New York Year Zero

Part 1 of a speculative fiction novella

Day 0
For as long as I can remember, with some rare exceptions, I began everyday of my life on my computer, or my phone, in anticipation of whatever emails or texts I might have gotten during the night, who viewed and liked my posts, and what was happening in the world. It was as if I woke up not myself, and had to consult a profile to jog my memory.

I had no idea the morning of Monday, May 1st, 2024, would begin any different. It was not so unusual to receive no notifications in the middle of the night—I went to sleep at 3 AM after binging the new series about the Trump years on Netflix (I forgot so much crazy shit he said!), and now it was only 9:30, so not much could have happened during that time. But then when I tried to check new stories the app wouldn’t upload. My phone showed no bars. Was it in airplane mode? No.

I opened my laptop, also next to me in bed. It wouldn’t connect either. I think I had recalled something like this happening one afternoon in 2016, just for a couple of hours. I got up and went downstairs, ate a banana, and made a french press of coffee. I brought it back up to the desk in my room, positioned my laptop as if ready to get to work, and checked again: no internet. Then my phone. No service.

I opened up 2024journal.doc and began to type out the dull events of my previous day

(Day -1):
I stayed in bed for two hours reading a couple PDF pages of a book about about the Russian futurists, playing on Chess.com, and cycling through my social media. At 11:30 I packed the contents of my hamper and walked it to the laundromat half a mile away near Maria Hernandez Park. I sat in the park and looked at my phone during my wash, then went to put them in the dryer and went back to the park and started reading some of Ursula K. Leguin’s the Dispossessed. Many friends had recommended this book to me over the years. It makes you think an anarchist society is really possible, they said.

Six pages in I noticed C, a friend of mine, walking in the center of the park with someone I didn’t know. I walked over. What followed was a short chat about a community garden we both frequent, where J, to whom I was introduced, also volunteered, an upcoming punk show, and our annoying yuppie neighbors, who only came here in the last couple years, and now think they own the place! The chat itself wasn’t remarkable, but we both seemed to enjoy the chance encounter. Sometimes I worried I could go days just keeping to myself and chatting to friends online. There were theories, and some studies, to the effect of the 2020-21 pandemic permanently diminishing the desire of people to be social. That could totally have been true, however it didn’t really seem so different to how people acted before.

Before we parted ways, I asked if they had heard about anything going on for May Day. Neither of them had. “Probably the usual Stalinist rally in Union Square!” C said. I collected my laundry and went home. Went back online for a couple hours. At 4 pm it was time for my cooking shift at a tiny fusion fast food restaurant built into a dive bar in Williamsburg. We served things like kung-pao buffalo wings and a mapo sloppy joes. The job really sucked when we’re slammed and the orders piled up, customers calling in to change shit I already did, my coworkers texting while I’m sweating trying to keep it all straight. The boss was an old friend I really loved, but with more to do on the business end, he helped in the kitchen less and less. The stress always ended with the rush, and the shift with a cocktail on the house. And free High Lifes, depending on who’s bartending.

That plus the Netlflix show was pretty much the day. I didn’t even see my roommates, except one briefly after waiting to use the bathroom. There’s four of them in our Cook Street loft, a couple of them are friends from college. That was ten years ago. It’s remarkable how little I saw them now, and how little we have to say to each when we do. I went to my room and put on Netflix.

But on the morning of May 1st, a little less than hour after I woke up, we all emerged from our rooms, one after another, to confirm that it was not just our own devices malfunctioning. No, it was all of us. We expressed our mutual agitation. Shortly after we returned to our rooms.

I realized I had an important email to send to someone for my freelance audio production gig, and also wanted to check if I had any new likes on Tinder or if anyone had messaged me back. I went to the café a block away, got a coffee, and asked if their internet was out too. It was, they said, it’s out for everyone since this morning. In the neighborhood? I asked. She shrugged. Maybe Anonymous had pulled a May Day prank? We both laughed a little, but my heart sank.

I walked back to Maria Hernandez park, passing dozens of people checking their phone in total bewilderment, but no one behaving different otherwise. In the park I sat on a bench next to some folks talking about it, and listened in on their conversation. They thought a tower might have caught on fire. Or maybe one of those undersea cables had been cut. One of them said he had seen a Youtube video years ago of sharks chewing on a cable on the bottom of the ocean. “How long would that take to fix?” one of them asked. No one knew. “They’d have to send out a submarine,” the other guessed.

I open my book and read a few more pages. Checked my phone. Read a few more. And so on until I read 35 pages. At least I’m getting some reading done! I thought. It turned out that was the last I’d read of the book, because soon I’d be living it.

