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Where I live, forty minutes north of Manhattan, queues formed the Saturday before. At the supermarket I was one of many stocking up on non-perishables, as we had been advised to do. But what exactly is a non-perishable? Bread? (Doesn’t it grow mould?) Food that can be eaten straight from the tin? Apples and oranges? Did I really want to load up on giant bags of potato chips and pretzels, like the customer ahead of me at the cash register? Wasn’t this a chance to shed a pound or two? And what about the meat in the freezer? Should I defrost and cook it all? But why? I couldn’t possibly eat it all at once. And wouldn’t the uneaten meat go bad unless I could refrigerate it? Is inedible food any less wasted for having first been cooked?
Other preparations were dealt with more easily. For instance: move all the porch furniture into the garage; park both cars deep into the drive, as far as possible from trees, each now a potential missile; organise the bottled water; locate the candles and matches; test the battery on the torch. All this made me feel useful and even vaguely competent until I switched on the TV and saw far more enterprising humans festively leaving an appliance shop (some had waited for hours) carrying generators they had bought (for $1,700 plus an extra fee for shipping costs; the items had been trucked in overnight). A generator? What on earth does it do? Where do you put it? How does it work? And doesn’t it require energy of some kind? (Gas, the newscaster explained.) Instead I found myself taking solace in more primitive considerations. If things get bad, the neighbours will know what to do. To be hopelessly impractical is also to be shameless. It is to remain a child.
As it happens, I was in Manhattan on Sunday, 24 hours before ‘landfall’. The afternoon was grey and gravid but windless and dry. Going home I rode on one of the last scheduled commuter trains out of Grand Central Terminal, before service was suspended. Grand Central is one of the city’s architectural glories, with its high wide astral ceiling and opulent details: the antique marble ticket booths, the central clock where friends, family, and trysting lovers have rendezvous’d since the days of Scott Fitzgerald. The station was quiet, but not especially so for Sunday at 6p.m., when the gourmet shops and stalls are habitually shuttered, and the human traffic dwindles. Nonetheless, one felt a subtle shift in mood, an anxious quickening in the strides of the security guards and trainmen.
Today (Tuesday) the trains remain out of service. Stations are closed, and some are flooded, along the various lines — along the Hudson River (where I live), on Long Island, in Connecticut, in New Jersey. The subways, bridges and tunnels are closed too. Even Manhattan seems a shell. Sunday news reports showed an all-but-deserted rain-slicked Times Square, neon still blazing — a garish canyon. A friend who lives on the 19th floor of a highrise in Jersey City, with a view of lower Manhattan, told me (via Facebook), ‘It’s scary seeing the lights wink off building by building. It’s as if the city’s disappearing.’
The New York Times, where I work, became a low-frills bunker on Monday, as Sandy pressed up along the coast and pivoted north-west toward the shorelands. We were alerted (via email and voicemail) to stay home — except for ‘essential’ staff. The adjective induced fresh anxiety. How far a step is it from inessential to redundant? Especially since we were also told the cafeteria would be serving free of charge for those who did go in. My choice was made for me. No trains, no hope of getting to the office. I stayed home and cheered on my brave, essential colleagues — half a dozen from our department (the Sunday Book Review) went in. Literary culture will survive — for another week, at least.
Meanwhile, I just learnt that the neighbours just behind suffered serious property damage. Four large trees fell. Miraculously, not one touched their house. However, they lost electricity, and the homemade tomato sauce in the freezer is at risk. Not a problem. There’s ample space in my freezer. I decided to cook the meat, after all.
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