Last thing I did as a twenty-four-year-old was try to shave in the dark. I pictured all the puckerings and sneers, the facial flex, each tangled zone of beard. Stickiness mingled with the cooling foam: blood. I’d cut the pads of two fingers. Affixing Band-aids, I blamed an obsession with a man. Then I successfully blamed the man. Then I knew what a struggle the rest of my life would be.

Striped with these reflections, I left my Hell’s Kitchen sweatbox. The humid night put glaze on my chin. A gypsy cab or two patrolled the streets with feline eyes, wasting princely sums in gasoline. Another week’s energy tax would park these scavengers for good. Above Manhattan’s voluntary blackout: a cathedral ceiling of stars where electric lavender had hung. Skyscrapers were vast hanging shapes, black on black, imprecise. Streetlights, which City Hall couldn’t afford...