The Swing Voter of Staten Island

by Arthur Nersesian

  “Wanna room?” asked a bored desk clerk who was listening to Elvis crooning “Viva Las Vegas” over an ancient radio.

  “Actually, I’m looking for my wife.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A tall thin blonde with too much mascara—Dianne Colder.”

  “What a bitch,” the clerk muttered. “No offense, but every time she comes here she complains about something—the smell, the view, the furniture. I’m not responsible for the whole world, you know.”

  “Just try living with her,” Uli replied, as the man looked up her number.

  “Room 2-A, second floor in the back.”

  “Would you have the key?” Uli asked, seeing hotel keys dangling out of almost every mailbox behind the counter.

  “I can only give that to her.”

  “Well, she’s probably up there anyway,” Uli said and headed upstairs.

  “Hold on, I’m not supposed to let anyone up.” But the clerk was too lazy to pursue him.

  The hallways had an old embossed wallpaper pattern that looked like a series of mushrooms. A funky, mildewy smell probably accounted for the hotel’s vacancies, Uli thought, as he sped up the two flights. Her door was locked, but that of the adjacent room was ajar, with the bed unmade. Uli went inside. A fire escape in the back connected the two units. He opened the window and climbed over to her window, which was locked. He pulled off his shirt, wrapped it around his fist, and shattered the glass pane. Then he reached in, unlocked her window, opened it, and climbed through. The first things he saw were several fashionable skirts and a cabinet full of mascara, along with an advance galley copy of a book entitled, Boo Hoo, My Husband’s Dead: Whiny Vietnam War Widows by Dianne Colder.

  Shit, he thought, the only way I’m going to find out how she’s getting away from here is by forcing it out of her. Stepping out into the hallway, he heard a distant ruckus. Racing down the stairs and into the lobby, he found the desk clerk slumped over his radio with the red handle of a longneck screwdriver sticking out of his right eye. The cash drawer was emptied out.

  The victim moaned softly when Uli leaned him backward. He was still slightly conscious.

  “What happened?”

  “I gave him all my stamps,” the man groaned. “He didn’t have to—”

  “What’d he look like?”

  “He wasn’t human, he—” The clerk passed out before he could say anything further. Uli laid him down to die in peace, then dashed outside. His sports car was missing.

  An old guy standing on the corner asked, “Was that your two-seater?”

  “Yeah, did you see where it went?”

  “Some kid just ran out of the hotel, jumped into the driver’s seat, and took off.”

  Uli sighed. The sadistic thug who had needlessly stabbed the clerk to death had also stolen the car with an even bigger sadist still strapped to the roof and poor Oric’s body inside.

  Stepping around the clerk’s body back inside the Class-A Lady, Uli’s only regret was not giving his friend a proper burial. He picked up a phone and dialed 911. It rang and rang for about five minutes before an answering machine clicked on. The message said: “If you wish to report an emergency of some kind, please leave the nature of the crime, the location, and the time. Oh, and your name—beep.”

  Uli reported that a robbery and homicide had just been committed, then hung up, failing to leave his name or the location. He went back upstairs to Dianne Colder’s empty room. Looking carefully through her stylish clothes and the usual personal items, he found nothing particularly helpful. Wrapped in her sheets he discovered a possible weapon—a small black plastic item shaped like a pickle. Uli slipped it into his pocket. Just before leaving, he pulled the mattress up. He noticed several objects dangling from the hollowed underside of the old box spring. Taped there were a face mask, eye goggles, a tank marked Charon, and a small plastic box containing a full syringe of some unknown substance. Uli took the four items, slipped them into an old shopping bag from the woman’s room, and hit the street just as a police car turned the corner.

  He started running west. From the corner of 4th Street and Third Avenue, he spotted a brown three-story building with a small clock tower—Cooper Union. He vaguely remembered that the original one had been some kind of school and that Abe Lincoln was somehow affiliated with it, perhaps he had gone there.

