Blackout

by Dhonielle Clayton

  Let me say that again: none of the original parts remained.

  Now the question for you, my fellow philosophers, is this: After a thousand years, is the ship of Theseus sitting in the harbor still the Ship of Theseus?

  If you answer no, then when did it stop being the Ship of Theseus? When the first plank of wood was replaced? The second? The last?

  If you answer yes, then can I just build a ship using the old planks of wood and call that the Ship of Theseus?

  GRACE

  I stop texting Lana and lean forward in my seat. “Hey, do you mind turning that down a little?” I ask my Ryde driver.

  He catches my eye in the rearview mirror. I give him a half smile so he knows I’m not trying to be a jerk. I could just turn it down myself. After all, Ryde’s company motto is Where the Ryder Controls the Ryde. But messing with his radio just seems rude.

  Still, there’s no earthly reason for his radio to be on so loud with a passenger in his car.

  “Guess you’re not a fan of philosophy,” he says.

  Am I imagining the attitude in his voice? I admit I’m In A Mood and feeling sensitive right now. Maybe I’m not taking things the way they’re meant.

  “It’s just a little loud,” I say. Diplomatically.

  “Sure. You need to concentrate on your texting. No doubt your emojis are saving the world.”

  Okay, so the attitude is not my imagination. “Excuse me?” I say. I know how to make my voice so frosty it freezes people right up.

  But he doesn’t freeze.

  He gives me another quick look in the rearview mirror. “Were you listening?” he asks. “It’s a great podcast. It’s called Philosophy Now! The Ship of Theseus parable is basically asking how much a person can change and still be considered the same person.”

  My phone buzzes with another text from Lana.

  LANA: !!!!!

  LANA: Just spotted him!

  LANA: You leave your house yet?

  LANA: When are you getting here?!

  The “here” is the block party I’m going to. The “him” is my ex-boyfriend, Derrick, the whole reason I’m even going to this party. We dated for almost two years. Six weeks ago, he broke up with me.

  I switch my camera to selfie mode and make sure I look as good as when I left the house. Not that it even matters how I look. With the blackout still going, it’s not like he’ll be able to see me properly.

  The driver starts up again. “It’s the problem of identity,” he says. “We’re not the same person we were ten years ago, five years ago, or even yesterday. We like different foods. We don’t love the people we used to love, and they don’t love us.”

  That last part—“We don’t love the people we used to love, and they don’t love us”—makes me look up from my phone.

  He turns to look at me for a quick second. I don’t see his face for long enough to be sure-sure, but I’m pretty sure he’s kind of hot.

  “We don’t share anything in common with our old selves. So why do we say we’re the same people?” he asks.

  It’s kind of an interesting question. Ordinarily I would be into it, but right now I’m too busy trying to decide what I’m going to say to Derrick once I see him.

  Lana texts again. Apparently, Trish, the girl who has been in a lot of Derrick’s social media posts lately, is there now. It’s not like I’m going to this party to try to get him back by reminding him of what we used to have. Okay, it’s exactly like that. I know how pathetic it sounds, but I’m hoping he’ll take one look at me and regret breaking us up.

  It’s going to take us forever and a day to get to this party. The blackout has been going on for hours now, and every stoplight we pull up to is not working because of it. Cars are taking turns inching through the intersections.

  “Want to hear something even wilder?” my driver asks.

  I wave my phone at him. “Sorry, I don’t really have time for this. Could you please turn down—”

  But he just keeps going. “We change out every one of our cells, all our everything, every seven years. My current body doesn’t share a single cell in common with my two-year-old body,” he says. “If your current self is not the same as your past self, then what’s the point of planning for anything? Our future selves will be nothing like us. Different tastes, different friends, different cells. Our future self is a complete stranger, a totally different person. So, why do we spend all this time making plans and doing things for a person we don’t even know?”

  He’s so busy philosophizing, he doesn’t realize the car ahead of us has moved. The car behind us honks long and loud. The sound makes him jump in his seat and hit the gas a little too hard.

  I navigate to my Ryde app. The driver’s name is Seymour. I consider giving him a one-star rating. What would I write in the comment? Driver is having an existential crisis.

  Instead of one-starring him, I decide to take advantage of the company motto. I use the app to turn off his podcast and start my Abba playlist.

  The opening lyrics of “Knowing Me, Knowing You” fill the car.

  My driver starts laughing. “Guess that’s my hint to stop talking,” he says.

  I stare out the window. It’s just after 10:00 p.m., but the blackout makes it seem later than it is. The streetlamps are off and all the storefronts are dark. Every so often a car headlight or someone’s phone will land on a storefront or a person’s face, and the sudden spotlight somehow makes ordinary things seem different and surprising. I wonder if Derrick will seem different when I see him.

  Lana texts again.

  LANA: They’re dancing

  LANA: No body parts are touching

  LANA: Yet

  I tilt my head back against the seat, squeeze my eyes closed, and try not to worry about what their dancing means.

