Roommates

Harry Harrison

The Ruins of Earth (Anthology)

1971

Summer

The August sun struck in through the open window and burned on Andrew Rusch’s bare legs until discomfort dragged him awake from the depths of heavy sleep. Only slowly did he become aware of the heat and the damp and gritty sheet beneath his body. He rubbed at his gummed-shut eyelids, then lay there, staring up at the cracked and stained plaster of the ceiling, only half awake and experiencing a feeling of dislocation, not knowing in those first waking moments just where he was, although he had lived in this room for over seven years. He yawned and the odd sensation slipped away while he groped for the watch that he always put on the chair next to the bed. Then he yawned again as he blinked at the hands mistily seen behind the scratched crystal. Seven…seven o’clock in the morning, and there was a little number 9 in the middle of the square window. Monday the ninth of August, 1999—and hot as a furnace already, with the city still embedded in the heat wave that had baked and suffocated New York for the past ten days. Andy scratched at a trickle of perspiration on his side, then moved his legs out of the patch of sunlight and bunched the pillow up under his neck. From the other side of the thin partition that divided the room in half there came a clanking whir that quickly rose to a high-pitched drone.

“Morning…” he shouted over the sound, then began coughing. Still coughing he reluctantly stood and crossed the room to draw a glass of water from the wall tank; it came out in a thin, brownish trickle. He swallowed it, then rapped the dial on the tank with his knuckles and the needle bobbed up and down close to the Empty mark. It needed filling; he would have to see to that before he signed in at four o’clock at the precinct. The day had begun.

A full-length mirror with a crack running down it was fixed to the front of the hulking wardrobe and he poked his face close to it, rubbing at his bristly jaw. He would have to shave before he went in. No one should ever look at himself in the morning, naked and revealed, he decided with distaste, frowning at the dead white of his skin and the slight bow to his legs that was usually concealed by his pants. And how did he manage to have ribs that stuck out like those of a starved horse, as well as a growing potbelly—both at the same time? He kneaded the soft flesh and thought that it must be the starchy diet, that and sitting around on his chunk most of the time. But at least the fat wasn’t showing on his face. His forehead was a little higher each year, but wasn’t too obvious as long as his hair was cropped short. You have just turned thirty, he thought to himself, and the wrinkles are already starting around your eyes. And your nose is too big—wasn’t it Uncle Brian who always said that was because there was Welsh blood in the family? And your canine teeth are a little too obvious so when you smile you look a bit like a hyena. You’re a handsome devil, Andy Rusch, and it’s a wonder a girl like Shirl will even look at you, much less kiss you. He scowled at himself, then went to look for a handkerchief to blow his impressive Welsh nose.

There was just a single pair of clean undershorts in the drawer and he pulled them on; that was another thing he had to remember today, to get some washing done. The squealing whine was still coming from the other side of the partition as he pushed through the connecting door.

“You’re going to give yourself a coronary, Sol,” he told the gray-bearded man who was perched on the wheelless bicycle, pedaling so industriously that perspiration ran down his chest and soaked into the bath towel that he wore tied around his waist.

“Never a coronary,” Solomon Kahn gasped out, pumping steadily. “I been doing this every day for so long that my ticker would miss it if I stopped. And no cholesterol in my arteries either since regular flushing with alcohol takes care of that. And no lung cancer since I couldn’t afford to smoke even if I wanted to, which I don’t. And at the age of seventy-five no prostatitis because—”

“Sol, please—spare me the horrible details on an empty stomach. Do you have an ice cube to spare?”

“Take two—it’s a hot day. And don’t leave the door open too long.”

Andy opened the small refrigerator that squatted against the wall and quickly took out the plastic container of margarine, then squeezed two ice cubes from the tray into a glass and slammed the door. He filled the glass with water from the wall tank and put it on the table next to the margarine.

“Have you eaten yet?” he asked.

“I’ll join you, these things should be charged by now.”

Sol stopped pedaling and the whine died away to a moan, then vanished. He disconnected the wires from the electrical generator that was geared to the rear axle of the bike, and carefully coiled them up next to the four black automobile storage batteries that were racked on top of the refrigerator. Then, after wiping his hands on his soiled towel sarong, he pulled out one of the bucket seats, salvaged from an ancient 1975 Ford, and sat down across the table from Andy.

