Dante Remembers The 1994 Northridge Earthquake

Today, almost twenty years ago today, the Northridge Earthquake occurred. Not only did it do billions in damage and almost kill sixty people, it totally ruined my day off. You see, on January 17th, 1994 it was Martin Luther King Day. You know him. He’s the guy that fought the zombies alongside George Washington and freed the slaves from the lizard people of Neptune. It was quite beautiful. I planned on staying in bed and playing Mortal Kombat all damned day long because fuck going outside. Apparently, nature had other plans.

Around 4:30 in the goddamn morning the earth started moving. Not in a sexy way either. I was laying in my bed probably dreaming about all the girls I’ll never have, kinda like I do now, when it felt like someone kicked my bed. Growing up in Los Angeles I’m used to earthquakes. My brothers used to shake my bed and scream “Earthquake!“ so often that when real ones happened I didn’t care. I was conditioned to not give a fuck. Until this point I’d experienced two that were huge but this one took the cake and refused to share it no matter how much you begged.

Ooh, free fire!

As my mother screamed in her doorway which was right next to mine for me to get out of bed, I refused. Its just the ground moving. I don’t care. As she cried to Jesus I said, because I’ve been a dick for decades “Isn’t Jesus the one doing this?” She told me to shut the fuck up and get out of bed. I crawled over to the floor, still wrapped in my ugly blanket, and sat against the doorway until the shaking stopped. A few seconds later it started up again. This one almost as strong as the first.

At this point the people living in the house were me, my parents, my brother, and my sister. My other brother lived in the garage which he had converted into a backhouse/barbershop. The power was out and the water gave you free black rocks when you turned it on. Yay!

Nature's speed bumps. 

So as we all sat in the living room staring at each others silhouettes I gave reports of the quake from my Walkman. Kids, a Walkman was a device that had the ability to play both the radio and cassette tapes. Now, cassette tapes were--never mind. The whole time we kept getting quake after quake after quake. The shit refused to end. As we sat in the dark we heard a loud bang from the backyard. My brother happened to not sleep in the backhouse that night. He grabbed his machete and ran back there. The door was kicked open or something and he shouted as he locked the door “If you’re in there you’re stuck now!”

Eventually the power came back on but the water still looked like Bundy Tea. I talked to my cousin Mala and she came over. We watched news reports of the damage and realized how lucky we were. All the damage we had was a cracked chimney. Me and my father walked to 7/11 because nothing was gonna stop me from getting a Slurpee and Flaming Hot chips. A salon had its window smashed and bloody footprints leading away. What was some idiot thinking? “Oh, I’m gon’ get my S-curl on!”

The rest of the day was weird because we just waited for the ground to continue shaking…and it did. That shit would not stop. You know what else wouldn’t stop? The song “Housequake” by Prince. My god they wouldn’t stop  playing that song!

This one's for Ms. Jackie at Candy Coated Tips.