Sleepless in Scotland

(Part two.)

Oddly, Toth's conversations with the more articulate tunnel folk are some of the most chilling parts of her book. One "mayor" she meets is a simmering tyrant who pulls a knife on a recalcitrant minion; another is an educated misfit who's convinced himself that life in the tunnels is better than it is up top. She meets a criminal gang under Harlem that claims to make a living murdering for hire. A menacing, unbalanced character called Dark Angel, feared by other tunnel denizens and even the police, tells Toth: "Leave, little lost angel, before the tunnels swallow you and you are one of mine."

You're thinking: Oh, sure. One wonders at times how an innocent twentysomething who'd announced her plan to tell the story of the tunnel people to the world could survive so many forays among such desperadoes. Having spoken to Toth, I'd say it was by making friends who watched out for her. Even so, she had close calls; a former tunnel guy who befriended her turned out to be a paranoid schizophrenic, and after he decided she'd witnessed him committing a murder he began stalking her. She fled town; the book ends.

Is it all BS? Even allowing for the possibility that some of Toth's informants jerked her around a bit, I don't think so. Plenty of TV reports, newspaper features, and books by other authors have told substantially similar stories, in some cases involving the same people. Filmmaker Mark Singer lived with his subjects to shoot the 2000 documentary Dark Days, which won an audience prize at Sundance. Are the tunnel people still down there? Probably, although clampdowns and cleanup efforts have no doubt forced some relocations. How does stuff like this happen in our day and age? The cynic will say: Nobody ever said drugs were a shortcut to success. But anyone who's felt the occasional tremor beneath his own feet knows--the abyss is closer than you think.

--CECIL ADAMS

I really must get my hands on this book.