| Chapter 2 - 5:04pm |
| I heard it before I felt it. I felt it before I saw it. I heard the roar of a freight train so close, I could have touched it -- so close, it might be running me over -- except we lived twenty miles from a railroad track. The ground wobbled. It was like trying to stand on an air mattress on top of a swimming pool. I fell. I tried to break my fall with my hand and felt a sharp pain in my left wrist as it struck the ground -- or rather, as the dirt came up and struck my hand, which was on the way down to meet it. Normally when you fall, that's it. You lie there until you're ready to get up again. Instead, what was happening was that the ground wrenched upward and rolled me over twice out of the weeds. Then somehow I managed to steady myself on my hands and knees with the earth still wobbling underneath. Jon was thrown beside me. He lay on his stomach. We both looked out at the house, the canyon, and the hills. I was scared. I'd felt earthquakes before, but never like this. You could see the land move. It looked like waves on the ocean, surging down the side of the mountain, rippling the trees. Below us on the road a car was bouncing up and down. The door flew open and a woman was thrown -- or threw herself -- onto the asphalt. A boulder the size of a file cabinet broke off the hillside and rolled to the road, hopped over the woman, and came down on the car with a crunch of metal and shattering of windshield. If a boulder came at Jon and me, I didn't know if we could get out of the way. High-voltage wires strung between steel poles across the canyon were slapping together in the air, shooting showers of sparks. The tall redwood trees were whipping back and forth, and as I watched, the top of the tallest tree snapped right off. If a tree fell on us -- or a power line -- we would die. We couldn't move. We couldn't stand up. Our old stone chimney peeled off the house and crashed in a heap. Windows popped. Glass sprayed like water. Through the hole where the chimney had been, I say shelves spilling their books and vases and photos. At the side of the house, the door to the water heater closet flew open. The water heater fell out, and for a weird moment it looked like a mummy falling out of a coffin. Behind it a flame shot to the ceiling and then died as the gas pipe burst somewhere else along the line. From out apple tree dozens of ripe Granny Smith apples were dropping to the ground and then bouncing like Ping-Pong balls. Beyond out house farther up the ridge, I saw the stilts of old Mr. Wright's cabin snapping like dry spaghetti. The cabin teetered, then sank to the ground and slid, shuffling downhill like a big old green turtle. The propane tank rolled loose. It followed the house down the hillside, tumbling and rolling like a football. Suddenly it struck an out-cropping of rock and bounced. It was airborne. The long white tank hung in the air for what seemed an eternity flipping end over end, came down on the rocks -- and exploded with a BOOM and a ball of flame. Then everything stopped. Just as suddenly as it started, it ended. I felt as if we had shaken for hours, but I knew it was probably less that a minute. And in that minute, my whole world had shaken apart. Jon grabbed my leg and held on for dear life. I stayed on my hands and knees, afraid for the moment to stand. Josh appeared at the open doorway of the house. He had a cut on the side of his neck, probably from flying glass. He was looking around. "Oh, wow," he said. It was quiet. So quiet, it was eerie. A huge brown dust cloud was rising over everything. The trees had stopped moving. The power lines had stopped slapping. The apples had stopped bouncing. The woman was running down the road, her car still under the boulder. Mr. Wright's house had slid out of sight. The circle of fire around the propane tank swirled, spread wider over the rocks, replaced by black smoke rising from the scorched rocks and one burning bush. Josh jumped the few feet down from the doorway to the ground. Blood was dribbling down his neck. It wasn't pulsing as it would from an artery, but it sure was bleeding. Below our house and across the road, an old shed -- rotten, termite-infested, waiting to fall down -- still stood as if no earthquake had happened. How did it survive? "Is everybody dead?" Jon asked. "No," I said. "Rats," Jon said. I looked at him. He had to be joking. How could he at a time like this? If he could joke about it, he didn't get it. But if he asked if everybody was dead, then he did realize what had just happened. Jon was a puzzle to me. I noticed that his eyes were wide as plums, and then I knew that yes, Jon got it. My eyes were just as wide. