PANIC
IN THE JERSEY STREETS
Or
I pressed
and cracked open the thin, sugary shell of my Chinese fortune cookie and pulled
the long thin slip of paper from within. I silently read it.
SATAN SELECTS HIS DISCIPLES
WHEN THEY ARE IDLE.
I stared
in disbelief at the small black lettering as the acid taste of fear entered my
mouth and small beads of perspiration formed on my temples.
Across the
small, intimate candle lit table my doe-eyed fiancée, Madison, gazed back at me
with a worried look. "Is something wrong Herbie?"
"Wrong?
Heh-heh. What makes you think that something is wrong?" I flashed my best
boyish Hugh Grant grin as I tried to stifle a choking lump that grew in my
throat.
"You
have a strange look on your face. Is it your fortune? What does it say? Mine
says, THE SOUL OF WOMAN LIVES IN LOVE.” She cooed the words and under the table
I could feel her foot run halfway up my calf.
I
swallowed hard to get rid of that festering lump and reluctantly told her,
"It says, SATAN SELECTS HIS DISCIPLES WHEN THEY ARE IDLE.”
"What
kind of fortune is that?" she asked with a pouting frown. "What does
it mean? I don't like it."
"I-I
don't know." I stammered.
I was
lying. I knew exactly what it meant. I had always feared that one day my past
would catch up with me. I was like a Nazi war criminal hiding in Buenos Aires.
For years I've been living a lie, trying to deny my past, and just when I was
beginning to feel most secure, thinking I had gotten away with it, an
apparition from my former life returns to haunt me.
I mulled
over those words again; "SATAN SELECTS HIS DISCIPLES WHEN THEY ARE
IDLE." How did they know that I would be here…today? Which one of these
unpretentious people is their secret agent? Is it the smiling coat check girl?
Or perhaps that grinning waiter. Why can't they leave me alone? Don't they know
that I've reformed? I no longer do Satan's work. I'm no longer one of his
disciples. Why do they have to remind me of something that I've worked so hard
to forget?
I tried to
fight back the memories, but the true unpleasant facts of the unfortunate
incident slowly began to rise in my mind like an emerging fungus in the dank,
musty sub-cellar of my subconscious.
* * * * *
It had all
begun innocently enough. It was under a dim yellow street lamp on a cluttered
street corner in Athenia, a dim cluttered semi-urban industrial center in
Northern New Jersey, my hometown. A small group of idle teenagers was wasting
away another cool autumn evening. Duke, Chuck, Boz and I were engaged in a
lively conversation attempting to plan our annual Halloween prank. The big
night was only forty-eight hours away and we still hadn't decided on a suitable
stunt.
"This year we got to do something spectacular." Chuck said.
"Let's
release the brake on old man Parker's DeSoto." Boz suggested. "It'll
roll halfway to Passaic before he knows what's happening. That's
spectacular."
"Forget
it, " I interjected soberly. "That's too spectacular."
It was a
tradition in our section of Athenia that male youths would annually stage a
spectacular Halloween night prank. In my memory, this tradition dated back to
when my older brother Bob and his friends had fashioned a realistic looking
dummy out of old clothing. They covered it with a bottle of ketchup purchased
at Nazimek’s Market, threw into the middle of Van Houten Avenue and called the
police to report a hit and run accident. That stunt created quite a stir,
including a trip by my extremely annoyed father to the Athenia police station
to retrieve Bob who had been brought there with his cohorts for a "talking
to" by the police.
Now the
torch had been passed to my generation, and the burden to match or surpass the
past weighed heavily on the shoulders of my friends and me. It was an Athenia
rite of passage that could not be avoided. It had to be met head on.
So the
debate went on. Suggestions continued to be presented, and then the merits of
each were discussed, disputed and argued. Most ideas were finally rejected for
one reason or another. Several others were set aside for thought and further
discussion if none better came along. While ideas were being formulated, other
topics of conversation were also discussed.
"My
cousin says he heard that they’re seeing those flying saucers over the
reservoir in Picatinny again.” Boz informed us.
Picatinny
was a rural locale about thirty miles north of Athenia. It had three claims to
fame. One, it was the location of the reservoir that supplied drinking water to
our faucets. Two, it was the location of several secluded spots along that
reservoir which were frequented by amorous couples seeking privacy. And three,
it was the location of Billy's Great Notch Inn, a backwoods bar where Billy,
the proprietor, did not bother with the formality of checking verification of
age when serving alcoholic beverages.
