The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx (12 page)

“So he’s looking for a consultant?” Paul asked Windels.

“Actually, he’s looking to appoint someone as Commissioner of Water, Gas, and Electricity, but of course it doesn’t pay much considering the vast amount of work the post requires.”

It was the break Paul had been waiting for. He told Windels that he was very interested in the job regardless of the salary.

“You probably already know this,” Paul added, “but my brother Robert, who is currently running for governor, is the city’s Parks Commissioner.”

“Well, I don’t see how that will make a difference one way or the other,” Windels replied.

“We’re not on the best of terms, which doesn’t bode well for me if he becomes the next governor.”

“Actually, that might not be true,” Windels speculated. “If he does become the next governor, and polls are giving him the edge, he’ll have to resign his city post anyway.”

That evening over dinner, Paul shared the good news with Teresa. “The job doesn’t exactly come with a big paycheck, but it should make me highly employable for future work.”

Over the next two weeks, Paul was on pins and needles about the appointment. Several times, he had the urge to break down and call his younger brother to see if he could convince him to put in a good word, but he resisted.

One day, however, Windels called to say that La Guardia had unfortunately chosen someone else.

“Who?”

“Joe Pinelli?”

“Who the hell …?” He had never even heard of the man.

“Welcome to the world of politics. Pinelli is an ignoramus, he’s payback to some political boss in the Bronx. I think the mayor mentioned to some bigwig at Con Ed that he was about to hire you. They knew you’d crack down, so they agreed to roll back their rates, provided you weren’t hired.”

“This is unbelievable.”

“Well, it’s between us, because I honestly don’t really know everything that happened. All I know is that La Guardia picked Pinelli and Con Ed agreed to renegotiate their bill. But listen,” Windels added, “if it’s of any consolation, I can throw some consulting work your way.”

Paul felt cheated again, but he was too broke to turn down anything. Furthermore, he didn’t believe Windels had deliberately tried to screw him; he sensed his brother was somehow behind it all once again.

Paul did extensive contracting work for the city at a cheap rate, but it came to an abrupt end only six months later when Windels was dismissed.

Despite Paul’s attempts to turn his leisure club into a year-round social mecca for the northeast, a more modestly priced club opened nearby. With bankruptcy looming, he kept thinking,
I had a moneymaker and ruined it.

During one particularly masochistic moment, Paul got in his car and drove to the first day of construction of Orchard Beach up in the Bronx. He watched as his younger brother was chauffeured in a huge Packard to the VIP viewing stand. La Guardia introduced Robert as the man who had single-handedly conceived of and found funds for this wonderful gift to the people of New York: “This is his very first outing as a candidate, so please give a warm welcome to the next governor of the State of New York, Robert Moses!”

As Mr. Robert appeared on the rostrum, and applause died down, Paul began to feel nauseous.

“Hello, ladies and gentleman,” Robert began. “As you all know, I’m running for governor of this great state with your interest at heart. As you might remember, I tirelessly worked as secretary of state under the great Al Smith … and before him I worked under Mayor Mitchel where I … I tried to devise a method of standardization to help eliminate bureaucracy … Well, that didn’t go too well … but, see, that wasn’t my fault. What happened was … well … it’s just too difficult to explain here and now … but if you look at the record, you’ll see that I was stonewalled time and again … It’s too difficult to explain, but let me assure you that this will not happen again if I am governor of this fair state. No sir.” Paul watched as his brother paused and stared blankly over the bewildered crowd. “All I’ll add is if you vote for me, you’ll greatly improve your own lot. Thank you!” Sweating profusely right through his shirt and cotton suit, Robert Moses stepped off the stage.

Paul found himself deeply moved by his brother’s awkward naïvete and began clapping, leading others to join in.

After the ceremony broke up, Robert hurried to his car, but Paul remained in the parking lot. At that moment, he knew there was no way in the world that Robert was going to win this election; in fact, he would never get elected to
any
public office. His brother was simply too dismissive of the working man and too arrogant to learn how to grovel.

