the United States.
Despite the general population decline, it has grown by nearly a million since 1987. It is more than four times the size of the second largest city, San Francisco, and larger than New York was before the war.
The conductor comes through, calling, “Needles, next stop Needles.” There is stirring in the car. Needles is one of the infamous California ports of entry. To get into the state, you’ve got to show twenty gold dollars or an equivalent amount in goods or paper currency, and a valid entry permit. The only way to get such a permit is to have business in the state or a job waiting for you there.
We do not have any permits. And between us we have eight hundred paper dollars, the equivalent of only eight gold.
None of our fellow passengers have talked about entry, but we sense that we are not alone. There are all kinds of stories about getting into California; few of them involve the possession of papers and astronomical sums of money.
“Needles,” the conductor shouts. “Everybody stay in the train, stay in the train!”
We slow to a crawl and draw up to the platform. I’m shocked.
There are soldiers armed with submachine guns every fifteen feet.
Behind them are huge signs:
An amplified voice can be heard: “Do not leave the train. Have your entry permits ready. Do not leave the train.”
We decide to obey. Around us a few people are pulling the precious green forms out of purses and wallets. But most are sitting passively, waiting. This is only the first step in their journey. They have timed their arrival carefully. There isn’t an outgoing train for another six hours. For that much time they will be in the holding pen. They have staked their lives and their money on the possibility that they will be able to escape and somehow cross mountains and desert to the Los Angeles basin, there to disappear into the golden horde.
California State Police officers in white crash helmets, face masks, black leather boots, and khaki uniforms come across the platform in formation. They carry pistols in holsters. At a barked order, half of them draw their weapons. The other half have clipboards. These are some of California’s notorious Processing Officers. When they catch people trying to escape the holding pens, they mark them with indelible green dye.
Suddenly a man in full radiation gear comes into the car from the side opposite the platform. He is carrying a small black device with a digital readout. It has a long, thin probe attached. He waves it back and forth as he moves down the aisle, touching some of the passengers with it, inserting it down the collars of others. He squirts a bright red aerosol on the back of one man’s hand, and tells him that he’s got to go take a detox shower and get an issue of paper clothing before he can even get port-of-entry processing.
Jim and I are examined without comment. Apparently this device only measures present radiation. My high lifedose is still my own business, unless I try to enter a hospital without a health card.
At the far end of the car he blows a whistle. Immediately, Processing Officers appear at both doors. Behind the man at the front is one of the clipboard carriers. “California registered citizens,” he shouts, “show your colors.” Four people pull out red plastic cards.
Captain Clipboard runs them through a device like a credit-card verifier and reads something in the screen of a portable computer.
One after another, the citizens are given the precious right to stay on the train.
One man is not as lucky as the others. “You aren’t computing,” Captain Clipboard says affably. “You’ll have to step over to the customs shack for manual verification.”
“What’s the problem, officer?”
“You don’t come up on the computer. Maybe your card’s defective. Go over to customs—it’s the yellow door.”
Uncertain, nervous, the young man rises from his seat. He goes to the rear of the car. As he is leaving, Captain Clipboard calls out, “Arrest him, he’s a jumper.”
The young man leaps down and dashes across the platform, heading for the chainlink fence that separates it from the parking lot. A voice calls in a blaring monotone, “Stop, or we’ll have to shoot.” Then, more gently: “Come on, kid, take it easy.”
When he is three-quarters of the way up the fence, two of the U.S. Army types raise their machine guns.
“Look, kid, you’re going to die in ten seconds if you don’t climb back down.”
The young man stops. He sags against the fence. Slowly he climbs down, into the arms of two other soldiers, who handcuff him, then connect the handcuffs to leg irons and lead him clanking away.
“Okay,” Captain Clipboard calls out, “everybody hold up their entry permits.” Hands thrust up full of green paper. “Hey, good car! This is gonna be a nice day.” He casts a frown at Jim and me.
From another car there rises the sound of female screaming. It goes on and on, trembling into the heat.
Captain Clipboard works his way along the aisle. One after another, he puts the green forms on his clipboard and goes over them with a lightpen. Two people are sent to the yellow door. They walk quickly across the platform, pointedly ignoring the chainlink fence, carrying their green forms and all of their belongings in their hands. Others, from other cars, straggle along as well. Finally there is nobody left in the car but us illegals.
“All right, now it’s joker time! All of you displaced persons off the train, line up along the white line on the platform, and don’t make sudden moves. You’d be surprised how nervous those dumb army boys get, standing out there in the sun. Let’s go!”
Sixteen of us shuffle off the train, mostly threadbare, eyes hollow, about us all the furtive look of the new American wanderers.
We are facing the toughest port-of-entry system in the United States. The odds are that all sixteen of us will be on the outbound train later this afternoon.
“Hey, Sally,” Captain Clipboard calls, “you recycle fast, sweet-heart.”
“I’m working on a tunnel,” one woman mutters in reply, her head down.
I wonder how many of us are repeaters. But, watching the soldiers across the platform watching us, I decide not to strike up any conversations. At a barked command, the soldiers move forward until they are facing us. “All right, folks,” the giant voice says, “single file to the pen, please. Move out. Double time!”
As we shamble away, the train gives a long blast on its horn and starts to roll. Not a few heads turn back, watching it pass the open track barrier. The lucky few inside are already reopening their newspapers and settling back for the run to L.A.
We are herded into a fenced-off area about three acres square.
There is a cyclone fence twenty feet high, topped by razor wire. At all four corners of the enclosure there are guard houses. Fifty feet beyond the fence there is another barrier: a run occupied by six huge hounds. I see light towers stretching off into the distance, wonder if the whole California border could be lit. As we won’t be here past 4:00 P.M., when the outbound train arrives, I’ll never know.
“Bomb-out,” I say to Jim.
“Maybe. I think we ought to try to talk our way in.”
I assume that as a newsman, he’s more practiced at this sort of thing than I am. “What do you suggest?”
“We can try the reporter gambit. I’ve got my
A soldier, smoking a cigarette, closes his eyes for an instant and then regards us with a blank expression.
“I’m a reporter for—”
“No talking.”
“—the Dallas
The soldier stares, his eyes glazed with boredom.
