The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx (21 page)

On January 1, 1954, New York City took title of the last scattered parcels of real estate in Section Two of the expressway. Despite this, some of the poorer and older families stubbornly hung on, living illegally. Increasingly terrifying edicts from the city were taped to doors and lampposts. More threats of people losing their possessions or being thrown into the street followed. The elderly were the last to go. Many were foreigners—widows and widowers who had fled countries ruled by emperors and czars. They were just trying to wait out their remaining time. But one by one, before the city marshal arrived, they too seemed to just vanish.

Through one of her old friends, Lucretia learned about the plight of a family who had lived directly across the street all her life. The Orecklins had a disabled child and owned a nice single-family home that the father, Cecil, had fastidiously maintained over the years. They’d had their place appraised a few years earlier at twenty thousand dollars. Robert Moses’s office offered them eleven thousand. When Cecil argued that they were dramatically undervaluing his property—something any outside land assessor could verify—he was told that this was a one-time offer, take it or leave it. Without any alternative, the Orecklins had absorbed the loss and moved away.

While the little family recuperated, Uli tried to explain the Sticks to Tim, cautioning him about the insane miners below who had already killed one of his compatriots. Then he showed Tim the hole in the utility closet. Eager to get out, the stubble-headed man made it his personal mission to hammer through the narrow stone walls, almost never leaving the little closet. After a few days, when the salamander baby’s red dots started clearing up and the mother seemed to be improving as well, Uli softly asked the scorpion kid if he was ready for his climb.

“I don’t want to leave them alone yet.”

In preparation for the kid’s ascent, Uli weaved a small body harness out of ropes, like a window washer’s safety belt that the boy could tie around his narrow waist and broad shoulders. To protect against a fall, he’d be able to hook the sides into the eyes of the metal track running up the elevator shaft. Uli also wired the lantern he had scavenged to the top of the helmet. He calculated that if the candles weren’t tipped over, they’d each last roughly an hour while wax drained safely out the back.

Hunting through the storage depot, he located a bag for holding C-rations and three water bottles that could all be strapped to the kid’s back. This would give the boy enough supplies for roughly two to three days. He also found several large balls of twine that he could tie to the youth in order to mark the height of his climb.

“I know you don’t want to leave yet, but I thought maybe we could do a bit of preparation.”

None of it looked comfortable, but it all fit. The kid let out a deep sigh, clearly regretting ever having agreed to this. Uli knew he was going to have to convince the kid of the importance of the climb, but before Uli could start in on him, the boy said he really needed to be left alone with his family. Uli gave him the space, then resumed helping Tim in the closet.

While they worked, Tim kept steering the conversation to his life in Rescue City. “The place has turned into open warfare; I figured I’d have a better chance of survival if I tried to get out. I just want to put it all behind me.”

“Put
what
behind you?”

“First the bombing of Crapper headquarters, then the retaliation killings of a bunch of Pigger officials. And finally the brutal slaying of those two beautiful P.P. workers.”

Uli remained silent and looked down at his feet.

“I know that a lot of people in Rescue City have done a lot of awful things, which is why they were sent there,” Tim said, “but I was never a political type.”

“Someone told me about the Crapper headquarters being blown up and some woman mayor getting elected,” Uli said, playing dumb in an attempt to extract some details about the latest developments. “But I haven’t heard much else.”

“Things have gotten a lot worse.”

“Worse how?”

“Somebody apparently blew up the sandbags holding the sewage back from Manhattan. The city’s now flooded with shit.”

Uli shook his head in despair. All hope that the place would become a more civilized society once the Crappers took over was gone.

