Zap!

by Martha Freeman

  “I’ll be back,” he said, and pulled the door closed.

  “Tontos,” Señora Álvaro said. Now that the danger was over, she seemed to shrink back to her usual size. Her voice had a quaver in it too. All that courage had been for show, Luis thought, or maybe courage was always for show. “¡Ay, qué lástima!” she went on.

  “I’ll clean it up,” said Luis. “I’m used to it.”

  “What do you mean?” Señora Álvaro asked.

  Shoot. Luis hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “Nada, never mind. Where’s the mop?”

  The truth was he was used to cleaning up after his parents, who often bragged that they partied as hard as they worked. They weren’t even embarrassed when they got sick. It was part of the deal. They were entitled. And as for the kid cleaning it up, someday his kids would do the same for him. That was the way they saw it, the way the world worked.

  But Luis had sworn no way.

  His kids would never have to do that, would never see him drunk or hungover either. His kids would think he was the perfect dad, the perfect person, because he would try to be. They were going to live in a house like Maura’s—nicer than Maura’s—have the kind of life he saw on TV.

  Señora Álvaro argued a little and then handed over a mop. Luis knew she wasn’t going to thank him, either for stepping up to protect her or for cleaning up. Like Luis’s parents, she would accept his services as something kids owed grown-ups.

  Then—unexpectedly—she handed over something besides the mop, a big responsibility.

  “I hate to say it, but those kids were right,” she told him as he finished up. “I do have a lot of cash with nowhere to go till the bank is open again. Will you keep it for me?”

  “Keep money?” Luis could not believe his ears.

  “No one thinks a kid has money.” Señora Álvaro shrugged. “If those punks tried to take it from me, others will too. I don’t want to stay here all night on guard duty, and I don’t want it upstairs in my apartment either. Too many people know I live alone. With you—with your family—it will be safe.”

  “How much is it?” Luis asked.

  “More than a thousand,” Señora Álvaro said. “Something about emergencies makes people stuff their cupboards. There’s probably not a paper towel or a can of soup between here and Nueva York. One guy bought all my orange juice. Why did he need so much orange juice?”

  Luis wasn’t sure about taking so much money. The idea scared him a little, but at the same time, Señora Álvaro’s trust made him feel important, like a big man.

  At last he said okay, and the señora handed over a metal box. She had just finished counting when the shadow trio invaded. She admitted to Luis that now that the danger was past, she felt a little shaky.

  “I’ll keep it safe, Señora, I promise.” Luis opened his backpack to put in the box and saw the carton of milk. If he told her about Computer Genius now, she couldn’t be mad, could she? Not after all that had happened. He started to explain, but the señora wasn’t listening.

  “Thank you, Mijo. I’m going to bed,” she said. “By the way, I know exactly how much I am giving you. And I know I’ll get every centavo back.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Luis found his bike where he’d left it. Thank you, Jesus, he thought. Or maybe thank the tequila gods this time. Tony and the others must have known the bike was his, but they had felt too sick or too gross to take the time for revenge.

  Luis pedaled quickly through the darkness, keenly aware of the extra weight in his backpack. More than a thousand dollars, he thought. I won’t let the señora down.

  Then he remembered he’d already let her down by failing to find Computer Genius. I’ll do that tomorrow, he thought. I’ll deliver the chocolate milk too.

  Like Maura earlier, Luis flipped the light switch as soon as he walked in the front door. Estúpido, he thought when—of course—nothing happened. Since he couldn’t see anyway, he closed his eyes. It made no difference and felt more comfortable.

  “¿Hola?” he called, but no one answered. He imagined his parents drinking at a bar in the dark. Would the beer taps work? They might miss the TVs or the noise of the jukebox, but in the end it was the beer that mattered.

  Pushing his bike with one hand, Luis felt his way through the room, bumping furniture as he went. Everybody in Hampton probably has bruised shins by now, he thought. That’s the number they should put on the news—two hundred thousand customers without power, four hundred thousand bruised shins.

  In his room, Luis felt for the hook on the wall and hung up his bike. Then he dropped his backpack onto his bed, felt his way into the bathroom, and learned that the house still had water pressure.

