Any memoir of the San Francisco 1989 earthquake must begin with my old friend, Victor di Suvero.
He had everything to do with my whereabouts and frame of mind in that moment. On October 17 at 5:04 p.m., I was sipping an espresso at Caffe Roma in San Francisco's North Beach. It was the happiest day of my life yet. I had spent the afternoon with Scott Beach, Gerry Nicosia, and Victor di Suvero dwaddling over a late lunch, practicing for our reading, "Love in the Afternoon," for the San Francisco Poetry Festival opener. It was a raucus afternoon with many bottles of red wine emptied and booming poets' voices bouncing off the room Victor rented for our lunch in the back of a restarant that had some Beat associations.
Victor di Suvero at Pennywhistle Press Santa Fe, NM Office 2008
That day, I remember noting the faded red and very flocked wallpaper, the nicks and bare streaks in old captain's chairs where we sat. Clearly, we were all happy about a free lunch. We shreiked with laughter at Victor's sly jokes. Gerry promised to read one of my favorite Verlaine poems in French and took a copy of the book.
Scott Beach
Scott, a legendary member of The Committee and a long time DJ on KKHI (a renown classical music station the Bay Area), was sad--as he emptied his bottle, he seemed to come alive. What a witty and quick mind! I also knew Scott's wife, Neva.
It was a giddy day--and not just from the wine. My chapbook,
The Sum Complexities of the Humble Field, was being published by Pennywhistle Press, a passionate project of Victor's. He savors the role of editor, but is also a fine poet. The book party was scheduled for later on at City Light's books. It was also the launch of Pennywhistle Press' series which was designed to release six chapbooks in "passport design" every year. Very ambitious, but Victor knew no bounds.
When the rehearsal ended, I declined the offer of a lift. I wanted to walk, stride through the small streets of the Marina up to North Beach proper, dallying along the way to let small miracles and heart-thumping light sweep my head free of intellectual notions. San Francisco, the city of multiple small pleasures and intense beauty. I have always loved it.
Striding along, I thought of San Francisco's racy past. I was making my way through the Barbery Coast area when I thought about the 1906 earthquake--and how wonderful it was that there were still survivors who gathered at Lotta's Fountain each year to celebrate their experience. And that was all the thought I gave to earthquakes. Other things occupied me: the snapping blue skies; the water flowing superfiscially over the bay as if over a mirror.
I thought of my wonderful friends who were coming that evening for the party: other writers, many of my music-related pals, artists and visionaries. My interns from Food First were coming. One, Uri, was bringing a huge wheel of cheese and a case of wine to the party. He had stopped to pick up the supplies after class at UC Berkeley in his little Volkswagon convertible. We were set to go.
With such happiness in my head, I saw the open windows of Caffe Roma. It was empty, around 4 p.m., so I took a seat there, breathing in the tropical air and ordering lazily. When the espresso came, I remember thinking how wonderful life was. My life was far from perfect, but on that day, I was happy, really happy.
After our party at City Lights, we scheduled a real wingding at Spec's Bar across the alleyway. Spec's is a real San Francisco haunt. The place is small, rather like sitting in a train car.
Elly, Spec's daughter at the bar in Spec's
One wall is one step of liquor after another, across a mirror. Spec Simmons -- who founded the bar and who was still the bar tender -- was getting ready for the influx from City Lights when the earthquake struck.
Spec Simmons at the entrance to Spec's
Back at Caffe Roma, my boyfriend walked up to the open window with a smile. We were glad to see each other. What happened next is confusing to me, still. I have a memory of the table suddenly jumping up in quick horizontal motion from side-to-side. The quake went on. The old building began to moan, deeply. I smelled what I thought was a burning cable from the Jackson Street cable car. Glass was breaking on the sidewalk outside. I remember grabbing at the chair, thinking I should dive under the table, but didn't. For 15 seconds, the whole city was shaken, as if a table cloth trick for our astonished eyes.
Somewhere in there, I had to pee. Stupidly, I borrowed a flashlight from the barista, and descended into the basement where the bathroom was. A seedier place I had never seen I picked my way through debris and glass (the mirror had broken) and found the old toilet. For some reason, I left all the doors open. Finally, I sat down and relieved myself, but everything began to shake again. My next memory is screaming, standing in the center of Broadway with every gay waiter in North Beach. The TransAmerica pyramid was rocking back and forth in a cartoonish ship's roll; pink dust was roiling up from the underpinnings. The streetcar lines were sparking. Over in the Marina, they were catching fire.
I wasn't as afraid as you might think; I grew up in Japan and was very familiar with life on an earthquake fault. I had lived on a houseboat in Sausalito and knew how the bay shook and fish jumped out of the water and birds screeched when earthquakes hit. So much of the world's beauty runs along these trenches, and I was unafraid and unconscious of the crazy night I would enter in a matter of minutes. Plus, I wanted to celebrate that book with the rest of the Pennywhistle poets: Sarah Blake, Richard Silberg, Jerome Rothenberg, Phyllis Stowell, and Jorge H.-Aigla.
