The Julian Year Page 20

  Weizak glanced at the two senior reporters. Neither of them had shown him any respect since his promotion. “Why them?”

  “They’re old. They were due for retirement soon anyway. There’s no real need for institutional memory anymore, is there?”

  “What will happen to them?”

  “Their pension will be accelerated.”

  “What about everyone else?”

  “They’ll collect unemployment until the government starts repurposing people.”

  “Back to the USSR.”

  “We need a new columnist. Are you up for the job?”

  “I haven’t earned it. Everyone is going to hate me.”

  “You’ve written the three biggest stories of this impending apocalypse. You’re a star. People know your name. They may as well know your face.”

  “What will I write about?”

  Rosen chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  Weizak returned to his desk. Ignoring the glum reporters, he switched on his computer and stared at his monitor.

  The Riveras took a taxi to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan. Anibal didn’t like to take the trains anymore, and he didn’t trust himself to drive today. Families waiting to take the ferry crowded the park. Anibal tried to distract Julio from the grim faces of the parents and some of the crying children.

  “I thought you were making me go shopping,” Julio said as they boarded the ferry.

  “Nah, little man. We’re going to Ellis Island.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s the museum where the immigrants from other countries used to come to be processed and get their American names.”

  “Why do you want to take me there?”

  “Because it’s educational.”

  “Did you have to go there?”

  “No. Rivera’s our real name. Nobody’s going to change who we are.”

  The ferry launched, and Anibal watched the Statue of Liberty grow larger. He marveled at the sight and regretted that he had never taken his sons to Liberty Island.

  Jasmine remained quiet, holding Julio’s hand and stroking his hair while seagulls hovered in the cold, windy air.

  The ferry docked, and Anibal carried Julio as the passengers filed out. A long line led into the entrance guarded by armed soldiers.

  Inside, waiting in the same line, Julio fidgeted. “I’m hungry.”

  Jasmine snapped her head toward Anibal with panic in her eyes. “Did you bring anything for him to snack on?”

  “No.”

  “Then go find something for him.”

  Perhaps twenty people were ahead of them.

  “He can have something soon enough,” Anibal said.

  “I want him to have something now.”

  Sighing, Anibal hurried back outside and showed his detective’s shield to a soldier. “Excuse me. Where can I get something to eat?”

  The soldier stared at him for a moment before answering. “The cafeteria’s no longer open to the public. There are some vending machines where you got off the ferry.”

  “Thanks.” He broke into a run, weaving through the crowd. When he reached the dock, he saw lines at the vending machines as well.

  Screw this!

  He ran back to the museum even faster, pumping his arms and legs, and when he got inside again he was winded and sweaty. Four people separated Jasmine and Julio from the admissions counter.

  “You didn’t find anything?” Jasmine said in an arch tone.

  “The lines were too long.”

  She held Julio to her side. “You should have waited.”

  Anger caused his head to throb. “I wasn’t going to waste time I want to spend with my son waiting to buy candy or soda.”

  “Why are we here?” Julio said.

  Anibal looked down at the boy. So close. “We’re here because some people need to see you.”

  “What people?”

  “Doctors.”

  “Is this because of my birthday?” The boy’s voice grew high, like a girl’s.

  Anibal and Jasmine had tried so hard to shelter their sons from the news.

  “Next,” a woman behind the counter said.

  “We’ll talk about it in a minute.” Anibal presented an envelope to the woman, who wore army fatigues. She removed a copy of Julio’s birth certificate as well as the registration form Anibal had filled out. “Are you the parents?”

  “Yes.”

  She stamped the registration form and handed it back. “Through there.” She pointed at a metal door with a steel mesh window.

  Anibal and Jasmine led Julio through the door.

  Another woman greeted them inside. She wore a dress, not a uniform, and she smiled. “Hello, I’m Mrs. Greenleaf.”

  Anibal shook her hand. “I’m Anibal Rivera and this is my wife, Jasmine.”

  Mrs. Greenleaf leaned down. “And who are you?”

  “Julio.”

  “You seem like a very nice young man, Julio. How old are you?”

  “Eight.”

  “Oh, you’re very tall for eight. Would you like a lollipop?”

  Julio looked at Jasmine.

  “It’s all right,” she said.

  Julio nodded. “Yes, please.”

  Mrs. Greenleaf produced the promised lollipop, and Julio tore off its wrapper to reveal green hard candy. She turned to Jasmine and Anibal. “You haven’t explained anything to him, have you?”

  “No,” Anibal said. “We followed the guidelines.”

  “Good. It makes things easier. You may tell him now, or I can bring a counselor to explain.”

  “We’ll tell him ourselves.”

  “I understand. May I have your paperwork?”

  Anibal handed the paperwork over.

  Mrs. Greenleaf tore off one page and handed the other one back.

  A receipt for my kid, Anibal thought.

  “I have to wait here. Regulations.”

  Jasmine looked up at the ceiling, hiding her face as she wiped away tears.

  Anibal kneeled before his son. “Hey, buddy. Your mom and I have to talk to you.”

