Reif Larsen - I Am Radar

“She drove ?” Radar said. “What do you mean, she drove ?”

“Yeah, it was the craziest thing. We’re all stuck here, right, I can’t even get my engine to turn over, and she comes out and starts up the Olds, no problem. We thought she’d been messing with our cars just to prove a point. It’s kind of funny, when you think about it. We’ve been giving her grief about that car for years, but now who’s laughing? I guess that’s just how karma works. She drove five people home and now she’s a hero. She said she was coming back for more.”

The Olds! His mother still drove an oyster grey Oldsmobile Omega that she had acquired the year after his birth. It had upwards of 200,000 miles on it, but she refused to trade it in.

“Why change?” she would ask defensively whenever the topic of getting a new car came up. “Why are we always changing? Just because we can? When something works, let it be, I say.” Another example of her coin-operated wisdom that sounded good at the time but was contradicted by the rest of her behavior.

The Olds. Of course. It was premodern circuitry.

“A mechanical ignition,” said Radar. “Brilliant.”

“What?”

“Her car,” he said. “It doesn’t rely on a computer to run it. That’s why it survived the pulse.”

“She probably knew something we didn’t. I always said that about her. Woman knows something we all don’t. And now she’s the only one who can get the hell out of here.”

“I’m not sure there’s anywhere to go.”

“Someone was saying not everywhere got hit. They say the city’s fine. I mean, they don’t have power, but their phones work. Not like here.”

“The city didn’t get hit?”

“That’s what someone said.”

How could that be? Did this mean there hadn’t been a nuclear explosion?

“You said my mom was coming back here?” said Radar.

“Charlene? Wait, she’s your mom ?” The man squinted at him. “Oh, okay. Okay — I can see it now.”

“We don’t really look alike.”

“Hey, my mom’s half Japanese, but you look more Japanese than I do.”

“I’ve gotten that before.”

“People are crazy. They think all kinds of things,” the man said. “So yeah, your mom said she was coming back here, but you know Charlene — she says a lot of things.”

Radar debated waiting around. But no. He should check on Ana Cristina and his father. If Charlene had a working car, she’d be better off than all of them. Either that or she’d become a target. The thought made him shiver.

• • •

ON HIS WAY HOME, he stopped by the A&P. To his relief, he found no evidence of looting. No broken windows, no goods strewn about the parking lot. The place was locked up and dark inside. He put his face up against the now helpless automatic doors and could just make out the darkened aisles of products. The pyramid of Pringles cans. The empty checkout counters. The place where Ana Cristina normally stood. Was it only this morning that she had asked him to come over for empanadas? It seemed like ages ago. A lifetime ago. He wondered if she was still inside. He knocked. Waited. No answer. He tried to pull open the automatic doors, but they wouldn’t budge.

“Ana Cristina?” he called. He knocked.

A person appeared in the darkness. A man. Radar tensed, ready to rush in and tackle him, to demand to know what he had done with his girlfriend, but as the figure approached, Radar saw that it was only Javier.

Javier unlocked the doors and pushed them open.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” said Radar.

“You want some?” Javier held up a bottle of water.

“Thanks,” said Radar. The bottle was ice cold. “Is Ana Cristina around?”

“She’s inside,” said Javier.

“She is?” His heart soared. “She’s okay?”

“She looks okay.”

As they were speaking, a Montclair Police car rolled by with lights flashing. The sight of a working police cruiser was startling, given all of the inert vehicles Radar had just seen. The car pulled into the A&P parking lot.

One of the police officers leaned out his window. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here,” said Javier.

“What’s your name?”

“Javier Valdes.” He pulled an apron from out of his back pocket and held it up as evidence.

“And who are you?” the policeman asked Radar.

“He’s okay,” said Javier. “He’s my boy.”

“Well, be careful,” said the policeman. “We got a lot of reports of looting. It might start to get dangerous around here. I’d lock up and get home if I were you.”

As they drove off, Radar said, “Montclair must have electricity.”

“Yeah, everyone does except us,” Javier said.

“How do you know?”

Javier led him back into the store and locked the doors behind them. They walked through aisles of darkened products. Radar could hear the squeak of their shoes against the floor. Javier pointed to a radio sitting on one of the checkout counters. Next to the radio, sitting on the ground, holding her beloved cell phone, was Ana Cristina.

“Oh, hi,” he said, a wave of relief sweeping over him. He kneeled down beside her. “Are you okay?”

Her face instantly changed when she saw him. She wrapped her arms around him and they hugged like this. A small kiss. She was crying.

“Are you okay?” he asked again.

“Yes,” she nodded. “My phone’s dead.”

“We were just listening to the report,” said Javier.

He reached over and turned on the radio. The sound of a voice. A miracle of a voice.

“How does it still work?” said Radar.

“I don’t know. I found it in the walk-in,” said Javier.

“The walk-in?”

Of course. The walk-in freezer had acted like a giant Faraday cage, shielding the radio from the pulse. Why hadn’t he thought of doing this? A simple container of nonferrous metal. A shield. He could’ve saved everything. Houlihan. The station.

They stood listening to the voice on the radio which was speaking in an urgent, clipped tone.

A curfew has been declared for eight P.M. tonight in Essex, Bergen, and Hudson counties. Martial law and a state of emergency remain in effect. Boil advisory for affected areas. The governor’s office is discussing a mandatory evacuation for the affected areas as soon as tomorrow morning. Until then, the governor asks that people limit travel to only essential activities. Senior citizens and those in need of assistance can relocate to several emergency shelters at the designated—

There was a pounding on the glass doors at the front of the store. Radar looked up in terror. He could see the silhouette of a man peering in at them. He was once so critical of those sliding doors, but now they were the only thing between them and what could be a panicking populace.

Javier clicked off the radio. “I’ll go see,” he said. He got up and walked toward the front.

“He’s brave,” said Radar.

“He’s a kid,” said Ana Cristina.

Javier had cracked open the doors and was speaking with the man outside.

“Where’s Lydia?” Radar asked her.

“She freaked and took off,” said Ana Cristina. “I should’ve done the same thing.”

“You’re a good employee.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. Then: “I hope my mama’s okay.”

“I bet she’s okay.”

“She gets nervous.”

“We probably aren’t doing empanadas tonight, are we?”

She reached out and took his hand. They sat like this, hand in hand, and Radar could’ve sat like that forever, as the world slowly crumbled around them.

Javier had closed the door and was going back to the drinks aisle. He fetched two large bottles of water and brought them back to the man.