by F. P. Lione
“Three regular coffees,” I said.
“That’ll be nine dollars,” the clerk said.
“Nine bucks? Are you kidding me? That’s triple the price! You’re a thief.” He stood there with a blank look on his face, apparently having had this conversation with everyone else today.
“That’s the price, take it or leave it,” he said.
“Forget it, I’m not paying that,” I said, stomping out.
“Where’s the coffee?” Joe said when I got back.
“Forget it, I’m not paying three bucks for a friggin’ cup of coffee,” I said.
“They do that every year,” he said, shaking his head.
Joe and I scanned the area. We were one block North of One Times Square where the ball drops. Huge Astrovision screens are on either side of the building, taking up most of the street. To the east of us is ABC studios with the electronic news running underneath it. Dick Clark would be warm and toasty on the second floor of the studio until much later. He comes down periodically, and then close to midnight he’s at a stage that would be diagonally across from us in the middle island by the Armed Forces recruiting booth.
The MTV stage is right in front of us, and the MTV studios are above us on the second floor. Every street around us has the Sanitation salt trucks used as blockers at the entrances into Times Square.
The area we are now in is secured, and no spectators are allowed. There is no pedestrian movement down here, the people are already in the pens. Workers for the sound and stage with ID tags are allowed to move around, along with Police Department, Fire Department, and EMS personnel.
It is impossible to walk around. Credentialed press are allowed on sidewalks but not the streets, those are emergency vehicle lanes. The sidewalks are open to employees in the buildings, but they have to be escorted in and out by the cops.
Every sign in Times Square is lit, flashing and moving trying to catch your eye. The first ten stories of the buildings are covered in the super ads, and none of the architecture can be seen. Colors billow, the Cup O Noodles soup steams, and the Panasonic screen displays a picture of the Waterford ball.
A group of Anti-Crime cops were going up 44th Street toward 8th Avenue, some in their bright orange hats that could be seen from a block away. They use the bright colors, either hats or wristbands, so they can pick each other out in the crowd.
They were probably going to work the crowds in the outer perimeter of Times Square for pickpockets, assaults, robberies, quality-of-life type things. The only pickpockets in the inner perimeter would be in the pens, and there’s plenty of cops here to handle it.
My cell phone rang in my pocket. “Hello.” I put my finger in my left ear to block out the noise.
“Where are you?” my father yelled.
“Where do you think I am?”
“You’re already there? I tried you at home,” he snarled.
“I haven’t been home,” I said.
“You gonna be there all night?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be here for the duration.”
“Make sure you dress warm,” he said. I looked over at Rooney in his hat.
“It’s a little late for that; I’m already outside.”
“Who are you with?”
“My partner, Joe, and the rest of my squad.”
“Good, good,” he said. “Okay, I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year and tell you to be careful.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “You too.”
I wondered if he’s nice periodically just to throw me. It’d be so much easier if he was the same all the time. When he’s nice, it confuses me and makes me feel guilty for hating his guts.
Joe was on his cell phone. He had his back to me and his finger in his ear like I did to blot out the noise.
“That was Donna,” he said as he ended the call.
“Everything alright?”
“She misses me, and she’s concerned about a terrorist attack. She was upset that I didn’t go home yesterday to say good-bye.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen,” I said.
“I know that, and she knows that too. She just hates me working New Year’s Eve. I told her to get together with Michele. Let the kids play, get something to eat, watch movies. I told her to pray for us and I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“She’ll be fine,” I said. Fiore hates when Donna is upset. It throws him all off. He also gets funny when he doesn’t see them for a day or two; it’s like he gets homesick.
There were golf carts driving by us in the emergency lane. The golf carts brought the chiefs and other Brass to check the operation. They made sure the barriers were in place, the emergency lanes were cleared, and the blockers and emergency vehicles were in position exactly the way they were supposed to be. They went up toward 59th Street and worked their way back down.
