Hurricanes, Ants, and Toothpicks

I gently rocked my half-drunken glass of beer back and forth, making miniature waves that slapped against the side of the glass with a foamy crash. With just a sudden, sharp tilt of the glass, I could even manipulate the crest of the waves to curl over before impact. Those perfect, beautiful waves were just breaking then receding back into the sea of beer like they do at the ocean. I thought how funny it would be to have splinter from of a toothpick in the beer with an ant clinging to it like it was lost at sea.

The bar of the Pine Restaurant, which is located inside the Holiday-Inn La Guardia, was unusually crowded for a Wednesday evening. Then again, this was no typical Wednesday evening for the tri-state area. That Monday, a hurricane barreled through the region, wiping out entire neighborhoods along the New York and New Jersey coastlines and leaving more than a million without water and power. Iconic locations, such as Coney Island, were turned upside-down and inside-out by 80+ miles-per-hour winds. Houses in Staten Island were washed down the streets and out to sea by high tides under a starless night sky. For the rest of the week, lower Manhattan, which had been flooded, was blanketed in darkness. Looking across the East River from Queens, half of the city’s iconic skyline looked more like a darkened row of jagged mountain peaks.

In all, Hurricane Sandy took more than 100 lives before concluding its path of widespread destruction. In an adjacent neighborhood to mine, a man was killed in his sleep when a giant oak tree came crashing through his bedroom wall. A couple young boys disappeared into the Atlantic at the hands of a storm surge. People were crushed under the weight of their collapsed houses. Without power, a few elderly people died of asphyxiation when their oxygen machines were rendered useless.

I like the Pine Restaurant bar because the lighting is low and mood is generally high after a couple drinks. The music is never too loud, and I can always count on someone to play Journey on the jukebox—if i’m lucky, someone might even play Van Halen; Roth-days, of course. Frequently, I recognize a few of the faces in the room as professional baseball players. Since I don’t really follow baseball I hardly ever know any of them by name unless ESPN is talking about them on one of the several wide-screens on the walls. They are usually staying in the hotel because it’s just a short walk to Citi Field, which is where the Mets play.

That night, the bar was loud with chatter—borderline noise but not quite there. And the crowd was diverse. There were suits, sweats, and blue-collars; families, companions, comrades, and loners like myself. I managed to eavesdrop on two guys sitting next to me and learned that they were contractors that had just arrived into town from Houston. In the booth situated behind me, there was a family of 5, and by sound of the father and mother’s beaten voices, I knew their situation was bad. Most likely, they had only lost power and were put up temporarily in the hotel, but, in the worst-case scenario, their entire home had been leveled. Most of the other people were just stuck there because of flight delays and cancelations.

I ordered another beer from the bartender and stared at the one television that had the news on as I waited. Pictures of Staten Island were being shown. Still-shots of houses scattered across marshes and boats in living rooms—utter decimation. A woman was being interviewed, but I could hardly hear what she was saying. The headlines underneath her read something to the effect: “The Other Borough, Staten Island Residents Left to Fend for Themselves.”

“Jesus,” I thought to myself. I worked on Staten Island at one point and saw enough people with guns and hot tempers. Imagine being stranded with them on that sliver of land without heat, utilities, or food—and no immediate way out. I then remembered I had a friend that still lived there. So, I sent her a text message to make sure she was doing alright. She was. She and her family had only lost power, but her aunt lost everything.

I paid my tab and stood on the sidewalk in front of the hotel for a moment. In my neighborhood, Hurricane Sandy only toppled a few trees. Other than that, life seemed normal. As I stood there, I suddenly noticed how oddly quiet it was. There were less cars on the parkway. I couldn’t hear the seven train grinding metal on the tracks down the street and wouldn’t until Saturday. The Dominicans weren’t grilling, drinking, and playing volleyball in the park. It was just me on some chilly, post-disaster night, walking down a sidewalk and trying to blow smoke rings with my breath.

As I got closer to my apartment, I had to kinda crouch down at one point to get under a big tree that had been uprooted by the winds and was now laying across the sidewalk. A few more steps down the sidewalk, carefully avoiding stepping on the cracks, I could see the lights in the front entrance of my building. Luckily, we never lost power or even wi-fi when the hurricane came through. At the top of the stairs I turned around and looked across the parkway towards Citi Field and watched as a helicopter landed in the parking lot where FEMA had established its command central.

Suddenly, I felt a wave of sadness crash down on me. Thinking of those kids being pulled into the ocean… Jesus… You can only hope that when disaster strikes you, you’ll have something to hold onto as you’re being pulled out—if even just a toothpick!