What Happens When the Lights Go Out
This story was originally published in the Spring 2022 print edition of Euphony Journal.
The night Jackson passed out in front of the big church, he had been drinking pretty hard. I guess it's fair to say we both were. Most people thought Jackson was a real asshole, but I liked him alright; when he got drunk he got metaphysical. It's hard to find people who want to talk about stuff like that instead of sports or the stock market or whatever. I don't know what Jackson did when he was alone, but I'm pretty sure it didn't involve the Patriots.
Anyway, I remember that night he had something stuck in that big beard of his. When he opened his mouth, it writhed like a fly in a spider's nest.
"Idiots. They're all idiots!" he yelled. He pounded his fist on the bar. I nodded, but really I was transfixed by the junk that teetered on his face. All it needed was a simple nudge—a puff of air, really—and it would be gone.
"Are you listening to me?" His eyes rolled like steel bearings.
"Yeah. Idiots."
"Right? Good. So these idiots, they think I should do everything. Personally, I think they should be more, I don't know—" he side-eyed me and drained his beer— "fucking productive." His next beer had been foreplanned, and he slid it into his embrace.
"Hegel thought—" I began, but Jackson wasn't done.
"Was doin' just fine down in Arizona. You know that?" He shook his head. The thing in his beard held fast. I had heard the story enough times to recount it word by word. There was no way to stop him. I caught the bartender's eye and pointed at the Guinness tap.
"What was it you were you doing down there?"
"Software engineering. Coding. Almost worked at Google. You know that? But fuck me, my old man dies. Five days later my uncle calls—'Come to Maine,' he says. 'Need your help with the business.' Wants to retire, he says. Needs me to take over." Jackson scoffed. "That jackoff'll never retire." He pitched his head back and half of his beer disappeared. He slammed the glass down and pointed at the bartender like a ref in a boxing match.
"'Wherever you go, there you are,' huh?" Who said that?" I snapped my fingers. "Pooh. Winnie the Pooh."
"It wasn't fucking Pooh." Jackson sneered. "It's a Buddhist saying."
The bartender materialized with my beer. "It's a book," he said.
"It's not a book," said Jackson. "The Buddhists say it."
"What Buddhists are those?"
"People who practice Buddhism, man." He jerked his thumb at the bartender. "This guy, right?" Jackson was no Buddhist, but I knew where he got his information. A few months back, he had gone to a meditation retreat with his girlfriend, Beth. Even an environment of chronic Zen couldn't cure their tempestuous ills: a week later, she had packed all her things and moved back in with her folks. She just up and went. Jackson didn't seem much different for it. Maybe he drank a little more. It was hard to tell.
The bartender pushed the beer at me and disappeared. I grabbed it and slid off my barstool. The place was busy for a Tuesday; the booths were full, and people gathered around stanchions hung heavy with winter coats. On a stage in the corner a guy in a flannel set up a PA. That meant the bartender would soon switch off the Dropkick Murphy's playlist—sea shanties from Boston traded for wagon wheels and "Sweet Caroline" singalongs. It was a fair and preferable trade.
"All these people, man. All these people." Jackson leaned against the bar and swept his hands. His words were like mayonnaise. "Ev'ry one of 'em thinks they're so special. They look around, and they think, they think—" here he burped—"they think, 'Everyone else is boring. What fucking sheep.' Yet here they all are, gettin' drunk on the same beer. Slingin' the same bullshit. You feel me?"
He rolled his eyes; it was a long, weighted expression that seemed terrible to perform. "Sure," I said. I thought he was done, but I was wrong.
"This woman I work with. Ev'ry Monday she comes in bitching. Her son-in-law's lazy or whatever. He won't work. Her daughter needs food stamps, but the state's frigging up the application. Daughter can't catch a break—system's a mess, husband's a screwup. It's always the same. Someone else's fault. Meanwhile, I come in, I'm like, 'Hey, Rhonda. Did you get the reports I needed last Friday?' I'm real nice about it. And she looks at me like I just crashed her fucking wedding. I'm, like, her boss, man. Her boss. Do you know what—"
At that moment, the place went dark. The music stopped. Outside the plate-glass windows, snow blazed blue in the moonlight. From the corner came a squeal. Then the floor groaned as a generator in the basement came to life. Emergency lights clicked into service; their light was like that of a yellowed photograph; the faces in the bar became absurd, upturned masks as shadows leapt beneath their noses and brows.
"Everyone, stay cool!" yelled the bartender. "If you got cash, I got beer." A cheer rose from the crowd. Jackson turned. He squinted into the ceiling and mumbled.
"What?" I said. He ignored me and leaned across the bar.
