“Wait a minute,” Ken interrupted. “You said everyone was just sharing everything for free, all kumbaya-like. So what’s this with these guys getting supplies for money?”
I looked across the bare, squirrel-less, pigeon-less plaza, past the empty bike racks and water-less fountain. “It was both,” I said. “And neither. It was all those things at the same time. There were those of us handing stuff out free, you know, being good neighbors. And there were people looking out for themselves, making a buck. Always are. That’s just, you know, people. The situation’s so...”.
Small branches crackled on the trees under the weight of the crows. I wondered how much meat was on a crow. I wondered how much energy it would take to wrap my hands around one. To wrap my hands around a tomato.
“So Josen is saying, ‘I just pull up next to the bakery, and was about to back down the alley to deliver, when a rocket rips straight through the building. Frank was standing there at the doorway, and then he was gone. The whole place was gone. The truck was blown over on its side, but it was still running. So the AC unit in the back was still running. I climbed out the passenger side window and ran. So far as I know, truck’s still sitting there.’
‘Couldn’t be running after three days,’ I tell him.
‘True,’ he says. ‘But it’s insulated. And there’s walls leaning over top it, so it’s got shade.’
So I’m feeling sick to my stomach. 125th Street was way up there. I had talked to some guys here in the park just the day before who used to sing in one of the Baptist church choirs up there, and they said everything down to 115th was pretty much leveled. I ask Josen, How many chocolate chips are we talking about.
‘Three or four bags.’
So I ask him, ‘Three or four like....’ I hold my hands up about eight inches apart, picturing those yellow Toll House supermarket bags.
‘Twenty-five pounds each.’
‘Oh.’ A hundred pounds of chocolate chips. And not only do people like chocolate chip cookies, people were hungry. Like beyond normal hungry. Everyone’s clothes are falling off. Manhattan’s previous obsession with weight loss was no longer a concern. We’re all faint. Tired. There’s this constant gnawing feeling.”
I stopped abruptly. I was describing my own impending death. I was 35 years old, healthy, occasional glass of wine, no drugs, walked alot, had a cookie business, used to take photos. And I was starving to death. In Manhattan. With eight Michelin-starred restaurants within five blocks. Water lapping against a sailboat. The click of a reel. A fish hits the deck.
“So you went up and got the chips,” Ken prodded.
He made it sound so simple. When the words came out of his mouth, it didn’t sound like a monumental mission. A heroic effort in which people sacrificed their lives so that others could eat chocolate chip cookies just one last time before they died.
“I went up and got the chips,” I agreed. “Let me tell you what happened. So we get Curvy and Marta—Marta is this engineer, she worked for ConEd not like on the big electrical stuff but on, you know, like those little boxes you see everywhere, they start out green then everyone paints them. And we talk about how we are going to do this. I mean, it’s like five miles, right. More than that.
So I take like two gallons of gas outta my tanks...” The smell of lemons. ”...the generators tanks, and I put it in Curvy’s van.”
I was pushing the words out, one by one, like I was diving, diving deep into clear water. “We just said fuck it, and drove straight up Ninth to Columbus and cut over to... Manhattan Ave... three in the morning...no...lights...”.
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