I pulled out my little Muji journal and wrote about my day so far. I concluded the entry at the present, acknowledging I was somewhat worried, and there was an anxious vibe all around me. Internet and phone service had been totally out for almost five hours now.

I walked over to a bagel place and ordered a sandwich and another coffee. Someone there had hooked up an old antennae TV. The Price is Right was on, just as it had been since I was a kid, but with a chyron saying there would be live updates on the outage every half hour. A delivery guy came in and immediately started relaying news to the other workers. My Spanish isn’t great, so I didn’t get all of it, but from what I gathered, he had gone about 15 miles on his ebike to all the neighboring neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, then over into Manhattan, down the East Side, and back through Williamsburg. His phone didn’t work at any point of the journey. All the other delivery guys he passed said the same—some had come from the Bronx and New Jersey that morning.

Back at home I shared the news to my roommates, still in the living room chatting with our cats sprawled out in the sunlight between them. What are we going to do? We decided to make dinner and watch some of the movies one had the foresight to download and collect on his hard drive. Over the course of the three films we all constantly checked our phones to see if service was back.

Once it was dark we started to hear police sirens, near and distant. It sounded like they were speeding around in a show of force. Police helicopters chopped overhead— at least one per borough. No planes were were flying. We put on another movie, “Lawnmower Man”. When that was through we discussed going outside to see what was going on. We decided nothing good could come of it, and put on “Strange Days”. Around midnight I went to sleep, just leaving my two roommates who seemed the most nervous. How bad could it be? I asked. The power is still on.

They watched a third movie as I feel asleep in my room, my phone plugged in in hopes it would be functional tomorrow.

I woke up twice during the night to check my phone. Neither time it worked. Then I woke up again really early, at 7:30 AM to a relieving dream that I checked my phone and the internet had come back. It hadn’t. This dream has recurred for me at least one hundred times since, but now I wake up relieved.

Day 2
I woke up, checked again that everything was still off, and began packing my stuff for the trip upstate. I heard a roommate rustling around in the kitchen and realized that I would need to make a good meal, and worried the kitchen would be in use. I went downstairs to see L making a large pan of home fries and stirring up a bowl of scrambled eggs. Figured I’d make enough for everyone! he said. We did this sometimes for dinner or occasional brunches on weekends, but this was a first for breakfast. Finish off this french press, he said, I’ll make another one.

It was then I worried about food running out. I wasn’t sure why it would, it just seemed to be a thing that could happen, then society would really break down. During the pandemic that anxiety had moved me, my roommate L, and C to organize a food pantry at the community garden, which already had distribution days for whatever produce they grew in abundance and eggs from their chickens. At first the pantry was crowdfunded, but as more and more people started coming, we made some connections with restaurants, grocery stores, farmers’ markets, nonprofits, NGOs and other food pantries, and started receiving pallets of boxes of vegetables paid for by USAID. Something we already knew from working in food service is there’s more than enough food for everyone, we just throw tons of it away. We learned then that the distribution process creates the same immense waste on an even larger scale; literally hundreds of tons everyday trashed at the distribution centers and even thousands of tons at the farms and food processing centers! There’s just no profit motive to either producing less or distribute the excess. During the pandemic, when millions had instantly lost work, a lot of drivers and grocery store workers decided it was wrong to throw so much out and kicked pallets down to us until things returned to “normal.” But we coordinated all that stuff through various apps and emails. What would we do now?

After fixing a plate I sat down on our living room couch, ate swiftly, stared blankly at the length of the loft as my roommates roused within a ten minute span of each other and joined me on the couch, each with a full plate. I’m thinking of checking in on my Dad, I said. He’s probably worried about me. You should, L said. Just try to be safe.

Everything seemed calm outside except for the traffic. The roads heading towards the Williamsburg Bridge were jammed. The bridge itself was a parking lot. The FDR as well. Helicopters circled overhead. I saw two groups of old-timers with radios and a bunch of people gathered around listening on the corner of Houston and Bowery. I crossed to the West Side bike path. The bike line was clear and in a couple hours I was out of the Bronx and into Yonkers, passing by a hundreds of New Yorkers lounging in indefinite vacation in Riverside park.

I biked up to my Dad’s place about an hour later. I knocked on the door and said it was me not to startle him. He was happy to see me. It was the first time I saw him in a couple months. He didn’t seem too concerned about the internet, because he was always skeptical of it. We talked as though it would all clear up soon. We watched watched TV for a bit, which still had its regular programming with chyrons. The new news was that President Biden would address the nation at 1 PM.

