Moorpark Palms Letters - 2. Chapter 2

1994

What Was That?

Actually, it’s been a quiet year. Except for the earthquake.

“The room began to jolt, the bugs to bolt,
A whim of Spielberg’s aliens? Or the occult?”

It was 4 a.m. I was sleeping. (What else would I be doing?) Then I was up: Whomps. Car alarms. Quivering. (I was quivering.) You’re told to stay in bed; blankets mask the sound of
walls shattering. I huddled. Nothing heavy hangs over my bed: no lethal print of “Nude Descending.” I was earthquake-ready. (“Semper Disaster.”) Still, the mattress bucked. Wind
chimes clanged.

Finally, it stopped. (What seemed ten years later.) Then: Sirens. Shouting. Darkness. (It was dark before, but my head was under a pillow.) Glasses? (No glasses.) Floor? (Yep, floor.)
Glasses on floor? (Books on floor. Newspapers on floor. Lamp on floor.) Glasses? (Glasses!) Still, no light.

I dressed for winter, though it had been eighty the day before. (In January, no less: gotta gloat about something.) I grabbed everything I’d need: Keys. Wallet. Watch. Flashlight?
(Flashlight!) (Not something I normally carry. Still, who knew what I was about to see?) The front door was jammed. A night-latch I never use had wedged in place. I found a
screwdriver, then dismantled the damned thing. (So I could get back in – providing “they” let me.) I was way too calm for a disaster.

In the courtyard, neighbors gathered. (Half the guys without shirts: quintessential California.)
“Everyone here?” I asked. No one else had. They were too busy awarding Olympic scores. (“6.5.” “7.5.” “8!”) We were all there. Every sniveling child and ex-husband. Edan had her kitten, Lonnie his snake. (What comfort.)
“You shut off the gas?” I asked the apartment manager.
“Hey!” he decided. “Good idea.”
(Still stoned after too many years.)
Later, I learned you’re only supposed to sniff for gas. Shut it off, and you wait forever to get it back on. Still, if I’d smelled some of those apartments that morning, I would have let them
explode.)

We shut off the gas, then the water. We left the electricity on – hopeful.

It was barely five AM. Stars I’d never seen lit the sky, but an hour waited till dawn. Car alarms slowly died, though there were sirens on the street. And dogs howling. Drums. You’d think the moon had eclipsed.

No one had news. (Fourteen apartments and not one portable radio. Lots of beer though, oozing down them bare chests.) I went to my car, tuned the radio, and promised to get a portable for next time. (Next time!)

Six months later, I still haven’t bought a portable. Tomorrow.

“A major quake!” reporters exulted. “No lights in the city!” “No water!” “No gas!”

“Don’t drive!” they exclaimed. “Don’t drink!” “Don’t panic!” (Right.)

Despite warnings, cars left our lot:

The two women with the large dog. And pillows, lots of pillows. (What could they do with so many pillows? Who owns that many?)

Gianpaolo, the Italian guy with the stretch-limo. (White, with “Hot Mama” plates. I could never ask why because he barely spoke English.)

Helen, the nurse. (“Going to work,” I thought, “God bless her.” She never came back, driving all day and night to Colorado. Her sons shipped her stuff.)

But the cops said, “Don’t drive,” so I sat in my car. Besides, where could I go?

From Ventura Boulevard (fifty feet away) reporters sent H. G. Wells flashes: “Buildings demolished!” “Fires blazing!” “Streets flooded!” (Flooding? In a desert?) “Water mains
crumbled!” (Ah.)

Finally, dawn. Carefully leaving my car, I circled our building. The pool wall had tumbled. (Cinder blocks dove throughout LA) The cabana leaned at 40 degrees – like the Jetsons’ carport. Our mail kiosk was pebbles, its wishing-well roof shards. But the apartment building stood, gallantly, o’er splintered windows and stucco cracks.

Neighbors still filled the courtyard. (What had they been doing for a hour?) Kyle (the child actor) had built a tent from sheets and was charging his sister to sleep in it. (Kid should be an agent.) Edan was crushing snails with her Barbie.

Harv (the carpet-layer) and Lorelle (his police-trainee-wife) were hauling suitcases down the steps.
“Gotta catch a flight to Maui,” he shouted. “Think the planes’ll fly?”
“Bet everyone wants to leave,” Mack (Old Elvis) warned.
“We got reservations,” Harv insisted.
“Where are your kids?” I asked Lorelle.
“With my step-mom, their half-grandma. Sure hope they’re all right.”
Harv and Lorelle were back two weeks later. “For the kids and the small stuff,” Harv told me.
“Forget the other crap.”
“We found jobs in Hawaii,” Lorelle added. “Gonna live where it’s safe. Can’t raise kids where the ground shakes.”
“What about volcanos?” I wanted to ask.

Gianpaolo and the white stretch-limo were never seen again. Three months later, the apartment manager divided his meager things among hungry tenants. (Gianpaolo went back to Italy. No volcanos there. Sure thing.)

Lonnie, the buffed accountant, vamoosed to Seattle. Taking his python (or boa constrictor) I hope.

After three days, the women with the pillows returned. Offering no explanation.

