Mona Died on the Tenth Day

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Mona died on the tenth day, when the hospital’s generators gave out. She was so tired, that with no help from the respirator, her wasted body, thinned by age and infection could no longer keep up with the thick hot air of the summer.

We took her body home with us. The nurse told us to. No power meant no morgue, no polite guidance from a faceless mortician, just the tears that come with trying to dig a hole deep enough, big enough for some one that was once a friend. I suppose it was at then that I knew the power would not come back, that moment when I dropped a spade full of earth on Mona’s body.

Afterward, I walked home from Mona’s, and climbed the steps into the darkness of the house. It felt lonely there, even though I could hear Ben in the kitchen. Before the power went out there was always the sound of otherness about us. The house was always alive with music or the TV. I would come home from work. I’d turn on the news and sit at the computer, answering emails and writing till Ben came home. We lived in response to . Our conversation was born from the words we heard, the songs that played, the text that played across the screen.

I walked into the kitchen. The window was small, and the light poor as Ben, my wonderful, strong Ben struggled to clean out the last of the refrigerator’s decay. I touched him on his shoulder as he knelt in front of the opened door. He stood and for moment held me.

I’m not sure why the grid went down. That morning 10 days ago we woke to the sounds of sirens. Police cars ambulance and fire trucks taking up the first casualties. The radio said that it was nation wide. Soon we learned that it was larger than that. There was speculation the first few days about a computer virus.

The first day seemed a lark, a national holiday. We came out of the house and talked to our neighbors. Ocean Grove is an old town, and we joked about returning to the age of gas light. But even that first day there was an edge of fear to our jokes.

Ben planned to walk over to Asbury, planning to check with a few friends, but the foot bridges across Wesley Lake were closed and locked, and the path along the ocean beach showed the flashing lights of police cars. Ben came home, and when night fell, we locked the doors.

When there was no power on the second morning, we decided to try the Shoprite. I felt a kind of foolish pride for having filled the Civic before the power went out. The streets of the Grove were quiet. When we drove down Route 33 we could see that the lots at the service stations were filled with cars, with more parked or abandoned on the streets. We took the Neptune Blvd past the police station and the empty high school to Route 66 and the Shoprite. As we came closer we could see again the flashing lights of police cars in the store lot.

There was a crowd at the doors. I looked at Ben. He agreed. We turned around before entering the lot . We listened to the car radio as we drove home. They played Beach Boys songs and a familiar DJ talked about the power outage. He didn’t have any news: “Emergency crews are working around the clock to restore service. Europe and Japan were also affected.”

That night we raided the refrigerator for the first time since the power went out. We invited a couple of neighbors to join us, and ate on the porch by candlelight. That night I remember we were cold. In early summer the Grove is unpredictable. With an Atlantic breeze it might be 50 at night. If the wind came from the land, it might be 75.

Day three: Ben and I stayed close to home. The car radio told us about fires in New York, and again promised that repair crews were working around the clock.

On day four, Ben and I started to talk about leaving. We had heard gunfire twice during the night. The car radio had only two stations playing by then. Both gave out only official news: “Stay at home.” “Travel was hazardous.” “Repair crews were working around the clock.” Call-ups were announced for the Reserves and the National Guard.

Ben’s mood’s was dark. He asked where would go and how would we travel. He worried about the house. We had struggled together for ten years to save enough to buy. He was worried about Mona. Our first friend in the neighborhood, Mona had come to our front porch with a pitcher of lemonade and a stack of sandwiches the day we moved in. In her late seventies now, her health was failing.

Day five began with more gunfire during the early hours. In the morning the gas began to fail. Ben put on the kettle for morning tea, but it seemed to take forever to boil. The pressure faded throughout the morning, and gave out altogether at lunch.

Ben called me outside in the afternoon. He had walked through town. He told me that more than half the houses were empty now. The sky was grey, but not with clouds. It smelled much like it did after September 11th. It was the scent of New York burning.

When we walked to Mona’s, I didn’t like what we found. Her skin, usually possessing that wondrous transparency of the aged, was ashen like the skies outside. Although she denied it, she was clearly in pain, and struggling to breathe. She took little sips of air, as if through a straw.

Ben and I half carried her to the car. Her doctor’s office was out Route 33 at the hospital. The roads weren’t too bad. A few cars were traveling slowly, treating each light as if it were a stop sign. Once, about halfway there, we stopped short, hitting the brakes hard as a group of teenagers walked into the street in front of us. They half surrounded the car. A police car scared them off, coming up behind us with lights flashing.

At the hospital there were more police. The only entrance open was at the back, leading to the ER. A nurse met us at the door, and they found a wheelchair for Mona. The hallway was packed with people with minor injuries. They let us stay with Mona as she was taken into the ER proper. The little rooms that usually had a single gurney, all had two , but even so, Mona was put in the hallway at one end of the long nursing station.

Ben looked nervous, standing there by Mona. He always said he didn’t like the smell of hospitals. It took me a few minutes to realize that I was standing in an air conditioned room with fluorescent lights, but only a moment longer to realize that that the hospital generators, not the grid were giving us light.

Some things never change. We waited forever for a Doctor to appear. He listened to Mona’s heart and lungs, and asked her what medications she took. He ordered something from a nurse to help Mona breath, but the order led only to sotto voce argument, to the effect that the med he wanted was out of stock.

A few minutes later a nurse came by and told us we could take Mona upstairs. She said the unit on the fifth floor had oxygen that would ease her breathing. We were told we would have to stay and help.

We went to the 5th floor. Only one elevator in the bank of 4 was working. The 5th floor was warm, and the room even warmer, but Mona looked better once she was hooked up to the oxygen. Her skin pinked up a bit, and her voice became firmer.

Ben stayed the night. I went home just before dark. Driving back into the Grove I saw that more cars where gone. The only other vehicle I saw moving was the Civil Patrol, in this case two elderly guys in their fake police vehicle. At home, I opened a can of soup and warmed it over the grill on the back porch. That night I didn’t really sleep.

The next few days for the same. Ben and I alternated in caring for Mona. Our shifts at the hospital were unbearable. It was hot and no air conditioning was running. The oxygen helped Mona, but the heat melted strength.

On the 10th day the oxygen failed as the hospital’s reserves ran out. Mona died striving to breath. She asphyxiated, her eyes wild with terror as I held her hand. I yelled for a nurse. And then I yelled again. Finally, a nurse appeared. She looked at Mona. She said, “just stay with her”. And I did.

I took Mona’s body home with me. It seemed as if she weighed nothing at all as I lay her body across the backseat of my car.

When I got home, driving through the empty streets of the Grove, I called to Ben. Together we carried Mona to her house. She had a favorite chair in the living room. We sat there for awhile.
 

That afternoon, we left the empty Grove.

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