Nonfiction
The earthquake weather peeps through the dusty half-drawn blinds. It’s my night off from the dishpit when the 4.6 licks the foundation. My skeletal senses tell me to swim. After crawling from underneath the messy desk (unrelated to the shaker), I see that California has not sunk into the ocean.
I’ve been waiting for something of this magnitude to rocket me out of my rut, a job that I have been at for two years too long. Bad management mixed with irregular shifts and my two weeks’ notice sits idle on my word processor waiting for that perfect time to serve my creepy employer. Look, I’m fifty-one years old, single, no kids, and zero mortgage. Money would be the golden excuse for not ghosting.
Some of my coworkers are stoned to the quake, robotically serving whole wheat bread to the sour customers while the exhausted cooks melt under heat lamps. The fortysomething-year-old boss running things like a popularity contest in high school. This bogus scene bubbles in my head until I surf toward 1987.
Thirty days before Halloween, a 5.9 shook Schurr High at 7:42 a.m. Hazy morning freshman year in photography class when C Building rocked and rolled. Hung photo equipment shouted below while our desk rattled. I dove for cover where some of my classmates’ legs froze, only to thaw when the jackhammer came back for seconds pounding some aftershocks.
After the evacuation, we were sent home. The pink breezeblock wall that neighbors our neighbors collapsed. Spiderweb cracks spun to the corners of the kitchen and bathroom. My parents’ room was spared but an eight-inch crack ran down my bedroom wall.
I trace the crack that hangs over my bed toward 2024, its width and length maintaining its evidence. This scar, this souvenir survived other quakes that came before.
The earthquake kit sits hollow in a closet full of beaten work shoes, faded khakis, and empty boxes. I survey for any damage that might have occurred. My morning coffee moved, unspilled, just about an inch. Outdated mail and tax returns from previous employers sit faded and folded next to a burned-out lava lamp. Several black crow feathers found in early summer lay crossed next to a mason jar containing a monarch butterfly. A miniature Buddha figure sits on the edge smiling and waiting.
Leave your job.
Clean your closet.
Prepare for The Big One.
This list is scratched on less than half of a page of my notebook. The negative space that floats around these goals recedes much like my half-century-old skull.
I set the kettle on the stovetop, turning to click the flame until blue and wait for the water to boil. The scars in the kitchen that have shone thirty-plus years after the quake tell of a house poured in cement.
Sometimes the aftershocks feel worse than the actual quake and the waiting for another is akin to a long sweltering line at the DMV. But there are zero on this Earth for now. Various magnitudes are native to California much like traffic and smog.
Another work scenario almost pops into my head but poofs when I hear the water start to boil.
One earthquake. One aftershock. Means you’re ready for another. I could lower my tail and find a gig elsewhere to get my next bone, or I could wait until the static clears.
The blinds are half-drawn, a pale light cutting under. The kettle whistles and I wait.
Richard A Perez Jr’s short stories have appeared in L.A. Affairs: 65 True Stories from the Los Angeles Times, The Missing Slate, Blink-Ink, and It All Dies Anyway: L.A., Jabberjaw, and the End of an Era. He lives in the San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles County, and sometimes works at a restaurant.