Make Room! Make Room!

by Harry Harrison

  “I have my job. Just how much romance do you think there would be in living if I gave it up?”

  Shirl found herself close to tears. “Please, Andy—I’m not trying to fight with you. That’s the last thing I want. Don’t you understand …?”

  “I understand damn well. If I was a big man in the syndicate and running girls and hemp and LSD, things might be different. But I’m just a crummy cop trying to hold things together while the rest of the bastards are taking them apart.”

  He stabbed the bullets into the cylinder while he talked, not looking at her and not seeing the silent tears that ran down her face. She hadn’t cried at the dinner table, but she could not stop it now. It was the cold weather, the boy with the knife, the water shortage, everything—and now this. When she laid the flashlight on the floor the light faded and almost went out as the flywheel slowed. Before it brightened again in his hand she had turned her face to the wall and had pulled the covers up over her head.

  She did like Andy, she knew that—but did she love him? It was so hard to decide anything when she hardly ever saw him. Why didn’t he understand that? She wasn’t trying to hide anything or avoid anything. Yet her life wasn’t with him, it was in this terrible room where he hardly ever came, living on this street, the people, that boy with the knife…. She bit into her lip but could not stop crying.

  When he came to bed he did not say anything, and she did not know what she could say. It was warmer with him there, though she could still smell the gun oil, it must have got on his hands and he could not wipe it all off, and when he was close she felt much better.

  She touched his arm and whispered “Andy,” but by then it was too late. He was sound asleep.

  2

  “I smell trouble brewing,” Detective Steve Kulozik said as he finished adjusting the headband in the fiberglass helmet. He put it on and scowled out unhappily from under the projecting edge.

  “You smell trouble!” Andy shook his head. “What a wonderful nose you got. They have the whole precinct, patrolmen and detectives, mixed together, like shock troops. We’re issued helmets and riot bombs at seven in the morning, locked in here without any orders—and you smell trouble. What’s your secret, Steve?”

  “A natural talent,” the fat detective said placidly.

  “Let’s have your attention here,” the captain shouted. The voices and foot shuffling died away and the ranks of men were silent, looking expectantly toward the far end of the big room where the captain stood.

  “We’re going to have some special work today,” the captain said, “and Detective Dwyer here, of the Headquarters Squad, will explain it to you.”

  There was an interested stir as the men in the back rows tried to see past the ranks ahead of them. The Headquarters Squad were trouble shooters, they worked out of Centre Street and took their orders directly from Detective Inspector Ross.

  “Can you men in the rear there hear me?” Dwyer called out, then climbed onto a chair. He was a broad, bulky man with the chin and wrinkled neck of a bulldog, his voice a hoarse, bass rumble. “Are the doors locked, captain?” he asked. “What I have to say is for these men alone.” There was a mumbled reassurance and he turned back to face them, looking over the rows of uniformed patrolmen and the drab-coated detectives in the rear.

  “There’s going to be a couple of hundred—or maybe a couple of thousand—people killed in this city by tonight,” he said. “Your job is to keep that figure as low as possible. When you go out of here you better realize that there are going to be riots and trouble today and the faster you act to break them up the easier it’s going to be for all of us. The Welfare stations won’t open today and there won’t be any food issued for at least three days.”

  His voice rose sharply over the sudden hum of voices. “Knock that noise off! What are you—police officers or a bunch of old women? I’m giving this to you straight so you can get ready for the worst, not just yak-yak about it.” The silence was absolute.

  “All right. The trouble has been coming for days now, but we couldn’t act until we knew where we stood. We know now. The city has gone right along issuing full food rations until the warehouses are almost empty. We’re going to close them now, build up a backlog and open again in three days. With a smaller ration—and that is classified and not to be repeated to anyone. Rations are going to stay small the rest of the winter, don’t forget that, whatever you may hear to the contrary. The immediate cause of the shortage right now is that accident on the main line north of Albany, but that’s just one of the troubles. The grain is going to start coming in again—but it still won’t be enough. We had a professor from Columbia down at Centre Street to tell us about it so we could pass it on, but it gets technical and we haven’t got that much time. But here’s what it boils down to.