“I heard the six o’clock news,” he said. “The Eldsters are organizing another protest march today on relief headquarters. That’s where you’ll see coronaries!”

“I won’t, thank God, I’m not on until four and Union Square isn’t in our precinct.” He opened the breadbox and took out one of the six-inch-square red crackers, then pushed the box over to Sol. He spread margarine thinly on it and took a bite, wrinkling his nose as he chewed. “I think this margarine has turned.”

“How can you tell?” Sol grunted, biting into one of the dry crackers. “Anything made from motor oil and whale blubber is turned to begin with.”

“Now you begin to sound like a naturist,” Andy said, washing his cracker down with cold water. “There’s hardly any flavor at all to the fats made from petrochemicals, and you know there aren’t any whales left so they can’t use blubber—it’s just good chlorella oil.”

“Whales, plankton, herring oil, it’s all the same. Tastes fishy. I’ll take mine dry so I don’t grow no fins.” There was a sudden staccato rapping on the door and he groaned. “Not yet eight o’clock and already they are after you.”

“It could be anything,” Andy said, starting for the door.

“It could be but it’s not, that’s the callboy’s knock and you know it as well as I do and I bet you dollars to doughnuts that’s just who it is. See?” He nodded with gloomy satisfaction when Andy unlocked the door and they saw the skinny, bare-legged messenger standing in the dark hall.

“What do you want, Woody?” Andy asked.

“I don’ wan’ no-fin,” Woody lisped over his bare gums. Though he was in his early twenties he didn’t have a tooth in his head. “Lieutenan’ says bring, I bring.” He handed Andy the message board with his name written on the outside.

Andy turned toward the light and opened it, reading the lieutenant’s spiky scrawl on the slate, then took the chalk and scribbled his initials after it and returned it to the messenger. He closed the door behind him and went back to finish his breakfast, frowning in thought.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Sol said, “I didn’t send the message. Am I wrong in guessing it’s not the most pleasant of news?”

“It’s the Eldsters, they’re jamming the Square already and the precinct needs reinforcements.”

“But why you? This sounds like a job for the harness bulls.”

“Harness bulls! Where do you get that medieval slang? Of course they need patrolmen for the crowd, but there have to be detectives there to spot known agitators, pickpockets, purse grabbers and the rest. It’ll be murder in that park today. I have to check in by nine, so I have enough time to bring up some water first.”

Andy dressed slowly in slacks and a loose sport shirt, then put a pan of water on the windowsill to warm in the sun. He took the two five-gallon plastic jerry cans, and when he went out Sol looked up from the TV set, glancing over the top of his old-fashioned glasses.

“When you bring back the water I’ll fix you a drink—or do you think it is too early?”

“Not the way I feel today, it’s not.”

The hall was ink black once the door had closed behind him and he felt his way carefully along the wall to the stairs, cursing and almost falling when he stumbled over a heap of refuse someone had thrown there. Two flights down a window had been knocked through the wall and enough light came in to show him the way down the last two flights to the street. After the damp hallway the heat of Twenty-fifth Street hit him in a musty wave, a stifling miasma compounded of decay, dirt and unwashed humanity. He had to make his way through the women who already filled the steps of the building, walking carefully so that he didn’t step on the children who were playing below. The sidewalk was still in shadow but so jammed with people that he walked in the street, well away from the curb to avoid the rubbish and litter banked high there. Days of heat had softened the tar so that it gave underfoot then clutched at the soles of his shoes. There was the usual line leading to the columnar red water point on the corner of Seventh Avenue, but it broke up with angry shouts and some waved fists just as he reached it. Still muttering, the crowd dispersed and Andy saw that the duty patrolman was locking the steel door.

“What’s going on?” Andy asked. “I thought this point was open until noon.”

The policeman turned, his hand automatically staying close to his gun until he recognized the detective from his own precinct. He tilted back his uniform cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Just had the orders from the sergeant, all points closed for twenty-four hours. The reservoir level is low because of the drought, they gotta save water.”