  Entering the large lobby of the building, he approached a group of fierce-looking guards sitting behind a long table and explained that he had an appointment with a woman named Mallory. One guard picked up the phone and called upstairs.

  “You were supposed to be here yesterday,” Mallory said, marching toward him five minutes later. “Where the hell is Oric?”

  “We almost made it,” he said somberly. “We were right over there, about a hundred feet away, before we got grabbed.” He pointed out the big bay window to the corner of 8th and Lafayette.

  “Oh my god, the Piggers got him?”

  “They tortured him. I don’t think they intended to, but they killed him.”

  “Fucking bastards!” she shouted.

  The security guard rolled Uli’s fingerprints on a card and slipped it into a bulky electronic scanning device. A few minutes later the results appeared on a small screen.

  “He’s got no record, which means he’s a security risk,” the head guard announced.

  “This is a special situation. He’s not going into any high-security areas,” Mallory assured him. “I’ll take full responsibility.”

  “We’ll have to put him under escort,” the guard said.

  “Fine.”

  “What’s in there?” the guard asked Uli, referring to the shopping bag from Colder’s room.

  Uli took out the small metal tank and the plastic case holding the hypodermic needle. “Oric’s killer had them in her room. I thought maybe you could tell me what they’re for.”

  Mallory looked at them closely before shrugging.

  “You can pick them up on the way out,” the guard said, putting them back in the bag and then into his desk drawer.

  Uli was directed through a metal detector. Flanked by two guards, he followed Mallory upstairs into a small conference room. The guards stood outside and closed the door. Upon the table was a pot of warm coffee and a tray of Spam-and-Velveeta sandwiches from a meeting that had just broken up. When Uli mentioned that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday, Mallory offered him the food. He gobbled down a sandwich in three bites and a cup of coffee in a single gulp.

  “So, exactly what happened?”

  “This blond bitch intercepted us at the Fulton Street bus station just after you left,” Uli explained, cramming the second Spam-and-cheese sandwich into his mouth. “Her name was Dianne Colder.”

  “Colder?”

  “First she said she was a lobbyist for Feedmore, then she said she was the coordinator of this place and that the Piggers were her agents.”

  “Ah yes, the sexy blonde who compulsively lies for the Piggers.”

  “I wouldn’t say sexy. Actually, she’s a transvestite.”

  “You’re lucky you weren’t her target,” Mallory said. “She leaves a trail of dead men behind her. So, she abducted you?”

  “Not then—she accompanied us after you left. Of course, Oric had to blurt out one of his crazy predictions, which made her suspicious as hell. But she seemed to think I was on her side, and I didn’t want to alarm her, so when the bus reached Manhattan we jumped out the rear window and snuck away.”

  “What was Oric’s final prediction?” she asked intently.

  “Big blast was all he said.”

  “I wonder where.”

  “While dodging her, we went through midtown and I saw someone blow up a truck in front of Rock & Filler Center. I think that was probably it. Anyway, they chloroformed me.”

  “Who chloroformed you?”

  “There were at least four of them,” Uli replied. “One was the man I ended up killing in Staten Island—and there was also a chubby boy
with bangs and glasses.”

  “Do you remember him having any scars or identifiable marks?”

  “No, I don’t think so … Actually, he had a missing tooth,” Uli suddenly recalled.

  “A front tooth?”

  “No, it was here,” Uli said, pointing inside his own mouth. “An incisor.”

  “Oh god! Did he speak with a—”

  “I didn’t hear him speak, but I could probably identify him again.”

  Mallory grabbed the phone. “Security, get me Manny Lewis!”

  “You’re holding him?” Uli asked.

  “No, but he’s an intern in my office. He knew I was expecting someone important all day, but he didn’t have any details.”

  “How could he have helped my assailants?”

  “He must’ve told them you hadn’t arrived and to keep a team in the area—” The ringing phone interrupted her. Mallory listened quietly for a moment, then cursed and hung up. “Shit, he didn’t come in today.”