  When finally he lay down, he realized he was feeling shaky, not scared exactly, more like uncomfortable with all the darkness and uncertainty. Knowing the power could come back any second almost made him feel worse. He thought of Tony on the floor of Señora Álvaro’s bodega—one moment ready to grab a wad of money from an old woman, the next crawling out the door, smelly and empty-handed. It was always true, Luis guessed, but the power outage had made it real: Your world could flip over in an instant.

  With all that on his mind—and a thousand dollars in his backpack at the foot of his bed—Luis shouldn’t have been able to sleep. But sleep he did. At some point his parents came in noisily. For sure, their shins could be counted among the bruised. Luis registered the noise, rolled over, and returned to his dreams.

  When he awoke for good, the sky was gray, not black, and the stars were gone. It was morning, right around six o’clock. After so many years, he didn’t really need an alarm.

  He knew right away the power was still out because the house was freezing. Just to be sure, he checked the clock on his nightstand. It was a round, old-fashioned clock, the kind with hands, and it was stuck at twenty to eight.

  Three-two-one—Luis vaulted up. Getting dressed, he thought of something—the time on the microwave clock the day before when it flashed and went black. He tied his shoes and then turned around and looked more closely at the clock on the nightstand. To be precise, it read eighteen minutes before eight—7:42. Wasn’t that the number Mr. O’Hara had said at the hospital?

  It had to be a coincidence.

  But what were the odds of such a coincidence?

  Luis was pretty good at math. He had convinced Reynaldo to stop playing the lottery by calculating that the odds of his winning were much less than the odds of his being bitten by a shark at the shore.

  Figuring this out should be simple.

  The odds that somebody would say one number rather than another number—that must be like infinity to one, right? There was an infinite number of numbers.

  But if Mr. O’Hara had been thinking of a time of day, that made the odds better.

  Luis splashed his face with water and thought: There are sixty times of day every hour, and twenty-four hours in a day—so there must be sixty times twenty-four possible times of day. That makes—Luis did the multiplication in his head—one thousand four hundred and forty.

  On the other hand—Luis patted his face dry—unless you’re in the army, you probably think about times of day as one through twelve, not one through twenty-four. So that makes half as many possibilities, seven hundred twenty.

  So the odds of Mr. O’Hara saying the exact time when the power went out were one in seven hundred twenty. That made it more likely than winning the lottery, but still pretty unlikely.

  So did that mean there had to be a connection between the blackout and Mr. O’Hara?

  Luis shook his head. This is where math takes you, he thought, straight to insanity. Because—duh—the only connection between Mr. O’Hara and the blackout was that Mr. O’Hara used to work for NJL. So did a whole lot of people, right? Maura’s mom worked there now. And it was crazy to think she had anything to do with the blackout.

  Luis decided to file crazy away for later. Right now he had other problems. Like how he had no idea what was going on wi
th his friends or anyone else. His phone had died in the night. No Facebook, no Snapchat, no Instagram. No texting or e-mail even. It was Ground Control to Major Tom—and Ground Control was AWOL.

  Alone in the universe, Luis decided to start with the easy stuff. He removed the box of money from his backpack and slid it under his bed. It would be safe there among the dust bunnies. They hadn’t been disturbed since the day he took over the bedroom.

  In the kitchen he found one last Pop-Tart and ate it in two bites. He was still hungry, but not hungry enough for his other option, raw oatmeal. Maybe there was still food for sale somewhere in Hampton, or maybe he’d go back to Maura’s. Even canned chili sounded pretty good about now.

  Next was to find out about school, and the only way to do that was to bike over there.

  For a Tuesday, the streets were quiet. No stores were open. No one seemed to be going to work. Maybe people were saving the gas in their tanks for the real emergency—whatever and whenever that might be.

  By the time he got to school, he knew what he would find: The gate closed with a NO SCHOOL TODAY sign posted on it. Below that was an additional note that read: CHECK TV, RADIO, WEB FOR DETAILS. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. The information was repeated in Spanish.

