We receive a threatening phone call. A bomb has been hidden in our offices and will detonate within fifteen minutes of the time of the call. Oddly, it is the first such incident in our history; perhaps we have been regarded for too long as threateners ourselves rather than victims, but circumstances alter as our status improves. The caller says that he is an agent of the Lamb of God and hangs up. The police are called and in the interim, Virginia, the two faggarts and I stand on the street in the September mist, huddling against the building and trying to avoid the plumes of smoke which come from a manhole opened in front of our building. Within the manhole, workmen swear colorfully, talking about what they think they see in the guts of the city.
The police arrive, unenthusiastically, in two patrol cars and go to check the premises. The threat as reported was not serious enough, it seems, to warrant the bomb squad. In three or four minutes they are down, chewing gum, saying that the premises are perfectly safe and we are free to return. I am invited to file a formal complaint but feel this is pointless since the caller is unidentifiable. I ask what the liability will be if there is a bomb after all and it explodes when we are back in the building, incinerating all of us.
“No bomb, friend,” one of the patrolmen says. “Anyway, you’d be surprised what’s going on in this city. Maybe ten thousand bomb scares a day now; if you checked every one out thorough, you’d have no one in the precincts and you’d have no one at work. Maybe one out of a hundred thousand is really serious but it’s a percentage game. Anyway, you’re safe. There’s nothing up there except a lotta pictures. What kind of outfit you got there anyway? My brother-in-law buys that paper but I never touch it.”
We thank the policemen for their services and go upstairs in the creaking elevator that moves as if it were being dragged up by crippled gnomes, hand over hand. The office is in some disarray; the police have ransacked our inventory and taken several of the choice items, not only off the desks but the walls. While none of it is irreplaceable, it is all quite irritating and one of the faggarts, Donald I think (they are simply undifferentiable; this is not my problem but theirs), says that we should certainly file formal charges against these police; there is no excuse for it and if we are not entitled to equal protection under law, who is? “They still remember that business up in the Bronx,” Donald says with an inflected precision and goes back to his desk, shaking his head. He will have nothing more to do with it. Jim goes over to him, leans near, whispers something and Donald seems more cheerful.
“This is such a hateful city, the people in it are so full of hate, how can you live in a city where everyone wants to blow up everyone else?” Virginia wants to know. I find that there is no easy answer I can give her; I tell her that perhaps she is exaggerating the situation and that most people do not want anyone blown up except those forces or institutions nearest their condition, and it is only the accumulation of rage that makes things difficult. She is not pleased with this but, shaking her head, decides to let it pass. We begin to make some order out of the offices; it is quite a mess and we see that certain file cabinets have been ransacked and a portfolio of unprintable photos depicting the act of homosexual love have been spat upon.
An hour later the phone rings and we are threatened again. The caller says that the first time was a dry run but this one is incontestably serious and we have five minutes before the whole building goes at a quarter to noon. This time he has adopted a rich, Slavic accent, somewhat reminiscent of voices I heard in my own humble youth, and something within me instinctively yearns toward him as he completes his instruction and crisply hangs up.
We debate the issue for a few moments and decide not to call the police. We remain at our desks and conduct the business of the morning, such as it is. At a quarter of twelve the building is not blown up so I conclude that we have all been saved.
At three o’clock the caller tries again but finds only me in the office, Virginia having gone home ill and the faggarts to their quarters on some mysterious assignation. I tell him that I have lost interest in the whole thing; I’m sorry but I simply can’t be involved anymore and cut the connection on him. He does not call back and we never hear from him again. When a routine police follow-up comes in the mail, I throw it in the wastebasket and put the precinct on the list of complimentary subscriptions, three copies in all.