  “Maybe he’s sick,” suggested Uli.

  “He’s never missed a day. He’s gone—but we’ll find the cocksucker.” Mallory ran her hands through her hair. “Tell me what happened after you were abducted.”

  “Well, when I woke up, I was dangling upside down like a side of beef in some barnyard in Staten Island.” He remembered an odd detail: “The only reason I woke up was because I heard some voice in my ear screaming at me.”

  “Whose voice was it?”

  “I can’t really describe it,” he replied. “I heard it my first day here, when I was being chased by dogs. I thought it was my wife, who I don’t really remember, and then I thought it was this blond guy I saw in Brooklyn yesterday, but it’s probably just a recurrent daydream.”

  “This place is a little bizarre.”

  “Yeah, it’s like everyone’s a terrorist,” he said, remembering the newspaper articles.

  “Before I came here, I was in one of the splinter groups of the Weather Underground called the May 19th Brigade.”

  “Really?”

  “Why would I lie to you?”

  “So I guess this place is full of terrorists. Are most of them Crappers?”

  “No. In fact, one of the big fallacies about Rescue City is that all the former terrorists up and became Crappers. A bunch of them, mainly the younger ones, sold out and went Pigger.”

  “Hold on a second. What exactly did your May Brigade do?”

  “The usual: protested the war, visited Cuba, blew up draft offices, ROTC offices, recruiting centers. Stuff like that. You have to realize that a lot of disenfranchised groups saw terrorism as a legitimate alternative. Anyway, did you get some sense of what the blond lobbyist was after?”

  “She said she was here in Rescue City to bribe the borough president of Staten Island.”

  “Bribe him to do what?”

  “To cast the swing vote to give the Democrats the one electoral college vote this place has for the upcoming presidential election.”

  “Yes, it all makes perfect sense. The Piggers are terrified of Ronald Reagan.”

  “The actor?” Uli asked.

  “He was elected president in ’76 after Nixon,” Mallory said. “His reelection is our one great hope.”

  “Why?”

  “They don’t think we know. That’s why the Feedmore Corporation doesn’t ship in radios or TVs.”

  “But I’ve seen people using them.”

  “Those government-issued radios and televisions don’t pick up reception beyond about two miles or so. Hell, they can barely pick up the stations transmitted here. But using parts from them, some people have managed to rig together shortwave radios, so we can occasionally catch news from the outside world.”

  “And what have you heard?”

  “Reagan has been going head-to-head with the Russians, outspending them on defense.”

  “So?”

  “He’s cut every social program in order to come up with the cash for his arms race.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Actually, it’s good for us. The money that goes into Rescue City is one of the biggest expenses in the national budget.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “In order to pay for his military buildup, Reagan’s been talking about closing this place down. It’s supposed to be a close presidential election,” Mallory continued. “If Reagan gets reelected and cuts funding, we’ll all be returned to New York.”

  “So if the Staten Island borough president votes Democrat and Reagan loses his reelection,” Uli concluded, “we’re stuck here.”

  “It’s going to be murder to try to reason with Rafique.”

  “Why, who is he?”

  “When you were being held in Staten Island, did you smell anything funny?” she asked.

  “Yeah, the pig farms.”

  “That stink isn’t from pigs. It’s because the river is blocked with sewage. Jackie Wilson did it years ago in order to seize control. It’s a long story, but the sewage makes the borough nearly uninhabitable.”

  “What does this have to do with the borough president?”

  “A number of years ago, Adolphus Rafique broke off from the Crappers and started this weird anarchist cult in the East Village district. He named it the Verdant League. Its members rejected the newly implemented capitalist model with the food stamp currency that the Piggers had come up with. The VL evenly distributed all food and housing in the Lower East Side among themselves. When the rest of us objected to Rafique, he and his renegade band moved out to Staten Island, becoming the new majority there since it was so underpopulated.”

