by David Hirst
The townsfolk were waiting in clusters for the authorities when, three hours later, another quake — this time centred at Big Bear, thirty miles away at the top of the San Bernardino Mountains — let loose its power. This was a mere 6.6, but it shook southern California as hard as the first. A great rumbling roar like a train thundering towards the huddled masses. Rockslides in the mountains caused massive eruptions of dirt to fly, like clouds from a bushfire, high into the air. Six hours later, the mountain sky was still thick with dust. Many reported fires. As the quake rolled out along the desert, the small crowds could see the wave of energy coming. The Joshua trees, named so because the early Mormons thought they resembled Joshua in prayer in the wilderness, bowed before the wave as the terrified residents watched the quake race towards them.
‘It was like watching the wave at the baseball,’ Eric recalls. ‘As it approached, a line of trees would shake and bend. We just stood there watching it come like a tidal wave. Everyone was yelling and screaming. I was yelling, “Here it comes,” and then it hit. Everyone was knocked around like a bunch of drunks.’
Then it passed, leaving whole communities picking through the rubble that had been their lives. In the wake of the quake, new and wondrous fault lines were discovered. One, the Kickapoo Fault, lies just to the north of us and is illustrated in maps by the Department of Civil Engineering. The black line stretches across the map from Landers and swings to the west, which is regrettably close to Boulder House. Ominously, it also ends with a series of question marks. No one knows where it ends at all.
As no one knew this huge fault even existed until the ‘Big One’ hit, perhaps the map should be comforting. What is not is the naming of the fault. The Kickapoo were a hard-fighting bunch of Indians and should not be remembered as a fault line — or a major intersection in Yucca. Naming roads and fault lines after Indian tribes that are located a thousand-or-so miles away is not as tasteless as calling a football team ‘Redskins’, but one would have expected academics in the 1990s to have come up with something more relevant. They could have named the streets and faults after local tribes annihilated by white occupation. The Serrano Fault would be more appropriate. But the streets and the faults of our environs are too often named after a mythical people, a tribe from far away. Who wants to be reminded of the local slaughters? This is the West — the land of cowboys and Indians. There are about as many cowboys as Indians. Approximately five.
‘Right lateral and vertical displacements were of 1.2 meters,’ reads the official report. It is one of those government-academic reports that sometimes turn out some interesting sentences. Even bureaucrats can find something approaching language when writing of a big quake — and nothing could be more demonstrative of the power of such things than that government reports can, at times, be made interesting. A layman struggles with ‘lateral and vertical displacement’, but wonders if he might be correct in gauging that the land moved almost four feet to the west, and that same amount up — or down. In parts of Landers, ‘ground rupture’ was one mile wide. Typically, a home not being designed to move in such a fashion split in two, and ‘the center of the house rotated clockwise in respect to the foundations.’
I have been in a situation where houses rotate clockwise and anticlockwise, and it’s not a lot of fun.
There was a time I rather enjoyed earthquakes and made fun of those who feared them. We had enjoyed a good number of them in LA, and in Venice — one hundred and sixty-plus kilometres away — had felt the rolling from the great Landers Quake. It was just a gentle rocking by the time it hit us, just like the ones before it. The next day, we pored over the pics in the Los Angeles Times. One showed a road near the marine base that stopped abruptly, only to start again twenty yards to the south. One got the impression that people could have been swallowed alive by the earth — something that few people wish to experience, to my knowledge.
But like all earthquakes in those days, the damage was far away and not part of our lives. If we had not felt the rocking, it might have been in Japan or Turkey.
It wasn’t till the Northridge quake in 1996 that I changed my mind on the question of earthquakes. We were still in Venice at the time, and were fortunate enough to be living in a small wooden structure — beside the Man with No Brain — which had enough flexibility to give with the shakes. Shake is not the right word for a big one. Shake, rattle, and roll would be an appropriate phrase. For a minute or so, it seemed a giant had picked up the house and was tossing it in the air. Up and down, left and right meant nothing. Walls became roofs; roofs, floors. Boo totally ignored my demand that we do as we had been so often told and get out of the house. So we rode it out in bed. It turned out that she was right. It was impossible to get out of bed. The floor had become the wall, and it was necessary to climb horizontally. While the world shook.
