The New Order Page 9

  Me: “A doss is something easy?”

  Welsh: “Yes. I should know.”

  Me: “So I’m here because you had a rockin’ time at Cambridge?”

  Welsh: “Well, I wouldn’t exactly put it that way. The fact is that Trinity has always had affiliations with the intelligence services. Some of the most infamous traitors of the Cold War were educated here.”

  Me: “That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

  Welsh: “No, it’s not. And as a result, Trinity shows a certain willingness to make up for the mistakes of her alumni.”

  Me: “So you’re offering me—what—a Plague Survivor Scholarship?”

  Welsh: “More or less, yes.”

  So it looks like the gub’mint has pulled some strings to get me into college. At first, I feel like that’s kind of lame, but then I figure it’s not much worse than some preppy dude getting into Yale because his dad donated a library or whatever. I mean, to make it this far I had to eat rats and perform field operations and fight cannibals, for starters, and I figure life experience counts for something. School of Hard Knocks, you know. I mean, I did, like, AP Hard Knocks.

  This is all very fast, of course—one day I’m struggling for life in a post-apocalyptic hellhole, next I’m public enemy number one, next I’m Joe College. But I’m getting used to this kind of switcheroo; my brain is like, bring it on, already.

  And, yeah, I’m thinking of taking up the offer because (a) what the hell else am I going to do, and (b) it beats the brig, and (c) it’s a reasonable holding pattern until I can figure out how to help my friends.

  Me: “What’s the catch?”

  Welsh: “The catch is that we would like to ask some questions of our own occasionally, regarding the situation in New York.”

  Me: “And the situation onboard the USS Ronald Reagan?”

  Welsh seems a little thrown by this, or by my realizing that it might matter to him, then he smiles approvingly.

  Welsh: “Maybe even that. Also I’m afraid the offer is contingent upon your remaining within the Liberties.”

  He says it like that—like Capital-Letter-L Liberties.

  Me: “Within the what?”

  Welsh: “Ah. Yes. Sorry. Due to the rather extraordinary events of the past few years, there are now different legal categories of urban space. ‘The Liberties’ in this case means, roughly, the city limits.”

  Me: “So no skipping town.”

  Welsh: “Not without prior approval, no.”

  Me: “Well… I suppose I had better have a look at the Liberties, then.”

  Welsh: “Why not?”

  And he leads us through a teensy doorway set in the big castle gates of the college as Titch pokes away valiantly at his cell phone, informing whoever-it-is that the package is on the move.

  Then I realize that if I’m going to do a good job of playing along, I should ask the question that’d be in the forefront of my mind if I were playing it straight. In fact, it is in the forefront of my mind.

  Me: “Welsh, where are my friends? They didn’t tell me back on the ship. Did they make it?”

  Welsh smiles apologetically.

  Welsh: “To be honest with you, I don’t know. Your government is not being entirely transparent. I’ve put in requests for information. One can only hope for the best.”

  WE’RE PEERING DOWN at 125th Street from the greenroom above the marquee of the Apollo Theater, and it’s time to discover our fate. The crowd keeps getting bigger, until the street is jammed, the way it must have looked when James Brown played.

  It’s like this: The Harlemites vote in a president every season—that’s Solon. So far he’s been reelected every time. In theory, Solon runs things the way he likes. In theory, he doesn’t need to ask anybody’s say-so to do anything, and people have to follow his orders. But he’s not totally off the leash, since he won’t get voted back in if he does stuff nobody likes, and a three-month turnaround is pretty quick. So when there’s an especially gnarly issue in the offing, he can call a vote to take the temperature of his public.

  In theory, this is only about the specific question to be decided. Effectively, this is what you call a vote of confidence, since if he gets defeated, there’s a pretty decent chance that he’s going to lose the next election.

  So it’d be fair to say that Solon is putting his career on the line. And maybe his life as well, since I gather that the power of the office is what keeps him from paying the price for some of the more unpopular decisions he’s made. To keep the peace, a little blood has been shed here and there.

