On the morning that the Big One finally hits, Joy’s dog is kneading my flat chest like he was making sourdough. The alarm hasn’t gone off yet, but Joy’s dog is driven by something he can’t hold inside. All he knows is that other than me, the California King is empty. That and the front door isn’t going to open itself.
Slipping through the crack between sleep and waking, my mind has arrived at a place where everything is one and one can be anything. But even here, the thought intrudes: we had been very clear on this, Joy and I. Dog walks at dawn were not supposed to be on my to-do list. At least not until after a first cup of coffee. Especially not on a Monday.
On the morning that the Big One finally hits, my blood pressure rises before I do.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
We hit the sidewalk, my speed not enough to satisfy Joy’s dog, so we tumble along at either end of a taut leash. Buried under hoodie and sweatpants, my heart races to overcome inertia. A dense marine layer has yet to dissipate. Fog rolls down the street like tumbleweed in a spaghetti Western. Somewhere close, a baker has loaves caramelizing in the oven. The wind blows in gentle, with a hint of bay salt and rotting seaweed. Joy’s dog drags me into the breeze, away from the scent of flour and water baking.
By Joy’s infallible logic, our decision to get a dog, hers and mine, was refined from my initial vision of a Bernese Mountain Dog or a Rottweiler to a purposeful combing of post-pandemic rescues for someone’s little unwanted Bichon or Bolognese. Or, as it happened, Pomeranian. Taking this step forward meant compromise, Joy reassured me on the ride home. That twinkle in her eye meant she knew she was irresistible.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
On the morning that the Big One finally hits, a streetcar grinds along on its rails. The driver looks forward with hollowed eyes of serene indifference. The same look was on my face when I signed the papers to Por Por’s condo so we could move in together in Mission Rock, Joy and I.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
Where Long Beach meets Fourth, a tree situated in dark-stained cobbles draws in any mut within three blocks downwind. The rotten eggs and bleach don’t hit my nostrils until I almost step in it. As a kid, when my school stopped but my parents’ work didn’t, Por Por would take me shopping with her after dim sum. We covered our noses as we passed by Portsmouth Square, the corner of the park where so many players of mahjong relieved themselves between rounds that no amount of soap and water could ever keep the air above those sunbaked bricks clean.
Por Por and I have been wearing facemasks since decades before the pandemic, but to no use against the smell of urine. Or, farther up the hill, the smell of morning cigarette smoke breathed by thin old men in loose shirts mingled with the pungence of dried scallops and cuttlefish that we weighed out into plastic bags. Por Por’s soup was like medicine, life itself. We bagged up long, flat pieces of dried female ginseng root for her blood. A block over, ovens churned out the indelible aroma of five-spice and generations of roasted duck and char sui pork. We had to pass by the square again on our way back to the bus stop, hands over our facemasks when the rotten eggs and bleach touched our noses.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
On the morning that the Big One finally hits, somewhere deep within, something breaks loose. At the back end of the leash, my breath comes in meager gasps with a hint of pain on each inhale like from a poorly placed acupuncture needle. My pulse pounds in my temples. The first scrape of fear begins to hollow out my gut.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
There were tremors of premonition.
Two days ago, the first time it happened, I figured it was just a finicky faucet, a bum sensor, or something. Besides, it was a sunny day, and we were sipping cans in the outfield bleachers. We were smiling back at the boys, wondering how someone like me could pull something so shapely and starkly feminine as Joy. As we drank, the light, crisp bubbles suggested: this day is reality, and what comes on Monday, that is the delusion. From the sun-drenched bleachers to the sound of the organist performing Saturday in the Park, we positively radiated this air.
As you could imagine, one can turn into two, then turn into a very real urgency to visit the restroom by the end of the fifth inning. The men’s room had a much shorter line, a dozen or so dads, brothers, and boyfriends. They cycled from line to urinal to sink in a steady dance, the only rule of which was to, above all else, maintain the efficiency of the flow. I kept quiet, ducked into a stall, and breathed a sigh at the sight of clean porcelain.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
Seated and naked from the waist down, I thought of Joy. Joy, who is the product of forces only she could catalog and comprehend, an alchemy of nature and nurture, of genetics and the gym. From this central mystique emanated all her powers over me.
In time, it came to me to take a place at the wall of sinks opposite the urinals. The water was controlled by automatic sensors where you stick your hands out in the air and the sink springs forth with a generous stream of water for just long enough to wet both sides of your fingers and palms.
I moved my hands around and waited. And I wiggled my fingers, and I waited some more. I kept moving my hands, thinking to trigger the sensor one way or another, but nothing came out. We hadn’t even gotten to step one. My hands were as dry as the proverbial bone.