I kept my hat on and didn’t smoke. I didn’t want a chief to single me out and scream at me for smoking or say something to Hanrahan for me not wearing a hat.
Things were still pretty tame, so we passed the time listening to Rooney entertain us with his little trivia tidbits about Times Square.
“Did you know before the 1930s, only men came out on New Year’s Eve?” he asked.
“Why, weren’t the women allowed?” Romano asked.
“It’s not that they weren’t allowed, it was just known as a man’s holiday,” Rooney said. “There was probably a lot less trouble that way.”
“Who are you kidding, Mike?” Noreen Casey, the sarge’s driver, yelled from the other side of the barrier. “Are you saying we lock up more women than men on New Year’s Eve?”
“How did she hear me say that?” Rooney mumbled.
“Because your ears are covered with that stupid hat and you’re talking loud,” I said.
“No, it’s because you can’t trust women. It’s like they know what we’re thinking.”
At 4:00 we started taking our meals. Rooney and Connelly went first, so we had to spread out to cover their post. Joe periodically walked to their post and then back to ours while I stayed put. Romano would do the same thing, walking from his post to ours. Since I didn’t have Joe to talk to anymore, I turned my attention to the people in the pen.
A couple of women from Japan asked if they could take my picture. I smiled for them and then let them borrow my hat to take pictures of each other. They spoke English. Their mother was with them, but she didn’t speak the language, just smiled and nodded the whole time.
I started to talk to the others and asked them where they were from. That always breaks the ice. There was a couple from Vietnam. Two guys, who I called Hans and Franz, were from Germany.
“What are you doing here?” I asked them, amazed. I thought they were idiots to sit here all day. If they didn’t pay me for this, I’d never come here.
“It’s the place to be,” one said in a boing-boing kind of accent. “I always wanted to be here. It’s the best party on the planet.” He yelled, whooping up his arms. He was hammered.
“What are you drinking, Jagermeister?” I asked.
“Ya, Jagermeister,” he pulled out a flask and offered me some.
If I thought he was gonna be a problem, I would have taken the flask, but he seemed harmless, just keeping warm.
“No way,” I waved my hands at him. “I don’t want to be feeling like you guys later.” There was a time I might have taken a slug off it, but I didn’t like it anyway; it tasted like cough medicine.
There were two women, probably in their early twenties, from Brazil. They were pretty and exotic looking. They flirted with me, tried my hat on, asked if I was married.
A guy who looked like he was from New York was there. He was originally from Brooklyn and moved down to North Carolina. His wife wanted to see Times Square on New Year’s, so they made the trip up.
They were telling me where everyone was from. We had Panama, Australia, California, Ohio, San Diego, and a couple of kids from Yonkers, which is above the Bronx.
/> A couple from Mississippi was feeling no pain. You could tell it was their first time in the big city, and they were pretty excited about it. It must not get too cold in Mississippi, because they were underdressed. They were wearing jeans and sneakers, and sweatshirts with lined flannel jackets over them. They had no hats or gloves and would be freezing later.
Most of the people had dressed right. The daytime temperatures are deceiving’an afternoon temperature of thirty-eight degrees can drop down into the teens by midnight. Plus the buildings make wind tunnels of the streets and the avenues where we were.
It looked like one of those summit meetings for the UN. They weren’t your huddled masses. Half of them were smashed out of their minds, having drunk so much booze beforehand because they wouldn’t be allowed to drink later.
They’d been cleared for bottles, but I knew there’d be some flasks and other nonglass containers with some sauce. They’d be hurting later on. Now they were juiced up and well fed. Six hours from now they’d be hung over and starving. The booze was keeping them warm. Once it wore off, they’d be feeling the cold. But for now they were festive, excited to be here.
“Who do you think is gonna puke first?” I asked Fiore and Romano. “My money’s on the Jagermeister man,” I said.
“No way,” Romano said. “Mississippi’s gonna blow first.” “Five bucks says it’s Jagermeister,” I said.