Leaving the courtyard that morning, I cut through what had been the pool wall. A water spout blocked Ventura Boulevard, shooting straight across like a riot hose. Glass from store windows glazed the cement. Guests from the nearby Hilton crowded its sidewalks, staring up at its ravaged tower. The men all wore bathrobes, clearly tourists. Along our street, children taunted each other while their mothers clutched rosaries.

In my apartment, everything that could fall did. Water bottles had leapt, like lemmings, from my kitchen cabinets. Books levitated. Magazines flew. My computer sat rakishly atilt. But only one drinking glass broke, probably clobbered by migrating water bottles.

Why do I have a cabinet of bottled water? Why three-dozen cans of tuna? A case of saltines? Earthquake food. And so tasty.

You’re also told to hoard a hundred dollars – in singles and change. And never use the gas in your car below a half-tank. And hang up all dangling pay phones. Who makes these rules? Charismatic Fire Chiefs whose TV ratings soar with each disaster.

Think I’m kidding? You don’t know Hollywood. Fire Chiefs have replaced stand-up comics in sit-coms.

Back home, I put things away. I’m neat. And there was nothing else to do.

Except ride aftershocks. Which came steadily, like Valkyries. A giant, yanking teeth. A fraternity, head-butting walls. The phone was dead, which it shouldn’t have been, but I guess too many pay phones were off the hook. There was no heat. No lights. No running water. Neighbors were siphoning the pool with Ripple bottles as I ate breakfast. (Cold cereal. I’ve got a case of that, too.) Then I went back to my car radio.

“Don’t leave home!” reporters triumphed, “Don’t consider it!” (As they drove all over L.A. themselves.)

“This is Gary Gabriel, standing near what, only last night, was a busy shopping mall.”

“This is Steve Wolford, perched on the ruins of an teetering over-pass.”

“This is Lisa McRee, surveying what had been Warren Beatty’s Hollywood Hills home. Say, Warren, how do you feel about this?” (How do you like your blue-eyed boy now, People
magazine?)

I tried to read. Tried to pay bills. Even tried shining my shoes. I was big time bored. Outside, neighbors fought.
“Don’t eat that, Edan!” her mother shouted. “I told you, ‘Never eat anything Mack gives
you!’”
“Never eat nuttin’ you find up your nose, neither,” Mack sulked.

Finally, I went to sleep. I’d been up late the night before, had slept maybe two hours, and can usually sleep through anything. It’s genetic: my dad slept on a carrier deck all the way back from Okinawa. Getting up only to eat, piss, and play poker.)

An aftershock woke me near noon. We still had no power or heat. Wheel was in Miami, and I’d stayed home to ship things they’d need. I was also supposed to look after my older boss’s house. But radio reporters still trumpeted, “Disaster!” “Pillars of Flame!” “Stay home!” (Where it’s safe?) But I knew my duty.

The freeway east was jammed. Who, exactly, was “Staying home?” Cars blocked Ventura Boulevard. Side streets were crowded with people afraid to go in their houses. (And with
children, merrily looting.) Using canyon roads (Am I nuts?) I headed for CBS. Why? Telephones. Emergency power. Earthquake supplies for 2000 people. (Originally stocked for
nuclear war, but now used for more mundane disasters.)

The building was nearly empty. If it hadn’t been a holiday – Martin Luther King Day – it was now. Our third-floor office was flooded. A rooftop water pipe had cracked. Open drafting file
drawers cascaded like fountains. Suspended ceilings were fallen papier-mache. The CBS maintenance crew knew this but couldn’t help. The basement was in water a foot-high. Million dollar video equipment was being ruined.

I called New York, and my family was relieved. “How’d you get a line out?” they asked. “We’ve been calling for hours. Sherman Oaks is all over the news.” Once I righted and dried
the office TV, I turned it on. Sherman Oaks was all over the news. I could have stayed home and waved to friends.

Instead, I phoned Miami. My bosses had gotten word as the earthquake happened. There, it had been seven AM. One of the joys of satellites is people know you’re dead before you do. I warned them about the office, and my older boss asked about his house. Try explaining the concept of terminal traffic to a man comfortably having a snack 3,000 miles away. (“Oh, sure I’ll risk my life to see if your chimney has cracked.” Forget teaching Darwin in public schools. Teach the Food Chain.)

I found a shovel among our props and started to dig out our office. Wet ceiling tile’s as heavy as snow. I blotted sopped blueprints with diapers. (Why stock diapers? They’re great for cleaning prize cars.) Hours later, I finally headed toward my boss’s house, only to hear the radio crow, “Curfew! Curfew! Off the streets by dark, or go to jail!” (Except, of course, our toughened reporters.)

It was already five. If I tried to get to my boss’s house and then home, in traffic, I’d end up playing Pinochle all night with pimps and hookers. I called a nearby friend, said I had some great prize wine, and asked how she felt about overnight guests.

And as the sun set, I sat – and drank – on a 19th floor balcony of a steel-and-glass apartment building. Wondering why I possibly felt safe.

Someday, I’ll get out of here. Meanwhile, I hope you’re all on solid ground.