When Billy took a slow step back toward the doorway the end of the pipe twitched out and stopped him. “What do you want here?” the whisper asked.
“I don’t want anything, I’m goings—”
“What do you want?”
“I was just looking for a place to lie down, I’m tired, I don’t want any trouble.”
“What is your name?” the voice whispered, the eyes never blinked or moved.
“Billy …” Why had he answered so fast! He bit his lip: why had he given his right name?
“Do you have anything to eat, Billy?”
He started to lie, then thought better of it. He reached inside his shirt. “Here, I got some weedcrackers. You want some? They’re a little broken.”
The pipe dropped to the deck and rolled away while the man stepped forward with both hands cupped before him, towering over Billy. “ ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.’ Do you know where that comes from?” he asked.
“No—no, I don’t.” Billy said uneasily, dropping the crackers into the outstretched hands.
“I didn’t think you would,” the man complained, then sat down with his back to the wall at the same spot as before. He began to eat with a steady, automatic motion. “You’re a heathen, I imagine, a yellow heathen, though that doesn’t matter. It will to you as to the rest of His creatures. You wish to sleep, sleep. This place is large enough for two.”
“I can get out, you were here first.”
“You are afraid of me, aren’t you?” Billy turned away from the unchanging stare, and the man nodded. “You should not be, because we are coming very near the end of fear. Do you know what that means? Do you know the significance of this year, do you?”
Billy sat silent. He did not know what to answer. The man finished the last of the crumbs, wiped his hands on his filthy pants and sighed heavily. “You could not know. Go to sleep, there is nothing to worry about here. No one will come near to bother you, we have strict rules of property in our community. Usually it is only strangers, like you, who trespass, though the others will do it if they think it worthwhile. But they won’t come here, they know I have nothing for them to covet. You may sleep undisturbed.”
It seemed impossible to even consider sleeping, no matter how tired he felt, not with this strange man watching him. Billy lay against the wall in the far corner, eyes open and alert, wondering what he should do next. The man mumbled to himself and scratched at his ribs inside his thin shirt. A high-pitched hum whined in Billy’s ear and he slapped at the mosquito. Another bit him on the leg and he scratched the spot. There seemed to be an awful lot of mosquitoes here. What should he do? Should he try to leave?
With a sudden start he realized that he had been asleep and that the sun was low in the west, coming almost directly in through the open doorway. He sat up in a scramble and looked around, but the cabin was empty. His side ached terribly.
The clattering, metallic sound came again, and he realized that this was what had wakened him. It came from outside. He went as quietly as he could to the doorway and looked down. The man was climbing toward him, and the length of pipe he carried was scratching on the metal making the noise that had disturbed him. Billy shrank back as the man threw the pipe up ahead of him, then hauled himself over the edge and onto the strip of deck.
“The water points did not open today,” he said, and held out an ancient and dented paint can that he had brought up with him. “But I found a place where there was still water from the rain yesterday. Would you like some?” Billy nodded, aware suddenly of his dry throat, and took the extended can. It was filled halfway with clear water through which the caked green paint could be seen. The water was very sweet. “Take more,” the man said. “I drank my fill when I was there.”
“What is your name?” he asked as he took the can back.
Was it a trap? This man must remember his name, he didn’t dare give him a different one. “Billy,” he said.
“You may call me Peter. You can stay here if you like.” He went inside with the can and seemed to have forgotten the piece of pipe. Billy looked at it suspiciously, not sure of his ground.
“You left your pipe here,” he called out.
“Bring it, if you please. I shouldn’t leave it lying around. Just put it there,” he said when Billy brought it in. “I think I have another piece like that around here someplace, you can take it with you when you leave these quarters. Some of our neighbors can be dangerous.”
“The guards?”
“No, they are of no importance. Their work is a sinecure, and they have no more wish to bother us than we have to bother them. As long as they do not see us we are not here, so just stay away from them. You’ll find that they don’t look very hard, they can collect their money without putting themselves in any danger—so why should they? Sensible men. Anything worth stealing or removing vanished years ago. The guards remain only because no one has ever decided what to do with this place and the easiest solution is just to forget about it. They are living symbols of the state of decay of our culture, just as this wasteland is a vastly more important symbol, that is why I am here.” He laced his hands about his shins and leaned forward, resting his bony chin on his knees. “Do you know how many entrances there are to this place?” Billy shook his head no, wondering what Peter was talking about.
“Then I will tell you. There are eight—and only one is unlocked and in use by the guards. The others are closed and sealed, seven seals. Does that mean something to you? Seven seals? No, I can see it does not. But there are other signs, some hidden, some clear for any eye to see. And more will come and be revealed to us one by one. Some have been written for centuries, such as the great harlot named Babylon which never was Rome as many falsely believed. Do you know the name of the city out there?”
“Here? You mean New York?”
“Yes, that is one name, but there is another that it is called and has been called and no one protests its use, that is Babylon-on-Hudson. So you see that this is the great harlot and Armageddon will be here, that is why I have come. I was a priest once, would you believe that?”
