Flood

51

THE STREETS WERE still calm and quiet when I hit the sidewalk, heading down Fifth toward Twenty-third Street, looking for a newstand. There’s a little park right across from the Appellate Division Courthouse between Fifth and Madison. Usually it’s packed with three-card monte operators and soft-dope dealers, but it was nearly deserted at that hour. I spotted an old man wearing four or five layers of clothing, catching a piece of sleep, guarding his plastic shopping bag full of God knows what. He opened his eyes as I approached, too tired and too weak to run, probably thanking whatever he still believed in that I wasn’t a kid looking to douse him with gasoline and set him on fire for the fun of it.

The weather was changing, you could tell. In the country they look for the robins-in the city we look for the old men coming out of the subway tunnels into the daylight. Those abandoned tunnels are nice and warm, but the territory belongs to the rats and it’s hard to sleep. Somehow the bag ladies can operate above the ground even in the winter, but the old men can’t cut it. They have to go for the Men’s Shelter down on the Bowery or the TB wards or the subway tunnels. So when they finally come up for air you know the good weather can’t be too far behind.

I cut through one of the crosspaths in the park, walking slowly. When I stopped to light a smoke I spotted a youngish white man slouching on one of the benches. He was wearing an old army jacket and a light-blue golfer’s hat, engineer boots, dark glasses. Smoking a joint. I knew the type-too heavy for light work and too light for heavy work. He was out there watching-a finger for some kind of operation, not a face-to-face man or a planner. I walked past him, puffing on the butt, hands in my pockets. I could feel his eyes focus behind the sunglasses, but I kept rolling along out of the park.

I found a newsstand on Twenty-third where I bought a copy of the late edition and the coming night’s racing form. This was unfamiliar territory, so I turned and headed back through the park until I found a bench behind the punk in the army jacket, stretched my arms, and took a deep breath to give myself a chance to look around. The park was still quiet and empty. I opened the racing form, took out my pen, and started on the evening’s handicapping. I wanted to have the form well-marked in case some strolling cop got inquisitive.

I was working on the fourth race, the newspaper still untouched next to me, when I felt something going down. I glanced parallel to the ground. Nothing. Everything was static, the park was still. And then I heard the rumble of the armored car as it pulled off Fifth and turned on Twenty-third, heading for the West Side. The punk was still on the bench but sitting straight up now. As soon as the truck was out of sight he got up and walked away fast, checking his watch. Amateur.

I’d seen enough. I wrapped up my papers and headed back to Michelle. I wasn’t that impatient to see if the column was in the paper-either it was or it wasn’t. I couldn’t change anything by reading there in the park.

Michelle opened the door even as my soft tap was echoing in the dead-quiet corridor. When she saw the racing form in my hand her eyes flashed instant disapproval so I quickly held up the copy of the paper to show her I hadn’t forgotten why I’d gone out. I sat down in the chair in front of the Mole’s telephone unit with Michelle perched on the arm as I leafed through. Sure enough, next to the kid’s smiling photograph was his semiweekly column. The thick black headline read UNCLE BIGOT WANTS YOU! Michelle and I went through it together.

Master Sergeant William Jones, a crewcut spit-and-polish veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, sits alone in his ground floor recruiting office in Herald Square, patiently waiting to explain the advantages of the “new” army to enough young men to make his quota for the month. Sgt. Jones is able to offer a truly staggering array of inducements to potential recruits-guaranteed choice of training, overseas or stateside assignment, a deferred enlistment program, an improved G.I. Bill, a college assistance deal where the army contributes towards tuition, and “more money than a captain used to make, including combat pay.” His office is attractive, centrally located, and the atmosphere is friendly.

But business hasn’t been too good for Sgt. Jones and his fellow recruiters around the city. Even with massive unemployment infecting the ghetto, young men are simply not opting for a military career these days. Sgt. Jones says the problem is the army’s insistence on educational standards that are not related to the needs of a fighting force. For the “new” all-volunteer army, only bonafide high-school graduates need apply. Says Jones, “When I went in the service, I hadn’t even finished the ninth grade. So what? The army taught me how to fight, made sure I knew everything I needed to know, taught me to be a man. I finished high school in the service, the same way most of my friends did back then. Today, it’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as simple patriotism anymore. The kids today want everything handed to them on a silver platter.” When asked how today’s all-volunteer army would fare in a combat situation, Jones just shrugged, but all observers agree that the goal of developing a “professional army” has fallen well short of expectations.

Meanwhile, a few blocks downtown, at 224 Fifth Avenue, in a shabby two-room office on the 14th floor, recruiting for a vastly different kind of army is going on. This army makes no promises of “training.” Indeed, it expects to hire only fully trained and experienced men-no women or rookies need apply. And unlike the U.S. Army, this army is pointedly not an equal-opportunity employer. The location where the recruits will serve is not even disclosed at the time of enlistment. Pay is a flat thousand dollars per month, with additional pay for “specialists” and some unexplained “bonuses.” Term of enlistment is “for the duration” and the only promise made is that all recruits will see action against the enemy, described by the recruiters as “terrs,” short for terrorists. Yet the men who run the little office say business is booming.

The office of Falcon Enterprises hasn’t been around too long, and the man in charge, a suave individual who identified himself only as Mr. James, freely admits that they don’t expect to be in business too much longer. James and his associate, a hulking individual who calls himself “Gunther, no mister,” will not discuss the purpose of their recruiting efforts, but they acknowledge that they are hiring “soldiers of fortune” to work outside the U.S. They don’t advertise, saying that true professionals will have no trouble locating them. Both men are understandably discreet about their own backgrounds, but there are occasional references to “African work” and it is clear that their operation is a thinly disguised front for one or more outlaw operations being formed in and around Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) to resist black national rule.

When a reporter asked James if the Rhodesian groups were similar to the KKK that sprang up in the South after the Civil War, James, speaking with a faint British accent, replied, “You Americans are so strange about such things. Do you remember that scene in your Gone With The Wind where a wounded Confederate soldier asks for a lift from a carpetbagger and his darkie friend? Remember the darkie says, ‘You’d think they won the war’? The winners write the history books, and the history of Rhodesia isn’t ready for you writers yet.”

And his associate Gunther, pointing to a vicious-looking knife half-buried in the top of a wooden desk, flatly stated he didn’t expect any picketing from “Communists.” James was willing to discuss the Rhodesian situation at length, claiming that the blacks in power did not represent the true majority and that many “good coloreds” would prefer things as they used to be. But details as to his recruiting operation were not forthcoming. When asked what it would take to be accepted for enlistment, James said it would require a valid passport, military or law-enforcement experience, and “a certain something in a man-we know what to look for.”

Sgt. Jones reports that enlistments are down for the past year, but the mysterious Mr. James seems unworried, even though “only one out of five applicants is good enough to meet our standards.” Makes you wonder.

I looked up from the column at Michelle. It was perfect-if this didn’t bring the Cobra into the daylight, nothing would. The only way it could have been better would have been if the recruiters promised every new man the child of their choice to sodomize, but maybe Wilson would read between the lines and start thinking about the spoils of war. The column was all we could have wanted. I had to believe it-if the Cobra read the paper, he’d be coming around.