The power was gone with the streetlights, and for a while the city was black and silent. The house settled, and I ran into the spare bedroom where an Australian woman was supposed to be. But she had found a torch and made it to the bathroom, where she was busily making up her face.
‘Get out of here,’ I cried.
She turned to me, waving what seemed to be a great tube of lipstick, and replied, ‘Not until I have done my face. You never know who you might meet in an evacuation.’
As it was, she met half the neighbourhood, but, as the streetlights were out and the darkness was complete, no new love was in the offing. The next thing we knew — without so much as a ‘fare thee well’ — she was gone. Home. To the safety of Australia, which pretty much finished with its eruptions many millennia ago.
The city shook for a few days as we all cleaned up. Glasses, plates, and Boo’s pretty things were smashed through the house, and the chimney had collapsed.
The biblical exhortation to build upon the rock was followed by Bill Lavender in such a manner that the Dirty Old Man Of The Desert could, or at least should, be granted sainthood.
Needless to say, nary a boulder dared move at Boulder House during the Landers affair. Indeed, right before we were to take possession, a quake hit Yucca Valley. Its epicentre, we learnt from the TV, was practically smack in the middle of the big bedroom. Boo got straight on the phone to Bill to see if there was anything left of the place.
‘Well, the dogs barked,’ came Bill’s drawl. ‘And a cup did move on the bench. I think I popped a water pipe,’ he let out with a yawn.
‘That’s amazing,’ Boo exclaimed, having expected catastrophe.
‘Nothing amazing about it,’ Bill retorted. ‘That’s how I built the house. To withstand all that bullshit.’
But the ‘Really Big One’ should be interesting. As blasé as Bill might be, a walk around the property and a glance out to the back courtyard is a mite nerve-racking. Huge boulders, some of which must weigh ten thousand tonnes, are cracked, and seem to totter twenty-five feet above the house. Bill built his house in — rather than on — the rock, and who knows when they all might come tumbling down? Every other day I stare up at these broken giants and wonder if it will be a year or one hundred thousand years before the ‘Really Big One’ comes. Perhaps these precarious pinnacles will hold, and Boulder House will be saved.
Bill is philosophical on the question, as are the finance companies that, while showing scrupulous attention to detail over all manner of unlikely risks, never mentioned the ‘Really Big One’, or even a little one. Bill explained the matter.
‘Don’t get earthquake insurance,’ he counselled. ‘The deductibles are horrendous, and FIMA will cover you anyway.’
So we rest safe in our beds.
In the time following the Landers and the Big Bear quakes, the area received a mere forty thousand aftershocks. The land shook for months, but it has stopped now. However, there is a disturbing remark buried in the seismologists’ report.
‘Boulders,’ it says, ‘greater than ten feet in diameter’ crashed down almost three
hundred metres, and trees were ‘toppled’, suggesting that the boulders were bouncing three to five metres off the ground. Strangely enough, people moved out of the area, and the population, ten years later, has only recently returned to its pre-quake levels. But when the Big One comes, most of those who live will rebuild.
21
Remodelling Boulder House proffers something of an epistemological problem. Almost. That is, not only do I not know what I am doing, but most of the people who do know don’t know either. So I proceed, sans architect, plans, colour schemes, and often sans Tony. Tony is an outside man — rocks and cactus, pipes and wires, trenches, concrete.
Despite our efforts at ripping out walls and installing skylights, Boulder House was still somehow managing to outsmart us. It was as if the house was used to being dark, and intended to remain so. Bill, being a practical man, had thought out, with exactitude, the best way to keep sunlight at bay and thereby keep the house cool. Such had been his success that for much of the year the place was not only dark but cold. The natural granite that made up a good part of the walls regulated the heat in the summer, but as the winter months passed those same granite walls would turn deadly cold and stay that way well into spring and even early summer.
