Scene Seven

Mehanata

 

The yellow cabs fly by on Tuesday night. You could cook things on the sidewalk, that’s how vile and hot the concrete jungle is this summer.        For the nine to thirteen million rats in their various races, this city never fucking sleeps. Its go, go, go, zoom, zoom rush! Slaves and serfs to the trains for service. It’s all an illusion its fun here with no currency. It’s a filthy place except at the center. Getting in early with red eyes and leaving late. Back on the cattle cars. The masters dangling enough to cover the rising rent and some groceries if you’re lucky. You’re so lucky to here in this cage! The hope dies out. You whore yourself somehow. You have to. You drink more than you should. It feels worse if you’re not from here. Even the yellow cab driver have more education than most of the rest of the country.  The black sports utility vehicles, with tinted windows and important people that don’t want to look at you. The constant sirens. Everyone running somewhere not making eye contact. Always a fucking siren going off for some emergency that isn’t probably real. The city itself was built on the very top of the mountain. Its highest towers hold more rich and powerful people than anywhere on earth. Except maybe Moscow. This apple is all poison and rotten. The high octane hyper diversity is just a sex circus. Plus a racial death trap. Plus an ugly over crowed sprawl more regularly breaking then making those who arrive from the interior or abroad.

Nicholai Rosetree Trickovitch is bleary eyed. He stinks of cigarettes, some cheap men’s fragrance and also Rum. The climate here is repressive. Rum Barbancourt Three Star on the rocks isn’t served in this part of town. So he brought his own bottle to the tavern. For their troubles were about to mount.

I need another drink, thinks Trickovitch. He knows it will be a long meeting and the A/C won’t in the club house. The night is really just getting started workwise even though it’s past 4am. They’re erring toward minimal street traffic, but even the rats and pigeons here work in shifts. Well that same night Nicholai Trickovitch put together a little squad to, “do a messy little big job.”

There were big jobs and little jobs. There were campaigns that took years. Some jobs where social engineering was needed. Others where brute force was the best approach.

This required some of both and right away. He had to get buy in. No one was ever really in charge. Now, outside New York the Resistance got very eclectic who was involved. It would be inaccurate to say anyone could possibly lead it. It was as bad in New York where 70% of the population wasn’t even born here; they were born everywhere else. A lot of players. They all “relied heavily on black, white and grey magic to keep this thing together,” as Nicholai was fond of saying, “But in New York City, we still do things the old fashioned way. By having a real tight crew.”

In the dead of something, where night creeps toward dusk, around a table on the fourth floor of 113 Ludlow Street, they met. That is to say the restaurant immediately above the Mehanata Tavern. A little talk is underway, a briefing maybe also a sale pitch.

 

“There are thirteen leaders of the Z.O.B,” Trickovitch explains, “Two have disappeared. We don’t fill their seats, but we consider them probably dead. Ones in living in a submarine somewhere hidden. Two are sleeping. That’s a polite way of staying they were thrown in a camp and badly tortured. Most of them kill themselves sometime after. That means at any given period nine are left. Left in charge of all the cells in the division. Greater New York City.”

 

The table is wooden and plates of street meat tapas have all been cleared. Nobody got in from the street, they got in from the tunnel.

 

“Let me tell you how this is gonna go down,” says Nikh to his fellow partisans which include the tall well-polished Jamaican Gangster Mickhi Dbrisk. He is wearing a black suit with no tie after coming from work at previous engagement. Where girls were still jiggling.

Mara Fitzduff Donahue is the half pint Irish, dirty blonde famous for her firebrand speeches on the Fire Switch Radio. Also present is Raphael Ernesto Lynch Contras, the Peruvian disk jockey. A photographer. Retired child soldier and lesser officer of a defunct guerrilla band in Arequipa Province. The fifth member of this add-hock unit was Siegfried Sassoon. He speaks very well. He should be expected to as he is an actor classically trained in Moscow. He too is in the black. Just getting off work as bar tender at a flashy supper club up the street called the Fox. A dashing swaggerous man of Cuban descent. Perhaps the closest man to be able to influence things after Trickovitch and Dbrisk. The sixth man in this last minute, late night call up was the light skinned Haitian smooth criminal Watson Entwissle. The seventh at the table wasn’t made, a smooth young Shatah from East New York. Said his name was Joshua Hunter. Had ok references and they were going to test him out.

 

Watson is pissed. You can tell when he’s pissed, he doesn’t pay attention at all. It’s based anyway on the past midnight hour. He left his favorite chocolate in bed in the Bronx for this “bullshit.” He doesn’t get to see his lady enough. She lives in Boston. Charlotte from Uganda.