“That’s a hell of a note,” Andy said, looking at the key still in the lock. “I’m going on duty now and this means I’m not going to be drinking for a couple of days…”

After a careful look around, the policeman unlocked the door and took one of the jerry cans from Andy. “One of these ought to hold you.” He held it under the faucet while it filled, then lowered his voice. “Don’t let it out, but word is that there was another dynamiting job on the aqueduct upstate.”

“Those farmers again?”

“It must be. I was on guard duty up there before I came to this precinct and it’s rough, they just as soon blow you up with the aqueduct at the same time. Claim the city’s stealing their water.”

“They’ve got enough,” Andy said, taking the full container. “More than they need. And there are 35 million people here in the city who get damn thirsty.”

“Who’s arguing?” the cop asked, slamming the door shut again and locking it tight.

Andy pushed his way back through the crowd around the steps and went through to the backyard first. All of the toilets were in use and he had to wait, and when he finally got into one of the cubicles he took the jerry cans with him; one of the kids playing in the pile of rubbish against the fence would be sure to steal them if he left them unguarded.

When he had climbed the dark flights once more and opened the door to the room he heard the clear sound of ice cubes rattling against glass.

“That’s Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony that you’re playing,” he said, dropping the containers and falling into a chair.

“It’s my favorite tune,” Sol said, taking two chilled glasses from the refrigerator and, with the solemnity of religious ritual, dropped a tiny pearl onion into each of them and passed one to Andy, who sipped carefully at the chilled liquid.

“It’s when I taste one of these, Sol, that I almost believe you’re not crazy after all. Why do they call them Gibsons?”

“A secret lost behind the mists of time. Why is a Stinger a Stinger or a Pink Lady a Pink Lady?”

“I don’t know—why? I never tasted any of them.”

“I don’t know either, but that’s the name. Like those green things they serve in the knockjoints, Panamas. Doesn’t mean anything, just a name.”

“Thanks,” Andy said, draining his glass. “The day looks better already.”

He went into his room and took his gun and holster from the drawer and clipped it inside the waistband of his pants. His shield was on his key ring where he always kept it and he slipped his notepad in on top of it, then hesitated a moment. It was going to be a long and rough day and anything might happen. He dug his nippers out from under his shirts, then the soft plastic tube filled with shot. It might be needed in the crowd, safer than a gun with all those old people milling about. Not only that, but with the new austerity regulations you had to have a damn good reason for using up any ammunition. He washed as well as he could with the pint of water that had been warming in the sun on the windowsill, then scrubbed his face with the small shard of gray and gritty soap until his whiskers softened a bit. His razor blade was beginning to show obvious nicks along both edges and, as he honed it against the inside of his drinking glass, he thought that it was time to think about getting a new one. Maybe in the fall.

Sol was watering his window box when Andy came out, carefully irrigating the rows of herbs and tiny onions. “Don’t take any wooden nickels,” he said without looking up from his work. Sol had a million of them, all old. What in the world was a wooden nickel?

The sun was higher now and the heat was mounting in the sealed tar and concrete valley of the street. The band of shade was smaller and the steps were so packed with humanity that he couldn’t leave the doorway. He carefully pushed by a tiny, runny-nosed girl dressed only in ragged gray underwear and descended a step. The gaunt women moved aside reluctantly, ignoring him, but the men stared at him with a cold look of hatred stamped across their features that gave them a strangely alike appearance, as though they were all members of the same angry family.

Andy threaded his way through the last of them and when he reached the sidewalk he had to step over the outstretched leg of an old man who sprawled there. He looked dead, not asleep, and he might be for all that anyone cared. His foot was bare and filthy and a string tied about his ankle led to a naked baby that was sitting vacantly on the sidewalk chewing on a bent plastic dish. The baby was as dirty as the man and the string was tied about its chest under the pipestem arms because its stomach was swollen and heavy. Was the old man dead? Not that it mattered, the only work he had to do in the world was to act as an anchor for the baby and he could do that job just as well alive or dead.