  “I’m what the ancient Greeks used to call a tyrant,” he says with a touch of pride. “But the term didn’t sound as bad back then. There were tyrants all over. A tyrant wasn’t a king—he couldn’t pass the crown down to his kid, and it was easy enough to just kill him and install a new dude. Elect a tyrant, and he knows if he doesn’t bring the rain…” He doesn’t finish the thought. “Shit got real back in ancient times. In Athens, when a general lost a battle, he got exiled for ten years. Had to leave his home country under pain of death. Called it ostracism. And that was them being nice.”

  Imani is nowhere to be seen. She’s out rallying her supporters. Supposedly this is an up-and-down vote, but I gather it’s not so simple. For one thing, the Apollo holds only about a thousand people, maybe one-tenth of the remaining population of Harlem. And only those inside the doors get to vote. So the electorate is a question of who gets there first and who’s prepared to shove or fight their way in before the deadline. And those are usually what you would call the party faithful. Not the way I imagine the democratic process, exactly.

  “Is that the best way to do it?” I ask.

  “Oh, you were thinking more sunshine and light, every voice heard, that kind of thing? Well, that’s not the way it worked out. We started our thing at the Apollo, and when we got bigger, it was hard to move, hard to change the way things get done, even if they haven’t been done that way for long. Early on? I wanted to make sure everybody had a hand in everything, so we would vote every day. But nothing got done. Brothers arguing for hours over what we should vote about first. Fact is, most of the time, we only get a thousand or so people who want to vote. Everybody else could give a fuck so long as there’s enough food and water. That’s the way with politics, till the revolution comes. Maybe that’s today.” He smiles. “I don’t know, maybe now I got a new lease on life, I’m ready to retire. Write my memoirs, see the world, know what I’m saying?”

  Something about this makes me feel, for a heart-tripping moment, that Solon knows what’s out there, knows that I’m lying. And this gathering is actually a surprise show trial, and I’m going to end up dead. Lynched is the word that pops into my head, and then I realize how inappropriate the thought is. In my mind, I see the frozen face of a blond child looking at the camera, at me, in the company of smiling picnicking townspeople, a twisted and abused body hanging from a tree in the background.

  He sees my expression and laughs. “Man, don’t worry so much. You’ll get your chance to be heard.”

  He thinks I’m worried about the vote. And I am.

  “Me?” I thought Solon was going to argue the case for peace.

  “Nah, I can’t do that.” Solon is adamant. “I’m compromised. Took a hit of your wonder drug. You’re the one shaking us down, flipping the script. So you argue your case. Don’t worry, they always root for the underdog. That’s an Apollo tradition. And ain’t no underdog like a white boy.”

  “Actually, I’m half Japanese,” I say.

  “Even better, then.”

  Which is to say, even worse.

  Whatever Solon says about voter apathy, it doesn’t apply tonight. People are still trying to force their way into the auditorium by the time somebody powers up a sound system and a jaunty tune rings out with the lyrics—“Showtime! At the Apollo! It’s Showtime! At the Apollo!” Which I guess is the sign for the session to convene.

  Imani has reappeared, and she’s
glad-handing the crowd. Some people seem to know her well, some are friendly, some neutral, some outright hostile.

  I suppose I was hoping for a blank slate of an audience if I have to plead my case. But in retrospect, that seems pretty naive. I mean, nobody comes to a decision with a completely open mind. And I can’t expect people to forget everything they’ve felt and known and suffered through.

  Soon I’m in the grips of a toxic mixture of stage fright, guilt, and sheer physical terror. I used to tell stories to my tribe, back in the Square. This shouldn’t be any different—that’s all a debate is, right? Two people tell stories, and the best story wins. But I knew my tribe, and they knew me. To the Harlemites, I’m just some white kid (okay, half-white kid) asking them to hold their punches. They’re finally ready to take over. A gun for every girl and boy, and maybe nothing can stop them going to war.

  I’m backstage steeping in flop sweat when Peter points out a curious wooden stump, sliced at an angle and worn shiny on top.

  Peter says, “Rub it.”

