The Funhouse was dark and padlocked. CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE said the sign on the door. They'd shut their doors shortly after Xavier Desmond had been hospitalized, Tom knew. He'd read about it in the papers. It had saddened him immensely and made him feel even older than he felt already.
Bare-faced and nervous, shifting from foot to foot, Tom waited for a cab.
Traffic was very light, and the longer he waited, the more uneasy he grew. He gave fifty cents to a wino who stumbled up just to get rid of the man. Three punks in Demon Prince colors gave Tom and his suitcase a long, hard, speculative look. But his clothes were as shabby as the suitcase, and they must have decided that he wasn't worth the sweat.
Finally he got his cab.
He slid into the backseat of the big yellow Checker with a sigh of relief, the shopping bag on the seat beside him, the suitcase across his lap. "I'm going to journal Square," he said. From there he could get another cab to take him back to Bayonne.
"Oh no, oh no," the cabbie said. He was dark-eyed, swarthy. Tom glanced at his hack's license. Pakistani. "No Jersey," the man said. "Oh no, do not go to Jersey."
Tom took a crumpled hundred from the pocket of his jeans. "Here," he said. "Keep the change."
The cabbie looked at the bill and broke into a broad smile. "Very good," he said. "Very good, New Jersey, oh yes, I am most pleasant." He put the cab in gear.
Tom was home free. He cranked down a window and settled back into his seat, enjoying the wind on his face and the pleasant heft of the suitcase on his lap.
A distant wail floated across the rooftops outside; high, thin, urgent.
"Oh, what is that?" the cabbie said, sounding puzzled. "An air raid siren," Tom said. He leaned forward, alarmed. A second siren began to sound, nearer, loud and piercing. Cars were pulling over to the sidewalk. People in the streets stopped and looked up into bright, empty skies. Far off, Tom could hear other sirens joining the first two. The noise built and built. "Fuck," Tom said. He was remembering history. They'd sounded the air raid sirens the day that Jetboy had died, when the wild card had been played on an unsuspecting city. "Turn on the radio," he said.
"Oh, pardon, sir, does not work, oh no."
"Damn it," Tom swore. "Okay. Faster then. Get me to the Holland Tunnel."
The driver gunned it and ran a red light.
They were on Canal Street, four blocks from the Holland Tunnel, when the traffic came to a standstill.
The cab stopped behind a silver-gray Jaguar with its temporary license taped to the rear window. Nothing was moving. The cabbie hit his horn. Other horns sounded far up the street, mingling with the sound of the air raid sirens. Behind them a rust-eaten Chevy van screeched to a halt and began to honk impatiently, over and over. The cabbie stuck his head out the window and screamed something in a language Tom did not know, but his meaning was clear. More traffic was piling up behind the van.
The cabdriver hit his horn again, then turned around long enough to tell Tom that it warn t his fault. Tom had already figured out that much for himself. "Wait here," he said unnecessarily, since the traffic was locked bumper-to-bumper, none of it moving, and there wasn't room for the cabbie to pull out even if he'd wanted to.
Tom left the door open and stood on the center line, looking down Canal Street. Traffic was tied up as far as he could see, and the jam was growing rapidly behind them. Tom walked to the corner for a better look. The intersection was gridlocked, traffic lights cycling from red to green to yellow and back to red without anyone's moving an inch. Music blared from open car windows, a cacophony of stations and songs, all of it counterpointed by the horns and air raid sirens, but none of the radios were getting any news.
The driver of the Chevy van came up behind Tom. "Where the fuck are the cops?" he demanded. He was grossly fat with a jowly, pockmarked face. He looked as if he wanted to hit something, but he had a point. The police were nowhere to be seen. Somewhere up ahead a child began to cry, her voice as high and shrill as the sirens, wordless. It gave Tom a shiver of fear. This wasn't just a traffic jam, he thought. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
He went back to his cab. The driver was slamming his fist into the steering wheel, but he was the only one this side of Broadway who wasn't honking. "Horn broke," he explained.
"I'm getting out here," Tom said. "No refund."
"Fuck you." Tom had been going to let the man keep the hundred anyway, but his tone pissed him off. He pulled the suitcase and shopping bag out of the backseat and gave the cabbie a finger as he headed up Canal on foot.
A well-dressed fiftyish woman sat behind the wheel of the silver Jaguar. "Do you know what's going on?" she asked.
Tom shrugged.
A lot of people were out of their cars now. A man in a Mercedes 450 SL stood with one foot in his car and one on the street, his cellular phone in his hand. "Nine-one-one's still busy," he told the people gathered around him.
"Fuckin' cops," someone complained.
Tom had reached the intersection when he saw the helicopter sweeping down Canal just above rooftop level. Dust whirled and old newspapers shivered in the gutters. The rotors were so loud, even at a distance. I never made so much fucking noise, Tom thought; something about the helicopter reminded him weirdly of the Turtle. He heard the crackle of a loudspeaker, the words lost in the street noise.
A pimpled teenager leaned out of a white Ford pickup with Jersey plates. "The Guard," he shouted. "That's a Guard chopper!" He waved at the helicopter.
The whap-whap-whap of the rotors mingled with the horns and sirens and shouting to drown out the loudspeakers. Horns began to fall silent. "… your homes…"
Someone began shouting obscenities.
The chopper dipped lower, came on. Even Tom saw the military markings now, the National Guard insignia. The loudspeakers boomed. ". .. closed… repeat: Holland Tunnel is closed. Return to your homes peacefully."
Huge gusts of wind kicked up all around him as the helicopter passed directly overhead. Tom dropped to one knee and covered his face against the dust and dirt.
"The tunnel is closed," he heard as the chopper receded. "Do not attempt to leave Manhattan. Holland Tunnel is closed. Return to your homes peacefully:"
When the copter reached the end of stalled traffic, two blocks farther back, it peeled off and rose high in the air, a small black shape in the sky, then circled back for another loop. The people in the streets looked at each other.
"They can't mean me, I'm from Iowa," a fat woman announced, as if it made a difference. Tom knew how she felt.
The cops had finally arrived. Two patrol cars edged down the sidewalk carefully, bypassing the worst of the congestion. A black policeman got out and started snapping orders. One or two people got back into their cars obediently. The rest surrounded the cop, all of them talking at once. Others, lots of them, had abandoned their vehicles. A stream of people headed up Canal Street, toward the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.
Tom went with them, moving along slower than most, struggling with the weight of his bags. He was sweating. A woman passed him at a dead run, looking ragged and near hysteria. The helicopter flew over again, loudspeakers blaring, warning the crowd to turn back.
"Martial law!" a truck driver shouted down from the cab of his semi. A wall of people formed around the truck, trapping Tom in their midst. He was shoved up against the tractor's rear wheel as the crowd pressed closer for news. "It just came over the CB," the trucker said. "The motherfuckers have declared martial law. Not just the Holland Tunnel. They shut down everything, all the bridges, the tunnels, even the Staten Island ferry. No one's getting off the island."