  My driver starts singing along with Abba. His voice is so terrible it’s actually funny. He’s not anywhere close to hitting the right notes. I lean back in my seat and sing along with him. My voice doesn’t falter—not even when I get to the line about how breaking up is never easy.

  SEYMOUR

  Three Abba songs in and I’m looking for a way to escape my own car. Serves me right for aggravating a classic Prima Donna passenger with my philosophizing. (Prima Donnas are one of the four most difficult types of passengers. The others are:

  The Sociopath—sits in the front passenger seat next to you, but doesn’t talk;

  The Bro—insists you play whatever music you want, and assumes that what you want to play is rap. Name-drops Tupac and Biggie. Is unaware that they are both dead. Overdances in the back seat to show that he is down. Only guys do this. White guys;

  The Demon Child—kicks the back of your seat repeatedly. If you hold them down and check, you’ll find 666 written just behind the ear.

  Prima Donnas are girls like this one now—pretty and buttoned-up. No hello or eye contact when they get in the car. Monosyllabic responses. Looking down at their phones like the meaning of life is on there.)

  This girl is prettier than your average Prima Donna, though. She’s beautiful—dark brown skin; long, skinny dreads; big eyes; and full lips that tilt up at the corners. She looks like she smiles a lot. She’s funny too. I’m pretty sure she played “Knowing Me, Knowing You” because my podcast was about identity.

  No doubt she’s going to give me a one-star rating if she hasn’t done it already. Maybe I should say sorry or something. I know I’m only giving her a hard time because my fight with Tommy last night is still bugging me. I need to find my way to a better mood though. I can’t afford to bring my rating down. I need this job.

  The Ryde map says it’s going to take about an hour to get this girl to where she’s going. Usually this trip would take thirty minutes max. With the lights out, though, traffic is so backed up this street might as well be a parking lot. I hope she has other songs on her playlist. An hour is a long time to listen to Abba.

  I take another peek at her in the rearview. The light from her phone ma
kes her face glow. Now that she’s not trying to get me to shut up, I can see she looks sad.

  I wonder what her life story is. When I first took this job, one of the perks for me was I’d get to know people from all over the city, from all walks of life. I had this idea that my car would be some kind of a bubble where people could hit pause on their busy lives. I’d get them talking, and maybe learn something essential about people and life.

  But mostly people don’t want to talk. Everyone in here is just on their way to someplace else. Caught up in the drama of their own lives. We intersect for a short time, and then go our separate ways. Sometimes I just want to hold on to people and make them stay.

  “What did you say?” Prima Donna asks from the back seat.

  I catch her eyes in the rearview. “You talking to me?” I ask.

  “I thought you were talking to me. You said something about making people stay.”

  “My bad,” I say. “I do that sometimes. Say the thing in my head out loud.”

  “Okay, then,” she says, and goes back to looking out into the dark.

  My phone rings. It’s Tommy calling for the sixth time today. I let it go to voicemail. A few seconds later my phone lights up with a text. Another few seconds after that, he calls again.

  “You mind if we give Swedish pop sensation Abba a rest so I can take this?” I ask.

  “It’s fine,” she says with a little laugh.

  I do a quick turn in my seat so I can catch what she looks like laughing. She looks . . . good.

  I put in my earbuds and pick up. “Tommy, what’s up?”

  “I’ve been calling and calling you, man,” he says.

  “Yeah, been away from my phone most of the day.” I don’t know why I bother to lie. Easier than telling him I don’t want to talk, I guess.

  It’s a few seconds before he says anything. “Sorry about what I said last night, man. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  I don’t say anything, because of course he meant something by it. Words mean things.

  “You want to hang later?” he asks.

  “I can’t, man. Working.” I can hear him wanting to say something else. “Listen, I can’t talk now. I’m about to pick up a Ryde.”

  I hang up, pull my earbuds out, and toss them on the passenger seat.

  Up until this past year, Tommy and I were as close as brothers. We met in fifth grade because our parents were friendly with each other. They’re from Jamaica, same as mine. We’ve been through everything together. Our lives have always been on the same track, both of us following the plan our parents had for us: do good in high school, get at least one scholarship and some financial aid, and go to one of the state schools they could afford. But then last year, he went off to Binghamton while I stayed here doing this job. Nothing’s been the same between us since.

  I give a quick honk to the cabbie in front of me to get him moving. I think he might’ve been sleeping. I half turn to the girl. “Sorry about the call,” I say. “You can start your music back up.”

  “It’s okay,” she says. “Go ahead and put your podcast back on.”

  “For real? How come?”

  She shrugs. “Sorry I turned it off before. I’m having a crappy day.” She looks away and then back at me again. “Anyway, you seem like your day is as bad as mine,” she says.

  That’s nice of her. Maybe she’s kinder than your average Prima Donna. “So, where you headed?” I ask.

  “Block party. I’m meeting my boyfriend there,” she says. She emphasizes boyfriend the way girls do when they’re warning you off.

