Darkness Revisited

It was the morning side of the night shift and I couldn’t wait to get myself out of that smelly, stinking reception area at Men’s Central Jail. It was a night full of events, gang tensions, racial tensions and sexual tensions caused by marching the state prisoners past the softs and queens in the holding cells bound for another one of many jails in Los Angeles County. I worked a double and I wanted to get home, I had grass to cut and a ‘honey do’ list as long as my arm.

The last Wednesday in September was now the first day of October, I was going home at 8:00 and would be there at 8:30, so I thought. My relief had walked in and I was going over the movement schedule and the body count before I walked out. Then the jail started to shake and roll. It was the Whittier Narrows Earthquake. Training kicked in, we all instinctively started locking down the jail about 7 seconds before the lockdown announcement was given. I was totally pissed off.

I got off shift about 30 minuets later when it was determined that I wasn’t going to get anymore overtime. I called June from the locker room and got no answer. I broke all speed laws getting to my home. I saw June’s car was still in the driveway, I immediately checked the front and back of the house. The lattice work and masonry had come down on the porch in front of the door. I didn’t know what I was going into, the door was tough to get open but I did. I went in.

I called June, no answer. I drew my weapon and went into tunnel vision. I cleared all rooms in the house except our bedroom. I walked in quietly and looked around and saw June curled up on the floor in the closet doorway shaking. Then the first aftershock hit. I picked her up and carried her to the living room after putting away my weapon. She was totally shaken emotionally as well as physically. This was her first earthquake.

All the pictures that were on the walls were now on the floor, the house had cracks in the walls and there was broken glass from the china closet all on the dining room table. She looked at it all and broke down in tears. I sat her down, got her shoes and told her to sit still while I checked the rest of the damage out. The water heater and the gas lines had not been damaged. When phone service was restored, I called her boss (family members) and told them she wasn’t coming to work.

I got her quiet and kissed her and said if she didn’t feel safe in the house I would set up a tent in the yard and see if we had water. We did. I turned on the T.V., called the local Sheriffs station and got the status of the utilities from the Water Co., which was just down the block. Living in the hills of the San Gabriel Valley had some advantages, also a small town feeling. I cleaned up the debris, accessed the damage and checked in with the rest of my family on both coasts.

It was a little after noon when we sat down together and she talked to me about life. “I can’t imagine what I would do without you…you jump right up and know what to do. I don’t want you to leave me.” But I would have to, I had to go to work in less than 4 hours with no sleep, there are no excuses to not doing what I was sworn to do. I set up the tent in the yard and said if she didn’t want to stay home alone she could go to her sisters house. She said she would wait.

I got to work and let my supervisor know what went on at home and requested a post I could be at that I could be with another deputy if I started to slack off due to lack of sleep. ‘Big J’ said, “We got all kinds of people tonight for overtime and you got 60 hours logged already this week…go home, see you Sunday.” I called June and told her I was on my way, there were two more aftershocks to the quake.

She ran into my arms when I got home. I told her we both needed to rest. She wouldn’t sleep in the house or in the tent. I setup a bed in our two car garage and I lit up the yard, I had a boom box and a small TV setup for us. When we went to bed I was exhausted, she wasn’t. We talked about our mortality. She was afraid for what would happen to me If I got hurt. I told her I would never get hurt. The God that saw me through the Marines would keep me as a law man.

“But what happens to me if, if, you ….die. I don’t know what I would do without you.” I told her “I expect you to carry on and be happy…there are people in your yesterdays and some you’ve just met who would love it if I died so they could be with you.” She slapped me, but it was the truth. “June, I will keep you safe, I can’t imagine anything except us!” As she eased out of her night gown and lay next to me, she asked “would you carry on without me.”

I answered sincerely but without thinking saying “I would have no life without you…it would be an empty mess.” She wrapped herself around me and we were one all night. I remember the smell of the lemon tree in the yard and the scent of the roses and the cilantro she planted in the yard and the radio playing ‘Loving You’ by Minnie Ripperton.

Again, I stare into a bottle of whiskey looking at my blurry reflection through the distilled amber spirit. June’s birthday was Sunday. I started drinking when I left Mom’s on Sunday Afternoon when I got into this empty structure I wishfully call a home. I drank my whiskey until I couldn’t cry anymore, I had no tears left by Monday afternoon. I was supposed to go out on Sunday for brunch, many things in life are not meant to be.

June also died this Month 9 years ago. I understand why Grant crawled into a whiskey bottle when he felt he had nothing to live for. I never thought a day would come when my body and my soul would be so terribly damaged at the same time. It’s pathetic, that what was said so thoughtlessly all those years ago would be a man’s reality…an empty mess. I understand why some men can be brave without care, its easy when death becomes an acquaintance.

When you have love in your life you can be invincible, without it you can be disposable. But as long as we ‘live’ we can make our choices. In the darkness, with my bottle, my bible, my gun and my sorrow, the radio was playing CSN, the lyrics went “One morning I woke up and I knew you were gone…..Carry on,
Love is coming,
Love is coming to us all.”

RJ