Wildcards

THREE DEAD, SCORES INJURED IN JOKER RIOT

The New York Times, July 17, 1976

It was not pretty, it was not easy. The planning commission of the NYPD had made copious notes that supposedly covered most of the eventualities if the jokers did decide to march. Those who were in charge of the operation quickly found that such advance planning was useless.

The jokers spilled out of Roosevelt Park and onto the wide pavement of Grand Street. That in itself was not a problemthe police had blocked traffic on all through-streets near the park as soon as the reports of the gathering had come in. The barricades were across the street not fifty yards from the entrance. It was hoped that the march organizers would simply fail to get the protest together or, coming upon the ranks of uniformed cops in riot gear, they would turn back into the park where officers on horseback could disperse them. The police held their clubs in ready hands, but most expected not to use them-these were jokers, after all, not aces. These were the crippled, the infirm, the ones who'd been twisted and deformed: the useless dregs of the virus.

They came down the street toward the barricades, and a few of the men in the front ranks of the police openly shook their heads. A dwarf led them-that would be Tom Miller, the JJS activist. The others would have been laughable if they were not so piteous. The garbage heap of Jokertown had opened up and emptied itself into the streets. These were not the better-known denizens of Jokertown: Tachyon, Chrysalis, or others like them. These were the sad ones who moved in darkness, who hid their faces and never emerged from the dirty streets of that district. They'd come out at the urging of Miller, with the hope that they could, in their very hideousness, cause the Democratic Convention to support their cause.

It was a parade that would have been the joy of a carnival freak show.

Late:; the officers indicated that none of them had actually wanted the confrontation to turn violent. They were prepared to use the least amount of force possible while still keeping the marchers off the downtown Manhattan streets. When the front ranks of the jokers reached the barricades, they were to uickly arrest Miller and then turn the others back. No one ought that would be difficult.

In retrospect, they wondered how they could have been so damned stupid.

As the marchers approached the barrier of wooden sawhorses behind which the police waited, they slowed. For long seconds, nothing happened at all, the jokers coming to a ragged, silent halt in the middle of the street. The heat reflecting off the pavement sheened the faces with sweat; the uniforms of the police were damp. Miller glowered in indecision, then motioned forward those behind him. Miller pushed aside the first sawhorse himself; the rest followed.

The riot squad formed a phalanx, linking their plastic shields, braced. The marchers hit the shields; the officers shoved back, and the line of marchers began to bow, buckling in on itself. Those behind pushed, crushing the front ranks of jokers against the police. Even then the situation might have been manageable-a tear-gas shell might have been able to confuse the jokers enough to send them running back to the relative safety of the park. The captain in charge nodded; one of the cops knelt to fire the canister.

Someone screamed in the crush. Then, like tenpins scattering, the first row of the riot squad went down as if some miniature tornado had blown them away. "Jesus!" one of the police screamed. "Who the fuck…" The police clubs were out now; as the jokers hit the lines, they began to use them. A low roar dinned between the high buildings lining Grand Street, the sound of chaos let loose. The cops swung the clubs in earnest as frightened jokers began to fight back, striking out with fists or whatever was at hand. The joker with the wild TK power was throwing it everywhere with no control whatsoever: jokers and police and bystanders all were flung at random to roll in the streets or crash up against buildings. Tear-gas pellets dropped and exploded like a growing fog, adding to the confusion. Gargantua, a monstrous joker with a comically small head set on his massive body, moaned as the stinging gas blinded him. Hauling a wooden cart with several of the less ambulatory jokers set in it, the childlike giant went berserk, the cart careening after him with his riders clinging to the sides desperately. Gargantua had no idea which way to run; he ran because he could think of nothing else to do. When he encountered the re-formed police line, he pummeled wildly at the clubs that struck him. A blow from that clumsy, huge fist was responsible for one of the deaths.

For an hour the formless battle swirled within a few blocks of the park entrance. The injured lay in the streets, and the sound of sirens wailed, echoing. It was not until midafternoon that any semblance of normalcy could be restored. The march had been broken, but at a great cost to all involved. That long and hot night, the police patrolling Jokertown found their cruisers pelted with rocks and garbage, and the ghostly shades of jokers moved in the back streets and alleys with them: glimpses of rage-distorted faces and raised fists; futile, frustrated curses. In the humid darkness, the residents of Jokertown leaned down from fire escapes and open windows in the tenements to throw empty bottles, flowerpots, trash: they thudded against the roofs of the police vehicles or starred the windshields. The cops stayed judiciously inside their cruisers, the windows up and the doors locked. Fires were set in a few of the deserted buildings, and the fire-fighting crews that came to the calls were assaulted from the shadows of nearby houses.

Morning came in a pall of smoke, a veil of heat.

In 1962, Puppetman had come to New York City and there found his nirvana in the streets of Jokertown. There was all the hatred and anger and sorrow that he could ever wish to see, there were minds twisted and sickened by the virus, there were emotions already ripened and waiting to be shaped by his intrusions. The narrow streets, the shadowed alleys, the decaying buildings swarming with the deformed, the innumerable bars and clubs catering to all manner of warped, vile tastes: Jokertown was thick with potential for him, and he began to feast, slowly at first, and then more often. Jokertown was his. Puppetman perceived of himself as the sinister, hidden lord of the district. Puppetman could not force any of his puppets to do anything that went against their will; his power was not that strong. No, he needed a seed already planted in the mind: a tendency toward violence, a hatred, a lust-then he could place his mental hand on that emotion and nurture it, until the passion shattered all controls and surged out. They were bright and red-hued, those feelings. Puppetman could see them; even as he fed on them; even as he took them into his own head and felt the slow building of a heat that was sexual in intensity; as the pounding, shimmering flare of orgasm came while the puppet raped or killed or maimed. Pain was pleasure. Power was pleasure.

Jokertown was where pleasure could always be found.