  “For what?”

  “For luck, fool,” he says. So I do.

  The murmur and seething of the people subside as we take the stage. The auditorium is done up in crimson velvet and steeply banked, so that the crowd appears ready to fall onto the stage at any moment. The staggered faces rise up like a cliff.

  “What’s the matter?” says Peter. “Never been alone in a room with a thousand black folks before?”

  Alone with a thousand. Weirdly, that’s the feeling. I realize I’ve always managed to blend in, thanks to the all-access pass of my Caucasian heritage, epicanthic fold or not. This is a little taste of what it must be like to be black in a white world.

  Patched and jerry-rigged cables run up and down the walls and hang like vines over the deep chasm of air before me, powering the lights fitfully; they spike and dim to the pulse of the generators I can hear laboring outside.

  There’s Solon and me and Imani up front, like two boxers and a ref; the rest hang back. I’m terrified, just as scared as I was getting into the makeshift ring in Grand Central, where SeeThrough and I fought strangers for money a thousand lives ago.

  Solon waits until the place falls silent. Maybe the crowd senses something big. The air between us is the womb of the future. The mood feels pregnant with hope and violence.

  “You all know me,” says Solon, his voice carrying to the upper reaches and bouncing back. “You know what I’ve done, you know what I’ve promised, you know what I’ve prepared you for.”

  There’s a thunderous response from the audience, hell yeahs and that’s rights and everything else besides. Solon lets it wash across us.

  “But—I’ve got something better than that.” The crowd quiets. “Maybe it’s not time to kill—not yet, anyhow. It’s time to think. To rethink. Because there is something new under the sun. There’s news. There’s hope.”

  The crowd makes a compound sound that adds up to confusion.

  “This is Jefferson,” he says. “Y’all want to hear what he has to say. Because Jefferson has the Cure.”

  Solon lets that sink in. It starts to.

  “That’s right. The Cure for the Sickness. We never thought we’d see it. But it’s here. I’m gonna tell you I tried it myself. Just to make sure it didn’t hurt. ’Cause I’m thoughtful like that.”

  Laughter from the crowd, cresting over astonishment.

  “It works,” says Solon. “Never felt better. And I intend to live a long, long life.”

  At this, all human noise drops away. A wave of silence purling up, ready to crash. And in that moment before it does, I see in the faces facing me a kaleidoscopic array of the same thought playing out in a thousand beings—I’m going to live. The force of a thousand reprieves. Instead of another year of life, fifty, sixty, seventy, a countless array of possibilities.

  And then, the impact of that thought in a thousand shouts threatening to carry us away. It’s impossible at first to tell what people are saying—it’s a buffeting, deafening cascade of joy and triumph and, down in the undercurrents, retroactive grief. Tears and shouts, hugs and high fives and faints. Then, poking through the clamor, questions—How? What? When do we get it?

  Solon knows just when to seize the mood of the crowd on the fly, like a center fielder plucking the ball from the air in full stride.

  “Easy. Easy. Be cool now. That’s what we’ve got to do for just a little bit. Be cool. There’s enough to treat us all.”

  The crowd settles, gentled by the stroking of Solon’s voice. And I realize that, no matter what, they will love him forever for being the one who told them they’d live. There is no way they will turn against him now. If anyone is going to be thrown to the dogs, it’s me, with the qualifications and requirements and conditions I’m about to put on the glorious news he’s brought them.

  He’s not stupid.

  “It’s a lot of other things you need to know,” he says. “And one big thing we need to decide. I want you to listen to Jefferson.”

  He gestures to me, a little showman’s wave. I can’t think of what to do as the crowd absorbs the sight of the pale alien visitor. So, stupidly, I bow.

  A gust of laughter takes the crowd. Solon smiles and motions for quiet. “Jefferson is from the Washington Square tribe. Some of you may remember we sent Theo and Spider and Captain off with Jefferson and his people. Some of you maybe never heard of them. But I guarantee you they’re gonna go down in history. These are the folks brought back the Cure.” He includes Peter, Brainbox, and Chapel in another sweep of the arm. I look back and see their faces—guarded, cautious. When I turn back, I see Imani, tense with anger. She knows that Solon is working the crowd, building me up against whatever assault she has in mind.