  Luis thought the sign should have said: HOORAY! ANOTHER DAY OFF! But the dozen or so parents standing there didn’t look happy. Did they see it as another day when their kids wouldn’t learn anything?

  Also, how was anybody supposed to check TV, radio, Web? Phones, tablets, laptops—they must all be dead by now.

  Someone punched Luis in the shoulder. Thinking of last night—Tony—Luis tensed, instantly on alert. But when he turned around, it was only Carlos. “Hey, Luis, what’s shaking?”

  “Carlos, my man. Only me—it’s freezing at my house. Other than that, not much. How ’bout you?”

  “No mucho. I have never slept so much in my life as I did yesterday. Without video games, what’s a homie supposed to do?”

  “Search me, hue.”

  “Well, what did you do?”

  Luis shrugged. “Nothing. This and that.”

  “Did you go to Maura’s new house? Is it nice?” Carlos asked.

  Luis dodged the question. “I been there before. It’s got a yard and new carpets.”

  “Ohhhhh,” said Carlos. “You been there before? I see how it is with the two of you.”

  “Get off my case, Carlos,” said Luis.

  Carlos started to say something else, but Luis made his fierce face and Carlos changed his mind. “So anyway,” Carlos said. “It’s official. We have nothing to do today. Trouble is, I don’t think I can sleep anymore. I don’t think it’s humanly possible.”

  “Señora Álvaro wants me to check on the genius,” Luis said. “We could go exploring.”

  “Exploring” meant exploring abandoned houses. It was absolutely forbidden by every Hampton parent, and it was every kid’s favorite activity.

  “Not without light,” Carlos said. “Too much garbage in those houses. Too many needles. Do you have any idea what kinds of diseases you get from those needles?”

  Luis shrugged. “So I’ll get us light, then.”

  “Isn’t your phone dead?” Carlos asked. “My parents have a flashlight but no batteries. Do you think anybody’s got batteries?”

  “No,” said Luis. “But I have an idea.”

  Carlos raised his eyebrows. “Does your idea got something to do with Maura?”

  Luis flashed the fierce face again.

  “Sheesh, you are touchy on certain subjects,” Carlos said.

  Luis ignored this. “Come with me if you got nothing to do. I bet I know somebody who could use your help. Later, I’ll get us some light.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Luis’s idea did have something to do with Maura. She—or more accurately, her family’s hall closet—was going to provide him with a flashlight. Meanwhile, Carlos could keep busy helping Señora Álvaro out in her bodega.

  In Luis’s mind, Carlos would be helping to repay the señora for Luis’s failing to find the genius the day before. Luis knew that didn’t exactly make sense. After all, Carlos hadn’t let the señora down—he had. Still, Carlos was his friend with nothing else to do. He might as well be useful.

  At the bodega, the sign on the door read OPEN—CASH ONLY with a new line at the bottom: OWNER IS ARMED.

  Inside the small dark space, half a dozen shoppers milled around the almost empty shelves. Luis was glad about one thing. The smell of so many people this early in the morning obliterated the smell of vomit from the night before.

  The señora was behind the counter selling her last bottle of Palmolive to a regular customer. Luis nodded at her, then hung back waiting for a chance to speak without the whole neighborhood overhearing.

  Finally, he moved toward her. “Señora, are you really armed?” he asked quietly.

  “Tal vez—maybe.” She shrugged. “I gotta say it on my sign, though, in case Tony or one of his friends comes back.”

  “Wait—you recognized him?” Luis said.

  “I’m old. I’m not blind,” said Señora Álvaro.

  “Do you want me to bring back your money?” Luis asked. “Now that it’s daylight, I mean?”

  Señora Álvaro looked to see no one was listening and then shook her head. “Your house is better than a bank, Luis. And I don’t want to have to prove how tough I am—you get what I’m saying? What if I hurt somebody?”

  Luis smiled. “Yeah, I get it.”

  “Hey, good people, have you heard?” Mrs. Freeman, a tall African-American woman, came through the door from the sidewalk, waving her arms. “They’re calling in the United States Armed Forces!”

