Without warning, the TV went out, as if it just decided to stop showing Baretta. My siblings sat in front of our black and white TV wondering if it was busted. Then the lights in the living room snapped off as did all the lights in the apartment, plunging us into absolute darkness—when suddenly, like a miracle from Jesus, Mami flicked on her cigarette lighter.
This was when we lived in Los Sures, at 121 South Second Street, between Bedford Avenue and Berry Street. Papi didn’t live with us, though I didn’t know why then.
Having being raised without electricity back in Puerto Rico, Mami had a fearful respect of its power—and its cost. If ever we left the lights on in an empty room, she’d snap them off, shouting “Edison me dejó!” But also because of her life in the countryside, she held little fear of the darkness.
It was then that we heard, from the front of our apartment, through the window screens, the muffled sound of frightened voices. We followed Mami as she walked to the front of the apartment, to the windows that faced South Second.
We saw light was out everywhere, that Edison had left us all. The towers of Manhattan, always in the distance, shining in the night, were extinguished. From somewhere in the apartment Mami got out big white candles I didn’t even know we had. Only she and my sister, the oldest, were allowed to hold them. We stood there by the window, waiting, listening to slow low, nervous murmur of our friends on the block, Chino, Carlos, and Raul with candles of their own, Cesar and Magdalena with a flashlight, and Shorty and Miriam in headlights.
Our friend from across the street, Manteca ran up to our apartment to tell us people were raiding the stores on Havemeyer Street, taking leather jackets and TV sets. My brother wanted to go see, but Mami forbid him.
To my twelve-year-old mind this was disaster on par with the Hindenburg. How long would the darkness last? With no radio, no TV? What would happen to all the food in the fridge? And what if the darkness never ended?
It was at that moment that chimes began to peal, familiar ones, softly first then stronger, accompanied by growing cheers from the people outside.
An ice cream truck, playing its song.
And it parked right in front of our house. The truck would normally make a small glowing circle around itself. But now, in this medievally dim night, its light cut through the dark like searchlights, shooting through our windows, lighting up the ceiling, hauling us back into the twentieth century.
Mami didn’t always have money for ice cream but this time she did and she sent my brother downstairs to get ice cream for all of us—and come back right away!
Our neighbors on the block lined up to buy more ice cream than ever before. They wanted to keep the truck there as long as possible, to keep the power of its light close.
But there was only so much ice cream we could buy, and the truck soon had to move off. From the window, eating vanilla cone with sprinkles, I watched it take its light with it, plunging us back into night, its jingle dopplering away
