I served this semester as a reader on an Honors Scholar thesis for a creative writing student. One chapter of her project was titled "First Memory" and in it she detailed her memory of huddling in bed with her mother during an earthquake in southern California. I did the math: she was born in 1985 (according to the account she had written of her birth) and her first memory would likely be of something that happened when she was, say, two or three. That would make it 1987 or 1988, provided she was telling the truth. So, I asked her:
"Was that story about your first memory based in reality?"
"Yes."
"And you lived in L.A., right?
"Orange County."
"I think we have something in common," I said. "I think we experienced the same earthquake. I think that was the Whittier earthquake of 1987."
"Yeah, I think so."
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It started at about 7:30 in the morning on a bright autumn day: October 1, in fact.
I was scheduled to be at work at 10:00. I worked at 20/20 Video, the biggest video chain in L.A. prior to the rise of Blockbuster. I was asleep in the one-bedroom apartment on Napa Street between Reseda and Lindley. Noel was already off to work at Solly's Deli.
It wasn't one of those rolling kind of quakes -the ones that build slowly. This one started with a bang and was at full force. I jumped out of bed and ran to the front door. We lived on the second floor of one of those quintessential L.A. apartment buildings: two-stories around a central swimming pool. I threw open the door and heard screaming. I looked down and saw the pool below spilling over on all sides. In a half-sleep still, I remember taking off for the front entrance of the complex.
I don't remember the sprint down the outdoor hallway, or descending the stairs, or even opening the double doors out onto Napa Street. I do remember, though, the sudden realization that I was still in nothing but my boxer shorts. And I remember the workers across the street laughing. Luckily, I hadn't shut the doors and I could slink back to my apartment and get ready for work.
Somewhere in Orange County a little girl and her mother were climbing out from under the sheets on the bed where they had taken refuge.
When I got to the store, everything was off the shelves and the four ceiling-mounted tv monitors were hanging by their wires. We fixed the monitors and started to clean up. My boss, channeling his darker side, found a copy of Earthquake and put it on. He played it all day.
When I returned home after my shift, the apartment managers, Bonnie and Frank (later found to have worked in cahoots with Steve, the ex-marine on the first floor at the end of the building, to burglarize several of the apartments in the complex), spotted me and asked me if the sky was falling. Apparently, they had seen my streak to safety.
Noel was probably drinking a beer when I walked in. He had been driving at the time of the quake and said he hadn't felt a thing.
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Three days after asking Maddison about her first memory, I awoke to the sound of Peanut barking loudly downstairs. "Damn dog," I thought, unhappy about the prospect of getting up to let her out.
Trin was in the bed with me; David was in the other bed with Nancy (this kind of musical beds happens a lot these days in our house). Before I could get up, I heard the bathroom cupboard doors start the rattle. The wind? A train? And then the walls started to shake and I heard that unmistakable sound of everything moving.
"Jesus, we're having a earthquake," I said to myself. "Come on, Trin. Let's go."
I picked up Trin, still sleeping, and walked over to where Nancy and Dave were. "Nancy, we're having an earthquake," I said, still in a little bit of disbelief. "You should get up and get to a doorframe." The house kept rumbling longer than I expected and I suggested we get downstairs to a stronger doorway. "This is nothing so far, but who knows where it could go?" I thought.
We got downstairs and listened to the cupboards rattle for another 20 seconds or so, and then it was calm. I looked at the clock. It was just after 5:30. We went back upstairs. The kids were still mostly asleep.
Neither one of them will likely remember this.