Back in
the summer there had been a sensational furor in the newspapers about strange
lights being seen hovering low over the reservoir. This caused an epidemic of
sightings with all kinds of wild reports. It also caused major traffic problems
in Picatinny as curious UFO buffs swarmed up to the tiny hamlet to try and spot
those strange visitors. Now, according to Boz, it was happening again.
"Those
people are crazy. They're seeing things," Duke, our resident skeptic,
said.
"No,
really, there's something out there." Boz said earnestly. Boz was a
believer and probably today is an officer in the X-Files fan club. “Visitors
from outer space.” he said solemnly.
"They're
probably coming down to take you back to where you came from," Duke gibed
at Boz. The two were forever verbally jousting. It stemmed from the friendly
animosity, which arose from one being a New York Giants fan and the other a
Brooklyn Dodger rooter.
But
maybe Boz was right. This was the era of the greatest wave of UFO sightings
ever. The publicity given by the news media to a report by an Air Force pilot
that he had seen a dozen or more disc-shaped unidentified objects maneuvering
in formation near his speeding aircraft touched off an epidemic of similar
sightings from coast to coast. The newspapers carried reports of new sightings
of strange lights or unidentifiable objects in the skies almost daily.
Speculation as to the origin of these strange flying objects was limited only
by the speculator's imagination. Visitors from outer space was the most common
theory. It became a popular pastime for people everywhere to sit on their front
steps after dark scanning the sky hoping that they might catch a glimpse of one
of these unknown objects. But at the same time, they were frightened that they
would.
"I'd
like to see one of those flying saucers," I announced.
"I
don't believe there are such things. Why would anybody from another planet want
to come down here?" Duke the skeptic wanted to know.
"Because
of the atom bomb," I sagely informed him. "I heard a program about it
on DIMENSION X. These weird creatures that come down to earth from another
solar system because they saw the atomic explosions here on Earth. They came
here to wipe us out because they were afraid that we'd use the bomb to wipe
them out first."
DIMENSION
X was a radio show of the time that dealt with fantastic stories of science
fiction. It was one of my favorites, and I considered it to be on the cutting
edge of science.
Chuck, who
had been quietly listening to the discussion on extraterrestrial phenomena,
suddenly blurted, "That's like what happened in WAR OF THE WORLDS."
Boz looked
at him puzzled. "What are you talking about?"
Chuck
answered. "Before the war, some guy put a play on the radio that was all
about Martians landing on Earth. Everybody panicked because they thought that
it was really happening."
"That's
crazy," Duke the skeptic, again interjected.
"I'm
not kidding. It really happened." Chuck insisted.
"You
mean people thought that a radio show was really happening?" I asked.
"Yea,"
Chuck replied. "It was just a radio play about how flying saucers land and
funny-looking Martians come out and they start to zap everybody in sight with
ray guns, and a big war breaks out between them and us. But the people
listening to the radio didn't know that it was just a show. They thought that
it was the real thing and some thought that it was the end of the world."
"How
do you know all about it?" Duke asked.
"My
father told me. And he has a clipping from the newspaper that tells all about
it."
When we
all expressed complete disbelief that such an outlandish story could be true,
Chuck insisted that we go with him to see that clipping. As we hurriedly walked
the six blocks to Chuck's house, the conversation continued to argue the
validity of such an occurrence. It was hard to believe that anybody could or
would mistake a radio play for fact.
Arriving at
his, house, Chuck went inside and returned shortly with a folded and yellow
clipping from the New York Daily News. It was dated November 1, 1938, more than
ten years old.
"Be
careful. Don't tear it. My father will kill me if you tear it."
We could
all see the bold black headline. RADIO LISTENERS IN PANIC-MARTIAN LANDING ONLY
A HOAX.
Chuck read
the story aloud to us. "A radio dramatization of H. G. Welles' WAR OF THE
WORLDS, which thousands of people misunderstood as a news broadcast of a
current catastrophe in New Jersey, created almost unbelievable scenes of terror
across the United State.”
"Wow,
right here in New Jersey!" Boz was excited. Duke pounded him on the arm to
keep him quiet.
Chuck
continued. "Hearing reports that a mass of metal had struck New Jersey in
a blazing light, and that weird monsters were swarming out of the object,
destroying hundreds of people with death ray guns, thousands of listeners
rushed from their homes with towels over their faces to protect themselves from
the gas which the invaders were supposed to be spewing forth." The article
went on to describe other foolish acts of hysteria by people who thought the
broadcast was reality. But the reports were only a radio dramatization
presented by young radio genius Orson Welles on The Mercury Theater show
broadcast locally over WOR in New York.
We were
fascinated by the unbelievable scenes of chaos, which were wrought by the radio
show.