  Julio stared at his father with wide eyes.

  “We weren’t honest with you and I’m sorry about that. The reason we’re here is because doctors have to take a look at you.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing. But they have to be sure, so you’re going to stay here while they check you out.”

  “I don’t want to stay here!”

  “I know you don’t, but it will only be for a couple of days.”

  Julio spun around and clung to Jasmine’s leg. “No, Mommy!”

  Jasmine wrapped her hands around his head.

  Anibal clasped his shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay so don’t be afraid.”

  The boy turned back, tears streaming down his face. “Don’t make me stay here!”

  Anibal put his arms around the boy and pressed his forehead against him. “Listen to me. Nothing bad is going to happen to you here. No one is going to hurt you. It will only be for two nights.”

  “Promise me!”

  It devastated him to lie. “I promise.”

  Julio stopped arguing and started crying.

  Jasmine kneeled as well and held him. “Daddy brought you some clothes and books and your game.” She looked at Anibal, who unslung the bag from his shoulder.

  “That’s right, Son. It will be just like your room back home.”

  Julio rubbed his eyes. “No, it won’t.”

  Mrs. Greenleaf moved closer to them. “Julio, there are lots of other boys and girls here for you to have fun with. I promise you’ll have a good time.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Mrs. Greenleaf looked at Anibal. “I’m sorry but it’s time. We have so many children to process . . .”

  Jasmine hugged and kissed Julio. “I love you so much, baby . . .”

  Anibal squeezed her arm, reminding her to control herself for th
e boy’s sake. Then he turned Julio to him. “You’re a big boy now. It’s okay to cry a little but not a lot. It’s only for two days, and then you’ll be out of here. Do you understand?”

  Julio nodded.

  Anibal embraced him and kissed the side of his face. “I love you.” He couldn’t see through the tears in his eyes, which Jasmine wiped away for him. Julio’s small chest beat against his. Anibal eased the boy away. “Now go with Mrs. Greenleaf. Do whatever she tells you, eat all your food, and play nice with the other kids, okay?”

  Julio nodded again.

  Anibal stood and handed the bag to Mrs. Greenleaf. The matron took Julio’s hand and led him to a door at the far end of the room. Anibal helped Jasmine to her feet and held her. Julio looked over his shoulder at them, and then the door closed and he was gone. Jasmine let out a wail.

  On the ferry ride back to Battery Park, surrounded by other grieving parents, Anibal held Jasmine in his arms.

  “We’re never going to see him again,” she said, weeping. “We never should have brought him here.”

  He shook his head. “What would we have done, run? Where? How? We can’t go anywhere without ID and for what purpose? Julio changes in two days. That’s the inevitable truth, whether he’s back there, where he can’t do any harm to anyone, or if we kept him with us, which would have allowed him to do a lot of harm. I know you’re hurting. I am too. But we’ve still got a son at home, and we have to give him the best quality of life we can.”

  She wiped her nose. “For how long? Two months? Then we have to go through this all over again . . .”

  He pulled her tight to him and kissed her hair as they passed Lady Liberty.

  News Alert

  “It’s simple, really: the country needs to continue functioning. Society must continue. If we’re to maintain any quality of life, people must continue working. You want to eat? You’ll have to work for your food. You need to go to the doctor? Work for credit. Need police assistance? Work for that privilege. Otherwise, no one will work, and we’ll have absolute anarchy on our hands. Effective immediately, I’m phasing out the use of paper currency. All citizens will adopt a national credit system.”

  —President Hari Rhodes

  Weizak got out of the cab on West Fiftieth Street and stood beneath the neon sign for Halcyon Days. The former bar had been converted into a private club named after the ancient Greek belief that two weeks of calm weather occurred at the end of December. Only people born on December 15 or later were permitted inside.

  A rock bass thundered from inside, and a muscular black bouncer with a bald head stood outside the doors, clad in a black leather jacket, chatting with two police officers.

  On the cab ride over, Weizak had spotted an armed soldier or two at every intersection. Approaching the bouncer, Weizak sensed that the man enjoyed intimidating people. “Can I go inside?”

  “Let me see your birthday card.”

  He took out his wallet and removed his national ID.

  The bouncer read the date on the ID, then turned it over, inspecting both sides for signs of tampering. “A lifer, huh? Lucky you.” He stepped back and opened the door for Weizak.

  Inside, Weizak stood motionless, taking in the scene. He guessed one hundred people crowded the space, damned good for a weekday evening. Laughter blended with the music, and Weizak spotted several off-duty cops in plainclothes standing against the walls, checking him out. As he made his way to the bar, he felt other people gazing at him. If the regulars were suspicious of him, they didn’t allow it to ruin a good time. Leaning against the bar, he waved his ID at the bartender, a skinny man with shiny brown eyes.

  The bartender took Weizak’s ID, swiped it through a scanner, then handed it back. “What can I get you?”

  “A pint of whatever’s on tap.”