We decided that I should drywall all the dark deep-brown wood walls and then adobe it with a rough but white look. The theory was that sunlight combined with white walls would drive the darkness and attendant cold from the place.
This whole huge house will need the services of someone more skilled than I, or even Fleet — a jack of many trades and a good new friend. Fleet claims his nickname comes from some confusion with Fleetwood Mac during the time they and he were living in Topanga. It is my belief that Fleet is called Fleet for the same reason that all huge Hells Angels are called Tiny, and that people with red hair are called Bluey.
Adam is, of course, the finest drywaller in many a mile, but has taken to cards. He was broke on Saturday night when he realised he had seven gentlemen turning up at his home, and not a dollar to bet with. He approached Tony, hoping Tony might give him fifty bucks for his pool cue, which he claims to have paid $200 for. Tony and I were enjoying a smoke in Tony’s room at the motel when he recounted Adam’s woe. Adam was opposite, in The Club, and in a foul mood. It’s a sorry situation when a man has guests around for poker and can’t afford to play in his own home. Usually he wins, maybe enough for a week’s supply of Bud. Which is a lot of Bud. Adam scorns coffee, starting and ending his days with Bud — an activity he seems to think is his patriotic duty. How he wins at cards is a matter of universal wonder. Adam, if he is anything, is confident, especially in the evening when a box or two of Bud have made their way down his gullet. So confident is Adam that when playing, say, five-card draw, he refuses to look at his cards.
‘I know they are good,’ he says, smiling his damned handsome smile, for Adam and his father, John, and Uncle Jerry are nothing if not handsome.
So he sits at the card table beaming his confidence with no idea what cards he is holding. It is a little off-putting for the other players. especially when Adam doubles the bet and one stares at him through the smoke as he repeats, ‘I know they are good.’
He looks at his cards with the affection some have for their children. Adam has one rule at his table, and it is a measure of the man: ‘No limits.’ It is also a reason I attend the sessions infrequently. I have forgotten much of what I knew of the games and am constantly dealing cards up when they should be down. Last time I played, I quickly lost $40 and pulled out. I lost it to Tony, so I made it double or nothing on something I know something about — football. Backing Baltimore against the Rams with a fourteen-point start in the Super Bowl is about as easy a way to make money one can find.
But one can lose a lot more than $40 at a no-limits table. Suddenly, one is sitting on a decent but not great hand, needing $100 to stay in the game. And there, opposite, sits Adam, happily doubling everybody back, with still no idea what cards he is holding. The first time I played, I was sitting on two colour pairs — a good five-card hand that beat the players who hadn’t folded. All except Adam, who, oblivious to what he ‘held’, turned over two worthless cards and then three aces. He scooped up the pile of chips gleefully. In other circles, one might have searched him, but Adam is scrupulously honest, at least when it comes to cards. But there is not a man in twenty miles who would trust him with his girl.
Learning that Adam was prepared for a cash-for-cue swap at very reasonable terms, I left Tony and hurried through the cold to The Club. Sure enough, Adam was in a foul mood until I approached him. His eyes lit up — and when Adam’s eyes light up, girls tremble.
‘Wanna buy my cue?’ he asked before I could make an offer.
‘Tony mentioned it was for sale,’ I replied as demurely as possible.
One doesn’t want to be seen taking advantage of the local hero in his misfortune. But the cue was soon mine, Chuck the barman providing the cash, as I had only a few dollars myself. The cue is a beauty. Not pretty — too flash — but it sings. I should make the money back in no time and still possess a stick that plays like $400. Adam had his money and was off to meet his guests. I didn’t attend the game, but Slovakian Pete, the snake man, did, and the next day morosely told me that Adam had won handsomely without, again, looking at his cards. One wonders just how good a player Adam would be if he looked at his hand before betting, but his attitude seems to be that such actions are a sign of bad faith, in which case the cards might turn against him.