"That
was really something." Box sighed. "Wouldn't it be something if that
happened today?"
That's
when the idea struck me broadside in the same blunt, attention-getting manner
that Moe invariably used on his sidekicks, Larry and Curly.
Those who
have not had the touch of pure inspiration fall upon them cannot fully
appreciate the way that I felt at that moment. I was like the cartoon character
that suddenly has the light bulb go on above his head. I felt the same
excitement and exhilaration that Eli Whitney must have felt when the idea for
the cotton gin popped into his mind. But little did I suspect that Mephisto
himself inspired my idea. He had selected my idle body to do his work.
It was at
this time in my life, a time when my mind and hands should have been busily
occupied shaping a solid foundation for my future that I veered from the
mundane straight and narrow and staggered onto the wavering road of ruin.
"THAT'S
IT!" It was the Devil speaking through my voice. "WE COULD DO
IT!"
Everyone
turned to stare at me in astonishment. They had obviously never seen a man
possessed before.
"Do
what?' Chuck asked calmly.
"We
could make people think that the Martians have landed! We could make a fake
flying saucer! Everybody will think it's real! They'll go crazy! That's our
Halloween trick!"
I took a
deep breath to calm myself, and then carefully explained my plan to my friends.
Several months ago, I had seen an article in Popular Mechanics magazine.
Popular
Mechanics magazine was my father’s absolute favorite magazine. It was the only
one our family subscribed to, and when the new issue arrived each month, all
crispy and shiny, my father would devour it. For that evening, even his beloved
New York Daily News had to take a back seat. Dad would sit in the living room
ensconced in this favorite easy chair with the three-way bulb over his head
turned all the way to the third click, two hundred and fifty watts of
illumination. He would spend the entire night slowly turning the pages,
absorbing every article, and bending over the corner of pages that he would
want to refer back to later. He wouldn’t go to bed until he’d examined every
page.
After this
first detailed perusal, the magazine would then be put in the place of honor,
the top of the toilet tank in our bathroom. It would stay there for future easy
reference as Dad would go back to it often, rereading especially important
articles or rechecking the instructions for that particularly interesting home
handyman project that he was going to construct “one of these days.” This
frequent usage took its toll, and each day the magazine became a little more
worn. Finally a month would pass. The new issue would arrive and replace the
old in bathroom. The previous issue, having served faithfully for the past
thirty days, would then be mercifully retired to the basement where it
blissfully rested on the top of a pile of several years worth of other back
issues. We never threw away a single issue of Popular Mechanics magazine.
I
distinctly remember that it was while contentedly sitting there in our
bathroom, leisurely leafing through the April issue, the one with the new
Studebaker, Commander, V-8 Starline on the cover, when I came across the
article. It gave full details, complete with photos, on how to make a small,
working model of a hot-air balloon. The materials required were common objects
found around the home. My plan was devilishly simple we would make the balloon
and release it after dark. It would surely be seen and mistaken for a flying
saucer! It was the perfect Halloween prank!
My buddies
were immediately seized by my excitement. That night, I went to our basement
archive, retrieved the April issue and ripped the article from it. For two days
that's almost all we talked about. We read and reread the article so that we
would each know what to bring and how to do it.
Finally, Halloween night
arrived and we all met as planned in the open field behind St. Stanislauv's
church to hatch my satanic scheme. It was an autumn night with tantalizing
possibilities of adventure hanging palpably in the cool air.
“Where are we going to do
it?” Boz asked.
“Right here, no?” said
Chuck.
“There are too many trees
around here.” Duke said, “What if it flies into one and gets stuck? The whole
thing is ruined.”
“The steeple!” I blurted. We can let it go from there!” I gestured
upward and all heads turned simultaneously to look where I was pointing.
Once again, a force outside of the flesh and blood of my mortal
being was guiding me. It was an evil force that controlled my thoughts, actions
and words while I helplessly enacted them.
It was right there, looming
over us. A tall, brick tower topped with an open belfry, the steeple of St.
Stanislauv’s Church. We had been up there many times before. It was one of
those adventures we went on when overcome with the crushing boredom of being a
teenager. It was the tallest structure in Athenia except maybe for the water
tower at the propeller plant. It afforded a magnificent view in all directions,
and on a clear day even the jagged spires of the New York City skyline were
visible twelve miles to the east. For years, researchers have unsuccessfully
tried to determine the connection between teenage boys and high places. I
cannot explain it either, but I do know that it was from the steeple of St.