36

I
n 1955, just as Leon had repeatedly vowed, it happened again: The Brooklyn Dodgers won the National League pennant. The Subway Series kicked off in Yankee Stadium and, just as most people had predicted, the Dodgers duly lost the first two games. Then, surprising everyone, they won the next two at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Back in the Bronx, the Dodgers lost their third game, but they won the next—so it was an even three to three. It all came down to the tiebreaker, to be played on the Yankees’ home field. Paul and Leon watched the game on a small RCA set. With each hit, Leon would jump in the air and his dogs would bark. But with each progressive inning, Paul kept thinking,
You’re only setting yourself up for a big fall
. Soon, though, it was the bottom of the ninth and somehow the Dodgers were still in the lead. Despite his declared loyalty to the Yankees, Paul found himself rooting for their crosstown rival. When the game ended with a Brooklyn victory, both men jumped in the air and hugged like school boys, then they finished off all the remaining beer and passed out. Around 1 in the morning, Paul woke up, turned off the TV, and drunkenly walked the long stretch of empty blocks back home. The entire time, he kept asking himself, “Dodgers won the World Series?” It sounded so unbelievable.

“Look, I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Uli began his talk to the scorpion kid while Tim was sleeping. “So if you don’t want to do this, you and your family can leave and I’ll somehow figure it out myself. But if you help us and we escape, I promise that the first thing we’ll do is get your mom and brother to a doctor. And I’ll do everything I can to try to find your dad.”

“So what exactly should I do once I’m up there?” the kid asked testily.

“I’m going to tie some twine to your waist. I want you to climb as far as you can up that shaft so I’ll know how high it goes. And I want you to use the string to measure the narrowest parts.”

“And then I’m done?”

“After you come out and we review what you saw, you’re all done.”

“Okay.”

“But first I want you to train a little cause this is going to be tough.”

“Train for what?”

“Climbing and lighting candles in total darkness and other stuff.”

“How and where?”

“Well, I want you to practice using these big hooks, but the only thing to climb around here is the tower of desks in the silo. We have to be very quiet cause we don’t want to alert any of the crazy miners.”

When they went to the silo, Uli noticed fresh blood splattered around. Boxes had been knocked down and metal rods caked with blood suggested there had been a major struggle. After a brief search, Uli locate two bodies: The guy he called Dave and an elderly miner appeared to have been strangled to death. There was no sign of any other miners in the vicinity.

Using the open area as a training zone, Uli instructed the boy on how to climb the desk tower.

“I don’t need these,” the kid responded. He set all the equipment aside and zipped right up the pile of desks like a chimpanzee. “How’s this?”

“You’ve got to use that rope belt and clip into each new perforation as a safety precaution, in case you fall.”

“What’s a perfation?”

“The metal holes in the sides of the tracking.”

“But there are no holes in these desks.”

“Well, pretend there are.”

“I’ve been thinking,” the kid said after he completed his first ascent up the tower while clipping his belt into imaginary holes. “I’d like something else.”

“What?”

“I want my mom and brother.”

“They’re already here.”

“I need them up in that hole with me.”

“You mean in the utility closet?”

“Yeah. They’re both small and they can fit in there. It has this long flat ledge inside where they can wait.”

“But they’re still sick. Why would you need them in there?”

“They’d be safe and I could watch them.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them for you.”

“If you want me to do this, then they have to stay with me.

We almost got killed when I took them out of our home.”

Nodding his head, Uli reluctantly agreed. He just wanted this to be over with. He spent many hours over the next few days drilling the kid on the fine points of climbing elevator shafts.

“Since you’ll have a candle attached to your head, you’ll need to keep your head tilted back so you don’t spill hot wax on yourself.”

“You sure all this needs to be done?” the kid asked, covered in sweat.

“The more prepared you are, the better your chances of surviving and escaping,” Uli said for the third time that day.

After a final round of training, Uli deemed the kid modestly prepared for the challenge.

“Shouldn’t I come down when I’m halfway done with the food and stuff?”

“No, cause it will be a lot easier to come down than it will be to get back up.”

Uli waited until Tim took a nap before launching the kid on his great quest. The work of the newcomer had made a difference, as the kid didn’t require any lubrication to enter this time. Uli lifted the mother and brother through, then passed along the various supplies.

“Listen,” Uli warned up to him, “don’t try anything heroic. If something looks scary, just get out. I’m not expecting you to rescue us. All you’re doing is what we call reconnaissance. You’re just checking out the landscape, then you’ll come back here and we’ll work out an escape plan together.”

