As frightened as I was, the natural thing would have been to hand over the box and back away. But something had hardened in me after listening to the grocery clerk’s explanation of the EMP. If what he said was true, everyone in Dallas who hadn’t previously prepared an evacuation plan was probably going to die. At first this seemed impossible, but the more I thought about it, the more I could see how mass starvation might happen. The H-E-B had been emptied in less than twelve hours. If no supplies arrived in the next few days, let alone weeks, pandemonium would be the natural result.
At that moment, though, as we were being mugged for our wretched haul of groceries, potential mass starvation was no match for my clear and present hunger. The last meal I could remember was a slice of pepperoni pizza someone had delivered to Cinnamon around two in the morning. We had wasted the afternoon sleeping and failed to take proactive steps after the power had gone out. I was in no mood to give our food to some asshole with yellow hair, gun or no gun.
“I thought you were the nice one,” I said.
“Fuck you,” was his answer. His eyes peeked left, toward the bushes, and then he looked back at us. “Give me the food.”
“Where’d your buddy go?” I asked. “The one putting you up to this?”
Yellow Hair glanced left again and then put his free hand on the butt of the gun.
“You’re honestly going to commit a crime for some funny Fritos and weird bread?” I said.
Finally, the bushes rustled, and the short guy climbed out.
“You have cash and we don’t,” he said. “You can get food some-wheres else. All we have is you.”
“Look—”
Now he reached behind his back and retrieved his own large handgun. Pointed it at my forehead.
“I’m done talking to you. Give us the fucking food.”
I held out the box. My heart was beating in my brain. Yellow Hair stepped forward and took the groceries from me.
“That’s better,” said the short guy. “And now, honey, why don’t you step out from behind your little bitch bodyguard?”
“Dude,” I said.
He stepped forward and pressed the gun barrel into my forehead. It was hard and warm and suddenly my bladder seemed too full. My mouth was electric. I imagined an explosion in front of my face. Being split open by the bullet. The moment when sensory input would cease. When I would cease.
It was the most electrifying moment of my miserable life. I could die right then, and who the fuck cared? Like what was the big deal? Die and go to Heaven and everything comes up aces, right?
“Come here, honeypot.”
“Leave her alone,” I growled.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” said the short guy as he pressed the barrel harder against my head. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”
Keri was crying. She stepped out from behind me.
“Look at that,” the short guy said. He moved closer and touched her cheek with his other hand, the one that wasn’t holding a gun to my head. “We could have some fun, you and me.”
“Chuck,” said Yellow Hair. “Stealing food is one thing, but this… don’t do this.”
“Why the hell not? No one’s coming. No one can even see us. We can do whatever we want.”
“The power’s been out one day, man. It comes back tomorrow and you are in deep shit.”
“Thing is, I don’t think the power is coming back anytime soon. I think this is how it is for a while.”
Maybe it was Keri’s whimpering that did it, or maybe Yellow Hair’s sage advice, but eventually the short guy stepped away from Keri and me. Already I felt adrenaline draining away and mourned its passing.
“Fine,” the short guy said. “But maybe we’ll see you later. Maybe there’s another chapter to our story.”
And with that, he grabbed Yellow Hair, turned around, and disappeared.
I don’t know how long it took to find our way back to Keri’s apartment. The intense darkness had a way of distorting the passage of time. Keri saw potential assailants everywhere she looked, even when no one was there. The sidewalks and streets weren’t as crowded as before, but people were still out, and they emerged from the darkness like swimmers surfacing from ocean depths. Eventually we reached her loft and collapsed onto the sofa.
Keri nuzzled her head into my neck and cried violently. When I whispered that everything would be okay, her answer was to moan the words No no no, no it won’t. For a while this was all we did, and I was thankful for the darkness, which obscured the chaos of her living room.
I kept thinking about the warm steel of the gun barrel against my forehead. My first reaction had been fear, but then something else had risen inside me, a complicated feeling best summarized as a brazen sense of superiority. As if I had realized for the first time that death was an event like anything else. It was eventually going to happen no matter what, and when it finally did, I wouldn’t know until I was floating on a cloud somewhere, being fed grapes by naked angels.
To be clear, I’m not saying I wanted to die. I simply realized there was no reason to be afraid. To know this was to be different than everyone else. Better. Smarter. Awake.
As my mind adjusted to the new reality, I realized I was hungry again. Really hungry.
“Keri,” I said. “Let’s see what we can find in your kitchen.”
When there was no answer, I realized she had fallen asleep. I slid away carefully, assuming the motion would wake her, but she barely moved.
Now all I had to do was find my way to the kitchen.
Normally, when the lights are out, you expect to use faint shapes or shadows to guide you. But that night I could barely see my hand in front of my face. Navigating such black terrain in a stranger’s house meant inching forward with my hands splayed out in front of me while hunger pangs echoed off the walls. I felt observed, as if someone was watching me on an infrared camera, amused by my blindness.
Eventually I reached the kitchen, where I was nearly knocked over by the humid and rancid odor that poured out of the refrigerator. When I felt around, the shelves were almost empty, but I did find one Tupperware container that had been carelessly covered with aluminum foil. Whatever was inside this plastic bowl was the source of the rancid smell. There were condiments in the door and a jar of what my probing fingers decided were sliced jalapenos. I popped a couple of them into my mouth and was immediately sorry: They were so overwhelmingly hot I thought my face would melt.
After I wiped my watering eyes, I reached into the freezer and found the chicken nuggets and edamame, which were a few degrees cooler than room temperature. I unfolded the bag of edamame and sucked the seeds out of a couple of those, hoping to dampen the fire in my mouth, but this had little effect on the burning sensation or my hunger. Next, I nibbled on a chicken nugget, which was soggy and vaguely cool in a way that made me want to gag. I choked it down, anyway, along with a couple of others. This left about five more, and maybe I should have woken Keri to eat them, since they would spoil by morning. But I was enjoying this time to myself, so I let her sleep.
Next, I checked the pantry, where my searching hands discovered a half-eaten package of uncooked macaroni, some spaghetti, and a package of what felt like egg noodles. Everything else was spices and flour, except for a box near the back of the pantry that seemed to contain a dusting of graham cracker crumbs, the kind used for baking.
I decided to boil water and cook some of the egg noodles. But when I went to look for a pan, I pressed my hand on her stove for support, and felt electric burners instead of gas. Which meant I had no way to heat up the water.
This is when the new reality hit me so hard I nearly lost my balance. I sat down on the linoleum and put my head in my hands. My stomach was growling like a lion and I had nothing to put in it. I had no way to procure something to put in it. Sure, I could soak pasta in water and wait a couple of hours to choke that down. I could eat the ghastly chicken nuggets. But this food wouldn’t last long.