City Dark by Roger A. Canaff
“If I get her in my sights, boom, boom. Out go the lights.”
—Little Walter
“Man, I swear, I’d give the whole thing up for you.”
—Lou Reed, “Coney Island Baby”
8:37 P.M. LOAD IS HIGH. LIGHTNING STRIKE, BUCHANAN SOUTH SUBSTATION; SECOND STRIKE: INDIAN POINT ENERGY CENTER—TWO ADDITIONAL TRANSMISSION LINES OVERLOADED.
8:55 P.M. LOAD IS HIGH. TEMPS REMAIN HIGH. LIGHTNING STRIKE, SPRAIN BROOK SUBSTATION, YONKERS; TWO TRANSMISSION LINES OUT, REPOWERING.
LOAD IS HIGH. REPOWER OVERLOADING ADDITIONAL LINES; CON ED TO REDUCE POWER AT EAST RIVER FACILITY.
9:19 P.M. FIVE PERCENT REDUCTION AUTHORIZED. LEEDS SUBSTATION TRIPPED; LONG ISLAND AND NEW JERSEY POWER SOURCES COMPROMISED.
LOAD IS HIGH. REDUCTION INCREASED TO EIGHT PERCENT. EXTEND CONNECTIONS TO LONG ISLAND LIGHTING SYSTEM AND NJ SOURCES.
9:27 P.M. RAVENSWOOD No. 3 POWER GENERATOR DOWN; ADDITIONAL SHEDDING NOT MITIGATING.
9:37 P.M. CONSOLIDATED EDISON POWER DOWN.
CITY DARK.
PROLOGUE
Wednesday, July 13, 1977
Henry Hudson Parkway
New York City
9:32 p.m.
When the lights went out, their mom, Lois, was driving, and Joe and Robbie were in the back seat arguing. That was normal, as Robbie was fifteen and Joe ten. And it was the last normal thing any of them would ever know.
Daylight had melted from the sky over New Jersey, fading from a dirty, yellow haze to a smoky blue. The air rushing in the open windows of their LTD station wagon gave little relief. For one, it smelled. As both boys frequently announced, pretty much the whole city smelled. The Hudson River smelled, too, as it slid by them to the right looking soupy and brown.
They were on the Henry Hudson Parkway, just north of where the map started calling it the West Side Highway. Up front, Lois had her elbow out the window. A cigarette deteriorated rapidly between two fingers, and from time to time she tapped on the butt with her thumb. It was a nervous habit; Joe knew it gave her a smelly, yellow-stained thumb. Lois didn’t go in for feminine cigarettes like Eve or Virginia Slims. She smoked like a man and favored Winston Reds. It was a habit she’d picked up from the man who had given her the boys in the back seat, along with multiple black eyes and fat lips.
The song on the radio was “I Just Want to Be Your Everything” by Andy Gibb, who Robbie swore was queer. Robbie had run electrical tape down the “center” of the back seat to mark off his and Joe’s respective territories, but Joe was convinced that Robbie had taken at least 60 percent, and Joe had just learned about percentages. It didn’t matter much anyway. The heat was so bad, the tape had long since sweated off the vinyl bench seat, and in its place was a nasty, sticky trail of adhesive. Robbie scooped up a fingertip full of it, then reached over and stuck his finger in Joe’s hair.
“Stop it! Gross!”
“Chill, crybaby. It’s Fabergé Organics Shampoo. With wheat germ and honey. So now you’ve got wheat germs.”
“Mom!”
“Guys, please,” she said. There was exhaustion and a panicky edge in her voice, something Joe had started to notice with growing disquiet. “Both of you.”
“Let me see that,” Robbie said. He was looking at Joe’s most prized possession, a Hostess baseball card of Reggie Jackson that Joe had found in a Ho Hos box. Joe had it cupped in his left hand. It seemed impossible for him not to gaze at it every few seconds.
“No way.”
“Give it. You’re gonna ruin it anyway; it’s getting all smudged.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Whatever. It’s just a Hostess card. Sucks anyways.”
“You suck,” Joe said.
Then Robbie pulled a trick and pointed to his right, shouting “Whoa!” as he did so. When Joe turned to follow his gaze, Robbie snatched the card out of his hand. Then he held it out the window, grasping it by a tiny piece of a corner between his thumb and forefinger as it fluttered in the wind.
“Robbie, no!” Joe cried.
Robbie smiled—a mean, toothless grin. Then the grin faded. Actually, everything faded in that moment. It got dark. Really dark.
“What the—” Lois started.
“Robbie, give it back!” Joe yelled, not yet noticing the change in the lights. Robbie, mesmerized, let the card slip from his fingers. “Noooo!” Joe was screaming now. “Mom! Pull over!”
His mother was pulling over, but not because Joe had asked her to. She was pulling over because everything to the left of them, the whole scene on the city side, was suddenly black. She eased the LTD off the highway and into a little pull-off area between the pavement and the river, a drop-off spot that allowed people access to Riverside Park up by 116th Street. By dark in the summer of 1977, that wasn’t many people at all.
“Let me out!” Joe screeched. “Let me out. My card!” The car came to a slow stop.
“Joe, come back here!” he heard his mother yell, but he was already bolting up the side of the highway, dashing over broken glass, trash, and the occasional hubcap. He was desperately scanning the mess beneath his sneakers as he ran north, trying to see in the wash of headlights. But then, when the cars passed, there was no light above him, just the last weak glow in the sky.