Sunday, September 06, 2009
Storm Surges Part 3: Philadelphia, 1984
I can place this cherished memory of storms in the second semester of my second year of college because, as I recall, my then-neighbor Dave came to awaken me during a brief therapeutic Normalizing Anthropoidal Potentiation (or ‘NAP’) session. He found me abed in the living room, which my roomie and I had converted to a second bedroom and which I occupied second semester; Q.E.D.
So, the story goes: Dave came in to get me one spring afternoon. “Dude, you gotta check it out, out my window.”
“What is it?,” I drowsily replied.
“End of the world, man.”
“Eurgh. Okay.” So up I got, and down the shabby hallway I went, following Dave to his full quad suite. That phrase merits a little unpacking, actually. We were living in student housing, a high-rise dorm designed in the late ‘60s to respond to the new student ethic of individuation and decentralization. We all had suites. Mine was a one-bed, one-bath double with a living room and a minikitchen; we’d done with ours what I’d one with my three-bed quad freshman year: converted the living room into another bedroom. Fairly standard hi-rise dorm stuff. But Dave had a full-quad suite, four bedrooms for four residents with a big living room, full kitchen, and extra sinks. Plus, we were twenty stories up and Dave’s living room occupied the full width of the frontmost face of the T-shaped building, so his view was totally unobstructed and massively broad.
I stumbled into his living room, having been there countless times before, expecting to see the ‘end of the world’ - but I was entirely unprepared for what confronted me out his windows. It was the same view I knew so well, broad and beloved, on a spring afternoon. Clear cold sunlight flooded the landscape, sharply illuminating every house, every tree, with preternatural crispness; it reminded me of the towns hobbyists install to keep their model trains company - perfect, plastic, hollowly fragile. We surveyed North Philly and it looked to me like I could have crushed it with a well-placed heel.
Above it all a clear featureless sky of blue smiled benignly down on creation, a bland bowl covering the heavens - right out to the northern horizon. The northern horizon, however, was whence came the end of the world, and there was no mistaking it. From as far east as I could see, to the western limit of my panoramic view, a black cloud approached. Even as the sun shone on it, its darkness and density seemed to quench the light. The cloudwall reached up extremely high into the sky, like all the way up to the top, neither gap nor cleft rending its lowering bulk.
As we watched in silence on high, the massive stormfront rolled toward us, swift and inexorable. Mile by mile the brightness between us and the darkness was swallowed up, the streetlights blinking ineffectually on as the storm blotted out the natural light. We could by now track its progress block by block as it consumed the city with breathtaking rapidity.
Finally it came upon us properly, high up in our aerie. The air outside went grey, then dark grey, then darker still s all light seemed to absquatulate as if being chased by demons. A mere moment later, a few drops slid down the outside of the extra-wide windows through which we gazed in horrified wonder. Then the heavens split asunder and it rained like this was rain’s last triumph. The air was blue and filled with water. We watched it pour for a few more minutes, the tiny lights of the drowning city wavering behind the trails that scrambled down the outside of the building.
I never returned to my nap; sleep had come to seem superfluous. The end of the world sort of re-orders the ol’ priorities that way. I’ve seen such a sight only once since then, when the East Bay firestorm in 1991 sent hundreds of houses and thousands of trees up into the sky in smoke. But that time there was no rain, neither of ashes nor water. It was just the apocalyptic curtain of cruel, dark clouds. And that time I knew the cause, knew I was safe way over on my side of the bay - but the feeling was the same as when I had once seen the sky closed off by a wall of black storms way back in college. The world was ending, and I had best keep my eyes trained on the spectacle. It wasn’t just the greatest show on earth - it felt like the last one.
ooh, good one, eh? yeah, don’t patronize me. I’ve got a couple more storms left to share with you, I guess. But not right now. I’ve got a lot of relaxing to get done this labor day, and I intend to prepare myself for it - starting now. Have a good one, blogopolis. I assume you’ve earned it.
