Where Were You When The Lights Went Out?
Jack: Happy Anniversary
Jack watched David write, and grinned to himself. He loved watching David write; David just got this look of intense concentration on his face, and sort of mouthed along with whatever he was writing, then would frown and cross something out and make changes, and the look on his face when he finally got the phrase just the way he wanted it… David was a great writer. Jack was not known for his ability to splice together coherent sentences, but he found the fact that David could to be impossibly sexy.
There were a lot of things about David that he found impossibly sexy, which was weird, because apparently no one else did. Apparently, to almost everyone else, David was just this sort of geeky kid who spent too much time in the school's Literary Magazine office, and who talked too much in class, because he always knew everything.
The fact that David knew everything was also kind of hot.
Jack tore his gaze away from David and glanced around the room at his friends. Mush was smiling to himself and tapping his pencil against the desk, thinking; Blink was writing but his face was a shade of red usually reserved for tomatoes and fire engines; Dutch was staring up at the ceiling, and Specs was smiling softly to himself as he wrote. He almost laughed; he knew full well what had happened between Specs and Dutchy during the blackout, because (despite having promised Specs he'd keep his mouth shut) Dutchy had shared all the details. That just left Racetrack, who was writing furiously and stabbing his pencil at the paper for every piece of punctuation. Jack wondered what the hell had him so intense, before turning back to his own paper.
He'd had a good day that day.
*
David Jacobs and I have been together for a little over two years, which is an awfully long time for a high school relationship. But David and I just work together. He was what I guess you'd call an early bloomer, skipped up a year into our grade, and we got together right before ninth grade started. Which means he was only fourteen. But it's not like I was so old or anything, really just a year older, so it wasn't creepy. Well. I think his parents might have found it a bit creepy, but they're incredibly used to us by now.
Which is a good thing, because we're still going strong together. Our second anniversary was last summer, by weird coincidence, on August fourteenth–the day the blackout struck New York.
Our anniversary plans consisted of meeting Specs and Dutchy for a movie in the afternoon and then a nice romantic dinner (which I have been saving up for for six months, I swear) for just the two of us, and then we were going to head back to my place. Because my dad is out of town like usual, and since David's place is never empty… Well. We had after dinner plans too, even if we hadn't voiced them out loud.
It didn't end up happening quite like that, of course.
We got to the theater as per plan, and ran into a Dutchyless Specs, who was in a pretty lousy mood. He walked off and left me and Dave on our own which really, now that I think about it, neither of us minded at all. So we sauntered off to our theater hand in hand, in a pretty good mood.
"I knew Specs and Dutchy wouldn't last," David commented as we found seats near the back. "Which is a shame because they're so good for each other, but too different."
I nodded; he was right. Well, he'd eat those words later because they're still together, but at the time I thought he was right. We'd both noticed how much they'd been fighting… And it really sucked, because Specs is good friends with David (student council members together) and Dutchy and I have been good friends forever. (He was my first crush, way back in seventh grade.) And we really liked that we could hang out with them together, since we don't know a lot of other gay couples, but… Well. Now there's Mush and Blink too, who have this bizarre quasi-relationship where I think they think they're just best friends with benefits but really, it's like they're married. But they refuse to go on dates, so really it's just us double dating with Specs and Dutchy a lot of the time.
I think I'm a little off the subject.
So we were talking and goofing around, and then the movie started and we managed to quiet down to watch. We didn't make it through the whole movie, obviously, since it was the day of the blackout. Right as we were hitting the climax, the picture went out. And the exit signs went out too, and so did the dim lights that lined the aisles. And people, being stupid, lost their minds and screamed. I turned to look at David, though I couldn't really see him in the pitch black, and he reached for his keychain. Dave loves silly gadgets and things, so his keychain has a built in little flashlight (and a bottle opener) which he flicked on and then grabbed my wrist. "C'mon," he said. "Let's find out what's wrong."
Smart guy, always thinking. I'd never even have remembered he had a flashlight, and I'd probably have stayed put and panicked with the stupid people if he hadn't been there. So he lead the way out into the hallway and knocked on the door of the projection booth, which was opened by someone who looked incredibly pissed off. "Uh, we were just–"
"The goddamn power's out!" he yelled at David. "Ain't my goddamn fault!"
