Nearly Midnight

 

 

            Andy had awakened suddenly, as if by the thundering of a passing subway train, jolted awake by he knew not what. All was quiet outside now, no sounds but the vermin gnawing on the other side of the wall. Not long now, he thought as he listened, until they chew through. He laughed to himself as he realized they could scurry freely down the hall instead of wasting their short lives chewing the plaster.

            He reached out impulsively for the night table lamp, but found none. There would have been no power to light it, anyway. Just where was here anyway, he wondered, lighting his lighter. A rather large rat looked back at him for an instant, then ambled on its way. Andy caught his breath, and jumped off the tattered bed, making his way cautiously into the living room. This had been his apartment, he realized, when he'd lived in New York, although the tattered bits of furniture bore little resemblance to anything he had owned.

            Good Lord, what am I doing here, he asked himself, having no recollection of coming, much less any reason for doing so.  Another blackout, another of those interminable segments of his life when he did something totally unreasonable in a state of semi-consciousness. Don't panic. Bearings. Bearings are essential.

            Name: Andrew Justin Graham. Occupation: Actor. Age: 35. Place of residence: Los Angeles, California. Current place of existence: Manhattan.

            Why? Why had he come here at all? Why now? Did he have a death wish? 

            They had warned him. All of his friends had talked of the vague stories they had heard about some health or environmental problem. Something. Nothing had been more than rumor. He'd even decided not to go, even if it meant not seeing Lisa. Now, standing here in the middle of an abandoned tenement, he wondered if he were dreaming or merely losing his mind.

            Pacing, he tried to get some perspective on this. He'd gone to the airport to get his money back for the ticket, blacked out, and later found himself on the plane bound for New York. With no alternative, he sat back and waited for New York and Lisa. But she'd escaped the week before. No messages but the obvious: she wanted to leave New York while she still could, before the sickness caught up with her.

            The sickness. He'd heard about little else since he landed. When he asked about it, people shook their heads and wondered why an outsider had come when so many of the residents were leaving.

            He left the rats to the apartment, and went outside for a breath of air. Air, that precious commodity. If the stark reality of the situation hadn't hit him in the face when he woke up, the outside certainly would have. The wind blew tattered newspapers around his ankles, making him stagger a few paces into the desolate street. He'd never felt such emptiness, amidst the clutter of abandoned cars and loose garbage. How strange to see Manhattan like this at all, let alone on New Year's Eve.

            He looked at his watch. Eleven-thirty. Too late now for any thing, he thought, as he started toward Times Square. He knew there would be no crowds this year. On his walk toward 42nd Street he passed one lonely, half-dead wino, perhaps one of the few remaining inhabitants. No shelter tonight. Not even a bottle left to make the going easier.

            The nightmare had started Christmas Eve, when Andy arrived in this mysterious hell. He'd been forced to stay until the day after Christmas, the earliest flight available. Then the blizzard hit, the two-and-a-half feet of snow no one had heard forecast because the truth had finally gotten out about what happened, and people only wanted to know what the government would do about New York.  For five days nothing moved. Every time the snow was removed, more would fall to clutter the icy streets and runways. On the 30th, planes started moving, and even die-hard native New Yorkers didn't want to wait to see if the government would change its mind.

            Last night, Andy had been in the airport, waiting for his flight. He knew no more of anything until he woke up in that god-forsaken apartment. Now, too late, he reached 42nd street, and walked toward Times Square. Two young men clung together in a tender embrace, probably their last.

            The island had been mined, scheduled to be wiped off the map at midnight. The government wouldn't risk contaminating the whole country. People who had been evacuated had been carted off to neo-prison camps for quarantine until a determination had been made that they weren't infected. Even now, agents of the government were searching for those, like Lisa, who had escaped before the danger was realized outside the city. These people couldn't be allowed to spread the contamination. Those left behind were probably dying of the sickness, anyway. Really, even they would be better off.

            The last plane out of JFK airport had gone at eleven, leaving Andy to stand alone on Times Square on New Year's Eve. As he reached the square, he noticed that someone had left the marquee running, perhaps the only electricity left on in the whole city.  Eleven fifty-nine. Happy New Year, the marquee flashed to no one but Andy. Even the lovers from 42nd Street weren't there to see it.  Andy Graham stood absolutely alone on Times Square, drifts of dirty snow swirling around him, abandoned taxies everywhere. In the distance he could hear the beginning rumbles of what would end his trip here. All alone in New York with nowhere to go, and nothing to do, he looked at the ball that would not descend in the traditional way this year, and laughed.

 

                                                                          END

                                                                 23 March, 1986