"Hey!" he bellowed. "What's that unit?" He jabbed a finger at the emergency light that hung above the bartender.
"What?"
"What kind of lights're these?"
"Beats me."
"How're they powered?"
"How would I know? They work when the power goes out."
"Whoever put them in's an idiot!" Jackson's voice rang over the buzz of the crowd. "I bet those things're only five watt. Probably last an hour'n a half, right?" Jackson smirked. I had a good one tied on, but even in this light I could tell that Jackson was shitfaced. "Shoulda went with the seven-watters. They're brighter! Las' five hours! I'll tell you what, man—someone really fucked up!"
"Oh yeah?" The bartender scrawled a receipt on a folded napkin. "What makes you an expert?"
"What. Makes. Me. An. Expert. Lessee—I run a fuckin' housing company for poor people." He waved his hands. "No. Sorry. 'Low income.' Ev'ry day I deal with this shit."
"OK, Frank Lloyd Wright." He gave me a wink. "You're the boss."
Jackson turned to me. "Who the fuck's that? That Frank?"
"I don't know," I said, even though I did. I waved it away.
"Is that guy being a dick?"
"I think that's the guy getting you drunk. Be nice."
"Fuckin' A," said Jackson. He stood and tested his stability. There was a moment of alarm as he pitched left; then he steadied himself, growled, and stumbled away. A group of kids crowded the restroom door as they pulled their jackets from the wall. They glared as Jackson shoved past them and disappeared.
I scooped mixed nuts into my palm and hung my head. Someone had adorned the bar with a selection of coins from around the world, and they were on full display beneath the scratched epoxy. There was one from Japan. Another from Indonesia. One, from China, had a hole punched in it. Beside a Canadian loonie was a token for Baby Dolls, a strip club downstate. Good for One Drink, it read beneath a silhouette of a woman with massive breasts. Maybe it was someone's idea of a joke. The girls at Baby Dolls weren't nearly that attractive.
I hadn't even put an almond in my mouth when there was a crash behind me. I turned in time to see Jackson collapsed over a toppled stool. His legs flailed and his fingers waggled like a kid counting to ten. The crowd parted. They watched in silence as Jackson scrambled to stand.
"Fuckin' place! Too crowded!" he roared. "Get out th' way! Chrissakes!" He clambered and fell back onto the stool.
"Hey, is your buddy alright?" The bartender appeared behind me like a vengeful spirit. "You better get him out of here."
"Yeah. OK." I slid off my stool and bent to Jackson. He scrambled to find purchase on the floor, but his knees were tangled in the chair. I hooked my hands beneath his arms and heaved. We both lurched as he kicked the stool away. For a moment, I thought we'd tumble into the mob. But somehow, miraculously, Jackson's feet found the floor and our momentum ended.
Jackson swayed for a moment in the dim glare of the lights. He turned his head to regard the crowd.
"What the fuck're yoool..."—he paused to gather his thought—"you all looking at?" It was just a moment, but it felt like forever.
I looked at the bartender. He wore a clear expression that said, "Get the fuck out now." I grabbed our jackets from where we had shoved them at our feet.
"Hey, pal," I said. "Let's grab a smoke."
Jackson lumbered after me as I walked to the exit. As soon as I opened the door, I exploded into shivers. The cold stole my breath and froze snot to the inside of my nose. I forced my arms into my jacket and yanked my beanie over my head. The power outage was bigger than I had realized: in both directions, the storefronts that lined Main Street were grey like dead televisions.
Jackson leaned against the brick wall and fought with his lighter. A cigarette hung from his lips at a precarious angle. I pulled a smoke from my own pack, lit it, and extended the flame to him. He inhaled like a soldier that hadn't smoked in months.
"Power's out," he said. He could have told me that water was wet, maybe, or that the sky was blue. It would have been the same. I took a drag and looked at my phone. It was almost last call. There'd be a mad rush to grab another beer or settle tabs, then everyone would spill into the night. I looked through the window: inside, the movement and the chatter had resumed. It was like Jackson and his spectacle had never existed.
"How'd it happen?" said Jackson.
"What?"
"The power, man," he said. He surveyed the street through half-closed eyes. The smoke from his cigarette rose in loose curls, beaten back by molecules slowed in the frigid air. The object that had been stuck in his beard was gone.
"How the fuck should I know?"
"I—I like it." He took another drag and looked up. "Sumtimes I just stan' on my balcony. I look at the stars. Fuckin' streetlights make it hard to see 'em." I followed his gaze upwards. He was right: without the constant illumination of the downtown, each star was a distinct point in the sky. Jackson slumped further.
