Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City - A Novel

“Ladies engentlemork, the palark deparkbark has issued—”

Silence fell in the stands.

“Laurie’s been going steady with the same—”

Probst clutched Jack’s arm. “Shh!”

“…the stadium officials. Thurkiss nork—”

“She’s been going with—”

“Shhh!”

The stadium was holding its breath, the players in disarray, the field a jostled chessboard.

“What is it?” Jack whispered.

“Securicle. Woorpeat. Do. Not. Panicprosurdlenerst gate.”

It was the end. Still as death, Probst felt his body detach from his soul and billow into the sky, leaving the soul a cold lump in the pink plastic seat to await the firestorm he knew from long anticipation. Behind him a woman moaned. The stadium began to buzz. Murmurs. Voices tightening and rising. Sirens chirruped in the streets, echo on echo on echo. People were standing up. “Come on,” Jack said.

Flight was pointless. Nowhere to run.

“Come on .” Jack pulled him to his feet.

“It’s a hoax,” a man growled. “Just a goddamn hoax.”

Probst turned to Jack. “What is it?”

“Bomb threat.” He nodded down the aisle. “Let’s go.”

Bomb threat? Probst shut his mouth, embarrassed. He’d thought it was something worse.

“Ladies engenitoll, we rorpeat to thar palark deparkspark information concernk appossiblomp athorken reorgort the disrupture today’s game between a Warninghorn Rorskins and your St. Louis Brarkinals…Please prosurdle the nearest hexit floor the structionork the stadium officials.”

The official clock showed 7:12 remaining in the first quarter, 7:11, 7:10, 7:09. They’d neglected to stop it. On the main scoreboard a message was flashing on and off:

STAY CALM. DON’T PANIC.

A THREAT HAS BEEN COMMUNICATED.

THERE IS PLENTY OF TIME.

Fans in the aisles above and below Probst were laughing. Several imitated the explosive action of a bomb with their arms and added phlegmy sound effects.

6:54, 6:53, 6:52…

If the bomb was set to go off at a specific time in the game?

Silly.

On the field a few Redskins tossed footballs, made diving catches, pointed at disturbances in the stands. Whole sections had grown pink, the color of the seats, as the fans drained into the exits. The Cardinals themselves were long gone.

Through a gate behind the Visitors’ end zone blue squad cars were pouring onto the field — six, eight, ten, a dozen of them, silent but flashing. Foot patrolmen brought up the rear. A halt was put to the game of catch. The Redskins trotted to the sidelines, lateraling the balls back and forth.

6:25, 6:24, 6:23…

His attention on the clock, Probst walked right into the woman who’d been sitting next to him. “Excuse me,” he said.

She turned. “That’s all right.” Her teeth were perfect, pearly, tiny. Her eyes dipped demurely. “Trudy Churchill,” she said.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Jack said in his ear.

Probst looked into the twinkling eyes. “Martin Probst.”

Mrs. Churchill continued to smile. “I know.”

He took her arm in his fingers, finding her muscles to be firm. “The line is moving,” he said.

“Oh!” She glanced over her shoulder.

Something blew.

It was a sharp boom. She was in his arms, her face in his sweater. He felt the explosion in his chest cavity. His organs rattled. A flash had lit the arches in the rim of the stadium. There were crashes, distant thuds and screams. Black smoke rose in a pillar from a point outside the stadium.

“Move it, goddamn it!” a man squealed.

Awkwardly Probst stroked Mrs. Churchill’s hair, his eyes on her husband, who turned, just then, and gave him a vacant look.

“Move it .” The squeal was despairing.

There was no place to go. A sharp chin, Jack’s, cracked into the back of Probst’s head. He held Mrs. Churchill tight.

“Fifty thousand friggin people,” Jack said, his gimme-a-break voice at Probst’s ear. “And we’re gonna be the last ones out.”

Three helicopters descended on the stadium, darting and halting like dragonflies, the blades blurred against the low cloudbanks.

“Shit, oh, SHIT!”

People above Probst were screaming. He turned, loosening his grip on Mrs. Churchill—

5:40.