We went out to lunch at an Italian restaurant. A printed sheet of paper on the door read CASH ONLY. This made me realize I should try to get cash out before things got worse. After eating we went to the bank, which surprisingly had no line. I quickly realized why: it was closed and the ATMs were off. They closed at noon, a security guard told us, to prevent bank runs. He wasn’t sure when or if it would reopen.

We listened to Biden on the radio on the way home. He said the internet outage was the result of a coordinated cyberattack. It effected every major city in the world, and the internet as we know it is severely damaged. The government was committed to ensuring the security of our streets and infrastructure, and he has no doubt will we get through this troubling moment together and emerge stronger, just as we did after the devastation of the pandemic. My Dad and I both rolled our eyes because we believed the pandemic had only made the rich richer and the poor poorer.

We went back home and I put my bike in my Dad’s car and he drove on local roads back towards the city. He dropped me off on the outskirts of Yonkers, where traffic wasn’t so bad. We hugged and said goodbye. I felt much reassured knowing my Dad was okay. Sure, he would miss streaming shows, but he also has a ton of DVDs and listens to a lot of NPR the radio.

Once I got back to the Bronx I was able to take the subway back to Brooklyn. The trains and platforms were dangerously packed with people going the other way, feeding an apocalyptic atmosphere. How bad did they think things could get?

I was exhausted when I got back home around 5 and took an hour-long nap. When I got up no one was home. Where had they gone? I went for a walk back to Maria Hernandez park. The atmosphere around dusk had changed notably. The annoyance had turned into an intense uncertainty. Everyone seemed to be preparing themselves in their heads, calculating plans for various sorts of chaotic scenarios. Most people were by themselves, or not talking to those they were with. But everyone was headed in the same direction.

The park was full as I’ve ever seen it. At the Irving and Starr entrance there were hundreds of locals having a chaotic meeting in Spanish. People were taking turns speaking but they had no bullhorn and no one could really hear, so side conversations kept breaking out. From what I could gather, they were talking about money and work. I kept going towards the plaza, where thousands were doing something similar, but a local party venue had set up a sound system on the stage, and there was a diverse line of people waiting to speak. Along the edges of the circle were tables where mutual aid groups had already started collecting food, sanitary and first aid supplies, and other stuff just as they did during the pandemic. Anyone could take it, but it seemed like their purpose was to stockpile it in case trucks stopped coming in. The pile kept growing larger and larger. Around the other entrances of the park factions of the neighborhood were meeting as well. The only thing that didn’t seem to be different were  the volleyball and handball courts. Even the dog run was having an improvised assembly of the dog owners.

In the Irving and Suydam entrance I saw C and J and the mutual aid group from the community farm. All the volunteers and their housemates knew to meet there in the afternoon and they were in the process of carrying and biking over their operation. “It seems like this will be the major hub,” C told me, “but we’re going to hold down the farm too.” I asked him what he meant, hold it down for what? Or against what? He said that all he meant was they wanted to protect and expand their operation of accumulating goods and distributing them for free, and those were places they could keep coordinating, so we needed to keep them open. That was their only plan so far, but everyone was totally committed to it.

I went to see the speakers. A well-known promoter from the indie scene talked about the need for unity and solidarity, whatever’s coming. He said the police were not our friends. An evangelical pastor from Mexico spoke next in both English and Spanish, agreeing with the previous speaker but said the police have been helpful so far. He closed his talk with a minute of silent prayer. Next was an older woman who a lot of people in the crowd seemed to know and greeted with loud cheers. She compared what was going on now to the ‘70s and ‘80s. She said we survived the arsons and riots and we could survive this for sure if we stay calm. A lot of people have been hurting she said, and now they can’t even access their money and can’t miss a paycheck. She gave a shout out to the mutual aid groups who had already sprung into action and were so important during the pandemic. Life came back a little better after the pandemic, she said, except for the eviction wave of 2022. She concluded by saying this time no one should pay their rent, because they can’t evict us all. There was a loud cheer. Next was a local politician no one had heard of who held an office of little consequence. After thanking a bunch of constituents she started talking about the need for us to vote in the upcoming primaries and general election, because this was all somehow caused by the Republicans. I walked off along with others.

Soon I found my roommates. They had all stuck together and were excited to see me. How was my Dad’s house? What did I see out there? They had been in the park for hours and congealed into a group of friends from work, from bands, neighbors at the loft building, and other random acquaintances. The “vibe,” everyone reported, was peaceful, but there was a tense atmosphere, as if everyone expected a riot to break out at any moment. But what would the riot be about?