  “Jefferson has a proposal. Or maybe you’d call it a… a stipulation.” The word is well within the range of Solon’s vocabulary, but he acts as if it’s a curiosity that he’s examining, turning it about in his mind’s fingers. “He says call off the war. Imani—I know you know her—she’s kept it all running here…” I can’t help but finish the thought—under me.

  Solon nods at Imani. “Well, I think she’s in favor of running up the score, if you know what I mean. We keep the Cure to ourselves and make our move like we planned before.” He puts a touch of emphasis on before; the implication before everything changed rings out.

  “We’re going to put it to a vote. Do we get the Cure and live in peace, or do we take it”—Solon glances toward me, then away again quickly, as if suddenly ashamed—“and go to war. I’m gonna let Imani say what she has to say first. She’s earned the right.”

  I can see, as Imani blinks, surprised, that Solon has used every lever of power he has. He’s set things up to his design—unleashing the glory of the good news, bringing me out into the glow of it, framing the idea of seizing the Cure from us as a kind of dishonor, and, finally, throwing Imani into the fray first. From the look on her face, she was expecting to speak after me—which would make sense, since she’s basically saying no to my plan. Now she has to present both her ideas and mine.

  For a moment, seeing her standing there, round and ungainly, I almost feel sorry for her. But she gathers herself with a twitch of her brow and takes the bit in her teeth.

  “Listen, y’all,” she says, an acid expression on her face. “It’s a lot of things Solon here didn’t say.”

  Maybe Solon didn’t expect Imani to go right at him instead of me, but he barely shows it. A twitch, like an invisible thread, plucks at his mouth for a nanosecond. I doubt anybody farther away than me sees it.

  “Fact is, I was there when this boy came in. Him and that boy.” She points at Brainbox. Brainbox looks like he wants to disappear. “Now, first of all, don’t go thinking he’s the one got the Cure.” She points at me. “You didn’t find nothing. That’s right, isn’t it? It’s your boy figured it out.”

  I let a few seconds pass by before I say, “Yes.” Which I can tell a moment later is a mistake. It makes
me look suspect. Like I’m denying Brainbox his due.

  “Second of all—this was the deal. I know because I was there. We let these trespassing fools live—and not only that, we sent Theo, and Spider, and Captain, on our boat, to go find the Cure. That’s right, isn’t it?” This time I acknowledge it right away.

  “Then you remember what we agreed, don’t you? If you find the Cure, it’s for Harlem. Not for the Dominicans, not for the Puerto Ricans”—she pronounces it contemptuously—portarickens—“not for the motherfuckin’ Uptowners.” At this the crowd cheers and uh-huhs and fuck thems with a vigor that shakes the air and sends a thrill of fear down my back.

  “You telling me you want to give life to the Uptowners? Hunted down every brother and sister below 110th Street? You want to let them live?”

  Nos and hell nos. A thunder of voices like a giant, slow machine starting up.

  “What should we give them?”

  The answer comes back: “Death!”

  “What?” Imani puts her palm behind her ear and sticks her head out, leaning into the sound.

  “Death!”

  “What?”

  “DEATH!” The crowd is up and shouting, pounding the seats.

  Now, at this point she should probably drop the mic, as it were. There’s no way in for me. But then she makes a mistake. Having provoked the crowd, she tries to reason out her point. And at this moment, reason is weakness.

  “Look, man,” she says. “I ain’t saying this boy doesn’t deserve our thanks. He and his gonna get the Cure, too. But we paid down too much. Theo. Captain. Spider. They died for us.

  “We gotta make a lot of the Cure. Don’t tell me anybody else has the ability to make enough. Don’t tell me anybody else got the organization. The equipment.”

  True enough, I’m guessing, but her venture into practicalities takes the edge off the crowd’s anger. People are sitting down. They’re listening with their brains instead of their teeth.