Ecstatic when he got home that night, Paul relayed his brother’s public humiliation to his wife, who was only happy that he was happy. The next day, he called the
Moses for Governor
campaign headquarters and requested Robert’s entire schedule of public appearances. As time allowed, Paul would pop in at various appearances and was always pleased to see that even though his brother had shaken off his initial stage fright, he wasn’t really improving his delivery. If he wasn’t bored or arrogant, the man was simply hostile.

One day when Paul felt particularly depressed, he saw that Robert was giving a speech up in Nyack. He drove all the way there, only to discover that it was a press conference.

“Mr. Moses,” one reporter asked, “aren’t you concerned that your public works projects will take vital funds from welfare programs for the people of this state?”

“Please don’t bother me with moronic questions like that,” Robert replied. “The projects will help the people get work, period.”

“But Mr. Moses, Governor Lehman said—”

“He’s even less informed than you are, if that’s possible,” Robert grumbled back.

The man wasn’t merely a bad candidate, he was clearly resentful of the entire campaign process. Comments like “You won’t understand” and “Leave it to the experts” punctuated his extemporaneous remarks. Over the ensuing months, the polls gradually reflected his caustic personality. It was about six months into his run that Paul caught an article about Robert’s slipping numbers. He had now fallen behind the formerly unpopular incumbent. The election had been his to lose and now he was losing it.

The next time Paul saw Robert was at a synagogue in Great Neck. At the end of a wooden speech about how he would improve the economy, the candidate offered to take questions. Someone asked about his faith. Exactly how devout was he?

“I’m not really Jewish,” Robert responded to the packed synagogue.

“But your name is Moses,” pointed out the rabbi, allowing Robert a chance to more fully explain.

“I didn’t pick it,” he snapped back. “And unlike my namesake, I have no intention of leading anyone out of bondage.” After some additional perfunctory remarks, he thanked the stunned crowd, told them to remember to vote, and left the temple.

The margin by which his brother lost the election made Paul feel warm all over. Yet soon after this triumph, Paul got a tax bill for ten thousand dollars and found he had no money to pay it. The end was near. The bank immediately initiated foreclosure proceedings on his pool property.

“I worked so hard and came so close,” he complained over the dinner table. “I was almost there. I mean, it’s a solid investment. Now I’m going to lose everything.”

Teresa got on the phone and within a week her father and aunt had ponied up yet more loans.

Someone must’ve dug all these rocks out of the earth,
Uli realized, snapping away from Paul. He left the storage depot and pushed past the chain of drone laborers, heading back down into the dim dome-shaped room. He gazed up and for the first time noticed the large uneven tower of modified wooden desks. It resembled some kind of primitive ceremonial structure. Hanging from the top was a rotting corpse. Uli examined the body in the flickering candlelight and realized it had undergone some kind of outlandish transfiguration. The feet were violently twisted backwards. Worse, though, was the missing head, replaced with a long-snouted skull.

A dull clinking of hammers drew Uli away from the corpse and over to a large hole in the wall at a corner of the chamber. Once he descended into the dark hole, he found a small tunnel shooting upward and a larger corridor that corkscrewed downward. Other smaller tunnels began spiraling off from the corridor and soon he feared that he was getting lost. He flicked on his flashlight and noticed wires above him held together along a single small wooden bridge like a violin. Tinkering sounds surrounded him. People were digging. Moving along this main artery, he realized the wires along the top led into the various side tunnels. Suddenly, a box of rocks crashed out of one. Crawling down the tunnel roughly fifty feet, Uli came upon the bottom half of a sweaty, half-naked man digging furiously into the earth. He wore something black wrapped like a turban around his face and head; Uli assumed it was an improvised air filter.

“Hello!” Uli called out.

“Fuck off!” the digger shouted. Uli withdrew to the outer corridor, where he fingered another wire leading to the next cave. This time he encountered another seminude turban-headed digger. Again, when Uli greeted the man, he was instructed to fuck off.

He continued examining the ten or so guide wires fastened to the low ceiling above him until he heard the tinkering of yet another man.

