Blackout

2

We had a ranch house on Piccamore Way which was perfectly middle-American, perfectly middle-class, and perfectly dull…something we were all just fine with. Excitement is for people who haven’t seen forty. After that, you want peace, you want contentment, you want sameness. Piccamore satisfied those needs completely. There’s comfort to be had knowing that the paperboy would always toss the Courier in the bushes, missing the porch by a country mile. That Al Peckman would be washing and waxing his candy apple red ’67 Camaro in the driveway every Saturday morning. That Iris Phelan would always have her TV cranked up so loud that you could hear it three streets away. That Billy Kurtz would always come stumbling up the walk at six sharp each day after finishing his shift at the mill (and finishing six or seven Bud longnecks at the Bar None). That the Eblers would plant so many flowers in their front yard—daylilies and black-eyed Susans, baby blue eyes, forget-me-nots, and sweet peas—that the chromatic vibrancy would make your eyes ache. And that Ray Wetmore was even then planning another run at the county board even though he’d barely cracked a hundred votes the last time around.

That’s the sort of neighborhood we had on Piccamore.

Complacent, predictable, but very comfortable.

It was a summer sort of street with lush green oaks and white clapboard houses lined up in tidy rows. There were firecrackers on the Fourth of July and dime-a-drink Kool-Aid stands, SUVs in driveways and rollerblading kids on the sidewalks, friendly neighbors with coolers of cold beer on porches and plenty of good red meat sizzling on barbecues come evening. It was the American dream in just about every way and if now and again something dark sullied the waters of our crystal blue pond—somebody’s son got busted selling dope at the high school or somebody’s wife had an affair with her boss—we just pretended not to notice until the waters ran clear again. Because they would. They always would and we knew it.

At least, that’s what we thought.

The day in question there was some funny heat lightning on the horizon just before sunset and up and down the street people were standing in yards and on porches watching it, prophesying a good summer storm. The humidity had been high for days and this was the relief valve coming that would bleed the moisture from the air.

We had a little get-together in my backyard that I threw together kind of as a celebration on account I hadn’t had a cigarette in three months. And when you’d puffed the coffin nails since you were sixteen and were leaning towards fifty, that was a pretty damn good accomplishment. Kathy was proud of me and so was my daughter Erin, who was spending the summer in Italy on a work-study program. I was pretty proud of myself, too, so proud that I was planning on bragging about it when school started again—I taught physical science and biology at Patrick Henry High.

Things were good.

The barbecue was hot, the porterhouses an inch and a half thick, the cobs of sweet corn roasted over open flame, the jumbo shrimp grilled and liberally brushed with garlic butter, and pitchers of iced gin-and-tonics made the rounds. It was a good time. Sure, Bonnie Kurtz got drunk and too friendly, Ray Wetmore bitched about our ineffectual councilmen, and Al Peckman kept cornering me and trying to talk me into mutual funds while he blew smoke in my face from his ever-present Marlboro—giving me insane cravings and a pleasant nicotine contact buzz all at the same time. But it was all good and everyone went home that night full and drunk and happy.

When we were finally done cleaning up, it was nearly midnight.

“I think Bonnie puked in the flower bed,” I said.

Kathy sighed. “She does that every time. We have two bathrooms and she can never seem to find either one of them.”

“In her condition? Hell, she would never have found the door.”

Kathy sat on the sofa by me. “Al grabbed my ass.”

I giggled. “You have a very fine ass. You can’t blame him. I couldn’t come to your rescue because I was fending off Bonnie. She got a rose tattooed on her tit and she kept trying to show it to me.”

“She kept trying to show it to everyone.”

“She’s very proud of her charms.”

Kathy sighed again. “It’s amazing what a pound of well-placed silicone will do for a woman’s self-esteem.”

We chatted a bit and Kathy went off to bed. I stayed on the sofa and watched a repeat of the Pirates pounding the Braves on ESPN. Somewhere during the process, I drifted off. I slept the deep, oblivious slumber that too much sun and too much good booze and rich food will give you. I’m not sure how long I was out. Maybe two hours, if that.

I woke to strobe lights.

At least, that’s what it looked like. I opened my eyes and shut them right away because the world was chaotic out there as the storm descended on us. Rain was lashing the house and thunder was booming, wind making the trees creak and groan out in the front yard. It was the strobing lightning that forced my eyes shut. It was too much. Especially after all the drinking I had done. I knew I had to get up and shut windows. It was part of being a responsible home owner, but God, I felt like death. My body felt heavy like rocks were piled on top of me, my stomach rolling over, and my head pounding with the obligatory hangover headache.

Finally, I sat up and only felt worse.

The lightning was still flashing out there. It was weird. In most storms you get a flash now and again followed by a booming, but this was nonstop rapid fire. It was like a thousand flashbulbs were going off at the same time with barely a break in between. The timer had shut the TV off and the living room was black…save for the flashing that seemed to come in sporadic patterns: it would flash constantly for two or three minutes, then it was gone for a time before starting up again. There was something funny about that and I knew it, but I was too hungover to contemplate it.

I stumbled around and checked windows and they were all shut. That meant Kathy, ever resourceful, had beaten me to the punch as she usually did. She probably crept around and shut them while I was sleeping. I went upstairs and crawled into bed next to her, waiting for the next barrage.

“You awake?” I said.

No answer.

“Kathy, you awake?”

Still no answer. It was a game we had played for years. She would pretend to be asleep and I would wake her by whispering her name constantly and if that didn’t work, I’d grab her by the leg and she’d yelp. “Kathy?” I said. “You awake? Kathy? Kathy? Kathy? Hey, Kathy, you awake?” I’m not sure what it was, but I felt a strange sort of panic rising up inside me. It was very dark and I couldn’t see her, but some latent sixth sense (I don’t know what else to call it) told me she wasn’t there. We all have it at times. I had it then. She wasn’t in bed and I knew she wasn’t in bed the same way you can walk into a house and know for certain that nobody is home. There’s a certain something in the atmosphere, I guess.

I reached out and her side of the bed was empty.

At that moment, the lightning started flashing again and I saw very clearly that I was alone in the room. The thunder rumbled and the wind blew and the house shook.

And Kathy was gone.