“You’re on,” Romano said as we shook hands.
It drags on while you wait for the ball to drop. Most of the festivities don’t start until 8:00, and then it’s another four hours till midnight. The initial excitement of getting a great spot was wearing off for them, and the crowd was slowing down now as boredom set in.
I was warm enough. I had a spot where the sun was shining. The buildings block the sun, but as the sun moves, so do the shadows from the buildings. My feet were sweating; I had two pairs of socks on, one pair of nylon dress socks and wool socks over them.
It was twilight when O’Brien and McGovern left for their meal. Joe and I left the post at 6:00. I lit a cigarette and smoked it as we walked over to the entrance of the Times building on 43rd Street between 7th and 8th.
The employee cafeteria was on the eleventh floor. We went down the assembly line, stopping to get trays, napkins, and silverware on our way to the hot food. The spread was roast turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy, string beans, corn, rolls, soda, and chocolate cake. They also had a cold buffet with sandwiches and salad, but most people got the hot stuff. They do this every year for us, and the food’s pretty good.
Mike Donahue, a cop who used to work at our precinct, put down the newspaper he was reading and waved us over. He was dressed in plainclothes, wearing thermal overalls and black boots. He moved a Timberland hooded sweatshirt and a bright orange hat off the chair next to him and made room for us to sit down.
“Where are you working?” I asked him as we shook hands. “You made sergeant, right?”
“Yeah, I’m doing Anti-Crime up at the four four,” he said. The four four was up in the Bronx.
“Easier commute?” I asked, knowing he lived upstate.
“Much easier. I should be going over to ESU soon,” he said. “I got a hook that’s gonna get me in there.”
“Is that what you want?” I asked. Anti-Crime Sergeant’s not a bad deal.
“Yeah, are you kidding me? It’s nice now being out of the bag (out of uniform), but I still have to make numbers. At least with ESU, you take what comes and don’t have to worry about numbers.”
He stayed for a few minutes more, catching up on who left the precinct and who’s new there.
It was warm in the cafeteria, and Joe and I had taken off our jackets and turtlenecks. We finished our food and sat drinking coffee at our table.
I picked up the copy of the New York Times that Mike Donahue had been reading. I scanned an article and then looked up for the date on the paper ’cause I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
“Do you believe this?” I asked Joe.
“What is it?”
“Where bin Laden Has Roots, His Mystique Grows,” I read the headline with disgust. “Mystique? The guy’s a friggin’ terrorist.”
“Who’s bin Laden?” Fiore asked.
I scanned the article about bin Laden, how we had a $5 million reward on his head for the 1998 truck bombings of two American embassies in East Africa. He was the leader of the terrorist group Al Qaeda, which is financed for the most part by bin Laden’s inheritance of $300 million. Apparently this psycho was one of fifty-one children, which explains his need for attention.
I put the paper down and wondered for the millionth time why the papers would put this crap in the paper on New Year’s Eve when they know people are nervous enough about terrorists.
“What’s with Romano coming over to your house?” I asked, changing the subject. I hoped Romano wasn’t in some kind of trouble like I had been when Joe had me over the first time. Joe had me stay with him a couple of days last summer when I was having a hard time.
“I think he needs his friends right now,” Fiore said. “Donna’s making a bunch of food: lasagna, rice balls, lobster soup, stuffed escarole…” he looked like he was trying to think of what else.
“I get it, she’s making food. Maybe you and Donna should talk to him alone.”
“No, you’re his friend too. You should be there.”
I wanted to sleep and go see Michele. I hadn’t seen her or Stevie since Christmas Eve, but Fiore was right, something was up with Romano.
“What about Michele?” I asked.
“She’s coming,” Fiore said.
“She didn’t tell me that,” I said. At least I didn’t think she did. “We gotta work the next day; we got court notifications.”
“So? Court’s always an easy day. We’ll sleep there,” Fiore said.