  “There was a fertilizer shortage last spring, which means the crop wasn’t as good as expected. There have been storms and flooding. The Dust Bowl is still growing. And there was that trouble with the poisoned soybeans from the insecticide. You all know just as much about it as I do, it was on TV. What it adds up to is that a lot of small things have piled up to make one big trouble. There have even been some mistakes made by the President’s Emergency Food Planning Board and you’re going to see some new faces there. So everyone in this town is going to have to tighten his belt a bit. There is going to be enough for all of us as long as we can keep law and order. I don’t have to tell you what would happen if we had some real good riots, some fires, big trouble. We can’t count on any outside help because the Army has got plenty of other things to worry about. It’s going to be you men on foot out there that do the job. There isn’t one operational hovercraft left, they’ve all either got parts missing or broken impeller blades, and there aren’t any replacements. It’s up to you. There are thirty-five million people here counting on us. If you don’t want them to starve to death—do your jobs. Now … any questions?”

  A buzz of whispered talk swept across the crowded room, then a patrolman hesitantly raised his hand and Dwyer nodded to him.

  “What about the water, sir?”

  “That trouble should be licked soon. Repairs on the aqueduct are almost finished and the water should be coming through within a week. But there is still going to be rationing because of the loss of ground water from the Island, and the low level of the reservoirs. And that brings up another thing. We been putting the announcement on TV every hour and we got as many guards as we can spare along the waterfront, but people are still drinking river water. I don’t know how they can—the damned river is just an open sewer by the time it reaches us, and salty from the ocean—but people do it. And they’re not boiling it, which is the same as taking poison. The hospitals are filling up with typhoid and dysentery cases and God knows what else, and that is going to get worse before the winter is over. There are lists of symptoms posted on the bulletin boards and I want you to memorize them and keep your eyes open, get word to the Health Department about anything you see and bring in any cases you think will get away. Keep your shots up to date and you got nothing to worry about, the department has all the vaccine you’re going to need.” He cupped his ear toward the nearby ranks and frowned.

  “I think I heard someone say ‘political officer,’ but maybe they didn’t. Let’s say they didn’t, but I’ve heard it before and you may be hearing it again yourselves. So let’s get one thing straight. The Commies invented that name, and the way they use it it means a guy who pushes the Party line to the troops, sells them a snow job, a lot of crap. But that’s not the way we work it in this country. Maybe I’m a political officer, but I’m leveling with you, telling you all the truth so you can get out there and do your job knowing just what has to be done. Any more questions?”

  His big head looked around the room and the silence lengthened; no one else was asking the question, so Andy reluctantly raised his hand.

  “Yes?” Dwyer said.

  “What about the markets, sir?” Andy said, and the nearby face
s turned toward him. “There’s the flea market in Madison Square, they have some food there, and the Gramercy Park market.”

  “That’s a good question, because they are going to be our sore spots today. A lot of you will be on duty in or near those markets. We are going to have trouble at the warehouses when they don’t open, and there will be trouble in Union Square with the Eldsters there—they are always trouble.” A duly appreciative laugh followed his words. “The stores are going to sell out and board up, we’re taking care of that, but we can’t control the markets the same way. The only food on sale in this city will be there, and people are going to realize it soon enough. Keep your eyes open and if anything starts—stop it before it can spread. You’ve got night sticks and you have gas, use them when you have to. You’ve got guns and they’re best left in their holsters. We don’t want indiscriminate killing, that only makes things worse.”

  There were no more questions. Detective Dwyer left before they had been given their assignments and they did not see him again. The rain had almost stopped when they went out, but had been replaced by a heavy cold mist that swept in from the lower bay. There were two canvas-covered trucks waiting at the curb, and an old city bus that had been painted a dull olive drab. Half of its windows were boarded up.