“Yes, sure.” Billy said and he yawned, looking around the walls and out the doorway.
“A priest of the Church should speak the truth and I did and they cast me out for it, and they are the same ones who tempt the Antichrist into their chambers. The college of cardinals has advised the Holy Father to withdraw his ban on the destruction of infant life, and he considers it, when the truth of God’s law is all about us. He said be fruitful and multiply and we have, and He gave us the intelligence to make the sick well and the weak strong, and that is where the truth lies. The millennium is here, now, upon us a populous world of souls awaiting His call. This is the true millennium. False prophets said it was the year one thousand, but there are more people here in this single city than there were in the entire world at that time. Now is the hour, we can see it nearing, we can read the signs. The world can hold no more, it will crack asunder under the weight of the masses of people—but it will not crack until the seven trumpets blast, this New Year, Century Day. Then we will have the reckoning.”
When he stopped, the thin whine of mosquitoes was loud in the still air and Billy swatted his leg, killing one and leaving a thick splotch of blood that he brushed away with the heel of his hand. Peter’s arm was in the sun and Billy could see the welts and scabs of old bites that covered it.
“I’ve never seen so many mosquitoes as you got around here,” Billy said. “And in the daytime. I never got bitten in the daytime before.” He stood up and prowled about the refuse-filled chamber, walking to get away from the droning insects, kicking at dirt-stiffened rags and pieces of crumbling wood. In the center of the rear bulkhead was a heavy steel door, standing open a few inches. “What’s in here?” he asked.
Peter did not hear, or pretended not to hear, and Billy pushed against the door, but the hinges were rusted into position and it would not move. “Don’t
you know what’s in here?” he asked again in a louder voice, and Peter stirred and turned. “No,” he said, “I have never looked.”
“It’s been closed a long time, there might be stuff in there we could use, you never can tell. Let’s see if we can open it.”
Pushing together, and using the length of steel pipe as a lever, they managed to move it a few inches more until the opening was wide enough to slip through. Billy went first and his foot rattled against something on the deck; he picked it up.
“Look at that, I said we would find something. I can sell it or just hold on to it for a while.” It was a steel crowbar, over a yard long, abandoned here by some workman years before. It was coated with rust on the surface, but was still sound. He put the curved and sharpened end into the opening of the door next to the hinges and threw his weight onto the other end; the rusty hinges squealed and the door opened all the way. There was a small platform on the other side with metal steps falling away from it into the darkness. Billy started down slowly, holding the crowbar tightly in one hand, the railing in the other, and on the fifth step went up to his ankle in water. “It’s not just dark down there—it’s full of water,” he said.
Peter stepped in and looked, then pointed up at two bright patches above them. “Apparently the top deck catches the rain and it drains inside through those holes there. It must have been collecting for years down here.”
“That’s where your mosquitoes are coming from too.” The enclosed space was filled with their humming. “We can close that door and keep them out.”
“Very practical,” Peter agreed and looked at the dark surface below them. “It will also save our going to the water point on the other side of the fence. There is all the water we could possibly need here, more than we can ever use.”
15
“Hello, stranger,” Sol said.
Shirl could hear his voice clearly through the partition that divided the two rooms. She was sitting at the window doing her nails; she dropped her manicure set on the bed and ran to the door.
“Andy—is that you?” she called out and when she opened the door she saw him standing there, swaying a little with fatigue. She ran to him and kissed him, and he gave her a brief kiss in return, then released her and dropped into the car seat by the table.
“I’m wiped out,” he said. “No sleep since—when was it?— night before last. Did you get the water?”
“Filled both the tanks,” Sol said, “and got the jerry cans filled again before it got shut off. What’s going on with the water? I heard some fancy stories on the TV, but it was so much bushwa. What aren’t they telling?”
“You’re hurt!” Shirl called out, noticing for the first time the torn sleeve of his shirt with an edge of bandage showing below it.
“It’s not much, just a scratch,” Andy said and smiled. “Wounded in the line of duty—and by a pitchfork too.”
“Chasing the farmer’s daughter, probably. Some story,” Sol snorted. “You want a drink?”
“If any of the alky is left you can cut it a bit with water. I could use it.” He sipped at the drink and sat back in the chair, some of the strain went out of his face but his eyes were red with fatigue and squinted almost shut. They sat down across from him. “Don’t tell anyone until the official word goes out, but there is a lot of trouble over the water—and there’s bigger trouble on the way.”
“Is that why you warned us?” Shirl asked.
“Yes, I heard part of it at the station on my lunch break. The trouble started with the artesian wells and pumps on Long Island, all the Brooklyn and Queens pumping stations. You know, there’s a water table under the Island, and if too much water is pumped out too fast the sea water comes in, then salt water instead of fresh starts coming out of the pumps. It’s been brackish for a long time, you can taste it when it’s not mixed with upstate water, but they were supposed to have figured out just how much to pump so it wouldn’t get worse. There must have been a mistake or the stations have been pumping more than their quota, whatever happened it’s coming out pure salt now all over Brooklyn. All the stations there have shut down and the quota coming from Croton and upstate had to be enlarged.”