“My neck—”

A wave of bodies swept down from above him, a mass loss of balance, engulfing him and the woman he held and Jack and everyone else, and—

Uhhh—

They tumbled headlong into the seats further down. A fat leg wrapped itself crushingly around Probst’s neck. His eyes bugged, and the pink plastic seats approached him swiftly, driving into his rib cage. His left pinkie got caught on an armrest. It snapped back and broke. Bodies huffed, groaned, puffed. The fat man, kicking wildly, vaulted over into the next row of seats. Through tears Probst could see the open sky above him, wisps of angry smoke and birds.

Jack was sitting upright in a seat, drawing deep breaths. Not many people had landed in this aisle. Mrs. Churchill lay next to Probst on the Coke-spattered concrete. He started to sit up but pain in his hand forced him down. He leaned over Mrs. Churchill. Blood was gathering in a raw spot on her jaw. He put his finger on the spot. “Anything broken?” he said.

“Yes.” Her voice cracked. “I think my leg.”

He looked at the trim leg in plaid slacks. It lay at an unnatural angle to her hips, her ankle pinned by the seat Jack was sitting on. Behind her, the husband struggled to his feet and patted himself down with age-spotted hands.

3:47, 3:46, 3:45…

The heads of other dazed fans popped up all around. The thickest clot of bodies was three rows up, where a pair of policemen waded among the scraped and bruised limbs, helping people to their feet and waving them towards the exit. The press at the exit had diminished.

“Those who can,” one of the policemen shouted, “keep moving towards the gates. Keep right on moving. Please. We can take care of any injuries, so just keep right on moving.”

“Shall we?” Jack said.

“This woman is hurt.” Probst spread his coat over her. The husband was wiping the blood off her jaw with a napkin. “Trudy,” he said. “Can you walk?”

She managed to shake her head. The husband, pale, his white hair pointing every which way, looked up at Probst and Jack. “Let’s let her rest for a second. I’m going to need help.” He began to work her foot free from the seat.

Overhead a helicopter approached. Probst was surprised to see the logo of KAKA-TV, KSLX’s chief rival, on the side of the machine. He’d assumed it was the police. A video lens poked from the left portal.

Jack shouted something. He was pointing at the main scoreboard.

ATTENTION GENOCIDAL PIGS

GOD IS THE BIG RED

WE OW! ARE REDSKINS

WE FREE THE LAND FROM

IMPERIALIST NAZI U. S.

DEATH TO PLACENT GENTIALS

The police on the field had seen it, too. A cluster of men in blue were looking up at the scoreboard, and several ran to their cars. More than twenty cars now occupied the field, half of them circling the perimeter. Most of the stadium was pink.

2:36…2:36. The clock had stopped.

Probst stared at the glowing time. His address. 236 Sherwood.

“Let’s try and move her,” Mr. Churchill shouted.

Probst tried to flex his injured finger. He couldn’t. Jack and Mr. Churchill slipped their arms under Mrs. Churchill’s shoulders and raised her into position for a fireman’s carry. She didn’t make a sound. Probst’s coat hung precariously from her waist. He felt useless, but his finger was killing him.

In the cavernous concession area there were radio speakers. They’d been installed to let fans buying refreshments hear KSLX’s play-by-play, but Jack Strom was speaking from the studios now. His tones were low and earnest. “…Eighty, ninety percent of the fans have left the stadium, although there are still a good many in the immediate vicinity. The surrounding streets, particularly Broadway and Walnut, are solid masses of humanity, as the police have directed people to simply keep moving as far as possible from the threatened area. Traffic has been blocked off entirely, except on Spruce Street, which the police and fire departments are using for access to the stadium. For those of you who just joined us, there has been a bomb threat directed against the football stadium in downtown St. Louis, where a game was in progress. A small explosion has already occurred on the plaza outside the stadium. The police appear, uh, were apparently warned in advance about that blast, which was felt throughout the downtown area, and there were no serious injuries. Let me repeat that elsewhere as well there have been no serious injuries reported thus far, and the evacuation of the stadium should be complete within the next five to ten minutes. We — one moment…We’ve received confirmation that it is indeed the group known as the Osage Warriors that is responsible for the situation — We’re going to switch over now to Don Daizy, who is outside the command post at police headquarters. Don?”