The Swing Voter of Staten Island by Arthur Nersesian Read Free Book Online

Council-operated OTDs—off-track dog races—Uli saw slot machine and blackjack parlors, not to mention scratch-and-match tickets for sale everywhere.
    “This place has a serious gambling problem,” Uli observed.
    “The five mob families that ran things in the old city had wiseguys who came here and divided up everything,” the driver imparted as they marched westward.
    “Did you lose your arm in Vietnam?” Uli asked. The two of them were walking ahead of Mallory and Oric.
    “Why, you find one there?” the driver countered. When Uli didn’t laugh, he said, “About eight years ago I got into an alley fight and shanked some dude.”
    “Must’ve been a heck of a fight,” Uli muttered.
    The bus driver led the tired group to an establishment with a sign that read, SIXTEENTH-STAMP STORE . The driver and Oric entered.
    Next door was the Sunset Park Crapper headquarters. Mallory dashed inside. Explaining her vital mission and dire situation, she was able to appropriate ten stamps for official business. Then she entered the general store and surveyed the largely addictive impulse items lining the shelves. Candy, mentholated cigarettes, and various liquors—all of which fit into sample-sized wrappers or narrow containers so they could be sold for a sixteenth-stamp apiece. Mallory purchased fruit-named soft drinks for everybody.
    As Uli sipped his bright pink “strawberry” beverage out front, a beat-up minivan screeched to a halt and the driver hastily tossed out a small bundle of the Daily Posted New York Times.
    Uli surveyed the headlines: Big Antiwar Rally Today . A smaller article announced, A ntiwar Folksinger Fillip Ocks Hangs Self in Rockaway, CIA Involvement Strongly Suspected.
    Uli read the latest listing of crimes and their terrorist links. Like in the issue he had read on the bus, they were all supplied by nameless sources. A truck bomb had blown up in Rego Park, killing eighteen. Members of the Shining Path were suspected. Six middle-aged women from Howard Beach—who had somehow pissed off members of an extremist cyclist group, the August 30th MassCritters—had been raped and strangled. The Symbionese Liberation Army was suspected of shooting and killing a dozen people in Far Rockaway. According to the paper, the Black Liberation Army had engineered a string of jewelry heists in Staten Island. The list went on.
    The single detail that the Times failed to mention, Uli noticed, was how these crimes—particularly the violent ones—served each of the revolutionary organizations’ higher ideals. How could raping middle-aged women from Howard Beach help the cause of the notorious August 30th MassCritters? What did the B.L.A. do with cheap bracelets, paste-gem amulets, and imitation diamond tiaras to further its cause of racial equality?
    Inexplicably—since there was no official communication between the residents of Rescue City and the rest of the world—the newspaper also included a lively page of national and international news. One misspelled headline screamed, Reagan Orders Secret Bombing of Louse and Terroran! A second article proclaimed, Religious Cult in Go’on’ya Commits Mass Sewercide.
    Uli turned to the sports/politics page:
    WEEKLY CITYWIDE ELECTION RESULTS
    MANHATTAN:
    Total Pigger districts: 1
    Total Crappers districts: 9
    No change from last election
    STATEN ISLAND:
    Total Pigger districts: 0
    Total Crapper districts: 0
    Total Independent districts (Verdant League): 10
    No change from last election
    THE BRONX:
    Total Pigger districts: 9
    Total Crapper districts: 1
    No change from last election
    BROOKLYN:
    Greenpoint (Pigger) invaded
    2,124 Crappers, 2,122 Piggers
    Outcome: Crapper
    Councilman Guido Basilicata (P) removed
    Councilman Antonia Basilicata (C) reelected
    Total Pigger districts: 2
    Total Crapper districts: 18
    One change from last election
    QUEENS:
    Far Rockaway (Pigger) invaded
    2,438 Crappers, 2,435 Piggers
    Outcome: Crapper
    Councilman Ted Kostiyan (P) removed
    Councilwoman