~ August 20, 2003 - 12:34 p.m. ~
The Blackout: Part I
Every morning, I wake up thinking that I have enough stories to tell my grandkids. Stories about love, about scholarly adventures . . . but I�ve realized now that I�m just going to be like every other old person and tell them about blizzards, wars, back when we had a good president, and the Great Blackout of �03. Thursday morning found me at North6, a bar-y/club-y place in Brooklyn where I was listening to a band called Jchurch that is apparently older than I am. The drummer of one of the opening acts had his baby there, and she was toddling around with cotton and wax in her ears, trying to get backstage. It was really cute. At about 1:30, the band finished their encore, so Tim and I packed it up and went back to Manhattan, with a quick stop at our diner for chili cheese fries and milkshakes. We went to bed blissfully unaware of things to come.
Dawn that Thursday found me still in bed, where I remained until about 10. I got up, cleaned the kitchen, did some ab exercises and some strength training on a videotape, no big deal. I tried to re-hook up my laptop, but Tim had rearranged the wires and things around my desk, so I opted to leave it be until he got home. Let�s see, then what? Oh yeah, I made myself some pasta and added it to some leftover takeout ramen, that was my sole meal for the day, really. And then around 3 I started puttering around on the computer instead of going out to Bed Bath & Beyond and Sports Authority like I was supposed to. About an hour later, I was still mucking around online when the monitor screen and the desk lamp surged twice and suddenly died, along with the air conditioner, the bathroom light, and the VCR clock.
�Not cool!� I screamed, in the middle of sending my resume to a theatre company. �Really not cool!� I went to my door and saw that there was no light on in the hall, so I picked up the phone to call Tim at work, who confirmed that the power was off there as well. I looked out my window to see that there were no lights on in the buildings behind us. �Shit, shit, shit!� Tim suggested I call my mother to see if there was anything on the news in Florida. There was no answer with her, so I called pAndi. She obligingly turned on the news, but it was too soon for anything to be up. I hung up, tapped my fingers on the dead monitor for a while, then called my mother again. She picked up this time, and turned on the news just in time to hear � . . . We interrupt this broadcast to . . .�
Well, no need to bore you with the details of what my mother heard. I�m sure everyone heard the same, slow revelation of the facts over the next few days. Suffice to say that I was a little freaked out to learn the extensive coverage of the blackout, but relieved to learn it wasn�t a terror attack.
I couldn�t get a hold of Tim for a while, though did get pAndi and their mother, both with news updates. I also finally got Tim again, who told me that he could see black smoke coming from the ConEd plant on 14th street, and cautioned me to fill all available containers with water and put them in the fridge. I sat and waited in the dark, curled up by the window and reading. Tim finally got home, and we sat and discussed what we would do for food if the power didn�t come back on in an hour or two (how naive we were!). We found our flashlights and some spare batteries, and while we were in the loft checking to see if our clock radio had a batter option, Tim tore my shirt.
For those of your who don�t know, our loft is tiny. It�s actually a double loft, so in terms of square feet, it�s spacious as lofts go. There is a large main part that�s just a foot larger than our double bed, and then there�s another little ledge next to that, which is deeper than a twin bed. We keep a TV and an enormous number of books up there, and it�s just the right height to use as a night table. But the main part is only about 4� 11� and the smaller part is maybe 3� high, so things are tight up there, and in the scuffle of two people looking around in the dark, Tim got caught on the strap of my camisole and tore it so that the stitching ripped and the strap is totally slack. Naturally, it was my favorite shirt, and I pitched a fit because Tim has a nasty track record for inadvertently fucking up my favorite clothing. I yelled at him and he yelled back, and he stayed up in the loft and I camped out on the couch. But we didn�t stay mad at each other for long, because the apartment was still nice and cool, and it was quiet and dark, and since neither of us got much sleep the night before, we both nodded off.
We woke up about four hours later at 10 o�clock. It was still cool, and the phone was ringing. It was Neverly, who was having a wake for her father (may he rest in peace) in Florida, and had heard nothing of the blackout. After he call, we both realized we were ravenous, so we went to the kitchen to assess our food situation. This was when we learned that there was no more water in the building, meaning our toilet wouldn�t flush. Yummy!
After a bit of foraging, we assembled the edible food we had on the counter. There wasn�t much: just some pasta, some condensed soup, some instant grits, some cereal, some rice, and two small, still-frozen steaks. Now, when I say �some,� I mean �enough for one serving.� We put the steaks out to defrost, figuring we could have them later if we needed to. I boiled a little of our now-precious water and ate the instant grits, but we held off on the pasta because we didn�t want to waste water. Tim polished off the Fruity Pebbles his cousins left here when they visited. We sat there in the dark, antsy and bored when Tim�s father called with a news update. He was getting some moderately faulty information down in FL, but we didn�t know that at the time. He was hearing that the National Guard was being deployed in Times Square, and that cops were keeping civilians off the street to prevent looting. He warned us to stay inside, so we went up to our roof to get the lay of the land.
Far from the silent streets we expected, we soon learned that the Financial district was alight, and that our block was having a little block party with music and alcohol a mere 12 stories below us. Naturally, we went down to join in, and listened to some guitar players for a while. Then we headed over to Union Square to see if any restaurants were getting rid of any food for free. They weren�t, but we found a hot dog cart that was still functioning. For $10, we feasted on 2 dogs with mustard and 2 bottles of water. It was wallet-rape, but we were too hungry to argue.
We walked all the way around Union Square, where there were people partying with booze and boomboxes and flares. The cops directing traffic didn�t care; everyone was being orderly and jovial and relatively peaceful, given the circumstances. We went back home via 6th Avenue so as to pass by our diner. The windows were open, but there were no lights inside, not even candles or flashlights. We stuck our faces through the windows and shined our light around to see if anyone was there. Suddenly, I saw a dark shape shift in one of the corners of a booth. I tapped Tim�s arm and pointed so he would shine the light on the object.
It turned out to be Hadrian, our favorite waiter who only works the night shift (7pm-6am). He had a friend drive him into work, and now he was stuck there doing nothing. Later we�d learn that he remained stuck there unable to sleep for two days. We chatted with him and the owner�s son for a bit before heading back home.
Needless to say, we had to climb the 7 flights back up to our apartment, and it was still black as the tomb in the hall. With nothing else to eat or do, we hauled out my laptop, which had a full battery, and watched the �Animatrix� DVD until 1:30. We finally decided to turn in and hope the power would be on again in the morning.