Walking into City Lights, fearing the worst, I was astonished to find every book in its place and no broken windows. Someone explained to me that City Lights, a former gas station, was built on bedrock, and thereby safe. We poets were bumping into each other in the dusky light. Only the front room was lit, and that by the gathering gloom.
Friends began to appear for the party. Jack and Jane were there from LA in a cute little hotel up the street. Barny ran in and had been on BART when it happened. Ed Cahill appeared and told a wild story of seeing a one-legged man whose leg had fallen off during the shaker. Jok and Adam arrived and there was merriment, albeit in a band-playing-on-as-the-ship-sinks kind of way. My buddies from my foundation life were there--Fitzie, Susan Silk and a couple others. George Ann came in from traversing the Golden Gate Bridge. As she crossed, she thought she had a blow-out, but kept driving. When she arrived in North Beach and discovered a parking space, she began to panic. "This never happens!"
The Pennywhistle poets gathered in front of the bookstore for a photo. Victor arrived and pronounced the launch of the series "Auspicious!" and told everyone a story about Italy and volcanos erupting on the birthdays of people who were bound by fate to have an auspicious life. By now, quite a lot of people had come. We realized there would soon be no light to read by, and decided to adjourn to Spec's, where we found Spec with a huge broom and thousands of broken bottles. I felt drunk just standing at the door and inhaling. Spec shooed us away; every bottle of booze was on the floor. We decided to cross the street again and go to Vesuvius, which was a bit shabbier than it used to be, but a good choice--as it turned out.
First things first, we ordered martinis and lit up cigarettes--the ban on smoking was in effect, but suspended for the moment. The bartender turned on a TV that had batteries. We crowded around and watched surreal reports from other cities far away. The Bay Bridge had collapsed and it was the first word we had had of it. It was a 15-minute walk to the foundations from Vesuvius. A freeway had pancaked in the East Bay, but where the Cypress Structure was located, nobody in the bar knew. I was bumming cigarettes and offering them to others. Women who had never smoked pulled hard on their cigarettes and coughed, woozy. We all had a second martini before the party began to break up. I remember Susan Silk, normally perfectly dressed, walking into the dark with her high heels strapped around her neck. "I heard there were ferries that are going to Marin," she called as she disappeared.
The Cypress Stucturre
It was clear that I wasn't getting home that night, so I asked Barny if we could stay the night. She said sure, and we all went our ways. I walked with Jack and Jane to my car, parked up in Chinatown on a ridiculously slanted hill. I wondered how the hell I would pry my VW Rabbit out the space that surrounded it, but got in anyway and managed to get out with the help of the hand brake.
Darkness had fallen with a thud. The city was on fire.
The Marina District
Bridges and freeways had fallen. I drove alone, but with the help of ordinary people standing in intersections with flashlights. At one point, I realized I was somewhat stuck in the Fillmore District and felt completely safe. I saw no violence, mayhem, or robbery. I only saw San Francicans helping each other, a sight I won't ever forget.
I drove through the Panhandle, the little cat tail of Golden Gate Park that is wedged between the Haight and the Hayes Valley area. Animals were running through the park--skunks were discharging their unforgettable scent, dogs, cats, racoons, all wailing. It was the only time I was afraid. Finally, I arrived at Barny's apartment in the inner Sunset. I had lived there with her before she married Martin, a Brit who we met on a trek through Scotland.
Books were out of their shelves and the TV had fallen on the floor, but not much was broken. I poked my head out the window of her apartment and felt like I was in an apocalyptic film noir. Smoke was everywhere. The place next door had lost its brick facade to a pile that fell on the sidewalk and street.
The corner store was open so I offered to get provisions. It was crazy, people were speed shopping. The women who managed the store were sweet as always, but wild eyed as the rest of us. When I stepped up to the counter with a strange assortment of stuff I asked what their best seller was that evening--batteries? water? No. lottery tickets.
Back at the apartment, everyone was reacting to the stress differently. Barny, Martin and Joe started playing cards, each with a Sony Walkman on to listen for news. I felt suddenly sleepy and lay down on a futon. As I drifted off to sleep, I heard them talking in that loud, headphone-kind-of-voice. I didn't know if I'd ever get home. I clutched a copy of my book as I slept.
Two days later, at home in Berkeley, the phone rang. It was Uri, my intern, who had been stranded on he Bay Bridge. I asked where the wine and cheese was and he just laughed. He never came into San Francisco to work again. And that's the way it was, deep in the chaos of a beautiful but disheveled city of dreams.
Since the last post, I've published two books: Letters to Pablo Neruda (an epistolary exchange between myself and one of my favorite poets long dead) from The Duck Brothers Press (2008);