Stanislauv’s Church that Boz had his name indelibly etched into the annals of
the Athenia Hall of Fame. It was from here that on one warm night the previous
summer he had performed the incredibly daring and skillful act of peeing into
an empty peanut butter jar we had placed on the sidewalk below. It was a feat
that no one before or since has had the dexterity, temerity or accuracy to
accomplish.
The steeple belfry was a
truly special place, and access to it was amazingly simple for insiders who
knew the secrets of St. Stanislauv’s. Since all four of us served as alter boys
in the church, we were insiders who had long ago figured it out.
I took one last inventory to
make sure that we had all the materials and equipment that we needed. Satisfied
that we had everything, I said in a low, conspiratorial voice, like Fu Man Chu
directing his dacoits, “Come on, let’s go. And keep it quiet!”
We furtively entered the
church using the door on the Penobscot Street side. This was the side that
faced away from the rectory and the watchful eyes of the priests. We went up
the long flight of stairs to the choir level where in the corner, hidden behind
some storage cabinets, was a circular iron staircase. There was a flimsy chain
latched across the opening of the stairs, which provided token resistance to
unauthorized entry. We leapt over that and shuffled up about thirty spiraling
steps to a platform. Only one of us at a time could occupy this platform. The
last leg of the journey was the only one that caused any trepidation. It was a
series of iron ladder rungs, about ten of them, embedded into the tower wall. I
went first, holding tightly to each rung as I ascended. At the top I pushed up
the trap door in the floor of the belfry, then lifted myself up. My cohorts
followed without hesitation. We were there!
The belfry was a small space
and the four of up filled it up. There were no bells, just a couple of
loudspeakers hanging over our heads that blared the sound of chiming bells
whenever a priest pressed a button in the rectory or sacristy. We paused a very
short time to look around and watch the trick or treaters zig-zagging on the
streets below us as they rushed from house to house. But we didn’t have time
for sightseeing.
“This is going to be great.
“ Boz said. “We’re above all the trees.”
“Yea,” I agreed, then
solemnly said, “Let’s do it!”
While my friends quietly watched, I calmly set about my hellish work. The Devil guided my hands as I reshaped a wire coat hanger into a circle, leaving one jagged end at its center. My voice quivered with excitement as I asked Chuck to hand me the plastic bag he had brought. It was the kind that covered fresh dry cleaning. Using Scotch tape, I fastened the open end of the bag to the circumference of the wire ring.
Following
the instructions in my magazine to the letter, I next pulled a huge wad of
cotton out of my pocket and impaled it on the pointed end of the hanger.
"Now
what?" Boz asked eagerly.
"Here,
hold it over the edge." I instructed him.
He grabbed
the top of the plastic bag and dangled the sinister object as far out over the
edge of the belfry as he could. I soaked the wad of cotton with the contents of
a can of Ronson lighter fluid that Chuck had supplied.
"You
got the matches." I asked Duke.
"Yea,
right here," he answered pulling them from his jeans pocket.
I solemnly
gave him the final order. "Light it!"
Duke
pulled a match from the book and dragged it several times over the striker
until it finally lit. I could see his hand nervously shaking as he brought it
closer and closer to the cotton wad. Finally the flame touched the cotton and
it instantly burst into a ball of hot orange flame.
"Hold
onto it as long as you can." I told Boz, and we watched as the warm rising
air stretched the plastic outward until it billowed.
"My
fingers are burning!" Boz screamed. "I can't hold on anymore!"
"Let
go," I instructed, and he did.
The whole
mass seemed to be magically suspended in midair. For a split second we thought
it was going to go down as it faltered and sank slightly. But then it recovered
and the evil thing slowly rose until it was caught by a gentle current of air
and lazily drifted away. We craned our necks to watch it. The orange flame
reflected off the clear plastic giving the accursed object the appearance of a
floating, glowing apparition.
"It
really looks like a flying saucer!" Boz screamed, and it did. It was a
glowing, orange ball eerily drifting down Speer Avenue. The Devil in me smiled
knowingly.
We were
mesmerized by the sinister object and continued to watch it float away until
finally we realized that it was about to drift out of view.
“Let’s go
follow it!” Boz shouted, and we clamored down the steeple tower and burst out
the door onto Penobscot Street. We ran down to the corner of Speer Avenue
searching the sky for our homemade UFO. At first we couldn’t spot it until Duke
shouted, “There it is!” It had floated almost out of sight. We ran down the
street to follow our man-made UFO on its flight. It miraculously evaded
treetops, power lines and rooftop TV antennas as if guided by some sinister,
unseen force.
Speer
Avenue was crowded with costumed Halloween celebrators running from house to
house to get their candy and other treats. The younger ones were accompanied by
their watchful parents. When our glowing apparition paused in its flight, we
stopped too. That’s when Duke went into action.
