Memory Lane

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Transcript of an interview with Sentinel, formerly of the Los Diablos Rangers. Interviewer is Maria Falk of the Memorial Foundation. Prompt: Tell me in your own words what you remember from the Big One and what came after.

...

So how do you know when things are about to fall apart? The answer is, you don't. I don't even remember the before, not very well. It was same old same old, when I think back it feels like watching television. Seems so unreal. Like things were ever that easy. I know it wasn't, but it was carefree in a way I suppose? More predictable? Or maybe that was just because I hadn't needed to think about the future. Still in school. Had a job lined up during the holidays, so I was always busy. Nothing fancy, mind you. Just at a store my uncle owned, but it meant I didn't have to worry. Didn't have to think.

I was in school when it happened. I think. It's strange how I remember some things with absolute clarity and others are just gone. I remember the shaking first. A small jolt. Did the fire alarm go off? No. I think that came later. But I remember being ordered under the benches. One of the light covers came off, I remember that. Smashed into the floor. Someone screamed. I don't think it was me. A bench isn't big, you know. But there had been other quakes in the months leading up to this. Small ones. Ceiling tiles falling. Books. Rattling windows. So everyone waited for it to stop. And then it didn't.

Have you ever been on a boat? My dad fished. On the weekends. I came with him more often than not. The sea was great back then, the wind on your face. My grandfather used to run fishing tours back in Loíza... never mind. My point is that the ground felt like the ocean. When you get your boat stuck sideways, not facing the waves. The slow rolling, growing more intense. And it didn't stop. Just kept moving. And moving. There was a distant roar. People were screaming. Not sure if it was in our classroom or outside. Ceiling tiles rained down. Some of the lights. I remember seeing wires, wondering if the power had gone out. I don't remember, but I think it must have. It felt like it kept going for minutes. Maybe it did. Maybe it just felt like that. The walls made this terrible groaning sound. We were in one of the temporary buildings, just cheap wooden barracks because they were refurbishing our classroom. I can't remember if it was mold. But it saved my life.

The next thing I remember is being outside. I don't remember leaving, just the confusion of looking at the sky. Everyone was covered in pale, gray dust. My eyes itched. The sun looked strange. The world looked strange. I don't think I understood what had happened. Why everything looked different. Was so bright. It took me a moment. Sorry. It's... I don't mean to let this get to me, it's stupid considering everything I saw later, but this was the first time, you know? Seeing the world break in front of me knowing nothing would ever be the same again.

I don't remember screams. I know there must have been. I remember everything sounding muted. Maybe my hearing had been damaged. I remember the initial roar, but then nothing. Maybe it was shock. I remember looking at the pile that had been our four-story schoolhouse and not understanding what I was looking at. It felt like a book. Like walking through a magical portal and ending up somewhere else. I don't think I really got it back then. I do now. Our schoolhouse had been concrete. Built in the sixties maybe? It wasn't new. But it wasn't old. One of those big, ugly concrete buildings. All square and practical. It had shaken apart at the seams. Pancaked. Slabs on slabs on slabs. I remember seeing... sorry. It took me a moment. To. The concrete dust covered everyone you see. The bodies were as gray as the concrete. What you could see. I. I remember. Blood is shockingly red and wet when everything is gray. It was... I suppose it doesn't matter.

Everything was confused after that. I remember being ushered around. Doing what I was told. I don't know if it was a teacher. Or rescue services. I just don't know. There's been a lot of blame thrown around in the aftermath, but I think everyone did their best. It was just so much. The quake had been massive. The Big One. Everything was broken. Power. Pipes. Roads. Buildings. What could anybody do? When the fires started, the firetrucks didn't even have water. Nothing was whole. People were trapped. More buildings came down in the aftershocks, but most people had escaped by then. The car alarms were everywhere. Screaming. People. Machines. Buildings. The inside of my head. Sorry. It's been a while since I thought about this.

We were far enough from the ocean that I never even knew there had been a tsunami. It wasn't as bad here as in other places further north, but it still demolished everything down there. Our main fear was the fires. That's the thing. Fires need to be put out. You need water. And hoses. Or rain. This was late in the year. Everything was dry. It all went up... I don't even know... It was chaos. I don't know who took charge. If anyone did. A crowd of people have a life of its own. Moves. Someone says they spotted help, and people move there. Others say the see fire, and people run. Some were trampled. Some were left behind. I don't remember. I remember wanting to survive. I didn't know where anybody was. Friends. Family. Gone. The quake wasn't the worst part, that really was the fire that came afterward. How can you help a city? How can you help a coastline? It was everywhere. Everyone was on their own.

I don't know how I survived that first week. Los Angeles really got a raw deal. Trapped between the oceans and the hills. Between the fires and the waves. What one didn't take, the other did. And the earthquake and aftershocks brought down the middle. And still a lot of people survived. Most. I never knew there so many people in the city. Everyone used to stay inside, you know. And now everyone was in the street. In improvised tents in parking lots. Afraid of the buildings still standing. The nights were bright, I remember that. In the daytime you only saw smoke and dust, but at night you could see the fires. All the nice little neighborhoods. Wooden houses who had survived the quake. On fire. Gone. I couldn't go home. I knew that. I'm sorry. It must sound confusing. Because it was. I think some people took charge. Looted stores. Distributed food and water. I don't think it was the police. Not that it mattered.