  The bartender turned away, and Weizak scanned the patrons—attractive, plain, young, middle-aged. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

  The only people more rarified than Manhattan’s elite are those who have been slated to make it until the end, he thought, which made him feel special.

  “Julian?”

  Turning his head, he saw a woman standing beside him. She wore a black sweater, and she had shaped her blonde hair differently, but he recognized Cathy, his New Year’s Day lay. He felt embarrassed because they both knew she had used him.

  For a goddamned shirt, he thought. “Fancy running into you here. You never know who’s going to make it to Judgment Day.”

  “I haven’t seen you here before,” she said.

  “I’ve never been the type to jump on a bandwagon. Manhattan can be so trendy.”

  The bartender set his pint down, and he left a ten for the man.

  “I see your name in the paper a lot,” Cathy said. “Congratulations.”

  Weizak sipped his beer. “Thanks. I’m celebrating a promotion tonight. My editor made me a columnist.”

  She moved closer. “That’s great. What’s your column called?”

  “The Julian Year.”

  Her face turned tight. “You named this year after yourself?”

  “The Julian year is named after the Julian calendar. Julius Caesar came up with that, or at least he took credit for it. We owe leap year to Caesar: 365.25 per year or 366 days every fourth year.”

  Her expression softened. “I’m sorry about New Year’s Day. I feel horrible. I swear I don’t normally do things like that.”

  “Do you still have the shirt?”

  She shook her head.

  “I guess it’s hoping for too much that some stud picked you up, showed you the night of your life, and stole it from you.”

  She shook her head again, a contemplative look in her eyes. “Was it really the night of your life?”

  “I don’t remember. I was drunk.”

  “Are you drunk now?”

  He nodded at his pint. “I’m only getting started.”

  She set one hand on his thigh. “How about if we go to your place and I try to make it up to you?”

  Searching her eyes for deception, he came up empty. He wanted to act superior for a while longer, but he wanted to sleep with her again even more. “Okay, let’s go.”

  She took his arm as they crossed the bar, and he felt people staring at him.

  News Alert

  Almost three hundred disordered inmates at the Hawkins Center for Women located outside Little Rock, Arkansas, have escaped the penitentiary, leaving fifty-seven employees and thirty National Guards dead in their wake. A large number of the escaped inmates are armed. The National Guard and state police are currently engaged in a firefight with an unknown number of the disordered women on a farm approximately three miles away from the prison, and police helicopters are searching the woods for additional fugitives.

  Twenty-eight

  April 1

  Calvin Ethridge slouched in the passenger seat of the cruiser as Joseph O’Brien, his trainee, drove the vehicle along East End Avenue, which had become a staging area for bulky military vehicles. The snow had vanished, but the air remained damp and windy, and now the sun began its descent. Their shift had started at 4:00 p.m.

  “What does the mayor need all this security for?” O’Brien said as they cruised by Gracie Manor, heading downtown. “He’s just a figurehead at this point. The governor’s issuing all the orders.”

  Ethridge set one knee against the glove compartment. “Even a figurehead can lose his head, right?”

  The rookie looked at him. “You seem pretty carefree today. Did you get some good news or something?”

  “I’m just thinking about someone.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Ethridge sat up. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll never see her again.”

  The car grew quiet until a call came over the radio: “Unit twelve, we have a 10-34 at 105th Street, unit 11E.”

  “Ten-four, Dispatch,” Ethridge said into his radio.

  O’Brien slowed down, turned the vehicle around, and activa
ted the siren. “We should hang out after work or something,” he said as the car sped down the street.

  “Yeah? And do what, go bowling?”

  “What do you have against bowling?”

  “Nothing, I guess. I’m just not in the mood to socialize.”

  “You’ve been glum since we became partners.”

  Has it already been two months? Ethridge wondered. O’Brien was a decent partner—reliable, coolheaded, good with his weapons—but in his estimation, the rookie had been pressed into service too quickly, like all the other draftees. But what choice did the National Police Force have? “I’ll try to do better. You want me to sing a song about the end of the world?”

  O’Brien kept his gaze on the street ahead. “Technically, it’s the end of mankind, not the end of the world. The animals will still be here.”

  “Whatever. It’ll be the end of our world.”

  “Do you ever think it will be a better world without us? No war, no hate, no pollution.”

  “No, I never think that.”

  “Maybe we screwed things up so badly that God’s written us off as a failed experiment.”

  “How about if you cut down the sermonizing and switch on the headlights?”

  O’Brien powered the headlights. “I’m not sermonizing. I’m just making conversation. You’re being morose.”

  Ethridge knew O’Brien was right. “Maybe I don’t see too much to be sunny about.”

  “I hear that, but you could be a little more sociable while we’re in this tin can, you know.”

  A housing project consisting of six stout buildings came into view, each tower silhouetted against the fading sunlight.

  A feeling of discomfort grew in the pit of Ethridge’s stomach. “I’ll try to be better company.”

  As they drew closer, the details of their target building became more discernible: windows with drawn curtains or blinds, worn bricks and cinder blocks, and black metal fencing around a playground built on asphalt. Except for the playground, it could have been a prison.