"You nowatt—you know what fucksh me up? All those things up there, they're suns. Fuckin' suns, man. All that shit you see, it's juss a fraction of a fraction. It's juss the cloooose ones. But they're still, like, thousan's of light years away. It takes so long for th' light to get here. What we see is akshly, like, the dissant past." He shrugged, and his shoulders fell like weights. "There could be people out there with entire lives—whole civilizashuns—but by the time we see 'em they're already dead. Dead'z a doornail."
"That's shitty, man."
"You'd never know," he muttered. He threw his half-smoked cigarette to the sidewalk and fumbled in his pocket. "Wheres m'fuckin' smokes?" I handed him one of mine, and his fat fingers trembled as he took it. He looked away, up toward the big Episcopalian church at the top of the hill. He didn't seem to be looking at it, or anything else in particular. Instead he seemed to stare at some point on the horizon, past the hill and past the moonlight and past even the city in its darkened totality.
Jackson hiccupped. He shuffled his feet and murmured. I couldn't make it out. But before I could ask him what the fuck he was talking about, he turned. The face that appeared to me wasn't Jackson's; it had become something else, a parody that had come from the shadows to take Jackson's place. Tears stained his cheeks like blue antifreeze. A hard fist gripped my heart. I had never seen a man cry before. It was the ugliest thing in the world.
"I don' know whatteye di' wrong," he moaned. His chest rose in heaves. I took a drag from my cigarette and looked away. In the bar people laughed; they clinked their glasses, grabbed each other's shoulders, and howled. The musician played his guitar from a stool on the stage. I could hear all of it conducted through the plane of glass; it was so close, but it seemed like a transmission from a different universe. I wished I was in there.
Suddenly, Jackson's arms were around me. His shoulders shook as he gasped and gulped. My nose was filled with the scent of beer and fresh cigarettes and sweat. His beard scratched my neck and I felt sick. It was more of Jackson than I had ever hoped to experience. Yet here it was. I had no idea how to react. So I didn't. I just stood.
"She waz alleye 'ad," he sobbed. "She waz so unhappy. Eye 'ad to let'er go. But I tried. I tried so hard."
I couldn't move. I don't know why: maybe it was fear. Maybe it was helplessness. Whatever it was, I stayed until he removed his arms and retreated to the wall. He sniffled and wiped his face with his sleeve. A lit cigarette still dangled from his knuckles. I'm glad that thing didn't burn me up, I thought, but part of me wished it had.
"Never should've lef' Arizona, man," he said. "Juss... shoulda stayed." I searched for something to say. There was silence for a few moments. Then I said the first thing I could think of:
"You know, man, wherever you go, there you are."
"Huh. I guess. Fuckin' Pooh." He snorted. Then, as if all the beer and the cold and the weight had been sucked from him, he stood erect. He clapped a hand on my shoulder and I winced with the force. "I'mma walk 'ome. S'fuckin' late."
"Alright, man. I'll call you later," I started, but he had already gone. I wondered for a moment if I should catch up to him, to make sure he got home. But he lived just around the bend—how much trouble could he get in? I watched as he weaved among the dirty piles of snow that had gathered on the sidewalk. At the top of the hill, in front of the church, his head looked toward the stars. Then he turned the corner and was gone.
The first people from the bar had already spilled onto the sidewalk. They lit their cigarettes and made proclamations as the cold robbed them of composure. I pulled another smoke from my jacket, lit it, and began my own long walk in the opposite direction. As I went, I looked up at the sky and thought about what Jackson had said. I thought about how the stars could go out right now, and no one would know for thousands of years. It was weird how something so big could happen, but because of the time and distance between, it was like it never happened at all. I thought about the dark houses I passed and about the people that lived behind those dull windows. I wondered what they did when the lights went out, and if anyone would ever know or even care. It all seemed so far away.
It was past 2 a.m. when I reached my apartment. As I removed my boots, I thought about Jackson. I dialed his number once, then twice more for good measure, but it all went to voice mail. I figured he had made it home and passed out. When I pulled myself from bed the next afternoon, however, I saw that he had texted:
Hey bro, what did we get up to last night? All blurry after first six pints lol. Woke up on lawn of church. 4 am. Cold as shit. Maybe I found God.
And then, another one:
Beers tonight?
I squinted at the words through swollen eyes. Icepicks cracked my brain. I dropped the phone on the sideboard, went to the toilet, and downed three aspirin. As I brushed the dry taste of beer from my mouth, I thought about a response. Then I let it go. It's just that way sometimes, I thought: something happens so suddenly, so slightly, you wonder if the world you remembered being in had ever existed at all. I thought about Jackson, and I thought about the stars, and I thought how big and important it had all seemed. Then I went back to bed, and I thought about nothing at all.