  “Put’cher fares in the box,” Steve said as he followed Andy into the bus. “I wonder where they resurrected this antique from?”

  “City Museum,” Andy said. “The same place they got these riot bombs. Did you look at them?”

  “I counted them, if that’s what you mean,” Steve said, swinging heavily into one of the cracked plastic seats next to Andy. They both had their satchels of bombs on their laps so there would be room to sit. Andy opened his and took out one of the green canisters.

  “Read that,” he said, “if you can read.”

  “I been to Delehanty’s,” Steve grunted. “I can read Irish as well as American. ‘Grenade, pressurized—riot gas—MOA-397…’”

  “The fine print, down at the bottom.”

  “ ‘… sealed St. Louis arsenal, April 1974.’ So what, this stuff never gets old.”

  “I hope not. From what our political officer said it sounds like we might need them today.”

  “Nothing’ll happen. Too wet for riots.”

  The bus shuddered to a halt on the corner where Broadway passed Worth Square and Lieutenant Grassioli pointed at Andy and jerked his thumb toward the door. “You’re interested in markets, Rusch, take the beat from here down to Twenty-third. You too, Kulozik.”

  Behind them the door creaked shut and the bus pushed slowly away through the crowds. They streamed by on all sides, jostling and bumping into each other without being aware of it, a constantly changing but ever identical sea of people. An eddy formed naturally around the two detectives, leaving a small cleared area of wet pavement in the midst of the crowd. Police were never popular, and policemen in helmets, carrying yard-long, lead-filled riot-clubs, were to be avoided even more. The cleared space moved with them as they crossed Fifth Avenue to the Eternal Light, now extinguished because of the fuel shortage.

  “Almost eight,” Andy said, his eyes moving constantly over the people around them. “That’s when the Welfare stations usually open. I suppose the announcement will go on TV at the same time.”

  They went slowly toward Twenty-third Street, walking in the street because the clustering stalls of the flea market had pushed outward until they covered most of the sidewalk.

  “Hubcaps, hubcaps, I got all the best,” a merchant droned as they passed, a small man who was almost lost in the raveling folds of an immense overcoat, his shaved head projecting above the collar like a vulture’s from a ruff of matted feathers. He rubbed his dripping nose with cracked knuckles and appeared to be a little feebleminded. “Get’cher hubcaps here, officer, all the best, make good bowls, pots, soup pots, night pots, make good anything….” They passed out of earshot.

  By nine o’clock there was a different feeling in the air, a tension that had not been there before. The crowd seemed to have a louder voice and to be stirring about faster, like water about to boil. When the detectives passed the hubcap stall again they saw that most of the stock had been locked away and the few hubcaps left on the counter were rusty and scarcely worth stealing. Their owner crouched among them no longer shouting his wares, unmoving except for his darting eyes.

  “Did you hear that?” Andy asked, and they both turned toward the market. Above the rising hum of voices there was an angry shout, followed by others. “Let’s take a look,” Andy said, pushing into one of the narrow paths that threaded through the market.

  A shouting crowd was jammed solid between the stalls and pushcarts, blocking their way, and only stirred without moving aside when they blew their whistles. The clubs worked better, they rapped at the barricades of ankles and legs and a reluctant opening was made for them. At the center of the mob were three crumb stands, one of them knocked off its legs and half overturned, with bags of weedcrumbs dribbling to the ground.

  “They been jacking the price!” a thin-faced harridan screamed. “Against the law jacking the price. They asking double for crumbs.”

  “No law says, we can ask what we want,” a stall owner shouted back, clearing the area in front of him with wild swings of an old connecting rod. He was ready to defend with his life his stock of broken bits of weedcracker. Weedcrumbs, the cheapest and most tasteless nourishment ever consumed by man.

  “You got no rights, crumby, those prices don’t go!” a man called out, and the crowd heaved and surged.

