It was 8 pm. We had just settled in after a long day.
I was on the couch, wrapped up in a fur blanket, living off the fumes of a recently completed, particularly fabulous zoom call. He’d just completed a day running around, “putting out fires”, (the irony of this will be evident shortly. Wait for it) which is the way he’s always described his life as a contractor.
“I’m so ready to have this beer and chill,” he said, his flannel jammie-pants signaling his surrender.
That’s when the power went out, throwing our den into a darkness so complete I never saw him leave the room.
For a brief moment, it went back on.
Then blackness.
Three times the power tried to return, each attempt producing a mournful groan. “What is that?” I asked no one in particular. It was a sound so weird I can hardly describe it, residing somewhere between a whale fart and elephants singing the blues, it triggered an anal kegel.
“I have no idea but it doesn’t sound good.” He’d found a working flashlight the size of a light-saber and was headed outside.
The Santa Ana winds had picked up at sunset, but they were nowhere near as ferocious as it takes to knock out the power. But apparently, ferocity isn’t necessary when you have bamboo branches to do the job for you.
“Siri, turn on the flashlight!” I ordered, following a loud popping sound as I traversed the pitch-black obstacle course previously known as our living room. He’d left the door to the driveway wide open, the wind whipping a frenzy of leaves into the garage.
The minute I looked outside I could see why.
I froze in my tracks. Ruby, who’d been hot on my heels, recoiled, the bejesus scared out of her by the roman candle of fire roaring and popping like gunfire directly across the street.
Holy shit, I whispered under my breath.
All the neighbors who hadn’t left for the holiday poured into the street. “Has anyone seen Raphael?” I yelled, the wind carrying my query up and down the block. Half a dozen people pointed toward the fire.
“He’s back there with Marty, they’re putting out the fire!”
Of course he is.
Across the street was total chaos. People were either yelling and running like headless chickens, or standing like zombies their faces frozen in fear as the wind whipped hot embers over the rooftops. Two large cables had fallen from a transformer igniting a wall of bamboo behind a gray two-story with a white picket fence, and then, in an act of contrition, the bamboo promptly lit itself on fire.
Before I could get my bearings, a hysterical woman handed me a terrified, shivering toddler who’d had the misfortune of being in the bathtub of the bamboo house when the power went out.
“Take him!” she screamed at me. “I have to go back for the baby!”
Wait. There’s a baby inside?
NOOOOO! the gathering crowd screamed in unison, reading my mind. I couldn’t help but notice, as I ran him across the street into the waiting arms of his grandmother, that the naked little boy was wrapped in one of Ruby’s dog blankets.
That explained why the door to Raphael’s van was open.
Within minutes, five fire trucks showed up. Checking for smoking rafters and smoldering bushes, it was their job to make sure all the fire fighting the brave men of our neighborhood had kept the fire from spreading. Soon, the crowds broke up and we all returned, safe and sound, to our eerily dark and silent homes. Y’all, there is no silence like the absence of technology. No humming in the background. No beeping, whirring, or clicking. Just quiet. And total, dark-side of the moon, blackness.
Full. Stop.
Things I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving:
Our wonderful neighbors, who really showed up for each other and restored my faith in humanity.
Raphael, the de facto mayor of Bakman Avenue, and a man who runs towards fire while wrapping wet babies in freshly washed dog blankets. And did I mention he makes a mean turkey and his gravy is sublime?
The fire department.
ELECTRICITY! Omg! We take it SO for granted—until it goes away.
The DWP, who restored the power at 3 am with the help of mayor Raphael who just happened to be awake, see their truck, and show them the way into the neighbor’s backyard. wtf?
Flashlights with working batteries.
Solar candles.
And an Honorable Mention shout-out goes to the Emotional Support Pie we stress-ate by candlelight.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the US and Thursday everywhere else.
Carry on,
xoxJ