  “Oh, sí?” Señora Álvaro said calmly.

  “Unh-hunh. It was all over the television last night. My sister from Raleigh told me. Tanks and bombs and I don’t know what else.”

  “Why would they want to do that?” Señora Álvaro asked.

  “On account of the looters and rioters and killers! Have you been over on Spruce Street this morning? Looks like somebody dropped a bomb! So therefore—boom—the president is going to teach them a lesson.”

  “It’s Communists that are responsible. That’s what I heard.” This comment came from a short man with white hair who was wearing green sweatpants.

  “Which Communists?” Señora Álvaro asked.

  “The North Koreans, I bet,” said a white guy with a goatee. “They’ve got nukes, plus their government is known to be crazy.”

  “Why would somebody way over there in North Korea care about you and me and Hampton, New Jersey?” Señora Álvaro asked.

  “We’re the test case. After us, they take out New York City.” The guy spoke as if this were totally obvious.

  Mrs. Freeman was nodding. “That’s what my sister says the president claimed on the television. It could be we fight back against them and boom! World War III!”

  “And it could be the wind knocked down a power line,” said a gray-haired tía in a dress with a floral pattern. She wore glasses and orthopedic shoes.

  “The wind nothing! I am quoting no less than the president of the United States,” Mrs. Freeman said. “But not to worry. Our armed forces can fix the Communists—boom!”

  “Ay.” Señora Álvaro rubbed her head with her palm. “So you’re saying the Communists and the looters are the same now, Maddie?”

  Mrs. Freeman raised her eyebrows and nodded. “Could be. Working together. A conspiracy.”

  “Did anybody hear that Julia lady that’s running for mayor? The one that makes babies cry?” the guy with the goatee asked. “She says it’s corporations and government that turned off the power to keep the common people down. She said we oughta go out in the street and demand our rights.”

  “Seguro, she said that,” Señora Álvaro said. “She wants to blame everything on the guy in charge of the city, on Mayor Manuel.”

  “Excuse me, Señora?” A man Luis recognized from the tire bode
ga had opened the door and leaned in. “You got any phone batteries?”

  “I wish I did,” Señora Álvaro said. “I could sell a million.”

  “You know anybody that does?” the guy asked.

  Señora Álvaro shook her head.

  “My cousin’s son-in-law’s buddy said he’s gonna drive to North Jersey and buy up a supply and come back. I bet he makes a ton of money,” said the man with the goatee.

  “I heard people are buying cans of gas and charging fifty bucks a gallon,” Mrs. Freeman said. “They’re doing it with other stuff too—potato chips, Gatorade, you know, necessities.”

  Señora Álvaro scoffed. “You make money till the power’s back. Then you got too much inventory and you lose money,” she said.

  “Honey, haven’t you been paying attention?” Mrs. Freeman said. “The power is not coming back. This is not what you call normal. This is some kind of war against the people that’ll only get worse, then—boom!”

  Luis did not know what to think about all this talk. There were people in the bodega rolling their eyes at Mrs. Freeman and other people listening and shaking their heads. Señora Álvaro seemed skeptical.

  Carlos bumped Luis’s arm. “What are we doing here anyway, hue?”

  “Oh yeah, right,” Luis said. “Here is the plan. You stay and help Señora Álvaro while I go take care of my, uh . . . business.”

  Carlos shrugged. “Could be that’s cool,” he said, “depending on the hourly?”

  “The hourly you have to work out with the señora. Maybe hourly gratitude and appreciation.”

  “Say what? I don’t work for appreciation,” said Carlos. “I gotta have dinero, you know, an hourly.”

  “Gimme a break, Carlos. Like otherwise you’ve got so many responsibilities to attend to? You told me you were sick of sleeping. Here, provided by me, is an alternative activity. Maybe if the señora has anything left such as chips or soda or candy, she might give you some, capeesh?”

  “What is this capeesh of which you speak?” Carlos asked.

  “Do you un-der-stand?” Luis emphasized each syllable.

  “I un-der-stand,” said Carlos. “Señora”—he turned to her—“looks like you got yourself a helper.”