 

In the confusing and albeit vaguely disjointed chain of command Mara, Watson, Mickhi and Nikholai are all title holding inner leadership. Only one is from the inner nine. Siegfried Sassoon, Hunter and Raphael were called in as volunteers. Though technically Hunter was not even a “provisional member”. Hasn’t made rank or been sworn in. Not written in the book of life. But they were told he could work.

 

“The Labor Day weekend begins in 72 hours and you all know what’s coming,” explains Mickhi, “The West Indian Day Parade ain’t heading south at the Grand Army Plaza. Oh no, they’re gonna head north right over the bridges and attack the mostly empty City.”

 

Everybody except Joshua Hunter knew that already. They were gonna stick Hunter with Watson and Watson would keep him working this weekend until he was trustable, or dead.

 

They were all aware of the score.

 

“As most of us know this revolt is a three stage attack in New York was being coordinated mostly by the Pan-Africanists, the Garveyites, Black Lives Matter Movement, some of the liberal and radical medical trade unions, the I.W.W. of course, the Muslims, the Occupiers, the student movements in CUNY, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and of course; Uhuru and us,” explains Mickhi.

“The dry run were the occupations on Wall Street and around the country last year to assess the state defenses. Phase Two is Labor Day where we take Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. Phase three will be to hold and liberate the City before New Year’s Eve,” he continues.

“Hectic shit,” mutters Raphael.

“Our role then is quite basic in phase two,” explains Nikholai Trikhovitch, who knew indeed that the General Rising was close in coming, but not actually five days away.

“We all know what was revealed about the h1n1 and Ebola. We’ve all seen the reports. The documentation has been widely circulated and now the people are ready. Enough outrages have occurred to spark something bigger than riots. The Stop and Frisk, the weekly shootings, the Iran war conscription and the new walking drones of course. This time almost everyone expects death camps and prolonged urban warfare, not kumbaya” Mickhi explains.

 

“The Z.O.B. has called up eight hundred riflemen, combat medics and agitation propaganda officers to support the needs of the parade. Our convoy of marauders. They will be attached to each major island band truck. Flying columns are on the ready in all five boroughs. An additional three hundred and forty three women and men.

 

“Listen, Watson knows all of this shit. So brother please come to conclusion so I can get Bronx bound with this new jack,” says Watson.

 

“Watson, we just need this young buck briefed, you can get out the door in fifty minutes,” Mickhi tells him. Used to his way.

“Watson needs this to happen in less minutes,” he replies with a grin

 

“As usual,” continues Mickhi, “The 2 Haitian Convoys will bring up the middle and the rear. Unknown to the City parade organizers, and hopefully the police intelligence forces, there are actually three Haitian bands this year of 10,000 masqueraders a piece. About ¾ up the route the Middle Convoy which is gonna be twice as big will initiate the raid across the Grand Army Plaza and then fight their way up Flatbush hope fully with the people behind us. And this is when the hectic bloody melee will begin.”

 

“What’s our precise role tonight,” asks Siegfried Kenly Sassoon. Siggy, who god or his parents made tall dark and handsome never goes to that many meetings. He never votes in otriad elections except with his feet for Sebastian. When Sebastian is leading he steps back and when Sebastian is sleeping her steps up. He did however vote for keeping Sebastian asleep after the last Haiti job, when the hospitaliers took him very hard. Sebastian is a serious knock around guy; best estimates think he’s been taken to the camps over 21 times. About three years’ worth of his life. Siggy, like Watson does jobs not meetings. Neither ever-ever tries to be at these meetings. Rarely even the candle light salons in Brooklyn. Which are sometimes cute.

 

“We’re gonna install Fire Station Transmitters on four very, very tall structures,” says Mara Fitzduff. She has been the club’s chief of staff, worked in propaganda, women’s affairs and fundraising for the past ten years. She’s not officially even Z.O.B., but she is dependable. She has no broag. She’s got one kid with a soldier who ran off and another with a Russian loan shark.

 

“And then tomorrow we’re gonna blow up the Consolidated Edison building, putting most of Manhattan in the dark” says Mickhi Dbrisk, who has been the club’s Operation’s Chief since nearly the very beginning. He was in prison for a year as a teenager. When the cops accused him and four friends of all robbing a liquor store and no one talked.

Some people say he’s a Crip, but he’s not a Crip anymore.

 

Nikholai holds the official position of Logistics Chief, but he’s more hands on than many before or after him as a good logistic fixer should be. He’s the one who arranges a lot of the raids and bombing targets. Now that Sebastian lives in a dream.

