Joseph Heller - Closing Time

Early in the afternoon, at 2:45 plus 10, five tons of ice were delivered as ordered, and as the clock struck 3:00, two hundred waiters, then two hundred more waiters, when the first contingent had advanced and cleared out of the way, then two hundred more when these latter two hundred had pushed into the area and fanned out, all began setting up tables, while the remaining six hundred held in reserve were icing down white wine, water, and champagne, and setting up supply posts of one hundred and twenty service bars on the main and second floors and on the spacious third floor too, where loud music and wild dancing were scheduled for the late hours.

At four the musicians were setting up at their bandstands and dance floors.

By five, fifty dessert buffets had been erected securely and the twelve hundred or more security guards from the city, federal government, and M amp; M Commercial Killings, Inc. had taken up positions on the high ground of the terminal. Outside, trucks with units from the National Guard were on watch for disturbances from protest groups that might be in dissonance with the celebratory mood of the gala.

After the hoisting, lowering, and cutting of the wedding cake, there was more dancing and congratulations. For the several finales, everyone mingled together in the Great Hall from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where still more tables were heaped with dessert confections of spun sugar.

There, before the party dispersed into smaller, friendlier, almost conspiratorial groups, a number of toasts were offered to the Minderbinders and Maxons and short speeches made. Greed was good, proclaimed one Wall Streeter in risk arbitrage. There was nothing wrong with waste, boasted another. As long as they had it, why not flaunt it? There was nothing tasteless about bad taste, roared another, and was cheered for his wit.

"This was the kind of event," crowed a spokesman for the homeless, "that makes one proud to be homeless in New York."

But he turned out to be fake, a spokesman from a public relations firm.: The formal end of activities was signaled by a sentimental repeat of the "Redemption Through Love" music played by all five of the bands for the evening, the violinist and her four clones, and the earlier orchestral recordings, and many there locked arms shamelessly and hummed the melody boisterously, as though in a wordless rendition of the newest replacement of "Auld Lang Syne" or that other immortal popular favorite, "Till We Meet Again."

For those madcaps and hell-raisers who had chosen to linger on to bowl in the alleys on the second floor or dance the night away or otherwise avail themselves of the fascinating attractions and facilities of the bus terminal, a third meal was provided at each of the auxiliary serving stations remaining open all night, and this, as displayed on all screens, was in store: ALTERNATE MENU Fricassee de Fruits de Mer Les trois Roti Primeurs Tarte aux Pomrnes de Terre Salade a Bleu de Bresse Gratinee Friandises et Desserts Espresso Yossarian, still musing on the Alternate Menu, was next startled to see himself speaking to the video cameras for a network television show in white tie and tails between Milo Minderbinder and Christopher Maxon and saying: "The wedding was the highlight of a lifetime. I don't think any of us here will live to see anything like it again."

"Holy shit," he said in the flesh, and hoped his laconic irony was obvious.

There was little doubt that Minderbinders and Maxons had that night boosted the Port Authority Bus Terminal into the forefront of great catering halls for the close of the century and the dawning of the new one. Everyone leaving was given a colorful brochure published jointly by PABT and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with which PABT now had so many interests in common. For as little as $36,000, anyone in the world could engage space for a party in either place.

It was anticipated that most guests would depart at 1:00 A.M. They did, and the million, one hundred and twenty-two thousand champagne tulips there as souvenirs and door prizes were quickly depleted. A younger, livelier bunch stayed on to bowl, eat, and dance madly to the recorded music provided by an all-night disc jockey on the floors above. Eventually, those who still could not tear themselves away went to sleep on sturdy clean cabana lounges moved into the ticketing areas or bedded down in one of the emergency stairwells, where new, unused mattresses had been laid out on the landings and stairs. When they awoke, there was fresh orange juice for them at the juice bars and pancake-and-egg breakfasts in the coffee shops. The stairwells had been emptied and scoured thoroughly; instead of disinfectant, the odors in the air were of aftershave lotion and designer perfumes. For the stairwells, a one-legged woman with a crutch was hired to go wandering about mumbling she'd been raped, but she was a minor actress with a pretty face that had modeled cosmetics, and a shapely leg that had modeled panty hose. A large, gracious, maternal black woman with moles that looked cancerous and a rich contralto voice hummed spirituals.

By 4:30 in the morning, the twenty-eight Cosa Nostra carting companies subcontracting through the Washington Cosa Loro with the Commercial Catering division of M amp; M E amp; A had removed the rest of the trash, and by 6:00 A.M., when the first of the customary bus travelers appeared, all was back to normal, except for the absence of the hustlers and the homeless, who would remain in forced exile until all was secure.

"That was sly of you," Gaffney said, in praise of Yossarian's little speech.

"I can't believe I said that," Yossarian repented.

"You haven't, yet. Well?" added Gaffney with a wish to know, as they watched on the monitor the crowds in the terminal that had not yet gathered there thinning out sort of wanly and drifting back in pale reflections to the places from which they had not yet come. "Mrs. Maxon seemed satisfied."

"Then her husband will be too. I love all that Wagner music. And I also have to laugh. Do you think the end of Götterdämmerung is a tactful choice for that occasion?"

"Yes. Would you prefer a requiem?" Gaffney's dark eyes twinkled.

"It's turning black again, that God-damned sun," said Hacker lightly, and laughed. "I can't seem to get it out."

"It can't turn black," snapped Yossarian, annoyed by him once more. "If the sun turned black, the sky would be black too, and you wouldn't be able to see it."

"Yeah?" The young man sniggered. "Take a look."

Yossarian took a look and saw that on the central screens, the sun indeed was black in a sky that was blue, the moon had turned red again, and all of the ships in the harbor and the neighboring waters, the tugs, barges, tankers, freighters, commercial fishing vessels, and different varieties of pleasure craft, were again upside down.

"It's a glitch," said Hacker. "We call it a glitch. I'll have to keep working on it."

"I saw another glitch," said Yossarian.

"You mean the President?"

"He never showed up, did he? I didn't see him."

"We can't get him to come out of his office. Here-look." Yossarian recognized the antechamber of the Oval Office in Washington. "He's supposed to walk out, be driven to the MASSPOB building, and take the new supertrain here. Instead, he keeps going off the other way. He walks into his playroom."

"You'll have to reprogram your model."

Hacker snickered again in affected despair and left the answer to Gaffney.

"We can't reprogram the model, Yo-Yo. It's the model. You'll have to reprogram the presidency."

"Me?"

"In fact, he's in there right now," said Hacker. "What the hell's he got in that playroom anyway?"

"Ask Yossarian," said Gaffney. "He's been there."

"He has a video game," said Yossarian. "It's called Triage."