Out of the room now, well away and unable to talk to Sol until he returned, he realized that once again he had not managed to mention Shirl. It would have been a simple enough thing to do, but he kept forgetting it, avoiding it. Sol was always talking about how horny he always was and how often he used to get laid when he was in the army. He would understand.

They were roommates, that was all. There was nothing else between them. Friends, sure. But bringing a girl in to live wouldn’t change that.

So why hadn’t he told him?

Fall

“Everybody says this is the coldest October ever, I never seen a colder one. And the rain too, never hard enough to fill the reservoir or anything, but just enough to make you wet so you feel colder. Ain’t that right?”

Shirl nodded, hardly listening to the words, but aware by the rising intonation of the woman’s voice that a question had been asked. The line moved forward and she shuffled a few steps behind the woman who had been speaking—a shapeless bundle of heavy clothing covered with a torn plastic raincoat, with a cord tied about her middle so that she resembled a lumpy sack. Not that I look much better, Shirl thought, tugging the fold of blanket farther over her head to keep out the persistent drizzle. It wouldn’t be much longer now, there were only a few dozen people ahead, but it had taken a lot more time than she thought it would; it was almost dark. A light came on over the tank car, glinting off its black sides and lighting up the slowly falling curtain of rain. The line moved again and the woman ahead of Shirl waddled forward, pulling the child after her, a bundle as wrapped and shapeless as its mother, its face hidden by a knotted scarf, that produced an almost constant whimpering.

“Stop that,” the woman said. She turned to Shirl, her puffy face a red lumpiness around the dark opening of her almost toothless mouth. “He’s crying because he’s been to see the doc, thinks he’s sick but it’s only the kwash.” She held up the child’s swollen, ballooning hand. “You can tell when they swell up and get the black spots on the knees. Had to sit two weeks in the Bellevue clinic to see a doc who told me what I knew already. But that’s the only way you get him to sign the slip. Got a peanut-butter ration that way. My old man loves the stuff. You live on my block, don’t you? I think I seen you there?”

“Twenty-sixth Street,” Shirl said, taking the cap off the jerry can and putting it into her coat pocket. She felt chilled through and was sure she was catching a cold.

“That’s right, I knew it was you. Stick around and wait for me, we’ll walk back together. It’s getting late and plenty of punks would like to grab the water, they can always sell it. Mrs. Ramirez in my building, she’s a spic but she’s all right, you know, her family been in the building since the World War Two, she got a black eye so swole up she can’t see through it and two teeth knocked out. Some punk got her with a club and took her water away.”

“Yes, I’ll wait for you, that’s a good idea,” Shirl said, suddenly feeling very alone.

“Cards,” the patrolman said and she handed him the three Welfare cards, hers, Andy’s and Sol’s. He held them to the light, then handed them back to her. “Six quarts,” he called out to the valve man.

“That’s not right,” Shirl said.

“Reduced ration today, lady, keep moving, there’s a lot of people waiting.”

She held out the jerry can and the valve man slipped the end of a large funnel into it and ran in the water. “Next,” he called out.

The jerry can gurgled when she walked and was tragically light. She went and stood near the policeman until the woman came up, pulling the child with one hand and in the other carrying a five-gallon kerosene can that seemed almost full. She must have a big family.

“Let’s go,” the woman said and the child trailed, mewling faintly, at the end of her arm.

As they left the Twelfth Avenue railroad siding it grew darker, the rain soaking up all the failing light. The buildings here were mostly old warehouses and factories with blank solid walls concealing the tenants hidden away inside, the sidewalks wet and empty. The nearest streetlight was a block away. “My husband will give me hell coming home this late,” the woman said as they turned the corner. Two figures blocked the sidewalk in front of them.

“Let’s have the water,” the nearest one said, and the distant light reflected from the knife he held before him.

“No, don’t! Please don’t!” the woman begged and swung her can of water out behind her, away from them. Shirl huddled against the wall and saw, when they walked forward, that they were just young boys, teenagers. But they still had a knife.

“The water!” the first one said, jabbing his knife at the woman.

“Take it,” she screeched, swinging the can like a weight on the end of her arm. Before the boy could dodge it caught him full in the side of the head, knocking him howling to the ground, the knife flying from his fingers. “You want some too?” she shouted, advancing on the second boy. He was unarmed.

