It wasn’t much of an earthquake, although it’s been a while since we had one. (The above picture is, alas, from a movie.) The motion felt like cognac being swirled in a giant balloon glass and I was the cognac. Just a 5.1 with the epicenter some thirty miles away in Chino Hills. Of course, one never knows that it’s not going to be much of an earthquake when it starts. There’s always the chance that the ceiling will fall down and kill you and that will be the last thing you see, but yesterday I couldn’t overcome the inertia enough to panic. It had been a bad night. Insomnia from nicotine withdrawal, some fool drilling in the wall outside my window, some other fool playing Verdi very loud. (Yes, Verdi) And then, well a fucking quake. I looked at the cat. The cat looked at me. Should we even get out of bed? The cat, who is very old, shrugged and shook his head. Why bother? What were we going to do? Stand under a doorway? If we lived to see the authoritarian lady from Cal Tech on the local news, all well and good, but, if the seismic event had our name on it, so be it. You can’t influence tectonic plates. But here we are, and all was well, and, I guess, on to the next one.
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9 comments:
I think I might be a bit more inebriated than I feel like I am, reading & re-reading "some fool drilling in the wall outside my window"... was it the neighbor's wall that's right outside your window? Or the same wall your window is on, just outside the window? Have I made any sense with these questions?
If these were forums, I'd say "post count +1" without a statement such as this attached.
It was the neighbor's wall right outside my window?
There would be more panic in California than was exhibited in the latest quake if the supply of cocaine was cut off suddenly.
Say hello to my little friend.
Or do you mean... "What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way!"?
All I have in this world is my balls and my word and I don't break them for no one.
I don't understand.
We've given up trying.
We know too much to argue or to judge.
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