Collective Action Is Necessary for Collective Benefit

Hot. Blistering hot. A charring, moisture-evaporating heat that singes all over, inbreaking your skin and boiling your insides.

It has to be the warmest weekend on record for the Big Sweaty Apple. All day and night, sirens wail, mostly ambulances picking up passed-out bodies on the walkways and, I assume, tossing them into the East River for a shock-revival. The ring brings back stark memories of the Covid-era, when tocsins sounded clockround, announcing another pair of lungs was in retreat.

All those medics racing plaid routes through the city, A/C cranked down, so many compressors pumping the gift of chilled draughts, bringing an Arctic curative to the torrid masses.

And here I sit, sweating in my own bedsit, facing my own climate-control unit, which has, by legal writ, been permanently set to tea-warm 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Technically, the display reads 25.556°C, since our Mayor, after imposing his earth-saving measure to arrest apartment temperature control, spent an undisclosed sum replacing every single air-condition box across the five boroughs. The units were specially shipped from Europe, so read a foreign measure, because, our conscientious Mayor assured us, the “Celsius scale, like the metric system, just makes more logical sense.”

And I agree, to a point. Look, I voted for Mayor Mamdani. I considered him a refreshing splash of Hudson drift after the tepid, rancid mayoralty of Eric Adams. My apartment isn’t rent-controlled, but I held out a slither of hope he’d interdict my annual rent hike anyway. Boundless hope—the socialist’s currency even after hyperinflation!

Well, no new rent freezes have been announced. Instead, we get a halt on lowering indoor ambience. At first, I didn’t think it would be a sweat-induced swamp. Isn’t 78° lower than 80°? It couldn’t be that bad, right? And doesn’t the rest of the industrialized world adhere to the same thermo-standard? Why not us extravagant Americans?

I switched on CNN to see if there was an update, or maybe a budge in official government policy. The anchors appear cool, unbothered. Men in three-piece suits; women in dark dresses. Not one dot of perspiration running their foundation. How are they not soaking through their tailored wear? There. That chubby guy mouthing platitudes about “working people”. His shirt should be translucent by now. What is happening? How do they all appear so put together and not ruffled in smearing heat shimmers?

My TV starts to blink, like its heated innards are whirring in a steaming pace. I click it off. Seconds later my mom calls. To check in and gloat about her Freon-sprinkling A/C, no doubt. She never puts down anyone in a consciously malevolent way, but in the manner of carefree retired conservatives: that any practice lacking ostentatious consumption is strange, stupid, vaguely criminal. I pick up to: “Hot enough there for yaaa?!” Her dry laugh muffles through the audio-out earpiece. I can’t tell if it’s her cracked voice or my phone malfunctioning due to contact with the rills of sweat running down my temple.

“Yeah, Mom, it’s hot here. I told you that yesterday.”

“Well, Fox says you’re all sitting in self-imposed saunas thanks to your ridiculous Mayor. It’s like I said since you were in diapers. Liberals just want us to be miserable. It’s the truth!”

“Yeah, Mom, I hear you.”

I can also hear her nippy Bichon Frisé yapping in the background; it’s a squeak of a bark that, I imagine, projects a fluffy vapor cloud. My mother never notches the thermostat above 62° in the summer. Al Gore can suck rocks on his private jet, she insists. But she makes an occasional $1,000 deposit into the bank account she started for me when I was 16, so I tolerate these humble-mock conversations.

“Well, I just wanted to call and make sure you haven’t melted. Try to stay cool! And hydrate! Although I wouldn’t drink any of that filthy tap water. Buy a bottle from those little shops you like!”

“Mom, New York City’s drinking water is supposed to be the cleanest in the world.”

A pause.

She sighs. “With all the trash piling up on the streets? And the sun baking it all, making it stink to high heaven? That can’t be good for the water. You need to make sure you stay cool!”

“OK, Mom. I will.”

“Good. I hear your father calling. He’s tryin’ to install a sill bird feeder so we can keep the window open and see chickadees come grub.”

“Isn’t it 110 in Sarasota right now? How can you have a window open?”

A scratchy guffaw. “Your father turned the ‘stat down to sixty on the dot. It’s Nova Scotia in this Sunshine State! Love you much, keep cool.”

If my mother bid adieu with any other mindless borax, it was hushed by the film of hidrosis on my phone screen. The stuffy, molten atmosphere wasn’t relenting, only roasting hotter. Out of desperation, I jammed my thumb at the downarrow on my A/C. No change. I pushed a few more times to no effect. The number couldn’t crack the floor. Its artificial output kept a warm breath on my pinking face.

