LAX to Catalina, via Northridge

Standing on the sidewalk as the flyover achieves almost fifteen degrees on its rise over the central freeway, waiting on a bus to take us to Long Beach to take the Catalina Express. The kerb stones are blue in anticipation of the weary traveler wishing to know where to stand.  All else is dust. Even now at the beginning of October the heat has stayed on to welcome us, dusty travelers, refugees from European cold.

I have the tickets.  Marsha has the top down past her shoulders already, sponging the latest rays into her browning tan. The bus pulls up.  All is going well.

All of a sudden we are still no more. I feel sick to the base of my navel. Marsha has tripped on her heels and is falling to the perspex rain shelter bench. An eerie lack of other life and yet there is movement. The ramp we are standing on appears to weave to and fro like a snake in the heat, but I realise my eyes do deceive me and that it is I and my wife who are doing the shimmy.  Turning I look at the picture of the coach attached to the shelter walls then realise the art has been put before the horse, so to speak, and no bus is coming for us in this nightmare. Earthquake.  Marsha is one step, three actually, ahead of me and, scarlet shoe straps in hand, she pulls my finger as God touched the tips of Adam's digits back once in Italy (another tremor prone zone), bringing me out of my daze and instilling a sense of urgency I have not felt for a few weeks now.

We get down to the level we were built for as the flyover schizms and is brought down low.  As of yet we remain the sole souls within sight, within hearing, within our knowledge and bear witness to this collapse of our modern times as the reinforced megalith descends with a groan unnnatural. Marsha lights a fag.  I demand one too.  We smoke as we walk.  The Hertz rental remains open; what else could they do?  They give us a good deal on a multi, given the circumstances the guy wants us to be as safe as can be. We drive into town, fearlessly and casually avoiding the panicked log jams somehow.

Ferries are off.  Too much risk of Tsunami.  We drive onwards, pulling into a budget hotel along the Pacific Coast Highway where the desk clerk is incredulous that we should wanna check in. 'We have no food. No Ice. No Electricity for TV or air-con.' What alternative?  So we check-in and go for a walk.  And yes, that is possible in LA. Along certain strips at least.  The gelato guy on the corner is eagerly giving away his stock. He has no refrigeration now the power's out and the scared and bored come in equal measure to gratefully receive his communion effort.

Marsha, as always, looks a delight.  The woman could dress in a bin bag and still turn me on.  She encourages a couple of beach bums that they are equal in the gift of ice cream gratis and the taller of the two sings her a serenade as his buddy goes to ask, please, for a raspberry sandwich and a big chocolate cone.  This comes from the heart and she grips my hands and I twirl her to this crazy man's made-up song.

We sleep that night with the window down. The sounds of LA mute from gun shot and hip hop as the fires burn across the harbor and the wind soughs in from the West.  We are refugees once more.  Not lost forever but lost enough in this special moment that we appreciate the plight of those we see. Black White Rich Poor we all are in the same vessel this evening.

Tuesday, we find ourselves on Catalina at last. Four days it took to sort out enough of the city's problems to allow simple tourists like us to function.  I'd imagine to a native it will take longer. Schools, home gas supplies, broken pavement - that sort of thing.  

The Robsons are there to greet us.  It is the first gathering of our two clans since we worked together in eighty five. Bruce has gotten old. Sapphie remains mad, beautiful and shrewd as a button, what she doesn't know about the Russian situation is not worth writing about.  We chink glasses of rojas.