“No, I don’t want no trouble,” he begged, pulling at the first one’s arm, then retreating when she approached. When she bent to pick up the fallen knife, he managed to drag the other boy to his feet and half carry him around the corner. It had only taken a few seconds and all the time Shirl had stood with her back to the wall, trembling with fear.

“They got some surprise,” the woman crowed, holding the worn carving knife up to admire it. “I can use this better than they can. Just punks, kids.” She was excited and happy. During the entire time she had never released her grip on the child’s hand; it was sobbing louder.

There was no more trouble and the woman went with Shirl as far as her door. “Thank you very much,” Shirl said. “I don’t know what I would have done…”

“That’s no trouble,” the woman beamed. “You saw what I did to him—and who got the knife now!” She stamped away, hauling the heavy can in one hand, the child in the other. Shirl went in.

“Where have you been?” Andy asked when she pushed open the door. “I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you.” It was warm in the room, with a faint odor of fishy smoke, and he and Sol were sitting at the table with drinks in their hands.

“It was the water, the line must have been a block long. They only gave me six quarts, the ration has been cut again.” She saw his black look and decided not to tell him about the trouble on the way back. He would be twice as angry then and she didn’t want this meal to be spoiled.

“That’s really wonderful,” Andy said sarcastically. “The ration was already too small—so now they lower it even more. Better get out of those wet things, Shirl, and Sol will pour you a Gibson. His homemade vermouth has ripened and I bought some vodka.”

“Drink up,” Sol said, handing her the chilled glass. “I made some soup with that Ener-G junk, it’s the only way it’s edible, and it should be just about ready. We’ll have that for the first course, before—” He finished the sentence by jerking his head in the direction of the refrigerator.

“What’s up?” Andy asked. “A secret?”

“No secret,” Shirl said, opening the refrigerator, “just a surprise. I got these today in the market, one for each of us.” She took out a plate with three small soylent burgers on it. “They’re the new ones, they had them on TV, with the smoky-barbecue flavor.”

“They must have cost a fortune,” Andy said. “We won’t eat for the rest of the month.”

“They’re not as expensive as all that. Anyway, it was my own money, not the budget money, I used.”

“It doesn’t make any difference, money is money. We could probably live for a week on what these things cost.”

“Soup’s on,” Sol said, sliding the plates onto the table. Shirl had a lump in her throat so she couldn’t say anything; she sat and looked at her plate and tried not to cry.

“I’m sorry,” Andy said. “But you know how prices are going up—we have to look ahead. City income tax is higher, eighty percent now, because of the raised welfare payment, so it’s going to be rough going this winter. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it…”

“If you do, so why don’t you shut up right there and eat your soup?” Sol said.

“Keep out of this, Sol,” Andy said.

“I’ll keep out of it when you keep the fight out of my room. Now come on, a nice meal like this, it shouldn’t be spoiled.”

Andy started to answer him, then changed his mind. He reached over and took Shirl’s hand. “It is going to be a good dinner,” he said. “Let’s all enjoy it.”

“Not that good,” Sol said, puckering his mouth over a spoonful of soup. “Wait until you try this stuff. But the burgers will take the taste out of our mouths.”

There was silence after that while they spooned up the soup, until Sol started on one of his army stories about New Orleans and it was so impossible they had to laugh, and after that things were better. Sol shared out the rest of the Gibsons while Shirl served the burgers.

“If I was drunk enough this would almost taste like meat,” Sol announced, chewing happily.

“They are good,” Shirl said. Andy nodded agreement. She finished the burger quickly and soaked up the juice with a scrap of weedcracker, then sipped at her drink. The trouble on the way home with the water already seemed far distant. What was it the woman had said was wrong with the child?

“Do you know what ‘kwash’ is?” she asked.

Andy shrugged. “Some kind of disease, that’s all I know. Why do you ask?”

“There was a woman next to me in line for the water, I was talking to her. She had a little boy with her who was sick with this kwash. I don’t think she should have had him out in the rain, sick like that. And I was wondering if it was catching.”