  Andy blasted on his whistle. “Hold on!” he shouted above the voice of the mob. “I’ll settle this—just hold on.” Steve stood and faced the angry crowd, swinging his club before him, as Andy turned to the stall owner and talked in a low voice. “Don’t be stupid. Ask a fair price and sell your stock out….”

  “I can ask any price I want. There ain’t no law—” he protested and broke off when Andy slammed his club against the side of the stall.

  “That’s right—there’s no law unless the law is standing right here. Do you want to lose everything, including your own stupid head? Fix a price and sell out, because if you don’t I’m just going to walk away from here and let these people do whatever they want.”

  “He’s right, Al,” the crumby from the next stall said, he had sidled over to listen to Andy. “Sell out and get out, they gonna walk all over us if we don’t. I’m knocking the price back.”

  “You’re a jerk—look at the loot!” Al protested.

  “Balls! Look at the hole in my head if we don’t. I’m selling.”

  There was still a lot of noise, but as soon as the crumbies started selling at a lower price there were enough people who wanted to buy so that the unity of the crowd broke up. Other shouts could be heard, on the Fifth Avenue side of the Square.

  “This’ll keep here,” Steve said. “Let’s get circulating.”

  Most of the stalls were locked now and there were gaps between them where the pushcart owners had closed up and moved shop. A tattered woman was sprawled, sobbing, in the wreckage of her beanwich stall, her stock, cooked beans pressed between weedcrackers, looted and gone.

  “Lousy cops,” she choked out when they passed. “Why didn’ you stop them, do something? Lousy cops.” They went by without looking at her, out into Fifth Avenue. The crowd was in a turmoil and they had to force their way through.

  “Do you hear that, coming north?” Steve asked. “Sounds like singing or shouting.”

  The surging of the crowd became more directed, taking on a unity of movement heading uptown. Each moment the massed chanting grew louder, punctuated by the stentorian rasp of an amplified voice.

  “Two, four, six, eight—Welfare rations come too late.

  Three, five, seven, nine—Medicare is still behind.”

  “It’s the Eldsters,” Andy said. “They’re marching on Times Square again.”

  “They picked the right day for it—everything
is happening today.”

  As the crowd pressed back to the curb the first marchers appeared, preceded by a half-dozen uniformed patrolmen, their clubs swinging in easy arcs before them. Behind them was the first wave of the elderly legion, a gray-haired, balding group of men led by Kid Reeves. He limped a bit as he walked, but he stayed out in front, carrying a compact, battery-operated bull horn: a gray metal trumpet with a microphone set into the end. He raised it to his mouth and his amplified voice boomed over the noise of the crowd.

  “All you people there on the curbs, join in. March with us. Join this protest, raise your voices. We’re not marching for ourselves alone, but for all of you as well. If you are a senior citizen you are with us in your heart because we’re marching to help you. If you are younger you must know that we are marching to help your mother and father, to get the help that you yourself will need one day….”

  People were being pushed in from the mouth of Twenty-fourth Street, being driven across the path of the marchers, looking back over their shoulders as the force of the crowd behind them drove them forward. The Eldsters’ march slowed to a crawl, then stopped completely in a jumble of bodies. Police whistles shrilled in the distance and the policemen who had been marching in front of the Eldsters fought vainly to stop the advance, but were swallowed up and lost in a moment as the narrow exit from Twenty-fourth Street disgorged a stampede of running figures. They crashed into the crowd and merged with the advance guard of the Eldsters.

  “Stop there, stop!” Reeves’s amplified shout boomed out. “You’re interfering with this march, a legal march….” The newcomers pushed against him and a heavy-set man, streaked with blood on the side of his head, grabbed for the bull horn. “Give me that!” he ordered and his words were amplified and mixed with Reeves’s in a thunderous jumble.

  Andy could clearly see what was happening, but could do nothing to stop it since the crowd had separated him from Steve and carried him back against the quacking row of stalls.