“Okay.”

“And if need be, I can reach in and hand your mom and brother food and water. You don’t have to come down for them, understand?”

“Thanks.”

“Take care of yourself, pal,” Uli said. Reaching into the tight space, he shook the nameless kid’s hand and listened to him scamper up and away.

Over the ensuing hours, Uli watched the jerky ball of twine as if it were a clock and found himself feeling increasingly excited as it dwindled ever thinner. When the three hundred feet of twine was about to run out, Uli attached a second ball of twine to its end.

Uli wondered what he was going to do next. Even if the kid returned to say that he had climbed right up to the desert floor, Uli knew he couldn’t convince any of these homicidal miners or memory-challenged inmates to collaborate on an actual escape plan.

Two loud gunshots snapped Uli from his thoughts. He raced out of the closet to find a pair of miners beating Tim, who was desperately trying to fight back. The small-caliber bullets Tim had pumped into them had slowed the men down but apparently missed their vital organs. Uli jumped up and kicked one of the guys in the neck. The other dashed down into the service corridor with blood dripping from his chest.

“I can’t believe it,” Tim whimpered. Blood trickled from his ears; his skull appeared to be fractured.

“I told you the miners were insane,” Uli said.

“Not them …
you!”
he said, grimacing.
“You
killed her … and I went through all this … just to … to get you …”

“What?”

“And you … got
me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh dear … I didn’t mean to hit the bags … but they wouldn’t give me the drug unless—”

“There’s the fucker!” A large miner wielding a rod suddenly came barreling out of an overhead cave.

Uli dashed into the dark entrance of the Convolution. Crawling down into the ever-narrowing tunnel, he knocked into one of their steel digging rods, which he grabbed as a weapon.

He squirmed backwards into a small tunnel that would only allow one man at a time. There he was able to hold the miners at bay.

“Just wait him out,” one of the men said. Two hours later, as Uli began wondering how long this would last, a massive vibration rocked the whole area.

“Earthquake!”

“You pissed Xolotl off and now we’re all fucked!” a miner shouted down at him. The rest of the miners slithered back up the tunnel toward the Mkultra. Without thinking, Uli wiggled out of the cave and followed in the same direction, hurrying toward the utility closet. In the dimming candle light, he spotted something billowing out of the little doorway. It wasn’t until he actually touched it that he realized it was coarse hot sand, different from the rest of the dirt he had seen underground. He screamed for the little family to hang on as he frantically started digging the room out. He found a long flat board and used it as a shovel, only to see more sand pouring down through the rectangular hole. An hour later, Uli admitted to himself that there was no chance the mother or salamander baby could still be alive.

It took a whole day of pushing the sand deeper into the storage area before it stopped cascading down into the little utility closet. When Uli was finally able to reach up into the rectangular hole, he felt around and managed to grab the mother’s foot. He pulled her out first, and then her sad salamander baby. Both were dead, as he expected.

Soon, though, he located some cutting tools and continued expanding the sides of the rectangular hole. Before long Uli was able to slide into the first chamber after slathering himself in grease. Immediately he realized that the kid had lied. Once he squeezed up past the narrow entrance, the shaft was much wider than he had been led to believe. Uli smiled. At his tender age, the kid had deliberately misled Uli so that he would have exclusive control of this possible escape route. That was why he had wanted his family in there. The bad news was that inside the corridor, sand was packed as tight as a brick. Uli tied a rag over his mouth and scooped sand down into the utility closet until it was full. Then he squirmed back out and hauled the fresh mounds of sand into the storage area.

After steering and pushing the sand down and out for another day, Uli crawled up through the corridor until he found the straight vertical shaft. Here, he discovered that the kid had lied yet again. There was clearly enough space for him to climb up. But Uli couldn’t figure out what he was actually seeing. Staring up hundreds of yards of shaft, he made out what appeared to be a flickering ceiling of flame. It was as though he had dug all the way to the sun.
If I try climbing up there, I’ll be burnt to a crisp
. Observing the bluish fire for about twenty minutes, he considered abandoning this project and heading back to the catch basin.