty dress underneath. And nylon stockings. A fortune on her legs. And when she said so long I saw she had lots of makeup on.”

“Sol—what are you trying to say?”

“I’m not trying—I’m saying. She was dressed for visiting, not for shopping, like she was on the way out to see someone. Her old man, maybe, she could be visiting him.”

“Why should she want to see him?”

“You tell me? You two had a fight, didn’t you? Maybe she went away for a while to cool off.”

“A fight … I guess so.” Andy dropped back into the chair,
squeezing his forehead between his palms. Had it only been last night? No, the night before last. It seemed a hundred years since they had had that stupid argument. He looked up with sudden fear. “She didn’t take her things—anything with her?” he asked.

“Just a little bag,” Sol said, and put a steaming bowl on the table in front of Andy. “Eat up. I’ll pour one for myself.” Then, “She’ll be back.”

Andy was almost too tired to argue—and what could be said? He spooned the soup automatically, then realized as he tasted it that he was very hungry. He ate with his elbow on the table, his free hand supporting his head.

“You should have heard the speeches in the Senate yesterday,” Sol said. “Funniest show on earth. They’re trying to push this Emergency Bill through—some emergency, it’s only been a hundred years in the making—and you should hear them talking all around the little points and not mentioning the big ones.” His voice settled into a rich Southern accent. “Faced by dire straits, we propose a survey of all the ee-mense riches of this the greatest eeluvial basin, the delta, suh, of the mightiest of rivers, the Mississippi. Dikes and drains, suh, science, suh, and you will have here the richest farmlands in the Western World!” Sol blew on his soup angrily. “‘Dikes’ is right—another finger in the dike. They’ve been over this ground a thousand times before. But does anyone mention out loud the sole and only reason for the Emergency Bill? They do not. After all these years they’re too chicken to come right out and tell the truth, so they got it hidden away in one of the little riders tacked onto the bottom.”

“What are you talking about?” Andy asked, only half listening.

“Birth control, that’s what. They are finally getting around to legalizing clinics that will be open to anyone—married or not—and making it a law that all mothers
must
be supplied with birth-control information. Boy, are we going to hear some howling when the bluenoses find out about that!”

“Not now, Sol, I’m tired. Did Shirl say anything about when she would be back?”

“Just what I told you …” He stopped and listened to the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. They stopped—and there was a light knocking on the door.

Andy was there first, twisting at the knob, tearing the door open.

“Shirl!” he said. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, sure—I’m fine.”

He held her to him, tightly, almost cutting off her breath. “With the riots—I didn’t know what to think,” he said. “I just came in a little while ago myself. Where have you been? What happened?”

“I just wanted to get out for a while, that’s all.” She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that funny smell?”

He stepped away from her, anger welling up through the fatigue. “I caught some of my own puke gas and heaved up. It’s hard to get off. What do you mean that you wanted to get out for a while?”

“Let me get my coat off.”

Andy followed her into the other room and closed the door behind them. She was taking a pair of high-heeled shoes out of the bag she carried and putting them into the closet. “Well?” he said.

“Just that, it’s not complicated. I was feeling trapped in here, with the shortages and the cold and everything, and never seeing you, and I felt bad about the fight we had. Nothing seemed to be going right. So I thought if I dressed up and went to one of the restaurants where I used to go, just have a cup of kofee or something, I might feel better. A morale booster, you know.” She looked up at his cold face, then glanced quickly away.

“Then what happened?” he asked.

“I’m not in the witness box, Andy. Why the accusing tone?”

He turned his back and looked out the window. “I’m not accusing you of anything, but—you were out all night. How do you expect me to feel?”

“Well, you know how bad it was yesterday, I was afraid to come back. I was up at Curley’s—”

“The meateasy?”

“Yes, but if you don’t eat anything it’s not expensive. It’s just the food that costs. I met some people I knew and we talked, they were going to a party and invited me and I went along. We were watching the news about the riots on TV and no one wanted to get out, so the party just went on and on. That’s about all, a lot of people stayed overnight and so did I.” She slipped off her dress and hung it up, then put on wool slacks and a heavy sweater.

“Is that all you did, just spend the night?”

“Andy, you’re tired. Why don’t you get some sleep? We can talk about this some other time.”

“I want to talk about it now.”

“Please, there’s nothing more to be said….”

“Yes there is. Whose apartment was it?”

“No one you know. He’s not a friend of Mike’s, just someone I used to see at parties.”

“He?” The silence stretched tight, until Andy’s question snapped it. “Did you spend the night with him?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Of course I want to know. What do you think I’m asking you for? You slept with him, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

The calmness of her voice, the suddenness of her answer stopped him, as though he had asked the question hoping to get another answer. He groped for the words to express what he felt and, finally, all he could ask was “Why?”

“Why?” This single word opened her lips and spilled out the cold anger. “Why? What other choice did I have? I had dinner and drinks and I had to pay for it. What else do I have to pay with?”

“Stop it, Shirl, you’re being….”

“I’m being what? Truthful? Would you let me stay here if I didn’t sleep with you?”

“That’s different!”

“Is it?” She began to tremble. “Andy, I hope it is, it should be—but I just don’t know any more. I want us to be happy, I don’t know why we fight. That’s not what I want. But things seem to be going so wrong. If you were here, if I was with you more …”

“We settled that the other night. I have my work—what else can I do?”

“Nothing else, I suppose, nothing …” She clasped her fingers together to stop their shaking. “Go to sleep now, you need the rest.”

She went into the other room and he did not stir until the door clicked shut. He started to follow her, then stopped and sat on the edge of the bed. What could he say to her? Slowly he pulled off his shoes and, fully dressed, stretched out and pulled the blanket over him.

Tired and exhausted as he was, he did not fall asleep for a very long time.

Since most people don’t like to get up while it is still dark, the morning line for the water ration was always the shortest of the day. Yet there were still enough people about when Shirl hurried to get a place in line so that no one ever bothered her. By the time she had her water the sun would be up and the streets were a good deal safer. Besides that, she and Mrs. Miles had fallen into the habit of meeting every day, whoever came first saved a place in line, and walking back together. Mrs. Miles always had the little boy with her who still seemed to be ill with the kwash. Apparently her husband needed the protein-rich peanut butter more than the child did. The water ration had been increased. This was so welcome that Shirl tried not to notice how much harder it was to carry, and how her back hurt when she climbed the stairs. There was even enough water now to wash with. The water points were supposed to open again by mid-November at the very latest, and that wasn’t too far away. This morning, like most of the other mornings, Shirl was back before eight and when she came into the apartment she saw that Andy was dressed and just ready to leave.