“Okay, I’ll be there,” I said.
About fifteen or twenty cops walked off the elevators and out of the lobby of the Times building with us. As we stepped out onto 43rd, the street was empty. I looked toward 8th Avenue and there were thousands of people there, with police standing at the barricades, telling them they couldn’t come in this way, that they had to move north. I lit a cigarette when we stopped outside the front doors. We threw the bull with the other cops before heading back.
The radio had been droning all night with, “This is Captain so-and-so to Sergeant blah-blah-blah. Have your men move from West 44th to West 45th.”
Or “This is Inspector Joe Shmo to Captain Yada Yada.”
“Go ahead, Inspector Schmo.”
“Take four of your men and move the barrier on 48th Street and Broadway and make a box for the VIPs.”
The radio crackled as someone yelled, “They’re breaking through the barriers at four-three and eight!”
We all looked toward 8th Avenue and saw the cops on the right corner trying to hold the barriers in place and stop the people from going over and under them.
As all the cops around them converged to help, twenty or thirty people went crashing through the barriers on the left side and headed toward us.
We all took our nightsticks out and started running toward the crowd. I heard over the radio, “85 forthwith at four-three and eight,” which means officer needs additional units.
We ran toward the left side of the street, where the crowd was running up. When they saw us coming at them with our nightsticks, most of them stopped, unsure of what to do. They looked both ways, up at us, back at the barriers, and headed back the other way. I guess it looked easier to get thrown out than go at twenty cops with batons in their hands.
We followed the crowd back toward the barriers. Half the cops put the barriers back up, and the other half helped them struggle with the crowd.
The ones who broke through were trying to get back behind the barriers. One tried to hurdle it, and his left foot got stuck on the top. He went down face-first, with the barrier tumbling after him.
I ran over
to help the cops on my right, and I saw a cop holding the wrist of a guy who looked about twenty years old. The cop was holding the barrier with his left hand and the guy with his right. The guy was crouched down, pulling as hard as he could to get away. The cop couldn’t hold both the barrier and the guy, so he let go of the guy’s wrist and grabbed the barrier.
I lunged at the guy, trying to grab his arm as he took off up 43rd Street. He was running at full speed, looking back at me. He took another ten steps and turned his head back to see where he was going.
I heard the gong as his head connected with the “No Standing, Trucks Loading and Unloading” sign. He hit the sign, bounced back about two feet, and held his face as he went down.
The sign was still wobbling when I reached the guy, and I choked on a laugh. I heard someone behind me say, “Oh man, did you see that?”
“Well, he shouldn’t have run,” someone else threw in.
I could see white teeth on the street. They looked like Chick-lets against the asphalt. I picked up two teeth, noticing the green paint stuck to them from the sign. He was holding his face and moaning, and when he looked up at me, I saw the imprint of the sign on his forehead and down his face.
I leaned down and put his teeth in the pocket of his flannel shirt. There was a broken bottle of blackberry brandy in his jacket pocket, oozing all over his clothes.
“Your teeth are in your left shirt pocket,” I said. “Next time, don’t break through the barricades.”
I heard someone say behind me, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to look both ways when you cross the street?” followed by laughing.
One detail in Times Square is there just to take the collars on New Year’s Eve. They were on the scene now, along with Task Force in their hats and bats. The Mounted Unit came sweeping in to knock the people away from the barricades. They go in sideways so the horses’ bodies can knock the people out of the way. The schmuck who doesn’t move gets leveled as the horse connects with him.
I saw Joe pushing people back so they could put up the barriers. This girl about eighteen years old was too drunk to walk, so she leaned on her arms with her feet stretched out in front of her and crawled like a crab up behind Joe. As he leaned over, she tried to kick him so he’d go headfirst into the fallen barriers. Two Task Force cops grabbed her by the arms, spun her around, and cuffed her with the plastic ties they use when they’re cuffing large crowds.