David nodded quickly and the guy slammed the door shut. And he was right; nothing in the theater had power. "It's probably just the theater," David reasoned. "Or the block or something."
"Yeah," I agreed. "I mean, this is Manhattan. It's not like the whole thing is gonna lose power."
"Exactly," he said confidently, and we followed his flashlight out of the darkened theater (with a crowd behind us, ready to follow anyone with a light.) Of course, as soon as we opened the doors and stepped into the afternoon light, we were blinded for a second, then looked around.
Nothing had power. Anywhere. Which would have been totally amazing and awe inspiring, but it was still Manhattan and I swear, every car in the city was honking. I put my hands to my ears and David laughed at me, grabbed my arm and started to drag me down the block. "Now what?" I yelled over the mess, which was starting to quiet a little. (New York drivers realize that honking won't actually make traffic go faster? Nah, never. I think their arms just got tired.)
"I don't know," he answered. "You wanna see if we can still get dinner?"
"Yeah, sure." He slipped his hand into mine. Normally we'd have had to grab a bus to get to the restaurant where we had reservations, but given that we'd left the movie early, the hike should have gotten us there at the right time. And it was a pretty cool walk; we kept passing little grocery stores that were giving away things for free. And while we didn't want any raw beef, we got a lot of ice cream out of the deal. Because it was all gonna melt anyway.
Basically nowhere was open. We kept running into panicked people and eventually into one guy who had a battery radio, was listening to some long range news channel, and he explained that he'd heard the whole eastern seaboard and part of Canada was knocked out but it wasn't a terrorist attack or anything. But it probably would be at least three days before power was restored.
I threw a look at David. "Three days?" he repeated incredulously. "Three days without my computer…"
"Geek," I said fondly and he rolled his eyes at me. (It's not my fault he's a geek, and I love him for it. But he so is.)
Well, at least we weren't in any danger, really. And as we walked longer, we kept seeing really great things; people gathering on corners together and singing or impromptu jazz bands forming and stuff like that. You know, all the artsy stuff that was on the news for the next few days. And no one was looting or swearing or anything, and people had taken over directing traffic, so it was finally starting to clear up by the time we got to our goal.
It was closed.
Which wasn't surprising, but it did leave us with no plans for the evening. By that point, David was sucking on a strawberry popsicle and his lips and tongue were this great shade of electric red, and I kissed him (he tasted fruity–haha, I'm so clever) and then asked what we should do. We opted for a nice romantic stroll through the park, because that was also a shortcut back to his place. His place, unfortunately, not mine; but mine wasn't in convenient walking distance. I rely on the bus and subway so much it's sad. So I sighed about our plans being ruined, but he just squeezed my hand.
"We don't need to do anything, Jack," he murmured. "I just want to spend the evening with you. I don't care what we're doing."
Which was awful sweet, really. And I gotta say, the walk through the park was also sweet. Well, and scary, because we were hitting dusk and there were no lights and we certainly didn't want to get mugged or lost, but thanks to David's trusty flashlight we had no real problems. Took a few wrong paths, but getting lost was fun, and we almost didn't want to leave the park. Because spending an evening in a dark apartment with his brother and sister and parents isn't exactly my idea of a nice, romantic anniversary…
But really, we didn't have that much of a choice. And sure enough, there was his whole family, apparently terrified because we'd been out and hadn't called or anything, and they didn't know where we were. David apologized profusely, and his parents very grudgingly forgave us. And then they surprised the hell out of me.
We were lying on the floor of David's room with the window propped open and the door locked shut. David's got this really comfortable rug, and his bed is definitely not big enough to comfortably fit two people, so the floor thing isn't as weird as it sounds. We were holding hands, and his head was leaning on my shoulder, and the glow in the dark stars on his ceiling (he's got them up in actual conversations, the dork) were half-heartedly glowing. They hadn't gotten enough light to really shine much of it back.
There was a tentative knock on the door.