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest -- thumping so hard I could hear it. "Is Josh dying?" Jon asked. "Why would I be dying?" Josh asked. "Because you slit your throat." Josh put his hand to his neck. He pulled his fingers away, covered in blood. "Oh, wow," he said. For an instant his eyes glanced around, searching. I was feeling faint. I hate blood. Josh untied the bottom of his shirt and with a ferocious jerk ripped it halfway around the hem. He couldn't reach the back. "Help me, Justin,� he said. I ripped it the rest of the way around. Josh wrapped the torn-off shirt bottom twice around his neck, but he couldn't see what he as doing. "Am I covering it, Just?" "Not quite." "Help me." Bright scarlet blood was smearing over my fingers, making them slippery as oil as I moved the black bandage into place. I was feeling sick. "Does it look bad, Just?" "I can't tell. Geez, I'm getting blood all over my --" "Don't worry, I don't have AIDS." "I wasn't worried, Josh." "Well, you should." When we were little we never worried about AIDS. We'd never heard of it. "The stupid window like exploded all over me. I'm lucky it didn't hit an eye. Pull it tight, now." I tugged on the ends of the bandage. "Am I choking you?" "Not quite. Pull tighter." I pulled. "Can you breathe?" "Barely. Now tie it." I made a square knot. "Is it still bleeding, Just?" "A little, I think." "Is it coming out of the bandage?" "A bit. When you talk, it slides. Stop talking." Jon asked, "Are you going to die?" "No." "Does it hurt?" "Shut up," I said. "Don't make him talk." Jon was standing right next to me, one hand grabbing my leg. Normally, he would never touch me. I'd been busy before, but now I was becoming aware of a hissing sound -- and the smell of gas. The odor jogged my memory into action. I thought of all the boring earthquake drills we'd had at school. Over and over we'd been told what to do. At home we made earthquake plans, too. We had a family meeting once a year on April 18th, the anniversary of the big San Francisco earthquake of 1906. My great-grandfather, my father's grandfather, had been in San Francisco on that day. My father said that in hot weather -- not in summer, but any other time of year when you don't expect a hot day -- he'd sniff the air and look nervously around and mutter: "Earthquake weather." He said the big quake had happened on just such a hot day. A day like today. At our family meetings, we'd sit around the dining tabling and review where to go while the earthquake was happening: Crawl under a table or stand under a doorway. Well, too late for that. We'd never discussed what to do if you were outside. Even if we'd been inside like Josh, I doubt if we could have moved to a safe place with all the shaking going on. Then we talked about what to do next: Shut off the gas and the electricity. My father had made sure we all knew how to do it. "Jon. Let go of my leg. I have to move." "Don't go!" "I'm not leaving you. I have to shut off the gas." Jon followed, holding on to my jeans. Josh walked beside me, putting his hand on the small of my back. I felt my body tingle at the touch. 'Okay Justin, this is definitely not the time to be thinking about this. Get with it here.' "Be careful." Josh replied. "Don't talk." I said. The bandage had a dark spot over the cut, but it didn't look as if any more blood was running down from under it. I couldn't be sure because so much had already spread over his neck and been soaked up below the collar of his shirt. Our propane tank was lying on its side. I stopped and stood twenty feet away. The air stank of gas. "You can't go any closer." Jon said. Any spark would cause and explosion. If it exploded, it was near enough that it would set the house on fire. "I've got to turn it off." I replied. "You'll barbecue your head," Jon said. "And your toes. Your bellybutton. Everything." "Don't make a spark. Let go of my leg." "No." "Jon!" "No." He didn't want me to barbecue my head. He knew exactly what his song meant. And surprise -- he didn't want it to happen. I was bound and determined to shut off that gas. I grabbed Jon's wrist and wrenched his hand off my leg, took a deep breath -- nearly choked on the stink -- and marched toward the tank. I wondered if I would die, wondered if my entire life would pass before my eyes in an instant. Then I thought: There's not much yet that can pass before my eyes. I'm only seventeen years old. I'm only a teenager. Why am I doing this? Why am I standing in a cloud of gas? My hand found the round handle, grasped it, and turned. The turning made a scraping sound, like metal against metal. Would it make a spark? Would I suddenly be in the middle of a ball of flame -- and barbecue my head? My toes? My bellybutton? Everything? I turned and turned until it was tight. The hissing stopped. I was still holding my breath. Suddenly I could hold it no more and let it out in a rush. Then I sucked in a great lungful of horrible sulfurous-smelling gas and ran -- and coughed -- and ran -- and fell coughing and gasping for fresh air at Jon and Josh's sides. Jon immediately grabbed my leg again. Josh took me by the shoulders. "Let's