It was around the time the army moved in when the sky turned gray. There had been helicopters. Rumors of setting up camps, or evacuations. I don't know what was the truth, at that point people were speaking wishes out loud hoping they'd turn true. I had hit a grown man in the balls because he tried to take my water bottle, I'd lost my illusions that people knew what was going on by then. Survive. I had a knife. A baseball bat. There were some girls I was with at the time. Women. Keeping an eye on each other when we slept. I don't even remember their names now. Not sure if I want to. There comes a time when you stop seeing the people you lose. Keep moving forward and eventually everything gets left behind. Everyone looks the same covered in ash.

I don't know if I heard the eruption. Or if it was thunder. I probably did, but it's strange. I remember details. Sights. Not sounds. It really did look like the end of the world. This massive shape towering to the skies. Clouds billowing upwards wreathed in lightning. I remember the awe. The stark beauty of it all. Seeing something that dwarfs you. Makes you insignificant. It was like looking at God, waiting to be swept from the face of the earth. For people back there I suppose it was. We were far away enough. Or maybe I didn't see it. I'm honestly not sure. You hear enough people telling you about it. See it enough on the television later. I know you want to hear my story, but at this point I'm not even sure it's mine anymore.

Let me explain. When I look back I remember seeing things from afar. Up high. Good views. Nice shots. An overview. Calculated. I can't have seen all those things, I was in the middle of it. Down on the street. Dust and bodies and crowds and panic. I have no grand story to tell. No striking visuals. No heroic escapes or rescues. I didn't dig people out from buildings. I didn't carry babies for miles to be evacuated. And yet it's there now. In me. Because of what I was told. Documentaries. Pictures. Things I saw and could remember properly. Where I could think "here I was at the end of the world." Maybe that's why I don't remember sounds. I wish the smells would go away too. Most of them came later. Humans. Dead humans smell. It's not something you can mistake. So I can't trust my memories. They're not just mine anymore. They're everyone's.

What I am sure of is that I tried to get to the evacuation points. I don't think I wanted to run, but I had this feeling that was the target. The goal. If we got there the nightmare would end. But the ash was falling thicker. They set up boats. Got a lot of people out that way. The helicopters couldn't fly for long. But the ships could. That's when I saw what had happened to the shoreline. I didn't recognize anything. Or anybody. Underwater landslides had caused the tsunami. I didn't learn that until later. Landslides. I never thought the land under the surface was as steep as above it. Water. Shaking. Things come down. It feels like that was me. A landslide. On the inside. Moving slowly, wiping away everything.

You know, to this day I'm not sure why I didn't panic. Or looked for my parents. It felt like there was a me that existed before the disaster, with parents and friends and a future. And then another one after it, who was alone. It was like I didn't have it in me to worry about others. I assumed they were dead. I assumed I would be soon too. Find food. Find water. Walk. I didn't have room in me to care. Like something had been shut off in order to keep me moving. Everything I did felt logical at the time. And now? I don't know. How can I blame the person I was? I remember looking at the crowds assembled, the coughs, the injuries, the panic. So many people. So few ships. And the smell...

I'm sorry. I suppose you'd want more details but I don't remember. I think everyone did their best, but there was just so many people. And Los Angeles was just one city. Where would help come from? The odds were not in my favor, so I left. I know it sounds stupid. Suicidal. And maybe I was. But I think I just wasn't feeling anything. It was logic. Finding food and water for one person was doable. I needed clothes. And equipment. And a weapon. Not everyone would be able to be evacuated, and it would be hell on earth for those that remained. Better to be prepared. It made sense. God help me, it really did. Still does.

I found air filters. Masks. Some goggles, because let me tell you, ash hurts. It's not soft, like it looks. It's sharp and stings, and will cut your lungs and eyes. The eruption was distant enough I didn't fear any lava, the ash was bad but I could deal. Found a knife. Found a gun. Found some people I thought I could trust. I was wrong. Then I was alone again. It felt safer. Sooner or later the ash would stop. I think I still was under the impression things would blow over by then. That I could hike south, walk myself out of this mess. I didn't know the whole coastline was affected. I had no idea how bad it was. How the eruptions affected air traffic. The emergency declaration. The order to shelter in place.

Shelter in place. It still pisses me off. It was a death sentence, that's what it was. Admitting that people could not be rescued. That they would die. How many were trapped in houses with caved-in roofs from the ash once the rain came? How many stayed too long? That bastard could have leveled with us and told the truth. That we had to rescue ourselves. Try to walk out of there. Not my president. Never my president. I was too young to have voted, and now we can't, you know? No presidents here. They abandoned us. Shelter in place. Asshole.

