“I never tried them. Always hated the ads. Yeah, she could die. The last concussion I worked on, the doctor thought the guy was going to be just fine. I helped bandage him up. Only he wasn’t fine—he went kind of crazy. That was only a couple days ago. God damn it, I wish the lights would come back.”
“Can’t you bandage her here?”
Candy shook her head. “She’s not bleeding bad, and fooling around with her like that in the dark, I might do more harm than good. Didn’t you say she owned a place around here? Can’t we get her inside? We might be able to find something to cover her up with.”
“The Sandwich Shop, down the street. Do you think we can carry her?”
“Sure, only we gotta be careful not to bang her head. If the skull’s fractured, another bump might do it.”
“I’ll help,” Little Ozzie said.
“You’re a good kid. Okay, you take one foot, and this lady can take the other one. I’ll grab her under her arms.”
Ms., In The Pickwickian Sense
“The lights came on” as one newspaper was later to describe it, “and everybody went home except the firemen.”
Electric clocks showed five minutes till six, watches seven thirty-five. Dr. Makee, who had waited it out in the physician’s lounge, went home to bed. Alexandra Duck, who had found Sergeant Proudy in the dark and spent the rest of the blackout talking with him, let herself into the offices of
Mrs. Baker, who had been possessed for years by a small addiction to scented candles cast in the shapes of religious figures and animals, had gone through the blackout easily and with a good deal of pleasure, scurrying about the house (while Puff repeatedly hunted and dispatched her heels) lighting and tending various members of her collection in an ecstasy of justification. Now, quite suddenly, the lights were back, and the little silver-plated snuffer that had gathered dust for twenty years had its hour. A picture bloomed on the TV. Mrs. Baker decided to leave one candle—the bayberry Santa she had never quite been able to bring herself to light at Christmas—burning in case the lights went off again.
“If you’re seeing me now,” the announcer announced rapidly, “and you know you
Flames roared up the screen. Mrs. Baker, reflecting that Forty-fourth and Dennis was not terribly far, belted her robe and stepped out the front door. Sure enough, there was reddish light in the sky in that direction. “Lady bug, fly always home,” Mrs. Baker muttered. “Your house’s on fire, and your children in the barn.”
When she stepped back inside, a sincere-looking black man was standing before a small restaurant with a broken window. He said, “Phil, as you know there are a thousand stories around the city tonight as a result of the blackout, but this is one of the most heartening I’ve come across. Mrs. Benjamin Potash was just taken from here in an ambulance. Mrs. Potash is a widow, and she owns this place. When the lights went out, she and her daughter left their apartment about six blocks away hoping to protect this little diner. They were attacked, and Mrs. Potash was struck on the head, but her daughter found an off-duty nurse who treated Mrs. Potash and helped carry her here. When they got here, they found two men, one of them one of Mrs. Potash’s regular customers, prepared to defend it if the looters came. Well, the looters did come, and the customers tried to scare them off by telling them they had a machine gun. That didn’t work, and the looters smashed this window to get in. The customers didn’t really have a machine gun, but they had a garden hose, the one Mrs. Potash uses to wash down the kitchen floor. They turned the hose on the looters, and in this subzero weather, it can’t have been very pleasant. Now I have with me Mr. Murray Potash, who has just arrived.”
The sincere-looking black man thrust his microphone toward a plump and pimply white youth. “Mr. Potash, were you able to speak to your mother before they took her away?”
“Huh, uh.” The youth shook his head. “I got here just when they were pulling out.”
“Is your sister here?”
“Sister-in-law. I think she rode in the ambulance with Mom.”
Mrs. Baker changed the channel.
Outside, a car door slammed. Mrs. Baker paid no heed to it, but a few seconds later there was a knock at her door. She had not bothered to put the chain back on after she had looked at the fire; she did so now, opened the door a crack, then shut it and took off the chain again. When she opened it the second time, a statuesque brunette stepped inside.
“My,” Mrs. Baker said. “How nice you look! That’s real leopard, isn’t it?”
The brunette pirouetted. In her fur-trimmed boots she was over six feet tall. “I’ve got a date tonight, and this outfit’s my pride and joy. Do you like it?’
“You’re a regular gelded lily, I declare. But if you have yourself a social engagement, shouldn’t you be at home waiting for your young man?”
“I’m picking him up, Mrs. Baker. It’s only a few blocks from here, and I’m early anyway, so I thought I’d stop by and see you. Have you remembered anything more since we were here?”
“Well, that’s delightful. Won’t you take a cup of tea? Tea gladdeneth the heart of man is what the Bible says, but I think it works better for women. On the TV now they’re always talking about women’s Liptonation. Are you a