“That you can forget about,” Sol said. “Kwash is short for kwashiorkor. If, in the interest of good health, you watched the medical programs like I do, or opened a book, you would know all about it. You can’t catch it because it’s a deficiency disease like beriberi.”

“I never heard of that either,” Shirl said.

“There’s not so much of that, but there’s plenty of kwash. It comes from not eating enough protein. They used to have it only in Africa but now they got it right across the whole U.S. Isn’t that great? There’s no meat around, lentils and soybeans cost too much, so the mamas stuff the kids with weedcrackers and candy whatever is cheap…”

The light bulb flickered, then went out. Sol felt his way across the room and found a switch in the maze of wiring on top of the refrigerator. A dim bulb lit up, connected to his batteries. “Needs a charge,” he said, “but it can wait until morning. You shouldn’t exercise after eating, bad for the circulation and digestion.”

“I’m sure glad you’re here, Doctor,” Andy said. “I need some medical advice. I’ve got this trouble. You see—everything I eat goes to my stomach…”

“Very funny, Mr. Wiseguy. Shirl, I don’t see how you put up with this joker.”

They all felt better after the meal and they talked for a while, until Sol announced he was turning off the light to save the juice in the batteries. The small bricks of sea coal had burned to ash and the room was growing cold. They said good night and Andy went in first to get his flashlight; their room was even colder than the other.

“I’m going to bed,” Shirl said. “I’m not really tired, but it’s the only way to keep warm.”

Andy flicked the overhead light switch uselessly. “The current is still off and there are some things I have to do. What is it—a week now since we had any electricity in the evening?”

“Let me get into bed and I’ll work the flash for you—will that be all right?”

“It’ll have to do.”

He opened his notepad on top of the dresser, lay one of the reusable forms next to it, then began copying information into the report. With his left hand he kept a slow and regular squeezing on the flashlight that produced steady illumination. The city was quiet tonight with the people driven from the streets by the cold and the rain; the whir of the tiny generator and the occasional squeak of the stylo on plastic sounded unnaturally loud. There was enough light from the flash for Shirl to get undressed by. She shivered when she took off her outer clothes and quickly pulled on heavy winter pajamas, a much-darned pair of socks she used for sleeping in, then put her heavy sweater on top. The sheets were cold and damp, they hadn’t been changed since the water shortage, though she did try to air them out as often as she could. Her cheeks were damp, as damp as the sheets were when she put her fingertips up to touch them, and she realized that she was crying. She tried not to sniffle and bother Andy. He was doing his best, wasn’t he? Everything that it was possible to do. Yes, it had been a lot different before she came here, an easy life, good food and a warm room, and her own bodyguard, Tab, when she went out. And all she had to do was sleep with him a couple of times a week. She had hated it, even the touch of his hands, but at least it had been quick. Having Andy in bed was different and good and she wished that he were there right now. She shivered again and wished she could stop crying.

Winter

New York City trembled on the brink of disaster. Every locked warehouse was a nucleus of dissent, surrounded by crowds who were hungry and afraid and searching for someone to blame. Their anger incited them to riot, and the food riots turned to water riots and then to looting wherever this was possible. The police fought back, only the thinnest of barriers between angry protest and bloody chaos.

At first nightsticks and weighted clubs stopped the trouble, and when this failed gas dispersed the crowd. 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 forbidden 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 firefighting 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 on the morning of December twenty-first, 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 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, clutching 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 out 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 had been broken up 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 1800 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 brownstone 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 wreckage 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 plenty 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 ye—”

“You mean she went 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 a friend 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 with his palms. Had it only been last night? No, the night before last. It seemed one hundred years since they had had that stupid argument. But they were bickering so much these days. One more fight shouldn’t make any difference. 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 one 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, still worrying about Shirl.

“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 blue-noses find out about that—and the Pope will really plotz!”

“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 it 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 in 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 to have a cup of coffee 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 news about the riots on TV and no one wanted to go out, so the party just went on and on.” She paused. “That’s all.”

“All?” An angry question, a dark suspicion.

“That’s all,” she said, and her voice was now as cold as his.

She turned her back to him and began to pull off her dress, and their words lay like a cold barrier between them. Andy dropped onto the bed and turned his back on her as well so that they were like strangers, even in the tiny room.

