arms.
I glanced at my watch. It was already a quarter to ten. No choice but to tough it out; I was in no shape to slog all the way back to my digs. Trying not to look like I had just mud-wrestled a gorilla, I strode toward the turnstile, reaching into my pants pocket to fish out my fare card.
The trooper studied me as I walked under the light. I gave him a quick nod of my head and started to pass my card in front of the scanner when he took a step forward and barred my way with his stick.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but do you know what time it is?”
In the old days, I might have just looked at my watch, said “Yes,” and walked on, but these guys were notorious for having no sense of humor. My mind flipped through a half-dozen preconcocted ploys, ranging from pretending to be drunk to simply acting stupid, and realized that none of them would adequately explain why I looked as disheveled as I did. Telling the truth was out of the question; the average ERA trooper had less respect for a reporter than he would for a suspected looter, and screw the First Amendment.
“Is it after nine already?” I feigned embarrassed surprise, then pulled back my sleeve and glanced at my watch. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so—”
“May I see some ID, please?” Below us, several people sitting on plastic benches beneath the platform awning watched with quiet curiosity. No doubt they had been forced to go through the same ordeal.
“Hmm? Sure, sure …” I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket, found my driver’s license, and passed it to him. The trooper’s nameplate read B. DOUGLAS ; he passed my license under a handscanner, then flipped down a monocle from his helmet and waited for the computers at the city’s records department to download my file.
It gave me a chance to size him up as well. What I saw was scary: a kid young enough to be my little brother—twenty-one at most—wearing khaki combat fatigues, leather lace-up boots, and riot helmet, with the sword-and-tornado insignia of the Emergency Relief Agency sewn on the left shoulder of his flak jacket. An assault rifle hung from a strap over his right shoulder, a full brace of Mace and tear gas canisters suspended from his belt. He had the hard-eyed, all-too-serious look of a young man who had been given too much authority much too soon, who believed that the artillery he carried gave him the right to kick butt whenever he wished. In another age he might have been a member of Hitler Youth looking for Jews to beat up or a Young Republican wandering a college campus in search of a liberal professor to harass. Now he was an ERA trooper, and by God this was his light-rail station.
“Are you aware that you’re in a curfew zone, Mr. Rosen?” He pulled my driver’s license out from under his scanner but didn’t pass it back to me.
I pretended to be appalled. “I am? This is University City, isn’t it? There isn’t a curfew here.”
He stared back at me. “No, sir, you’re downtown now. Curfew starts here at nine o’clock sharp.”
I shrugged off-handedly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was the situation.” I tried an apologetic smile. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m down here.”
“You look awful muddy, old-timer,” he said condescendingly. “Fall down someplace?”
Old-timer, indeed. I was thirty-three and Lord of the Turnstiles knew it. If there were the first few gray streaks in my hair, it was because of what I had seen in the past eleven months. I wanted to tell him that I was old enough to remember when the Bill of Rights still meant something, but I kept my sarcasm in check. Li’l Himmler here was just looking for an excuse to place me under arrest for curfew violation. My police record was clean, and he didn’t have anything on me, but my occupation was listed as “journalist.” I could see it in his face: reporters for the Big Muddy Inquirer didn’t get cut much slack on his beat.
“Sort
I glanced at my watch. It was already a quarter to ten. No choice but to tough it out; I was in no shape to slog all the way back to my digs. Trying not to look like I had just mud-wrestled a gorilla, I strode toward the turnstile, reaching into my pants pocket to fish out my fare card.
The trooper studied me as I walked under the light. I gave him a quick nod of my head and started to pass my card in front of the scanner when he took a step forward and barred my way with his stick.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but do you know what time it is?”
In the old days, I might have just looked at my watch, said “Yes,” and walked on, but these guys were notorious for having no sense of humor. My mind flipped through a half-dozen preconcocted ploys, ranging from pretending to be drunk to simply acting stupid, and realized that none of them would adequately explain why I looked as disheveled as I did. Telling the truth was out of the question; the average ERA trooper had less respect for a reporter than he would for a suspected looter, and screw the First Amendment.
“Is it after nine already?” I feigned embarrassed surprise, then pulled back my sleeve and glanced at my watch. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so—”
“May I see some ID, please?” Below us, several people sitting on plastic benches beneath the platform awning watched with quiet curiosity. No doubt they had been forced to go through the same ordeal.
“Hmm? Sure, sure …” I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket, found my driver’s license, and passed it to him. The trooper’s nameplate read B. DOUGLAS ; he passed my license under a handscanner, then flipped down a monocle from his helmet and waited for the computers at the city’s records department to download my file.
It gave me a chance to size him up as well. What I saw was scary: a kid young enough to be my little brother—twenty-one at most—wearing khaki combat fatigues, leather lace-up boots, and riot helmet, with the sword-and-tornado insignia of the Emergency Relief Agency sewn on the left shoulder of his flak jacket. An assault rifle hung from a strap over his right shoulder, a full brace of Mace and tear gas canisters suspended from his belt. He had the hard-eyed, all-too-serious look of a young man who had been given too much authority much too soon, who believed that the artillery he carried gave him the right to kick butt whenever he wished. In another age he might have been a member of Hitler Youth looking for Jews to beat up or a Young Republican wandering a college campus in search of a liberal professor to harass. Now he was an ERA trooper, and by God this was his light-rail station.
“Are you aware that you’re in a curfew zone, Mr. Rosen?” He pulled my driver’s license out from under his scanner but didn’t pass it back to me.
I pretended to be appalled. “I am? This is University City, isn’t it? There isn’t a curfew here.”
He stared back at me. “No, sir, you’re downtown now. Curfew starts here at nine o’clock sharp.”
I shrugged off-handedly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was the situation.” I tried an apologetic smile. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m down here.”
“You look awful muddy, old-timer,” he said condescendingly. “Fall down someplace?”
Old-timer, indeed. I was thirty-three and Lord of the Turnstiles knew it. If there were the first few gray streaks in my hair, it was because of what I had seen in the past eleven months. I wanted to tell him that I was old enough to remember when the Bill of Rights still meant something, but I kept my sarcasm in check. Li’l Himmler here was just looking for an excuse to place me under arrest for curfew violation. My police record was clean, and he didn’t have anything on me, but my occupation was listed as “journalist.” I could see it in his face: reporters for the Big Muddy Inquirer didn’t get cut much slack on his beat.
“Sort
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