Locked rooms - Laurie R. King [155]
I have kept silent for the past eight years. The events involved two other men as well, and the contagion of a felony would have blighted their lives and honors. Since neither man has chosen to come forward under his own initiative, I feel I may not reveal the names here. I shall merely refer to them as Good Friend—GF—and PA—Petit Ami.
GF and I had been friends in our youth, almost as close as the brothers we were sometimes taken for. And although like brothers we went our separate ways under the complications of maturity, I retained an affection for him, and felt that I owed him a considerable debt, for his friendship and his stalwart assistance when I needed both friend and help. I say this to explain the call the man had upon me, although we had not been close in the years since my marriage, or even seen each other for some considerable time.
I need not describe the general happenings of that day in April. My family was shaken from its beds shortly after five o'clock in the morning as the rest of San Francisco was, although—being blessed with a heavily built house with its foundation on rock—we did not suffer as much as those in the lower areas. Nonetheless, the house was a disaster and a highly dangerous place for children, being now carpeted with broken glass and with gaping cracks in the walls and ominous sags in the heavy plaster ceilings over our heads. Along with most of our neighbors, we moved out of doors on that first day, and when the tents began to reach us the following day, Thursday, we moved into Lafayette Park until such a time as our house could be declared either safe or unliveable.
I spent the three days of the fire in the same way that most of the able-bodied men did, namely, providing transport to the wounded while my supply of gasoline lasted, and afterward digging through rubble for survivors and helping the professionals to battle the flames. We rescued those who were trapped, collected the bodies of those who were beyond mortal help, and attempted to make a path down the streets for vehicles and carts to pass, to carry the injured or possessions.
As far as I can determine, the mayor's order to shoot looters on sight was announced within a few hours of the earthquake—an irony, considering how much the man had himself stolen from the city coffers. Official numbers of those looters actually executed were ludicrously low—I myself witnessed three such shootings, none of which were in the least justified. The police and soldiers were as maddened as the rest of us, the difference being that they were armed and had received orders to be free with their bullets.
The first afternoon, Wednesday, having spent the bulk of the day laboring downtown, I drove back as far as Van Ness, left the car there, and walked the rest of the way into Pacific Heights to assure myself that my family was well and to see if I could find something to eat. I found my wife and children in good spirits, and she told me that PA had been by shortly before that, to see if we were well and to reassure us that his own family was uninjured. She had told him where I had gone, and he said he would be back later to talk with me.
I retrieved food and drink from our damaged home and helped my wife build a fire-pit in the front garden out of the overly plentiful fallen bricks from our chimney, then returned to the house for bedding, which we spread among the trees in the garden. The house creaked and groaned as one walked across the floor, and I was not at all certain that it would endure another major shaking.
We ate our meal, settled the children beneath the stars, and then, very late, PA returned. Completely exhausted, he was, badly shaken by an experience he had endured. A soldier, seeing him walk down the middle of the street, had turned his rifle on PA and declared that he must be a looter. When PA protested that he had gone nowhere near any shop, the soldier prodded