Spring

The funeral drew them together as nothing else had during the cold depths of the winter. It was a raw day, gusting wind and rain, but there was still a feeling that winter was on the way out. But it had been too long a winter for Sol and his cough had turned into a cold, the cold into pneumonia, and what can an old man do in a cold room without drugs in a winter that does not seem to end? Die, that was all. So he had died. They had forgotten their differences during his illness and Shirl had nursed him as best she could, but careful nursing does not cure pneumonia. The funeral had been as brief and cold as the day and in the early darkness they went back to the room. They had not been back half an hour before there was a quick rapping on the door. Shirl gasped.

“The callboy. They can’t. You don’t have to work today.”

“Don’t worry. Even Grassy wouldn’t go back on his word about a thing like this. And besides, that’s not the callboy’s knock.”

“Maybe a friend of Sol’s who couldn’t get to the funeral.”

She went to unlock the door and had to blink into the darkness of the hall for a moment before she recognized the man standing there.

“Tab! It is you, isn’t it? Come in, don’t stand there. Andy, I told you about Tab my bodyguard…”

“Afternoon, Miss Shirl,” Tab said stolidly, staying in the hall. “I’m sorry, but this is no social call. I’m on the job now.”

“What is it?” Andy asked, walking over next to Shirl.

“You have to realize I take the work that is offered to me,” Tab said. He was unsmiling and gloomy. “I’ve been in the bodyguard pool since September, just the odd jobs, no regular assignments, we take whatever work we can get. A man turns down a job, he goes right back to the end of the list. I have a family to feed…”

“What are you trying to say?” Andy asked. He was aware that someone was standing in the darkness behind Tab and could tell by the shuffle of feet that there were others out of sight down the hall.

“Don’t take no guff,” the man in back of Tab said in an unpleasant nasal voice. He stayed behind the bodyguard where he could not be seen. “I got the law on my side. I paid you. Show him the order!”

“I think I understand now,” Andy said. “Get away from the door, Shirl. Come inside so we can talk to you.”

Tab started forward and the man in the hall tried to follow him. “You don’t go in there without me—” he shrilled. His voice was cut off as Andy slammed the door in his face.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Tab said. He was wearing his spike-studded iron knuckles, his fist clenched tight around them.

“Relax,” Andy said. “I just wanted to talk to you alone first, find out was going on. He has a squat-order, doesn’t he?”

Tab nodded, looking unhappily down at the floor.

“What on earth are you two talking about?” Shirl asked, worriedly glancing back and forth at their set expressions.

Andy didn’t answer and Tab turned to her. “A squat-order is issued by the court to anyone who can prove they are really in need of a place to live. They only give so many out, and usually just to people with big families that have had to get out of some other place. With a squat-order you can look around and find a vacant apartment or room or anything like that, and the order is sort of a search warrant. There can be trouble, people don’t want to have strangers walking in on them, that kind of thing, so anyone with a squat-order takes along a bodyguard. That’s where I come in, the party out there in the hall, name of Belicher, hired me.”

“But what are you doing here?” Shirl asked, still not understanding.

“Because Belicher is a ghoul, that’s why,” Andy said bitterly. “He hangs around the morgue looking for bodies.”

“That’s one way of saying it,” Tab answered, holding on to his temper. “He’s also a guy with a wife and kids and no place to live, that’s another way of looking at it.”

There was a sudden hammering on the door and Belicher’s complaining voice could be heard outside. Shirl finally realized the significance of Tab’s presence, and she gasped. “You’re here because you’re helping them,” she said. “They found out that Sol is dead and they want this room.”

Tab could only nod mutely.

“There’s still a way out,” Andy said. “If we had one of the men here from my precinct living in here, then those people couldn’t get in.”

The knocking was louder and Tab took a half-step backwards toward the door. “If there was somebody here now, that would be okay, but Belicher could probably take the thing to squat court and get occupancy anyway because he has a family. I’ll do whatever I can to help you—but Belicher, he’s still my employer.”

“Don’t open that door,” Andy said sharply. “Not until we have this straightened out.”