Just before 10pm, an NYPD spokeswoman in a light blue “Community Affairs” jacket took the stage with her own bullhorn. A few booed, a smaller few clapped. Everyone wanted to hear what she had to say, and the park grew instantly quiet.

She started by thanking everyone for coming together in such a loving and peaceful manner. She thanked the politician who spoke before and some other local leaders and community groups, which took almost a full minute. Then she got to her point: other places in the city have already seen small acts of looting, shoplifting, and vandalism. Their job was to keep the community safe until service is restored. She made these same sorts of points over and over again in different ways, always emphasizing the words: safe, community, service, restore.

She was flanked by three other police officials, two in white shirts, and one in a suit, but they kept silent until the guy in the suit whispered something in her ear. “I’m just getting word the mayor has issued a curfew. Tonight we need to streets clear! That means the park too!” The crowd began to groan and boo and shout at her. “It is for everyone’s safety! The park will close in hour! You’ve all done so beautiful today and we just want to keep everyone safe, the community safe, overnight, and we will unlock the park tomorrow first thing in the morning!”

Chanting started immediately: We’re not leaving! We’re not leaving! The local politician, the guy running the sound, and some hipster who was next on line all got on the stage and started arguing with her. Suddenly there was fear and anger again. Why couldn’t the police see that being together in the park, sharing food and ideas, was keeping the neighborhood safe? A lot of people who had been patiently listening in the plaza made their way to the park gates—not to leave, but to make sure they stay open. I went with my roommates to the Irving/Suydam gate near the garden mutual aid group, which had the foresight to bring a large blue box full of chains and locks. By 10:25 our gate was securely open.

Small groups of police amassed across the street from us, their sirens on. They wore baby blue helmets and carried batons and plastic flex cuffs. The crowd was panicked but holding firm as 11 arrived. Fuck your curfew! they chanted. The least afraid were those of us who stayed, arms linked, at the front, only breaking to let people in an and out. Blue shirted cops came to try to talk us into leaving and none of engaged them aside from hurling a few insults.

At 11:30 they ordered a shielded police line forward. Some people threw plastic bottles. They returned with pepper spray. I got some in my left eye and retreated with those fighting next to me. J from the mutual aid group poured a bottle of water over it, flushing it out, and within minutes I was back, arms locked, with a new group wearing black and carrying umbrellas as a shield against the spray. Some of us learned the tactic during the George Floyd uprising, and knew to come to any event where there could be a chance of hard rain with plenty of umbrellas. From behind a few people began to throw bottles and rocks, but others in the crowd said that was unnecessary—the police had stopped for now, we were only antagonizing them while we should be protecting the park. Hundreds of hands searched the vicinity for trash cans, pallets, and tables to build a barricade. A crew got to work cutting the fence from the basketball court, although this wasn’t completed until later in the night.

Later I learned this was going on more or less in every corner of the park. Umbrellas appeared at the Irving and Starr entrance as well. On the Starr and Knickerbocker corner one unit of a few dozen riot cops got in, and hundreds responded by linking arms to contain them. Neighbors were banging pots and pans from their window. Fuck the Police was blasting on the loudspeaker. Chants in English and Spanish against the cops continued unceasing. Never able to get to the center, they were ordered to retreat around midnight. The cheers were deafening. Cases of beer and wine and liquor from who knows where were circulated for free. The plaza turned into an all night party, with hundreds cycling in an out from their shifts at the barricades to dance to a wild mix of salsa, bachata, reggaeton, trap, r&b, and pop hits.

Day 3:
A general assembly was announced for 10 am. An impressive effort by three cafes working together made little cups of strong “Cuban style” coffee for everyone. The guy running the sound system appointed himself the facilitator, as he had last night. He said he would remain neutral on any questions and let anyone in the line speak—but that he had only one thing to say, last night was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen, and he was on the side of the people!

The assembly turned out to be entirely practical. Representatives from the mutual aid groups and the barricades reported back that everything was going well, what they needed, how to help, etc. A couple new groups announced themselves, most importantly, it would turn out, was the information group (IG).