“The farmers been bitching away about the dry summer, I bet they loved this.”
“No bets. They must have had it planned for a long time because they jumped the guards on the aqueduct, they had plenty of guns and explosives, the lot that was stolen from the Albany armory last year. There are at least ten cops dead, I don’t know how many injured. They blew up at least a mile of pipe before we got through. Every hayseed in the state must have been out there trying to stop us. Not many had guns, but they were doing fine with pitchforks and axes. The riot gas cleared them out, finally.”
“Then—there’s no water at all for the city?” Shirl asked.
“We’ll bring water in, but it’s going to be very thirsty around here for a while. Go easy on the water we have, make it last. Use it for drinking or cooking, nothing else.”
“But we have to wash,” Shirl said.
“No, we don’t.” Andy rubbed at his sore eyes with the heel of his hand. “The plates can be wiped off with a rag. And as for ourselves—we just stink.”
“Andy!”
“I’m sorry, Shirl. I’m being awful and I know it. But you have to realize that things are just that serious. We can go without washing for a while, it won’t kill us, and when the water is connected up again we can all have a good scrub. It’s something to look forward to.”
“How long do you think it will be?”
“There’s no way to tell yet. The repairs will take a lot of concrete and reinforcing rods, these are both on top priority, mixing machines, things like that. Meanwhile most of the water will have to come in by railroad tank cars, tank trucks and barges. There is going to be one hell of a problem with distribution and rationing, you can count on things getting worse before they get better.” He dragged himself to his feet and yawned deeply. “I’m going to sack out for two hours, Shirl. Will you wake me up by four at the latest? I have to shave before I leave.”
“Two hours! That’s not enough sleep,” she protested.
“I don’t think so either—but it’s all I’m getting. Someone upstairs is still pushing on the O’Brien killing. An informer in Chinatown has a lead and I have to see him today, instead of sleeping before I go on precinct patrol tonight. I am slowly developing a big hate for Billy Chung, wherever he is hiding.” He went into the other room and dropped onto the bed.
“Can I stay out here while he’s sleeping. Sol?” she asked. “I don’t want to bother him—but I don’t want to bother you either—”
“Bother! Since when has a good-looking chachka been a bother? Let me tell you, I may look old but that’s just because of my age. Not that I’m saying you ain’t safe around me, the years for action have passed. I get my kicks now just thinking about it, which is cheaper anyway and you don’t have to worry about getting a dose. Bring out your knitting and I’ll tell you about the time I was stationed in Laredo, and I and Luke took a weekend pass and stayed in Boys Town in Nuevo Laredo, though on second thought maybe I better not tell you that one.”
When Shirl went in Andy was sound asleep, sprawled across the bed fully dressed; he hadn’t even taken his shoes off. She pulled the curtain and darkened the room, then took her manicure set off the foot of the bed. There was a hole worn in the sole of his right shoe and it stared at her like a mournful dusty eye. If she tried to take his shoes off she knew it would only disturb him, so she went out quietly and closed the door.
“Batteries need charging,” Sol said, holding the hydrometer up to the light and squinting at the float through the glass barrel. “Has Andy corked off yet?”
“He’s sound asleep.”
“Wait until you try to wake him up. When he goes off like that you could drop a bomb and if it didn’t kill him he wouldn’t hear it. I’ll run the batteries up, he’ll never know it.”
“It’s not fair
,” Shirl burst out suddenly. Why should Andy have to do two jobs at the same time and be the one to get hurt, fighting for the water for the people in the city? What are all these people doing here? Why don’t they go somewhere else if there isn’t enough water?”
“For that there is a simple answer—there’s no place to go. This whole country is one big farm and one big appetite. There’s just as many people down South as there is up North and, since there’s no public transportation, anyone who tried to walk to the land of sunshine would starve to death long before he got there. People stay put because the country is organized to take care of them where they are. They don’t eat well, but at least they eat. It needs a big catastrophe like the water failures in the California valleys to move people out, or the Dust Bowl—which I hear has now become international and crossed the Canadian border.”
“Well, other countries then. Everyone came to America from Europe and places. Why don’t some of them go back?”
“Because if you think you got problems you should see the other guy. All of England is just one big city and I saw on TV where the last Tory got shot defending the last grouse woods when they came to plow it up. Or you want to go to Russia maybe? Or China? They been having a border war for fifteen years now, which is one way of keeping the population down-but you’re draft age and they draft girls there so you wouldn’t like that. Denmark maybe. Life is great there if you can get in, at least they eat regular, but they got a concrete wall right across Jutland and beach guards who shoot on sight because so many starving people keep trying to break into the promised land. No, maybe we got no paradise here, but it’s at least livable. I got to run up the batteries.”
Make Room! Make Room! Page 15