“I have to—what else can I do?” He straightened up and closed his fist with hard knuckles on it. “Don’t try to stop me, Andy. You’re a policeman, you know the law about this.”

“Tab, must you?” Shirl asked in a low voice.

He turned to her, eyes filled with unhappiness. “We were good friends once, Shirl, and that’s the way I’m going to remember it. But you’re not going to think much of me after this because I have to do my job. I have to let them in.”

“Go ahead, open the damn door,” Andy said bitterly, turning his back and walking over to the window.

The Belichers swarmed in. Mr. Belicher was thin, with a strangely shaped head, almost no chin and just enough intelligence to sign his name to a Welfare application. Mrs. Belicher was the support of the family; from the flabby fat of her body came the children, all seven of them, to swell the Relief allotment on which they survived. Number 8 was pushing an extra bulge out of the dough of her flesh; it was really number 11 since three of the younger Belichers had perished through indifference or accident. The largest girl, she must have been all of twelve, was carrying the sore-covered infant which stank abominably and cried continuously. The other children shouted at each other now, released from the silence and tension of the dark hall.

“Oh looka the nice fridge,” Mrs. Belicher said, waddling over and opening the door.

“Don’t touch that,” Andy said, and Belicher pulled him by the arm.

“I like this room—it’s not big you know, but nice. What’s in here?” He started toward the door in the partition.

“That’s my room,” Andy said, slamming it shut in his face. “Just keep out of there.”

“No need to act like that,” Belicher said, sidling away quickly like a dog that has been kicked too often. “I got my rights. The law says I can look wherever I want with a squat-order.” He moved farther away as Andy took a step toward him. “Not that I’m doubting your word, mister, I believe you. This room here is fine, got a good table, chairs, bed…”

“Those things belong to me. This is an empty room, and a small one at that. It’s not big enough for you and all your family.”

“It’s big enough. We lived in smaller—”

“Andy—stop them! Look—” Shirl’s unhappy cry spun Andy around and he saw that two of the boys had found the packets of herbs that Sol had grown so carefully in his window box, and were tearing them open, thinking that it was food of some kind.

“Put those things down,” he shouted, but before he could reach them they had tasted the herbs, then spat them out.

“Burn my mouth!” the bigger boy screamed and sprayed the contents of the packet on the floor. The other boy bounced up and down with excitement and began to do the same thing with the rest of the herbs. They twisted away from Andy and before he could stop them the packets were empty.

As soon as Andy turned away, the younger boy, still excited, climbed on the table—his mud-stained foot wrappings leaving filthy smears—and turned up the TV. Blaring music crashed over the screams of the children and the ineffectual calls of their mother. Tab pulled Belicher away as he opened the wardrobe to see what was inside.

“Get these kids out of here,” Andy said, white-faced with rage.

“I got a squat-order, I got rights,” Belicher shouted, backing away and waving an imprinted square of plastic.

“I don’t care what rights you have,” Andy told him, opening the hall door. “We’ll talk about that when these brats are outside.”

Tab settled it by grabbing the nearest child by the scruff of the neck and pushing it out through the door. “Mr. Rusch is right,” he said. “The kids can wait outside while we settle this.”

Mrs. Belicher sat down heavily on the bed and closed her eyes, as though all this had nothing to do with her. Mr. Belicher retreated against the wall saying something that no one heard or bothered to listen to. There were some shrill cries and angry sobbing from the hall and the last child was expelled.

Andy looked around and realized that Shirl had gone into their room; he heard the key turn in the lock. “I suppose this is it?” he said, looking steadily at Tab.

The bodyguard shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, Andy, honest to God I am. What else can I do? It’s the law, and if they want to stay here you can’t get them out.”

“It’s the law, it’s the law,” Belicher echoed tonelessly.

There was nothing Andy could do with his clenched fists and he had to force himself to open them. “Help me carry these things into the other room, will you, Tab?”

“Sure,” Tab said, and took the other end of the table. “Try and explain to Shirl about my part in this, will you? I don’t think she understands that it’s just a job I have to do.”

Their footsteps crackled on the dried herbs and seeds that littered the floor and Andy did not answer him.

Table of Contents

Start