“Who’s in charge?” Uli called out.

“Fuck off!” the crazed miner responded, as though following the same script. Eventually, Uli turned around and crawled back up the circular passage. Emerging in the domed room, he wiped dust off himself and followed the line of drone workers up the service tunnel toward the storage depot. After a few minutes he discovered they were now being led by someone. He sped up along the side of the tunnel. A middle-aged lady was directing the passive chain gang into the upper caves.

“Hello!”

“What?” the lady screamed, almost jumping off her feet.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Fuck off!” she shouted, lifting her hands defensively.

“Why is everyone so angry here?”

“We’ve all been trapped in this dungeon for years. What d’you expect?”

“Who’s in charge?”

“Did you see the diggers in the Convolution?”

“If you mean the hole that leads to the little caves with the nasty bastards, yes,” he said. Nodding behind the chain gang, he added, “I also see these poor bastards carrying rocks out of the tunnels.”

“That’s called occupational therapy, asshole! They’re senile. I found them starving to death, and
I
rescued them.”

Uli didn’t respond. Making them into unsupervised laborers wasn’t exactly a rescue or therapy.

A few moments elapsed before she said, “Sorry if I’m a bit rude, it’s just the best way to deal with most of these guys. This place makes everyone very agitated. I can see by your short beard that you’re new here.” She resumed leading her group upward.

“The congregation back in that catch basin didn’t seem particularly angry. And yes, I just got here.”

“The people back there in the basin are just very sad,” she said, as she continued leading the group up through the storage area and into a new labyrinth of tunnels. “They realize that if they all cling together, they can help each other survive. But they have no real hope of ever escaping.”

“That must be why they pray.”

“All the guys who made it up here work nonstop. To their credit, they’re still trying to get out, but none of them get along so they don’t work together.” She paused. “They’re each intent on finding their own way out.”

Uli extended his hand and introduced himself. The woman said her name was Root Ginseng.

“Hell of a name.”

“I was born Persephone, a bad name for this illiterate age. When I was growing up, most people who read it pronounced it as
Percy-phone
. When I moved to San Francisco, I worked in a health food store and people jokingly called me Root and it stuck.”

“Nice to meet you, Root … Hey, what is that central room anyway? And what the hell is that thing in the middle of it?” Uli asked, referring to the tower of stacked wooden desks.

“We thought this was the bottom of an old missile silo.”

“If that’s the case, wouldn’t there be a launch opening directly above it?”

“That’s why we built the tower and dug up into it, but it turned out to be a dud.”

“How’d you manage to get all these guys to work on it?”

“Sandy and I somehow got most of them to put aside their differences and collect desks to build that tower up to the ceiling.” That accounted for the absence of desks right near the Sticks. “But soon they were all fighting again.”

“Fighting over what?”

“You name it.
‘That’s my chisel.’ ‘You drank my water.’ ‘This is my area to dig.’ ‘Quit breathing so loud.’
Constant trouble.”

“No truce lasts forever,” Uli said as he walked with her.

“They got about fifteen feet into the rock before they started shoving each other for elbow and leg space.” She paused again. “I’ll never forget hearing that awful scream as the first man fell to his death. Then a few days went by, and another man was pushed. Soon we realized they weren’t just fighting, they were actually sacrificing people up there. When there was only the original group of about eight left, they gave up and went back to lateral drilling … You’ll excuse me for asking, but who exactly are you?”

“I own a pool club in Pennsylvania and—” He caught himself. “Actually, I just crawled out of the sewer and I’m looking for a way out of this hellhole …”

Moments later, Root reached her new destination and said it was time to take care of the babies.

“You have babies?!” Uli asked as he followed along.

“That’s just what I call them cause they’re as helpless as infants.”

She headed into an abandoned cave and lit some candles. Uli saw right away that it was covered with dirt and human excrement. Root grabbed a shovel and scooped out the waste as though the place was a giant litter box. Then she laid down some new dirt and a chemical that seemed to mask the odor and spread out some pieces of cardboard—
voilà,
it was transformed into a giant bunk room.