No, I don't know how many died. I know the official numbers are too low. A lot of people weren't registered. A lot of bodies were never found. I don't think the population numbers for Los Angeles before the quake were correct either. That's just the official ones. We all know there's a world of people out there under the radar. The earthquake didn't care. Neither did the fire. Or the ash. I think more people left than died. I think less people stayed than died. I didn't get very far. Made decisions I weren't proud of. Survived. Somehow.

That's the story you really want, isn't it? What made me do it? Take the boost drug? I wish there was a story there. Some grand plan. Desperate circumstance. The truth is that I got the option offered to me. A man dispensing it for free, talking about some grand plan. The future of humanity. I was just one of many. Hundreds. I think he was raising an army. I didn't really listen, he was just another guy with a mission, who'd be dead soon enough. Why I wasn't yet I had no idea. Maybe because I never panicked. Thought before I acted. Didn't care. Yeah. I really didn't. Just enough to keep going. I remember looking at the ampule. Not a pill. I've always heard it was a pill you took. This looked... professional I suppose is the word. Not something cooked up in a backyard lab. It even had a needle injector attached. I think you were supposed to slam it against your thigh and it would inject the drug.

I never learned who the man was. If he had stolen a shipment or something. It felt like army stuff. Maybe. I hear many army bases were evacuated too. But what would the army be doing with boost drugs? Back then it didn't make sense, but now it does. Too much. Not that it matters. I remember heading back to my squat, it was three floors up in an old building. It had tilted in the quake but not fallen, but it looked rickety enough that nobody bothered to look for people there. I figured that if had survived the aftershocks it'd survive everything. Or maybe I was hoping it would collapse on me in my sleep. Maybe that's why I injected the drug on the balcony. The view was breathtaking. You have no idea how glorious the sunsets were back then, the sky painted black, red, and orange.

It wasn't a suicide attempt, I need to make that clear. And I need to say that nobody should take that drug. Ever. Most people don't survive a gunshot to the head. Some do. I did. And the strange thing is... I was sure I would. I wasn't afraid when I injected myself, it felt natural. Like this was what I had waited for since the quake. A new path. A new world. A new me. It felt like I had pressed pause when the quake happened, my life on hold, my emotions buried. And now I pressed the button again letting everything flood back.

It hurt. Not in a way I could describe. Not a pain from the outside, like when you hit your elbow wrong. Not a pain from the inside, like a headache or a stomach ache. It was inside, yes, but more... in a strange place. Like the inside of my skin. Like I was suddenly aware that there was a barrier there, between muscles and skin. I don't know how to find the right words. I was aware of parts of my body I had never realized I had. And all of them hurt. It felt like I was coming apart at the seams, as if any sudden moment would cause me to split open like a rotten fruit. I didn't dare to move. I didn't dare to breath. I sure as hell didn't scream.

It lasted longer than the earthquake. Everything had turned dark outside. The ash had started falling again. I couldn't see anything. I could feel the moisture of my own breath through the mask. I didn't dare to move. You've ever had bad cramps? It was like that moment when you know that if you tense a muscle it will cramp. And hurt. So all you can do is relax despite the pain and wait until it passes. I'd been doing that for over a year at that point. Wait until it pass. And it never did. It kept on. I think I was feverish. I was seeing things. Nothing that made sense. Colors. Waves. Patterns. Like sunlight on water, blinding, not making sense. I remember focusing on my breaths. The one thing I had control of.

I don't know if it was the next day I came to my senses. Or if it had been more than one. I was parched. Filthy. My body had lost control of... well, everything. My stomach felt empty. Hollow. Everything hurt. I had to crawl back inside. Drink some water. Puke. Drink some more. Eventually I kept it down. Could shed my clothes. Wipe myself down. I remember laughing. Hysterical. Probably. Everything hurt. I don't know why I was so focused on the fact that I didn't have a tail. If I was disappointed or grateful. Maybe both. I ate some peanut butter and fell asleep.

Some say being boosted is some grand revelation. It wasn't for me. It was pain and grossness, weeks of returning fevers. I thought I was dying. But I didn't mind. I must have lost a lot of weight. Didn't have much to start with. Felt like a strong wind could blow me away. Yeah. I can laugh about that now. I don't even know when I noticed. How often do you notice the wind when it doesn't fight you? It's just there. And it was for me. Took a few months of the wind at my back and the ashes being kept at bay. Strong gusts blowing ash to hide me. Cool winds on a hot day. No winds on chilly ones.

It sounds petty, and I suppose it was. And yet, here I am. Powers are like any muscle. You need to train it to get better. And I did. The first time I flew it was like magic. Like falling. I couldn't hear anything over the roar, but through the goggles I saw the ground. Saw the city. Saw the coast. I had this kite I had built. It helped keep me aloft. I could glide. Rise higher. Learn to sail the wind. I think that's when I realized the scale of the disaster. From above. The ruins... and yet. There was smoke there. Not wildfires but cooking fires. There were people. Traveling by road had been hazardous and slow, but now that I had the skies? I could go anywhere. Anywhere but there. The city of devils.

I'd return, of course. Years later. Not alone. But I've talked enough for now. Do your transcript and let's see if you have any more questions later. It's important to preserve history. I get that. That's why I agreed to an interview now that I was back in town on business.