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Suffice it to say, when evening arrived and Duchess was running around Manhattan in search of his father, and Woolly was lying on his bed with his pillow propped and the radio on, having taken two extra drops of medicine from the extra bottle he’d put in Emmett’s book bag, he turned his attention to the newspaper of three days past.
And what a difference three days made. Not only did the news seem much less pressing, if you chose your headlines carefully, the stories often had a touch of the fantastic. Like this one from Sunday’s front page:
ATOM SUBMARINE PROTOTYPE SIMULATES A DIVE TO EUROPE
This story went on to explain how the first atomic submarine had completed the equivalent of a voyage across the Atlantic—while somewhere in the middle of the Idaho desert! The whole premise struck Woolly as incredible as something you’d find in Billy’s big red book.
And then there was this one from the front page of two days past.
CIVIL DEFENSE TEST IS AT 10 A.M. TODAY
Normally, defense and test were just the sort of words that made Woolly uneasy and generally prompted him to skip an article altogether. But in the two-day-old Times, the article went on to explain that in the course of this test, a fleet of imaginary enemy planes would be dropping imaginary atomic bombs on fifty-four cities, causing imaginary devastation all across America. In New York City alone, three different imaginary bombs were to drop, one of which was to land imaginarily at the intersection of Fifty-Seventh Street and Fifth Avenue—right in front of Tiffany’s, of all places. As part of the test, when the warning alarm sounded, all normal activities in the fifty-four cities were to be suspended for ten minutes.
—All normal activities suspended for ten minutes, read Woolly out loud. Can you imagine?
Somewhat breathlessly, Woolly turned to yesterday’s paper in order to see what had happened. And there on the front page—above the fold, as they say—was a photograph of Times Square with two police officers looking up the length of Broadway and not another living soul in sight. No one gazing in the window of the tobacconist. No one coming out of the Criterion Theatre or going into the Astor Hotel. No one ringing a cash register or dialing a telephone. Not one single person hustling, or bustling, or hailing a cab.
What a strange and beautiful sight, thought Woolly. The city of New York silent, motionless, and virtually uninhabited, sitting perfectly idle, without the hum of a single expectation for the very first time since its founding.
Duchess
After getting Woolly settled in his room with a few drops of medicine and the radio tuned to a commercial, I made my way to a dive called the Anchor on West Forty-Fifth Street in Hell’s Kitchen. With dim lighting and indifferent clientele, it was just the sort of place my old man liked—a spot where a has-been could sit at the bar and rail against life’s iniquities without fear of interruption.
According to Bernie, Fitzy and my old man were in the habit of meeting here every night around eight o’clock and drinking for as long as their money held out. Sure enough, at 7:59 the door swung open and in shuffled Fitzy, right on cue.
You could tell he was a regular from the way that everyone ignored him. All things considered, he hadn’t aged so badly. His hair was a little thinner and his nose a little redder, but you could still see a bit of the Old Saint Nick hiding under the surface, if you squinted hard enough.
Walking right past me, he squeezed between two stools, spread some nickels on the bar, and ordered a shot of whiskey—in a highball glass.
A shot looks so measly in a highball glass, it struck me as an odd request for Fitzy to make. But when he lifted the drink from the bar, I could see his fingers trembling ever so slightly. No doubt he had learned the hard way that when a shot is served in a shot glass it’s a lot easier to spill.
With his whiskey safely in hand, Fitzy retreated to a table in the corner with two seats. It was clearly the spot where he and my father were in the habit of drinking, because once he got comfortable, Fitzy raised his glass to the empty chair. He must be the last living soul on earth, I thought, who would raise a glass to Harry Hewett. As he began to move the whiskey to his lips, I joined him.
—Hello, Fitzy.
Fitzy froze for a moment and stared over the top of the glass. Then for what must have been the first time in his life, he put his glass back on the table without having taken a drink.
—Hey, Duchess, he said. I almost didn’t recognize you. You’ve gotten so much bigger.
—It’s all the manual labor. You should try it some time.
Fitzy looked down at his drink, then at the bartender, then at the door to the street. When he had run out of places to look, he looked back at me.