“Forget this,” I grumbled. Sitting stagnant in a stale hothouse was maddening. Every residence and business in the city was mandated to this mire. Even the subway was a veritable seventh circle of Hell. The only wisp of refreshment to be found was in a taxi. I didn’t think; I slipped on a pair of thinning sandals, snatched my keys and stole out the door. An arduous four flights descending into flaming perdition later, I emerged onto a soupy 83rd Street. Seconds within entering the sultry slough, I second-guessed. Calling the ovened outside an inferno insults the divinely inspired idea of “hot.” This was walking barefoot on Pompeii’s caldera just after its magma upchuck. In my haste, I didn’t think to grab my Camelbak. Before I could turn heel, a familiar yellow ride pulled around 2nd Avenue. Unthinking, my hand darted. The sun was too searing to see if its light flashed. But chances were it’d be empty. The sidewalk was blessedly vacant; no competition.

The cab pulled up. Its windows were curiously open. As soon as my fingers grasped the door latch, I could tell something was wrong. Bright red. My entire body felt it. “Sorry, no A/C,” the swarthy driver barked. “In or out?”

“Out!” I retreated. Stumbling back to the sidewalk felt like I was treading sand. The taxi zoomed off in hazy whoooooosh, sending a scalding Sirocco in its wake. My throat quinched. I desperately craned my neck to find another golden chariot. Huzzah! Sweet deliverance! Another taxi whipped around the same corner. I could just make out beyond the salty beading in my eyes that its windows were closed. As it motored closer, its light was visible. My arm once more shot out.

The next minute was a desperate blur. When my senses straightened, I was inside, cool, life-giving, machine-manufactured air blasted my face, filled my pores, lanced my body. I had no recollection of what address I gave the driver. It was irrelevant. The meter climbed furiously. No matter. My father’s credit card would catch it.

The first jut went unnoticed in my wintery spa. When we hung a left on East End Avenue, the bucking became unignorable. A string of expletives roused me. “FUGGIN THING AGAIN!!!

The stalking heat slowly blanketed my being again. “Can you turn up the A/C,” I meekly petitioned, dreading the response.

“NOOOOOOO BUST DAMN FUGGIN TING BUST!!!”

Hotter. My skin flushed. The familiar blaze reignited. “Pull over!” I shouted. The taxi came to a shunting halt. I hopped out, hellward, stammering to the sidewalk, not even bothering to pay. The driver was too distracted to ask, raging as he popped the simmering hood.

Once again, I was a lone traveler in the Hall of Dis. The street was empty but for my stark mad cabbie, who was now screaming into his phone while removing his stained shirt. No taxis were milling. I set off, feeling parched, down the Saharan street in search of an oasis, otherwise known as a bodega. Water. Needed water. My steps trudged heavier as I went. The heat numbed all feeling. I kept on, peering down byways, finding blank storefronts. Was the city abandoned? Everyone flying north, away from Manhattan’s sky’s relentless death rays? My body sagged. I could barely arch my neck, when I managed one last look ‘round. Gracie Mansion! I was next to Gracie Mansion! That’s when the blurriness took me.

The first thing I noticed before my eyes lifted was coolness. A restorative cold. My eyes shaded up to a familiar face. Mayor Mamdani! That toothsome grin, behind which lurk a thousand redistribution plans.

“Hey…hey…you all right?” the Mayor asks in soft, smooth tones.

“Yes, I…” as I start to rise, I see them. Two aides, young, female, in flowly shifts, holding iPhones so steady they look like manikins.

“Scarlet, Sheila. Make sure you’re set at 60 fps,” he demands. Back graciously to me: “Let’s get you to your feet.” The Mayor hoists me up with a rough lift before steadying me. “You see, New Yorkers,” he turns to face both phones. “This is why we urge you to stay inside and keep cool as much as possible. We found this gentleman struggling outside, downed by the heat.” His white-picket smile beamed. “Times are tough. But together, we’ll get through this.”

I stood there like a prop, grinning bewilderingly, confused as to why the Mayor’s residence felt so much cooler than my own arid apartment. That’s when I saw it, just off the cameras’ scope. A thermostat. Set to 62°.

“And remember, don’t try to tool with your city-provided A/Cs. The Department of Climate Integrity can detect if any units are tampered with. Twenty-five is the legally mandated degree floor. Like I always say: Collective action is necessary for collective benefit. We’re all in this together.”

A welcoming chill down my back, I smiled vacantly for the cameras.