Make Room! Make Room!(73)

He was hanging by his hands as they stamped at his fingers when they suddenly jumped back. This was the first that Billy realized Peter had returned and climbed up behind him, swinging his length of pipe at the two men above. In the moment’s respite Billy transferred his grip to the skeletal side of the ship and eased his aching body toward the ground that looked impossibly far below. The invaders had occupied the ship and had the advantage now. Peter dodged a swing of the leaf spring and joined Billy in a retreat to the ground. Words penetrated and Billy realized that the woman was screaming curses, and had been for some time.

“Kill ’em both!” she shouted. “He hit me, knocked me down. Kill ’em!” She was hurling lumps of concrete again, but was so carried away by rage that none of them came close. When Peter and Billy reached the ground she waddled quickly away, calling curses over her shoulder, her mass of yellow hair flying around her head. The two men above blinked down at them, but said nothing. They had done their job. They were in possession of the ship.

“We shall leave,” Peter said, putting his arm around Billy to help him walk, using his pipe as a staff to lean upon. “They are strong and have the ship now—and the water. And they are wise enough to guard it well, at least the harlot Bettyjo is. I know her, a woman of evil who gives her body to those two so they will do what she asks. Yes, it is a sign. She is a harlot of Babylon, displacing us …”

“We have to get back in,” Billy gasped.

“… showing us that we must go to the greater harlot of Babylon, there across the river. There is no turning back.”

Billy sank to the ground, gasping for breath and trying to knead some of the pain from his fingers, while Peter calmly looked back at the ship that had been their home and fortune. Three small figures capered on the high deck and their jeers came faintly through the cold wind from the bay. Billy began to shiver.

“Come,” Peter said gently, and helped him to his feet. “There is no place to stay here, no dwelling any more. I know-where we can get shelter in Manhattan, I have been there many times before.”

“I don’t want to go there,” Billy said, drawing back, remembering the police.

“We must. We will be safe there.”

Billy walked slowly after him. Why not? he thought; the cops would have forgotten about him a long time ago. It might be all right, specially if Peter knew some place to go. If he stayed here he would have to stay alone; the fear of that was greater than any remembered fear of the police. They would make out as long as they stuck together.

They were halfway across Manhattan Bridge before Billy realized that one of his pickets had been torn away in the fight. “Wait,” he called to Peter, then, more frightened, “wait!” as he searched through his clothing in growing panic. “They’re gone,” he finally said, leaning against the railing. “The Welfare cards. They must have got lost during the fight. Maybe you have them?”

“No, as you recall, you took them to get the water yesterday. They are not important.”

“Not important!” Billy sobbed.

They had the bridge to themselves, an aching winter alone-ness. The color of the slate-gray water below was reflected in the lowering clouds above, which were driven along by the icy wind that cut sharply through their clothes. It was too cold to stay and Billy started forward, Peter followed.

“Where are we going?” Billy asked when they came off the bridge and turned down Division Street. It seemed a little warmer here, surrounded by the shuffling crowds. He always felt better with people around.

“To the lots. There are a large number of them near the housing developments,” Peter said.

“You’re nuts, the lots are full, they always have been.”

“Not this time of year,” Peter answered, pointing to the filthy ice that filled the gutter. “Living in the lots is never easy, and this time of year it is particularly hard for the older people and invalids.”

It was only on the television screen that Billy had seen the streets of the city filled with cars. For him it was a historical—and therefore uninteresting—fact, because the lots had been there for as long as he could remember, a permanent and decaying part of the landscape. As traffic had declined and operating automobiles became rarer, there was no longer a need for the hundreds of parking lots scattered about the city. They began to gradually fill up with abandoned cars, some hauled there by the police and others pushed in by hand. Each lot was now a small village with people living in every car because, uncomfortable as the cars were, they were still better than the street. Though each car had long since had its full quota of inhabitants, vacancies occurred in the winter when the weaker ones died.