get out of here," he said. "There's still gas in the air." "Don't talk." I said between hacking coughs. "I'm all right." Josh pulled me up by the shoulders and guided me -- my coughing and my watery eyes blinded me. Jon continued to cling to my jeans. Air. Hot, dusty air. Gradually I got control of my lungs. I was panting as if I'd run laps. The earthquake drills at school, the meeting at home, ran like a mantra through my mind: Get under a table. Get under a doorframe. Shut off the gas. Shut off the electricity. Shut off the water if it leaks. "The power!" "Huh?" Josh asked. I ran to the garage with Jon running behind me, still holding on to my jeans. Josh walked after us, one hand pressing the bandage over his neck. He seemed afraid of moving too fast for fear of jogging the cut open. The electric meter wasn't moving. The line was dead. I wanted to flip the main breaker switch anyway, just to be sure. It was hard to move. Why do they make something so important so hard to use? I tried both hands at once. Got it. Josh had brought headphones with him and was searching for a station. "I found a station." "Any news?" I asked. "They say there was an earthquake." "No kidding." Inside the house I saw smoke. "Jon. Stay here." I plucked his hand from my leg and attached it to Josh's hand. Was it safe to go into the house? Was it about to go shuffling down the hill as Mr. Wright's had gone? There wasn't time to worry about it. The smoke was coming from the kitchen. I jumped to the open doorframe. A table lay on its side. Glass had sprayed all over the floor. Inside the house, glass crunched under my shoes. Gray smoke curled out of the kitchen and thinned out as it spread. Again I started to cough. My lungs were still sore from the gas. The smoke was coming from behind the stove. I couldn't see any flame. I went to the sink and turned the faucet handle. Nothing came out. Air sucked into the sprout. From somewhere under the house came the sound of water gurgling out of a broken pipe. We had a fire extinguisher mounted on the wall next to the refrigerator -- or where the refrigerator used to be. The whole refrigerator had walked several feet away. Its door had flown open and food had dumped on to the floor. I grabbed the red extinguisher, held my breath, leaned over the stove with my head right in the rising smoke, and squeezed the handle. Nothing happened. I pulled my head back where I could breathe and where the smoke didn't burn my eyes as much and looked at the extinguisher. A red pin was stuck in the black handle. A tag said PULL OUT RING PIN. AIM NOZZLE AT BASE OF FIRE. SQUEEZE HANDLES. USE SIDE-TO-SIDE MOTION. I pulled the pin. I took a deep breath, leaned over the stove again aiming at the space between the wall and the back of the stove, aiming down into the smoke, and squeezed. It made a sound like whipped cream splatting out of a can. White powder -- like chalk -- shot out. I moved it from side to side and kept on squeezing until nothing more came out. The smoke stopped rising. I'd buried it. Something touched my pants. I jumped -- but it was only Jon. He'd followed me into the house. Together we stared at the kitchen. It looked like raccoons had broken in, only a thousand times worse. The shelved had dumped. The cabinet doors had popped open, and everything had tumbled out. There was food and glass all over the counter and the floor: molasses, peanut butter, vinegar, sugar, wineglasses, honey, ketchup, flour, potatoes, graham crackers -- all in a crunchy, gooey, sticky soup. Briefly I glanced around the rest of the house. Nothing else was burning. And everything was on the floor, mixed with broken window glass and plaster that had popped off the walls. My bed was covered with little stones and wires. My clothes dresser had fallen forward with the drawers sliding out. Jon pushed some bedding out of the way and found his favorite stuffie: a fuzzy red parrot by the name of Squawk. The phone was off the hook. I set it back, and then listened for a dial tone. Nothing. I felt little tremors through my shoes on the floorboards. Rafters creaked. "Let's get out of here." I said. The shutoff valve for the water was in a box in the ground. I lifted the cover, found the valve covered with daddy longlegs -- brushed them away -- one ran up my arm -- shook it loose -- tried to turn the valve handle -- wouldn't budge -- two hands -- hard -- oof -- ah -- shut it off. Jon still clung to my jeans with one hand. With the other, he held Squawk. Josh followed, listening to his headphones. I could still feel the thumping of my heart. So far, I had been on automatic. After all the meetings, I'd known what to do. And I'd done it. But now that I'd shut off the gas, the electricity, the water, now that I'd put out the fire, now that I was in charge of my little brother with a house that I was afraid to go into for fear that it would collapse, what was I supposed to do? |