Dark Streets, Bright Waters

The generator came on sometime in the middle of the night. Although the power had gone out for the rest of the area, our landlord’s foresight had saved us from sharing the darkness that swelled outward from the town. The bright gibbous moon made the sky brighter than the clusters of buildings and homes that seemed to absorb light without returning any, making the darkness we actually live under apparent. In the light of the moon, the dark buildings looked cold and hunched over.

In the morning, I woke up late and the sun was shining across the fields that can be seen from my bedroom window. The dew had dried up and the cows were tearing at the grasses.

PG&E said they turned the power off as a wilfire precaution in the severe winds. We turned on the radio and checked the local websites while we made coffee. The consensus was this was a quid pro quo with PG&E’s line being ‘You sue us for the fires last summer, we make sure it doesn’t happen again by shutting off the power. Sorry for the inconvenience.’

There was no inconvenience for me. In the middle of the week, I had the day off. I could relax, catch up on work and spend time with my family. After coffee, we set out toward downtown to see if anything was open.

More cars were on the streets than there would’ve been on an average Wednesday morning. There was at once a stillness and a hurried quality in the air, like the little whirs and hums all that electricity produces had to be replaced by something, so everyone got in their cars and started driving. But the noise wasn’t complete. It wasn’t the sound of a town, but more like a country field a tractor has just rolled through. Despite the drivers’ efforts, the silence seemed to be rising.

The first businesses on 11^th st. were closed, but when we rounded the corner to I st. we noticed the bagel shop was open. The wire bins, normally stocked with bagels were empty and the production area behind the counter was dim, the mixers and ovens still and cold. The only thing they seemed to be selling was coffee, but the people who’d bought some, didn’t look at all concerned by the lack of bagels and they sat on the front patio sipping their drinks contentedly and watching passersby with that kind of open, bovine way cafe patrons often do.

The Co-Op parking lot was full. Surprised to see it open, we headed for the door. The place was so dark, I expected to be turned back, but we walked in and were soon in conversation with a clerk who told us that they’d be open as long as there was daylight and that all the refrigerated stuff was all half off. The place was a little warmer and smellier than usual—especially near the cheese display—but no one seemed to mind and despite the empty shelves and dimness of the aisles, people shopped as they would on any other day. In the refrigerated section, realizing how cheap 50% off made everything, I complained about not having brought the car, with our generator, we really could’ve cashed in. But even then, I don’t know that I would’ve bought much more than I did. The ice cream was probably already pretty melty and I didn’t want to be the guy throwing panicked armloads of food into his cart, even if only to save money.

We bought enough for a nice breakfast and walked back home. The streets of town were cushioned with the quiet of a snowfall even in the radiance of the October sun. Many stores were open, only accepting cash and illuminated with daylight. I stopped into the bookstore and the dusty creak of the floorboards and the chill shadow at the back of the store where the light didn’t quite reach gave the impression of a dry goods store 100 years ago.

…

In the evening, I went for a bike ride to the next town over. I wanted to see what nightfall looked like when the lights over the car lots and the drive-throughs were all off.

I rode west out to the ocean and then returned east with the smoldering sun already under the horizon behind me and the stars beginning to shine over the mountains. The streetlights were off. The traffic lights were off; it looked like the whole town was camping. The usual amount of traffic was on the streets, but it was hard to imagine where anyone could be going. Nothing was open. I rode past homes to find most people sitting in their cars, the weird blue light of their phones coldly illuminating their faces. I didn’t see a single candle, nor a lantern. The houses were completely darkened except those—and they were rare—that had a noisy gas generator roaring in the front yard. It looked like some kind of exodus, like everyone had decided to take to their cars and give up their homes, but now that they’d done so, realized they had no where to go.

Noticing some cars in the Safeway parking lot, I turned in. There was only one feeble light radiating from just inside the propped open door, but people came and went as though nothing were out of the ordinary. The parking lot was so utterly steeped in darkness, it would’ve been possible to bump into someone before you saw them coming. Even the headlights of the entering/exiting cars did little to brighten the scene but, rather, seemed only to expose the profundity of the darkness.

Once again, I expected to be turned away at the door. Only one was open and an employee was standing there like a sentinel. I quickly walked in past the rows of checkout counters and found myself in thorough darkness. The shelved items blocking out most of the residual light from the front of the store. Shoppers walked around with the flashlights on their phones. Either they had over-flowing carts or carried only one or two items. There seemed to be only two classes of shoppers. Those who were there for novelty of shopping in the dark and those who were there to clean off the shelves. It would’ve been very easy to steal, but there was so much trust, so much goodwill in keeping your doors open after sundown and such a wholesome joy in the kids giggling and trying to scare each other it would’ve taken some extraordinary need to steal, perhaps Safeway was counting on this. As if to highlight this sense, the customer and the clerk in front of me were talking about little league baseball games and while I waited, I watched three or four families with five or six kids a piece come through the door like they were entering the doors of a fun house. The transformation of the ordinary was better than a spectacle that set out to be extravagant. Everyone, even the adults, seemed pleased with this result.

Back out on the street, the moon was up and, again, the town was darker than the mountains and the sky overhead that reflected the moon light more than the buildings and streets. I rode past a few more people sitting in their cars staring into the blue light of their phones, radios turned up against the silence. The brightness of the moon only increased as I rode back out toward the ocean, into the fields, away from the dark, furtive town.

I crossed the Mad River and, looking down in the moonlight, I saw three river otters, a family, unperturbed by the blackout, splashing in the silver moonlit waters, gleefully enjoying what, to them, was surely a very bright night. I watched them until they splashed up the river and out of sight and then continued riding back to the darkness on the horizon that marked the next town and my home.