"What?" David called, and someone tried the know, which, of course, didn't work. Since we'd locked it. I mean, we weren't gonna screw around with his little brother in the next room (especially since his stereo had no batteries, which meant we couldn't even crank the music up and… yeah,) but we also did want some privacy. It was our anniversary, after all.
"Everything all right in there?" Esther called.
"Yes, Mom, everything is fine," David answered, slightly exasperated. He always gets that tone when he's around his parents; it's the 'my parents mean well but are irritating' tone.
"We've got a surprise for you two, David. If you don't mind unlocking the door and joining the rest of the world for a minute."
David looked over at me. I shrugged. So he pushed himself up onto his feet and unlocked the bedroom door; his mother nodded to me. I really like Dave's family, I guess I can see where he finds them annoying, but I think they're great. David gave me a hand up and we wandered back into the living room.
"So… What's up?" I asked.
Sarah glanced up from the book she was reading. "Go up on the roof," she said.
"What?" David demanded.
Esther beamed, and Sarah smiled, Les was bouncing with excitement, and Mayer was also looking fairly pleased. I gave David a strange look, and he shrugged.
"Uh…"
"Go!" Les squeaked, and Esther made a shooing motion. So David and I complied, and let ourselves be ushered into the hallway, with a flashlight pressed into my hands so we could see the stairs. It was another eight floors up to get on the roof, and it took me a few seconds to figure out why we'd been sent there, but then I saw it, and I grinned.
Someone had put together a picnic on the roof. There was a large blanket spread out over the floor, two plates, a basket of food, two glasses, a bottle of wine, and an unlit candle with a matchbook next to it. A card sat next to it.
David knelt on the blanket and picked up the card, while I sat on the other side and lit the candle. He grinned wordlessly and held the card out for me to read. It was simple and elegant; all it said was Happy Anniversary, and the rest of David's family had signed it.
And they'd set this up for us.
"I can't believe your folks got us wine," I said, as I tried to get the cork out.
"I can." He laughed. "They probably had it sitting around. It's just Manishevitz."
"But still," I argued, and the cork finally came loose with a satisfying pop! noise. So I poured us wine while David explored the contents of the basket.
There wasn't really a lot of food, considering that anything that required an oven, stove, microwave or toaster was out. But there were a few peanut butter and fluff sandwiches (which Esther knows I love, God bless her), some fruit, and carrot sticks. With brownies for desert, which David informed me had been cooked two days ago. (I was impressed they went two days without all being eaten, but then, Esther also cooks in bulk. An invading army could show up at their apartment and she'd have enough food to feed them all.)
David picked up his wine glass and I kind of expected him to make a toast, but got a little distracted, looking up at the sky. I followed his gaze. "What?" I finally asked, not able to figure out what he was staring at.
"Stars," he said.
And then I got it. Normally, we can't see the stars, there's too much light pollution. But there wasn't a single electric light anywhere within miles. Of course, there was still the smog, so it wasn't like we could see much, but still. The few stars that managed to twinkle through the pollution were worth looking up at. And the moon was gorgeous, brighter than I could ever remember seeing before.
David turned back towards me, and I picked up my glass, too.
"Happy anniversary, Jack," he said.
I smiled. "Happy anniversary, Davey."
We clinked our glasses together, wrapped our arms around each other's at the elbow, and drank.
So maybe it wasn't a big dinner, or as fancy as the one I'd been saving up for. But it was a sweet gesture from his family, and it did leave us alone together on the rooftop with wine and candlelight.
All things considered, there are worse ways to spend an evening.
*
Jack looked over at David, who was just finishing up. He was only halfway through the story, and wondered if David's version was similar. He figured it was, but probably better. David had a way with words that Jack just lacked.
David glanced over at him, and Jack caught his eye and smiled. David grinned back and blushed a tiny bit, which just made Jack smile more as he went back to writing. The essay didn't suck quite as badly as most essays did. At least this one brought back pleasant memories for him.
He glanced around the room again a moment later, and his gaze slipped past Racetrack, who was still scribbling angrily. He wondered why and couldn't remember where Race had been during the blackout; probably at his mother's house in Brooklyn, where he spent most of the summer. He hated spending time at his mother's house.
As he turned back to his own essay, Jack idly wondered what had happened.