 

“The transmitters will override the police radio system and turn whatever frequencies we feel like into dancehall radio stations. We need them hidden and we need them high,” explains Mara, “so we can keep broadcasting when they shut the internet down.”

 

“We’ve gotten the four choice spots picked out well enough,” Nikholai explains, “each transmitter is about the size of a football. There are blasters and flicker masks in the bags at the downstairs at coat check. But those are for getting out of the buildings later. Soon as this meeting is done, if you agree to this shit, you’re all getting in the town cars outside and getting dropped near bye all four targets,”

 

“Fuck the girls if you feel like, if that works for you. We want you rested and loose. The town cars bring you to apartment brothels we work with and you sleep there. Whatever you decide to do,” Mara says.

 

She continues, “You wake up again when it’s dark. One person one location. In the bags with the guns and flicker masks are the addresses and names of four sympathetic venues, but really the car will just take you pretty near there. You’re going to get dropped at some of the tallest buildings on the island. Masks go on to obscure your faces, before you get out of the town cars. The girls will have you over for a drink, and whatever. Don’t really drink. Fuck if you wanna fuck and go to sleep. Then they will give you roof access when you get up. Those masks don’t come off in elevators, in lobbies, on streets anywhere near that building. The cameras are everywhere, as you know. You will get up the roof and turn on the transmitters.

“Try to hide them somewhere,” Nicholai mentions. Don’t just leave them lying around, they’re booby trapped anyway. Whoever tries to turn them off will is gonna lose their arms and face,” says Mara.

“Watson, you are assigned to the Heights. You’ll take Hunter with you. Siggy you’re in Midtown working with Ha Chi as usual. Denby and I will work in lower Manhattan. Raphael you’ll be setting up the Long Island City installation which is quite tricky because there’s nothing residential in the CITI Corp building so we’ll have to social engineer it. Nicholai and Dbrisk will go after the Hightower on Atlantic Junction also with the same predicament.”

 

“And by assigned, we’re asking you to accept the job as a volunteer,” Mickhi explains.

“For the good of the service,” Mara smiles.

“How is Jon Denby doing?” Mickhi asks.

“His father is real sick, it cuts into his out time,” Nikholai explained.

 

“So are you with this? You’re all Pararescuemen or Parapsychologists so I’m sure this will all just be fun. Once you get to the safe houses you’re staying at feel free to relax and take a long nap. You’ve all been up all week. Some of you all month. This doesn’t have to happen at once or tomorrow, it just has to happen before we blow up the power station on Monday morning. So enjoy, thank god it’s Tuesday. Some of these sympathizers are very attractive. I’m not saying any of you would take a whole a day to ravish the high end escorts at the brothels you’ll be staying at. Certainly not as either husbands, fathers, or Haitian gentlemen. But well it’s an option. Can’t have you stressed,” grins Mara knowing full well Raphael is married albeit a consummate adulterer. That Mickhi Dbrisk for all intents and purposes has three or four wives. That Siggy is secretly married to the daughter of a powerful Russian oligarch. That Nicholai is an incorrigible whore monger. And that Watson Entwissle is a very loyal family man. A true Haitian gentleman.

 

“We’re working out of the apartment brothels yet again?” asks Raphael. The joy in his voice is real for he so loves the Manhattan apartment brothels. You can’t afford them as a DJ.

 

“We need these devices set up high,” says Mara, “If we can knock out their power and maintain alternative systems of communications we’re keeping to our end of the mutual aid agreement with Uhuru. Without blowing our arsenal and fighters prematurely,” she says, “as you all know this is phase two of three. We’re only fully mobilizing if they manage to take the City or if they hold Brooklyn longer than a week. Otherwise it’s 1^st January.”

“I know I’m in,” asks Raphael.

“Shut the fuck up, Watson knows before he came here he was in.”

“Hachi will be a little pissed,” says Siggy, “But of course. It’s too late to get out.”

“Joshua, you gonna ride with us on this?” Watson asks him.

“Yeah 100,” the kid replies.

 

Mickhi Dbrisk chuckles.

“Four transmitters. Then we blow the Consolidated Edison NSA depot on Monday morning and EMP the district financial at noon thirty Monday with the anarchists, if they breech. Monday. All of you are in the trenches and I’m running dispatch with Anya out of a most secure location. Things are going to pop the hell off prematurely. We’ll do the best we can to keep up with impossible expectations, any questions?”

 

No one had any.

“I love democracy. All of your please grab your shit at coat check and get in the cars outside via the alley doors,” she tells them, “Good luck don’t get killed.”

 

Things were about to go bang in the night.