Patrolling the Dark Side With an Energy Cop

News item, February 2001: Responding to a directive from Gov. Gray Davis, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department will issue warnings to retailers who are not dimming their lights during off-hours.

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A deputy’s journal, November 2003:

It’s a dark Tuesday night--but not dark enough.

A car dealer has his sign blazing, advertising low, low, drop-dead prices.

A shopping center with an empty lot is so lit up it can be picked out from the moon.

Sure, everyone played nice at first. After all, the governor didn’t want much--a few bulbs unscrewed, a sign turned off at midnight. But that was way back in 2001--before electrons got as scarce as real platinum blonds and things got way tougher.

That’s why we’re driving real slow by this darling little bakery that looks like a Valhalla for fluorescent bulbs. That’s why we carry a badge. That’s why we’re energy cops.

“Pull over here,” I tell my partner.

Tesla has heard that a lot--maybe too much.

It’s getting to him. When you’re an energy cop, you’re not the most popular guy in town. Nobody wants to bust a nice couple snuggling under their cozy electric blanket. Nobody wants to tell the grocer to turn his freezer up. Nobody wants to kneel down and tell some crying, freckle-faced little kid that chocolate chip cookie-dough ice cream is supposed to be a warmish fluid with big chunks, like Dinty Moore beef stew.

It’s awkward having an energy cop around the house. You throw a party and suddenly everyone’s a comedian: Hey, look at all the lights! Hey, did you actually vacuum here or did you just suck up all the dirt by yourself?

All at once you lose your first name: You’re an energy cop, a juicehead, a volt dolt. At the office, you get little notes addressed to Officer Phil A. Mint. Or worse.

“Gee, Joe,” Tesla says as he eases over to the curb. “Pretty soon, Bettina and me, we’re gonna have a place out in the country, away from all this--a little house with solar panels and a couple of windmills, maybe in a bioregion with easy access to the vast store of geothermal energy that lies beneath the Earth’s crust, waiting to be tapped. Wouldn’t that be swell, Joe?”

“Sure,” I say, not bothering to remind him again that my name is Harold. “That would be swell.”

She’s standing behind the counter--the kind of woman who would send a jolt of excitement through any ordinary man, if that didn’t violate Energy Conservation Code 16029(a).

“Can I help you gentlemen?”

Her voice is as hot as a naked, 120-watt General Electric Soft-White incandescent bulb.

“You have too many lights on, ma’am,” I say. “And I see you’ve got four pots of coffee brewing when you could get by with two. Plus, we’ll have to test your toaster; I bet those coils get plenty red.”

“Oh,” she says, her eyebrows arching like kittens stretching their backs. “I believe my electric bills are fully paid. Is there a problem?”

“Ever hear about the energy crisis?” I say.

“Ever hear about a girl who has to make a living?” she says.

I squint at her under the glaring, full-bore, white-as-a-mackerel’s-belly brilliance from overhead.

“Ever hear of candles?” I say.

She gives me an eyes-half-shut look like the girl in the ads for satin sheets.

“Ever hear of fire?” she says.

Tesla has seen all this before.

“Come on, Joe,” he says, putting his big meaty paw on my shoulder. “You don’t need to get involved here.”

I shake off his hand.

“Yes, I do need to get involved here! Everyone needs to get involved! It’s not just about you and me and her--it’s about the entire grid. It’s about the kid in your subdivision who needs to get on the Internet to do his homework. It’s about the old woman who needs an electric can opener because her arthritic hands can’t grip a conventional one anymore. It’s about the power company executive whose bonus has shrunk to something just a little over the cost of your house. It’s about--”

KA-POW!

Suddenly everything goes dark. My friend the baker leans over the counter and whispers: “You know, rolling blackouts are like cops. They’re always around when you need them.”

In the moonlight streaming through the window, her hair glints like coils of bare copper wire.

“Want some coffee, officer? A croissant? I promise I won’t heat them up.”

I want to tell her I hate her and I want to tell her I love her. I want to say she’s taking unfair advantage of the state’s forgetfulness when it comes to building power plants. I also want to tell her I could fall hard for a woman who charges $15 for an onion bagel and gets customers to weep at the thought of living without it.

But before I can say anything, Tesla muscles me out the door.

“C’mon, Joe,” he says. “It’s all dark now.”

“Yeah,” I tell him as I lower myself into the car. “Just not dark enough.”