  “How do they deal with the stench?”

  “Most of those who joined his cult have had their sinuses cauterized. It knocks out a lot of the taste, but you don’t smell a thing. They call themselves the Burnt Men. Anyway, because of the deadlock between the two Pigger and two Crapper boroughs, Rafique usually becomes the tie-breaker, so he’s now a major player.” Mallory paused. “What could the blond lobbyist have bribed Adolphus with?”

  “Bullets,” Uli remembered. “That’s what she said. She gave him a bunch of bullets.”

  “Of course. Rafique is constantly under attack from both gangs, and bullets are one of the things that Feedmore doesn’t provide anymore.” Mallory paused again. “You have to help me.”

  “Do what?”

  “Try to convince Rafique not to throw his vote to the Democrats.”

  “Nothing personal, but I already did you a big favor and got poor Oric killed. I’m not even a Crapper.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I need you,” she said. When Uli smiled dismally, Mallory explained: “Rafique won’t let any party affiliates into his precious Verdant League headquarters. But more importantly, it’s just a matter of time before the Piggers catch up with you. Help me and I’ll tell you a possible way out of here.”

  “What exactly am I supposed to do?”

  “Rafique may be an anarchist, but he’s also very smart. Just tell him that the blond woman who bribed him works for the Feedmore Corporation. He’s opposed to corporate funding.”

  “Can’t you offer him your own bribe?” Uli asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Give him more ammo?”

  “We can’t do that,” she said, “though come to think of it, we did get a huge shipment of water-purification pills, and I know he hates being dependent upon us for water. Offer him unlimited pills.”

  “I’ll consider approaching him, provided you get this thing out of my head and help me get out of Rescue City.”

  Mallory said she’d do her best to meet his conditions, but that she couldn’t make any promises. She then mentioned that she had made some inquiries about Carnival and his wife. There was no record of either of them from before they arrived. While here, though, Jim had run for a City Council office nine years earlier as a Crapper candidate. “This was back when Manhattan was still bipartisan. After losing several successive elections, he finally stole an el
ection down in East New York. In order to placate the Piggers in his district, he ended up marrying the former Pigger Councilwoman, Mary.”

  “It sounded like she was a Pigger,” Uli recalled.

  “This was before the Piggers took orders from Feemore.”

  “Did you find out anything about Oric?”

  “No one ever reported them having children.”

  “Oh, they didn’t. Oric reverted to normal when he was dying. He said the Carnivals abducted him and had some scientists turn him into an idiot savant.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Nope. Remember the guy chasing us in the Flatlands? He was Oric’s twin.”

  “That explains a lot,” Mallory said. “Twins have a great significance here.”

  “What do you mean here?”

  “I mean out here in the desert. This is a sacred Indian site. It has something to with duality. Twins have certain powers.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “It’s not a coincidence that they put us all here.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The federal government was able to kill two birds at once—creating a refugee city along with turning this into a research lab for psychic studies.”

  “What are these psychic experiments?” he asked.

  “They’re probably part of the arms race with the Soviets. Apparently, the Russians poured millions of rubles into trying to develop telepathic communications with their cosmonauts.”

  Suddenly the door flew open and a secretary with a strange unicorn-horn hairdo led a group of men into the room.

  “Where is he?” someone called out.

  “No, wait!” Mallory shouted.

  In quick glances through the arms and shoulders of bodyguards, Uli recognized the tall lean man from posters all around town.

  It felt as if something sleeping inside of him had sprung to life. Before he knew what he was doing, he had hurled himself through the four guards and pushed himself up to James Dropt. All he could think was, Walk to Sutphin, catch the Q28 to Fulton Street, change to the B17, take it to the East Village in Manhattan …

  His hand, which was already in his pocket, pulled out the single-chambered pistol and pointed it at Dropt’s head. He squeezed the trigger and blacked out.