  I laugh to myself. One of my little sisters, Serena, does the same thing. As far as all the boys in her high school know, she has a serious long-distance boyfriend in Ghana.

  “You from Jamaica?” I ask. “I thought I heard a little accent.”

  “You can hear that?” she says, surprise in her voice.

  “My folks are from Mobay. I’d recognize that accent anywhere. How long ago did you move here?”

  “Two years ago. I was sixteen.”

  Something in her voice makes me ask: “You miss it?”

  She looks out her window. “Yeah. Most of my family is still there. My friends.”

  I can hear the longing in her voice. I wonder if she’s still close with her friends. Two years is a long time.

  People lose each other in shorter amounts of time than that. I know that from experience.

  GRACE

  Lana hasn’t texted in a few minutes. No doubt she and Tristán are kissing their faces off since she finally, finally told him how she feels about him. It turns out he’s been in love with her this whole time too.

  I need to distract myself so I don’t obsess about what may or may not be happening with Derrick and Trish. So I don’t obsess over what she has that I don’t.

  I turn my phone facedown and look over at my driver. “How come you were listening to that podcast?” I ask.

  “I just think it’s interesting,” he says with a shrug. He doesn’t seem as eager to talk about it as he was before he got that phone call.

  “Well, I disagree with what you were saying,” I say.

  That perks him up. He turns and gives me a quick look and a smile. “Which part?” he asks.

  “It doesn’t matter if my body and all my cells are completely different than they used to be,” I say. “I’m still the same person. My body may have changed, but my memories haven’t. I remember who I was yesterday, and I’ll know who I am tomorrow.”

  He gives me an even bigger smile. I get the feeling that he loves debating esoteric stuff like this. I have to admit I like it too. I can’t imagine Derrick wanting any part of a conversation like this.

  “So if it turns out I’m a terrible driver and we get into an accident right now and you get amnesia, then you’re no longer the same person?” he asks.

  “I’d still be the same person, just with amnesia,” I say.

  “Are you sure? Because now you really don’t have anything in common with your pre-accident self. You don’t have the same body. You don’t have the same cells. You don’t even have the same memories. Nothing.”

  I lean forward into the space between our seats. “So the question is: What makes you you?”

  “Exactly,” he says, tapping on the steering wheel for emphasis.

  “Well, do you have an answer?”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Nope.”

  “Doesn’t that drive you bonkers?” I ask.

  “Nope,” he says. “I like asking the questions.”

  He turns to smile at me just as headlights from another car shine right into ours. I feel my eyes get cartoon-character wide as my brain processes how cute he is. Warm brown skin, big dark eyes, and cheekbones for days. He’s got one of those faces that belongs on a billboard.

  I look away from him and then back again, but he’s already facing forward. I study the back of his head and his profile. It turns out you can’t tell how good-looking a person is based on the back of their head and profile. “How old are you, anyway?” I ask.

  “Just turned nineteen a few days ago.”

  “Happy belated birthday.”

  He smiles at me in the rearview. “Thanks.”

  We pull up to an intersection and he flicks on the turn signal.

  “Are you listening to that for college or something?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer for a while, just rubs his thumb on the steering wheel. The ticktock of the turn signal sounds even louder in the quiet.

  Finally, he says, “I’m not in college.” He takes a deep breath. “My pops passed away two years ago.” His voice is so quiet I almost don’t hear him.

  “I’m really sorry,” I say.

  “Thanks, I appreciate that,” he says. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t know what to say after you tell them a thing like that. Anyway, the plan was always for me to go to Binghamton. After Pops died, I couldn’t just leave my mom alone to take care of my sisters. And with hi
m gone, money got tight. Moms is the type to take on two, three, four extra jobs to make ends meet, but I can’t have her running herself ragged. Better for me to stay here and take this job and let the college thing go.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I just say I’m sorry again.

  “You know that phone call I got earlier?”

  “You mean the one you didn’t want to take, but then you did take and then couldn’t wait to get off of?”

  “That’s the one,” he says, laughing.

  He tells me all about his friend Tommy. They grew up together and were supposed to have the same life, but because of what happened with his dad, he stayed here while Tommy went off to college.

  “We were out together last night, and we got into it. He wanted to go to some fancy club in the city with a huge-ass cover charge.” He looks out his window and sighs. “I just wanted to hang out, play a video game like we used to. When I said I wanted to do something that didn’t cost a lot, he said I was turning into an old man. Wanted to know when I got so cheap. Said I was different these days.”

  “No wonder you didn’t want to take that call,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says, and then starts laughing to himself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to lay all this on you.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, laughing too. “People tell me things all the time. I have one of those faces.”

  “That and you’re a good listener,” he says. “Well, now that you know everything about me, I feel like I should officially introduce myself,” he says. “My name is Seymour.”

  “I’m Grace,” I say. “Do people make puns about your name all the time?”

  “You mean things like ‘Hey, Seymour, can you see more?’”

  I grin. “Yeah, like that,” I say.

  Passing headlights flash a bar of light across his eyes.