NATURE CALLING

When you talk about earthquakes — as we all seem to be today, the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta Quake of 1989 —  it's all about the downside. Buildings crumble and tumble. Objects plunge to the floor.

But when the dust settles (literally), there might be an unexpected upside — although it may not be so obvious at the time. That's what we found, anyway.

It was Indian Summer, October 17, 1989, hot and still — what we've since come to think of as "earthquake weather." In those pre-Art Boy days, when James was still just Jim, he worked downtown at Atlantis Fantasyworld, the comic book store he owned with Joe Ferrara. I was at home, at the keyboard in my office upstairs; it was just after 5 o'clock, and I was thinking about going down to turn on the World Series (Oakland As at Giants) when I felt the first shake.

Now, my room rattles if a UPS truck goes by, but this time, it was swaying like a hammock. All the books, toys, photo albums, and other miscellaneous stuff cluttering up my workspace jumped off their shelves. Then the shelves jumped off after them, wrenching their brackets right out of the walls. It was like The Sorcerers' Apprentice, all those inanimate objects suddenly flying around the room, all landing in a massive heap on the floor.

They claim the first 7.0 shaker only lasted 30 seconds, but it felt like forever, and the aftershocks were coming so fast it was like one continuous rhumba. After picking my way down the shivering staircase, I tried calling Jim at work, but, of course, the phone was dead. Ditto the TV, so I dug out an old battery-powered radio and tuned into KSCO, which would become the lifeline of the county over the next few days. Neighbors outside were calling for their kids and going door-to-door to make sure everyone was okay. My most immediate worry was where my cats had disappeared to.

Around the house, more piles of books and tcotchkes littered the floors, as if swept aside by a petulant hand. Paintings were knocked askew on the walls and cabinet doors yawned open. A substantial Art Deco hutch crowned with a four-foot slab of marble that weighs a ton had taken a little stroll about six inches away from the wall. There was plaster dust all over, some broken glass, and cracks in the drywall, but nothing a broom or a putty knife couldn't fix.

Downtown was a different story. According to the radio, Pacific Avenue was buried under a giant mushroom cloud of red brick dust. Atlantis was on Lower Pacific, south of Laurel, but since there was nothing I could do without more information, I channeled my alarm into sorting out the home front. Sheena, the cat who'd been known to play chicken with a jackhammer for the thrill, was seriously freaked, but she came over the back fence when I called.

But my older cat, Maynard, was nowhere to be found. When they passed out bravery, Maynard was off somewhere taking a nap, so I knew he'd run for cover at the first quiver. I worried he might have fled upstairs in all the commotion and been trapped under the wreckage, but to my great relief I didn't find him flattened like a cat rug when I sifted through the debris.

But by 7 pm, Jim was still not home, and new reports were coming in of downtown engulfed in flames.  I had no way of knowing which buildings were charred rubble and which (if any) had survived. I tried to assure myself that I'd feel a cataclysmic disturbance in the Force if anything  dire had happened to him.

When I finally heard his car in the driveway, I raced outside, Sheena at my feet (make that under my feet). He had been trying to get home for two hours. First, his keys had been buried under an avalanche of comic books. Then he found the car had been so jolted by the rippling street that the door was stuck; he had to pound and kick to get it open. On the road at last, he found that the Murray Street Bridge between Seabright and 7th Avenue was closed, and all traffic to Live Oak rerouted to Soquel Avenue.

With everybody in town trying to get out the same way, and no working streetlights, traffic was barely crawling. Also barely crawling was Maynard, who came tottering down the hallway from his hiding place, deep in the closet, behind my shoes, at the sound of our voices, indignant, but unhurt.
 
One house downtown had indeed burst into flames from a ruptured gas pipe, but Jim said the choking cloud over Pacific Avenue was from the collapsed buildings. As dark and thick as smoke, it looked like the entire town was in flames. He'd driven home expecting to find our neighborhood in ruins. But we were lucky — all we lost were things.

Downtown bore the worst of it: buildings, businesses, and lives were lost. It took decades to rebuild, a process that still goes on. I believe there is still an empty lot behind a chain link fence where Atlantis once stood.

No, the building didn't collapse in the quake; only the back end crumbled a little. Jim and Joe sold comics out in front the next day — by  hand, out of a cash drawer — since everybody was suddenly off work and school and thronging downtown. But when their building was red-tagged, they had to move all their inventory into one of the notorious tents going up in the parking lots along Cedar Street to temporarily house local businesses. It was a long, laborious process. The community rallied to support the merchants' tent city throughout the holiday season, but rebuilding downtown took a long time.

But  here's that unexpected upside: When Jim and Joe had to move Atlantis to yet another tent the next year, Jim was at a crossroads. He could slog through another move, with the prospect of moving the business at least one more time after that into a permanent space. Or, he could sell his half of the business to Joe and dare to follow the siren song of his insistent new muse — art.

He was just about to turn 40. Guess which one he chose?

Of course, when you think of all the devastation perpetrated against the planet by humankind over the generations, who can blame Mother Nature for giving us a good whack upside the head once in awhile? But sometimes out of the rubble, a surprising phoenix might arise.