Wildcards

SENATOR WARNS OF CONSEQUENCES AS MAYOR VOWS ACTION

The New York Times, July 16, 1976

New York Daily News, July 16, 1976

Gimli exhorted the milling jokers from the tailgate of a rusty Chevy pickup truck, waving his short arms frantically, his face flushed with the effort of screaming, sweat dripping from his beard. They were gathered in Roosevelt Park near Grand, the sun baking New York from a cloudless sky, the early morning temperature already in the high eighties and heading for a possible three figures. The shade of the few trees did nothing to ease the sweltering-Sondra could barely manage to breathe. She felt her age with every step as she approached the pickup and Gimii, dark circles of perspiration under the arms of her calico sundress.

"Gimii?" she said, and her voice was a cracked and broken thing.

"NO, ASSHOLE! MOVE IT OVER THERE BY MARIGOLD! Hello, Sondra. You ready to walk?-I could use you to keep the back of the group organized. I'll give you Gargantua's cart and the cripples-that'll give you a place to ride that's away from the crowds and you can keep the ones in front moving. I need someone to make sure Gargantua doesn't do anything too fucking dumb. You got the route? We'll go down Grand to Broadway, then across to the Tomb at Fulton-"

"Gimli," Sondra said insistently.

"What, goddammit?" Miller put his hand on his hip. He wore only a pair of paisley shorts, exposing the massive barrel chest and the stubby, powerful legs and arms, all liberally covered with reddish-brown curly hair. His bass voice was a growl. "They say the police are gathering around the park gates and putting up barricades." Sondra glared at Miller accusingly. "I told you that we were going to have trouble getting out of here."

"Yeah. Piss. Fuck 'em, we'll go anyway."

"They won't let us. Remember what Hartmann said at the Aces High? Remember what I told you he mentioned last night?" The old woman folded her bony arms over the tattered front of the sundress. "You'll destroy the JJS if you get into a fight here…"

"What's the matter, Sondra? You suck the guy's cock and take in all his political crap as well?" Miller laughed and hopped down from the pickup to the parched grass. Around them, two hundred to three hundred jokers milled about near the Grand Street entrance to the park. Miller frowned into Sondra's glare and dug bare toes into the dirt. "All right," he said. "I'll go fucking look at this, since it bothers you so much."

At the wrought-iron gate, they could see the police putting up wooden barricades across their intended path. Several of the jokers came up to Sondra and Miller as they approached. "You gonna go ahead, Gimli?" one of them asked. The joker wore no clothes-his body was hard, chitinous, and he moved with a lurching, rolling gait, his limbs stiff.

"I'll tell you in a minute, huh, Peanut?" Gimli answered. He squinted into the distance, their bodies throwing long shadows down the street. "Clubs, riot gear, tear gas, water cannon. The whole fucking works."

"Exactly what we wanted, Gimli," Peanut answered. "We'll lose people. They'll get hurt, maybe killed. Some of them can't take clubs, you know. Some of them might react to the tear gas," Sondra commented.

"Some of them might trip over their own goddamn feet, too." Gimli's voice boomed. Down the street, several of the cops looked toward them, pointing. "Since when did you decide that the revolution was too dangerous, Sondra?"

"When did you decide that we had to hurt our own people to get what you want?"

Gimli stared back at her, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun. "It ain't what I want," he said slowly. "It's what fair. It's what's just. Even you said that."

Sondra set her mouth, wrinkles folding around her chin. She brushed back a wisp of gray hair. "I never wanted us to do it this way."

"But we are." Gimli took a deep breath and then bellowed toward the waiting jokers. "ALL RIGHT YOU KNOW THE ORDER-JUST KEEP GOING NO