The big clouds were to the West, and there was only the echo of thunder. But lightning lit the sky to the West in regular and flashes and the rain came down, drenching the Far Hills of New Jersey.

I wondered what they were far from. New York? I knew about the Short Hills, and the various Oranges, but had never considered where the baseline for these gentle hills was located. New Jersey is terra incognita to me, and hopefully will remain so.

Steve Canyon and I thought better about venturing out on the roads. Steve had grown up in these parts, but that was a long tie ago. He talked wistfully of a place called The Black Horse Tavern, which had been the scene of many indignities against the public order since the Red Coats marched these roads.

It was tempting, but the rain was thick, and the roads and the buildings had changed in forty years, and we decided to eat in, where it was safe.

We got a table at Grappa, the house restaurant of the Somerset Hotel. It is a newer hotel, as things go, and it strove to have an air of placid gentility. But it had been built in the seventies, and the rooms had individual air conditioning units that wheezed and shuddered and vented condensed water from tubes in the bottom that sprinkled down on the parking lot. The humidity misted the outer windows, and the rain put a black sheen to the asphalt parking lot.

Management had put the money into the public rooms, and the restaurant was darkly decorated. The crowd was thin, but we were seated adjacent to a pair of businessmen at a table on the wall and across from a couple. He looked like Bob Eufer, the baseball comedian. His gray hair was swept up on the sides in a pompadour. She was a petite woman, much young, with a ripe figure and a sullen look.

One of the businessmen behind me had a voice like Tony Soprano, and I made a point of not listening too hard, though it was difficult. His nasal voice boomed through the room, and he could have been talking about any sort of business. Any sort at all.

We talked about the conference, and what we missed being out of the capital. Shelby Foote, the famous Civil War historian had died, and the Brits brought a couple hundred naval ships together in a grand review for the Queen to celebrate Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar. The President dropped the shoe on the reorganization of the intelligence community, and there was likely to be more confusion and disarray when we got back.

We discussed the face that the Company had put on for us, and which it asked us to wear as well. And then we talked of places and times far away, and what might be next on the horizon. Maybe retirement.

The service was solicitous and we had a cup of coffee to follow the meal. It didn’t work very well, and my eyes were starting to close. I had been wearing the public persona since early, and I was ready to put it away for a while and sleep. We parted in the corridor on the fourth floor, agreeing to meet bright and early to depart.

There was a morning’s worth of meetings, and then the big highway south to Washington and home.

I looked out the window at the lightning flashes. They seemed to be spearing the Short Hills, and it was a pretty good show. I was glad that the air conditioner worked, even if was noisy. Then there was a flash and a boom and the lights went out.

My pulse went up. I do not like the stillness. It makes me claustrophobic. I was on the phone, which being a cell worked just fine. The building rumbled and the lights and the rumble of the air conditioner came back. The alarm clock flashed at me. The hotel was too cheap to replace the batteries in the back-up.

I turned on the light by the bed and picked it up, trying to decipher the setting. All those little buttons. I got the time to march back from mid-night, and put it down for the lights to go off again. They flickered and came back and I re-set the clock. Then they failed once more.

I waited in the darkness for twenty minutes or so, I couldn’t tell in the blackness. A Jersey State Trooper arrived at the darkened intersection below and began to direct traffic. He seemed to know something I did not, and I could hear doors opening in the hall as other guests fumbled their way to the stairs to make inquiries.

The rain spattered the windows and the mist began to make them opaque. I gave up after a while, in the silence. I figured I could always reset the alarm again when the power came back and the lights went on and the air conditioner began to whine.

Which it did, sometime around three. I think. When the power has been out, the clock always tells me it is midnight.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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