Adam hosts regular poker games at his historic cabin throughout the winter. The house is tiny but, having been built by a famous architect, has architectural significance. It won’t for long, though, if Adam doesn’t repair the roof. On those rare occasions when it rains, the water pours through the single bedroom and the living room–kitchen, and Adam moves outside until the place dries up.
The cabin is not hard to find. One merely follows the empty Bud cans, which Boo refers to as ‘the trail of beers’, till one comes within sight of a huge black-and-white skull and crossbones flapping merrily above a corral. A great swirl of dogs bounce around in greeting — the number of which seems to constantly vary, as they enjoy a nomadic life. The latest acquisition Adam named Honey so he can cry, ‘Hi honey, I’m home,’ when he arrives back after the bar closes.
Inside, a big poster of Jim Morrison dominates the room. Next to it are Butch and Sundance shooting their way out of town, curiously mingled with various South Sea artifacts. It is dangerous to admire anything in Adam’s house. He is likely to immediately give it to you.
Everywhere are photos of all the Edwards. Adam was a parachutist. There is a photo of him in his red beret. In his early twenties, he was a major heartthrob, not just handsome but beautiful.
Which brings us by a circuitous route back to the drywall problem. While Adam is making money at the table he is loath to make it sanding mud off my walls. And Adam with money is Adam with Bud. More Bud than usual. In my experience, Budweiser and the finer touches of the difficult art of drywalling a house that has bent and twisted in heat and snow, been rocked by earthquakes, and was built on angles in the first place don’t mix.
Rodney could do the job. He’s nearly as good as Adam. But Rodney gets a nice cheque from his union each month, and while not shy of work will have enough on his plate keeping Harriet happy now they have bought a new cabin.
So the ball lands in my camp. It’s either that or live in a construction site forever, so I must rise from the pleasures of staring at either the keyboard or the blizzard up in the high pine-clad forest of Big Bear and start sanding.
22
No one out here wears a watch. It doesn’t really matter if one is on time or not.
Sean, who has come over to grade our road, and stayed on for dinner — which he cooked himself, being a gourmet chef as well as an expert grader — claims to be able to read the moon as easily as the sun, a claim I
consider downright impossible.
‘How can you read the moon on nights when there is no moon?’ I scoff.
‘I read the stars.’
I look at the moon, a thin wedge of cheese above Rimrock. Off towards the marine base, Venus fades. According to Sean, it’s nearly eleven. I stride into the house. Sean is about eleven minutes slow.
There is no point in taking this to the Supreme Court. The time of day means little, and the time at night, nothing. Who cares what time it is? Does the burrow know the time?
As the great Banjo Patterson observed, townsfolk — he meant city dwellers — have no time to wait. Here the opposite is true. Time is free, and there is a lot of it. The road from the gate is strewn with danger. Lurking everywhere are people with plenty of time. The three other occupants of Coyote Road, The Blade Runner and his wife, and an eccentric artist directly opposite them, are in a constant state of unarmed conflict, a battle that has its roots in one party kicking up dust onto the other’s guest’s shoes. The Blade Runner is a great lover of machinery, and an avid reader of Rock and Dirt magazine, if it’s possible to read a journal that prints only advertisements for machinery, and boasts of having the largest collection of iron on earth — since 1957.
Russ is in his eighties. He spent his salaried days working in San Diego overseeing the movement of sand and gravel to construction sites, and is never happier than when telling stories of the movement of same — usually the same story. He must have been a bull of a man in his day, and he still carries a hard demeanour. When we met, I thought he was dying. Blood seemed caked around his mouth, but on further inspection I determined it was chew, a wad of tobacco being his companion from dawn to dusk. He owned three tractors until he sold one a few months ago. Now he is reduced to two machines, and one — the smaller tractor — is operated by his wife. Until we moved out here, I didn’t know that the people who make tractors make a ladies’ model.