“Look,” he
shouted, loud enough to get the attention of nearby trick or treaters, “What’s
that?” He was pointing right at the thing in the sky.
I caught
on quickly. “It looks like a flying saucer!” I shouted, and Boz and Chuck
followed up with loud remarks about UFOs and visitors from space. Some of the
kids nearby looked up too and saw it. Then the grown ups noticed it. Pretty
soon almost everyone on Speer Avenue was standing on the sidewalks or the
street looking up at our thing. Other grown ups came out of their homes to see
what the curiosity was and joined in. Boz, Chuck, Duke and I kept up our loud
patter about alien spaceships and that seemed to fuel the imagination of all
the others. Soon I heard the adults whispering among themselves about UFOs and
flying saucers. Our Halloween hoax was catching on. It had worked!
But the
thing continued to float away, drifting over backyards and buildings until it
disappeared from sight somewhere in the vicinity of Castle Hill, a large open
field of grass.
The kids
that gathered went back to their trick or treating, but a small groups of
adults lingered on the sidewalk discussing in low voices what they had just
seen.
We didn't
hang around for a long time but we went back out our usual hangout location,
the corner of Speer Avenue and Penobscot Street and animatedly discussed the
night’s prank. It had been a fantastic success. Everybody on the street had
seen our homemade flying saucer and was trying to figure out just what it was
that they had seen.
“That was
great!” Boz said, “We should do it again.”
“Yea,”
joined in Chuck, “Let’s do it again tomorrow.”
That
seemed like a great idea, so with the hurly burly done, we parted into the dark
night like the three witches of MacBeth, with an agreement to meet again the
next night to re-do our deed.
It was
late when I arrived home that night and so I went directly to bed. As I lay in
my room, the familiar sounds of the Athenia night drifted into my open window
on the breeze of the Indian summer night. The plaintive wails of a tugboat
meandering down the Passaic River, the clang of steel on steel from the night
shift at the propeller factory, and the faint distant sound of screaming sirens
rushing to an emergency all helped me drift off to a restful, contented sleep.
The next
morning dawned dank, drab and chilly. I dragged myself out of bed and shuffled
into the kitchen for my usual bowl of Cheerios with sliced bananas. My mother
was at her usual position at the table toiling over the crossword puzzle in the
morning newspaper. I shoved my first spoonful of cereal into my mouth, and then
asked. “Is there anything in the paper about people seeing a flying saucer last
night?”
“No,” Mom said,
matter-of-factly without looking up from her puzzle, "but there was a fire
at Castle Hill last night.
At first
those words meant nothing to me, but then they sank into my brain.
"WHAT?" I ejaculated.
"There
was a fire at Castle Hill. The whole field burned. Not a blade of grass left.
Mrs. Wagoner called to tell me. It was so bad that they had to call Mr. Wagoner
to go help put it out. He's an auxiliary fireman. It’s a good thing it started
to rain. They were afraid some houses would catch fire.”
I refused
to believe what my mind was telling me, but it must have been true!
"Y-Y-Y-Yea…lucky."
I stammered.
"Probably
some careless boys playing a dreadful Halloween stunt." Mom said turning
back to her puzzle. "I wonder who their parents are. Honestly!"
A short
time later, I was standing with Boz, Chuck and Duke in the cold drizzle outside
of School Thirteen. Our mood was somber.
“We almost
burned down houses.” Chuck whispered. Then he turned and pointed at me
accusingly. “It was your idea.”
“Yea.”
Duke said weakly, his voice quivering with fear.
“Me?
You’re the one that wanted to do something spectacular.” I defended myself.
“That was
spectacular alright,” Boz interjected. “Almost as spectacular as the Chicago
fire!”
“After
school, let’s go look at where the fire was.” Duke naively suggested.
“Are you
crazy?” Chuck exploded. “We can’t go back there. The cops probably have the
place staked out!”
“We better forget about
that.” I said.
“Yea,”
said Boz, “I’m not going to jail over some stupid Halloween prank.”
With that,
the school’s opening bell clanged and the doors were flung open by the
monitors. We all marched in to begin another day of education. But Duke, Chuck,
Boz and I had learned that some of the best lessons in life are not learned in
school.
* * * * *
"Herb,
don't you just love Chinese food?" Madison asked smiling benignly at me.
"What?"
I asked. She had awakened me from my painful recollections.
"I
said, don't you love Chinese food?" Her foot ran up my calf again.
"Yea,
the food's all right," I told her, "but they can keep these damn
fortune cookies!"
