Now a constellation. Now the elongated map of Long Island itself. On Thursday morning the early light is wrapped in haze, the grass is wet, the half-risen sun casts great splotches of shadows on the front lawns. It is going to be a scorcher. The traffic, bemoaned by the woman on Atlantic Avenue, redoubles by the hour.
Official cars flash red and white headlights and roll through.
At the point where the road forks left toward the Coast Guard station and Moriches Bay, the people who were allowed to pass park their cars in a baseball field and walk a mile or so in the hot dust. License plates read Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. A parking lot full of these trucks looks like a moon landing at rush hour. What resembles a modern sculpture of fused microphones is set up for anyone in charge who would speak to the press. Whenever New York Governor George Pataki or one of the Coast Guard officers steps in front of the mikes, the reporters rush to create a mosh pit around them.