Most major discussions throughout the previous night were based on rumors. Every 20 minutes there was a new one: that the police were staging nearby to teargas, that the internet had been restored in Manhattan only, that Crown Heights or Flatbush or Harlem was on fire, that we were at war with China and Biden had been replaced by a military junta, etc. Since the park was so loud we couldn’t really listen to the radio or keep up with TV, and everyone only half believed what the news had to say anyway, a group of hackers, activists, and journalists held an all night meeting, and figured out a communication network involving their fortuitous stockpile of walkie talkies, shortwave radio, and bike messengers. Their goal was to announce at their table what the government was saying, what verified sources had seen firsthand throughout the city, and have point people to field questions on rumors. Although they were almost all false, they didn’t deny them, just said there was no evidence of it.

One innovation they set up through the course of the night involved a hacked streetlamp. A member of IG connected a dedicated phone to a replacement bulb that kept a steady green. If it turned red it meant the internet was back. A lot of people suggested that was backwards, that red should mean off. Changing it would only cause confusion, so it stayed green.

At the morning assembly IG announced that there was some isolated looting in some places, but most of the city was quiet and abided the curfew. There were similar park occupations of varying sizes in Herbert Von King, Astoria Park, Windmuller Park, Washington Square Park, Tompkins Square Park, Marcus Garvey Park, and St. Mary’s Park. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of people have abandoned their homes, condos, and cars to leave the city. As of now the government is working to ensure supply routes and essential services. Hospitals, gas stations, and grocery stores are still open, although no one is quite sure what to do about money. There was a smattering of questions about the cops. They said they only knew the same rumors as everyone else.

The main one of these, which turned out to be true, was that the NYPD was at about one quarter its usual capacity. Most cops have had simply not showed up to work. The Mayor, Governor, and finally the President had ordered them in but they would not show up because of traffic, pay, and safety concerns. Since it was unclear when and how anyone would get paid, people largely didn’t show up for work that didn’t seem necessary. Other agencies and industries like the MTA, communications, transportation, grocery stores, schools, public servants, etc., saw something like 15-30% no-shows by Day 4 or 5, but nothing like the police. As a result their lines disappeared throughout Day 3, either deserted or mobilized elsewhere. They never really came back.

Me and two of my roommates became bike runners for the mutual aid group, whose role had expanded into rebuilding and defending the barricade. The group was mostly young, punk, and not from New York, but as the day went on everyone visited the other corners of the park, trading ideas, trading positions, and organizing walkie talkies supplied by the IG group for each barricade to be carried by trusted bilingual messengers. For the first two hours of the day our job was to visit the other parks, the garden, and run supplies back and forth.

In the afternoon word spread that all the Whole Foods in the city were throwing out their food. Their checkout system was totally dependent on the internet and they had no way to stay open. We organized a group of cargo bikes to head to their Williamsburg location immediately.

It was incredible how quiet the city got once we entered North Williamsburg. There was little action on the street besides occasional cop cars patrolling. Businesses were boarded up securely. McCarren Park had a few groups of neighbors chatting but nothing like Maria Hernandez. At Whole Foods there was a crowd of a few dozen people, a lot of them young like us, standing outside their truck entry where the food was being thrown out. Four security guards in black and some employees who looks like managers were holding a line. The food was right there behind them. A few were trying to reason with them and just got impatient head shakes. The seven of us briefly talked about what to do, and J decided we should take action. We marched towards the employees and announced ourselves as a mutual aid group from the barricades of Maria Hernandez Park. For the last several days we’ve been amassing and giving out large quantities of food to distribute freely. Today this store closes down, then tomorrow the next, and the next, soon there could be a food crisis. The solution is not to throw it all away but to see what can be used. We demand you let us through!

The manager said no, as we predicted, so we simply walked past them with our bikes and began to load up our carts. We knew these weren’t cops, that it wasn’t worth it for them to fight us. They probably weren’t even getting paid! The managers told the security guards to stand down and went to the street waiting for cop cars to come by. When one finally did the cop just shook his head at the managers, just as they had to us. The Whole Foods employees ceded the loading dock to us, the trash now unguarded for anyone to take. By the time we left there were about a dozen people from around the city sorting the trash and handing them off to a line of people waiting, like a spontaneous mutual aid hub.

We weren’t sure where we would store the meat, dairy, and frozen meals we brought back, but we were confident the team at the park would find a solution. It turns out, they had. After some negotiation the grocery store next to the park would let us use all their cold storage, because no one was really buying food anyway. Other restaurants and businesses near the park offered space to the working groups. The IG set up shop at an internet radio station two blocks away with several office spaces. The school across the street had allowed people to use the bathrooms, and there was talks about letting us have our assemblies in the auditorium. The entire city began to appear to us like the unprotected Whole Foods trash, luxurious and totally free for anyone willing to take it. But how long until that wealth ran out? When would it all spoil?

TO BE CONTINUED…