Warday

In New York I learned how it felt to get caught in a “trivial” nuclear war. Here in Dallas I have learned every agonizing detail of the consequences—the long, unforeseen drama of the aftermath.

No planner ever dreamed that it would be as small as it was. No doubt some prewar strategists would have felt confident about a nuclear exchange like the one we had. I can see the memo now:

“As minor a megadeath level as six is sustainable, and planning must include the possibility of even greater losses within the parameters of acceptability.”

As many died on Warday in this country alone as in all of Hitler’s gas chambers. And afterward—all I can say is that the death of friends no longer surprises.

On this fine Dallas morning Jim walks along beside me, silently. He was like this years and years ago, on patrol in Vietnam, his eyes seeming to look inward, his face in almost meditative repose.

I remember the day we got on that Pan Am jet to come home. The moment the plane was in the air he changed back to his old self, voluble, full of laughter, his wit at turns fierce and gentle. Now the silence is customary. Jim has killed to stay alive, and he has seen hard things. Because he got the flu early, he was able to come and go as he pleased during most of the epidemic. To this day he is short of breath from the scarring on his lungs, but he survived. A week after his recovery he took his camera and notepad and traveled through the Midwest on behalf of the Dallas News Herald. It was the height of the epidemic. He walked the streets of Cincinnati during the Ten Days, and saw what a modern American city in the grip of an uncontrollable plague was like. He took the classic photograph of the stacks of dead burning in Eden Park. Never once has he spoken about his experiences there, and nobody asks him to.

His pictures and published account are sufficient testimony.

People greet us at the bus stop. Winnie Parker embraces me, so does John Gordon. I can understand why modern custom has replaced the handshake. To hold others is to maintain something. A handshake confirms distance, and we don’t need that anymore.

The bus comes at 8:12, right on time. We get in, jamming to the back as best we can. Because of the cost of parts, it can be very expensive to run a car, but the bus fare is two cents here in Dallas.

The bus soon reaches the Central Expressway and turns in toward the downtown area. The only time it leaves the expressway is to stop at the Meadows Building, where the Centers for Disease Control has its regional office. I suppose that it is the largest non-military agency of what remains of the United States Government.

Maybe the Agriculture Department is larger, but I doubt it. CDC is heavily supported by the British. U.S. tax collection procedures are still too minimal to guarantee the kind of budgetary consistency a massive operation like CDC requires. What the English do is simple: they pay CDC’s salaries out of their general exchequer, then bill the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, which transfers gold down at Fort Knox from the American pile to the British pile.

Half the passengers on the bus get off at CDC. The rest of us continue on into downtown. A group of girls in Rat Patrol uniforms sing a familiar song, made popular by the rock group Sunshine.

“Earliest morning, hour of sweetness
Surely begotten just to remind us
That night is completed
And we can begin now, a brand new day.”

I must confess that I don’t like Sunshine’s relentless good cheer any more than I liked the facile anger of The Bad back before the war. I was a Bach fan back then, and I am a Bach fan now.

But the Rat Patrol girls are fresh-faced and full of the winsome joy of their song. To a man my age, the young are so beautiful to see.

“Hey, Whitley, we’re here.”

“Sorry.” I follow Jim out of the bus. We are at the Adolphus Hotel, which is the Southwestern headquarters of the British Relief. And some say, also, the true seat of government of the Southwestern United States.

The Adolphus is in superb repair, unlike many Dallas structures, which have suffered mainly from this country’s continuing glass shortage. There are no cracks in the facade of this beautifully restored old hotel. I can remember, dimly, coming here with my father, driving up from San Antonio in his black Cadillac, when he was doing business with a prewar billionaire named H. L. Hunt.

Dad and his partners were trying to interest Hunt in drilling for oil in Lavaca County in South Texas, but I don’t think they ever succeeded.

The Adolphus of today is much more elegant. We pass through big doors elaborate with polished brass, and confront at once a receptionist behind a wide desk. To her right is a Phillips computer, its screen glowing. To her left is a communications console. She is wearing the summer uniform of the British Emergency Medical Relief Organization, a white peaked cap with blue trim, white shirt with blue-and-gold epaulets, white skirt, and white shoes. Altogether, she radiates health and a kind of deep, interior confidence I remember well. It was commonplace in the prewar United States.

Behind her, two blue-uniformed bobbies stand at parade rest in front of the elevators.

“May I help you, please?” she says quickly.

“James Kunetka and Whitley Strieber to see Mr. Shandy.”

Jim’s voice is smooth, his manner calm and affable. He comes here often, looking for news. I cannot help but be uneasy in this foreign-controlled enclave. Like most Americans, my trust in massive central governments is nil. I am uneasy around these British civil servants with their paramilitary pretensions, though I know that their contributions to our welfare have been enormous.

The receptionist types our names into the computer. In a moment the communications console beeps. She picks up the receiver, listens, puts it down. “You can go right up.” She presses a buzzer and one of the bobbies steps forward. By the time he reaches us, she has filled out two green tags. We are expected to put them in our shirt pockets so that, folded out, they can be seen at all times.

We are accompanied to the sixteenth floor by the other bobby.

There, a third policeman shows us to Room 1620, which is marked simply CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. There is a faint smell of sausages and coffee in the hallway.

Another secretary shows us into a cramped outer office, which is dominated by a communications console and computer identical to the ones downstairs. The next moment Jim is introducing me to the inhabitant of the more commodious inner office, a man of medium height with a badly sunburned bald head and a sort of blustering joviality about him. He is in a summer uniform with large wet spots under the arms. He gets right down to business. “I can give you an hour,” he says.

Jim takes off his backpack and pulls out his recorder. “The idea is that you simply talk. We won’t ask many questions. Just tell about your job. Your life here. Whatever you want.”

Shandy regards us. “I’d anticipated questions.”

“Do you feel you need them?” Jim asks.

“Well, I suppose not. It’s just—more convenient, you know.”

His eyes meet mine. His gaze is blue and direct. “Before we start, I want to know a little bit about your plans.”

Jim smiles. “We’re still going to Aztlan, Mr. Shandy.”

Shandy’s lips tighten. “We don’t recommend it.”

The Hispanic Free State that has come into being around El Paso is notorious in this part of Texas. People are terrified of Aztlan. Our visit there will be the first great challenge of our journey.

“Aztlan is extremely dangerous,” Shandy says. “We’d really prefer that you stay in Texas.”

“Who is ‘we’?” I ask.

“The U.K. contingent,” he snaps. Then he picks up the little Sanyo recorder. “You have a disk in this thing?”