Searching out the elusive place where the sensor might be aimed, I abandoned the obvious and embraced the absurd. The very back of the sink, either side of the faucet, above the faucet. And of course, nothing happened except the line of men pissing at the wall behind me became a crowd of men wondering what’s the hold up at the sink. What’s wrong with that guy? And of course, I’m thinking, This damn finicky faucet, this bum sensor.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
Other sinks opened up on either side, and the flow of men began to deflect around me. One was slow and stumbling, a homeless Hemingway with an impossible gut protruding horizontally from an unbuttoned jersey. For a brief moment, there was an opening at the sink to the right, which had just delivered flowing water to several satisfied customers.
I switched over and restarted the routine. Hands under the faucet. Wait. Move them around. Wait until the water flows—but no! No water flows. No water. Nothing at all. And by then, people who weren’t even in the line yet when I was taking care of my business in the stall began congregating in the no-man’s land between the urinals and the sinks, wondering, What is wrong with this guy?
Back at the bleachers, under the sun, Joy held out a half-eaten potato bun stuffed with half of a piece of crispy boneless fried chicken and remnants of pickle and slaw.
Maybe just a bite, I told her, refusing to touch the sandwich with my hands.
Soon we settled back in, and I forgot all about those finicky faucets, those bum sensors. Until the next day and Sunday brunch in the Dogpatch. Joy decided we’d start with six raw oysters, truffle fries, and mimosas. Anticipating doing some eating with my hands, I excused myself to the washroom. The restaurant was tucked into an old building, laid out so you had to walk through the kitchen to reach the single, gender-neutral restroom. There, the fixtures were all shiny and updated, including, yes, a contactless faucet.
I approached without a whiff of uncertainty or hesitation, my previous ordeal well out of memory. Duly presenting my hands, I awaited a crisp, cool shower.
And I awaited.
And I awaited.
My hands started moving in a circle that grew wider and wider until it described the entire circumference of the sink under that damn finicky faucet. My hands moved front to back, side to side. Still nothing.
Perhaps it wasn’t a bum sensor after all, or a finicky faucet. At least I had not turned vampire. Nope, there I was in the mirror, dumb black eyes, blockish face with lips pulled together in pathetic curiosity. Why me?
By the end of the meal, the sparkling wine and juice had created a certain urgency. This, too, I resolved to hold inside. But just then, I lit on an idea.
Are you sure you don’t need to use the restroom before we go? I said. There was only one restroom, only one sink. If Joy sensed anything out of the ordinary, she didn’t show it.
After Joy moved back toward the kitchen, the server brought over a point-of-service device. I tapped my card, and mercifully, the device beeped. Then it asked if I wanted to leave a tip, and three electronic buttons appeared with various suggested amounts. With a faint shake of his head, the server overruled my pleas that he select for himself the amount he believed appropriate.
Really, you were outstanding, I said. I had no confidence whatsoever that I could make those buttons do what they were supposed to do. But the server was firm. As my finger reached out, I tried to divorce myself from the outcome, as Buddha would have. Out of guilt, I touched the button with the most generous amount.
Mercifully, the device beeped.
When Joy emerged from the back of the house, I was still at the table sipping a glass of water to steady my hands. Joy was as demure as ever, that familiar twinkle in her eye. She stood next to the table without sitting. It was almost time for her to get ready for work.
Well, how was it, I asked, and she made a comment about the choice of wallpaper that I didn’t quite understand, though it included terms like “anachronistic” and “inadvertent.” She then offered a general critique of the establishment’s decor. Knowing she could go on and on if allowed and needing an end to the suspense, I had to steer her back to the real topic at hand. So, I blurted: Yes, but did everything come out okay?
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
On the morning that the Big One finally hits, a new smell announces itself on the air. Something familiar and calming, something less distant than childhood memories. The scent comes into sharper focus. Something earthy and nutty. Where Joy’s dog happened to drag me, there’s a coffeeshop that I’d swear was not there last week.
Behind the storefront glass, on a pristine white tile counter, a young barista with a pierced septum tips a stream of steamy hot water from a gooseneck kettle into a dark funnel. Delicate movements of the hands deliver just enough to saturate the grounds, and then a longer, more luxuriant pour. The barista’s eyes are fixed on the kettle and the stream of water, but there’s a twinkle that suggests they know I’m watching the performance.
Chino—Joy’s dog’s name is Chino—steps into the coffee shop with me, and the world outside falls away. The earthy and herbaceous smell becomes everything. There are no other customers, no other employees. The eyes of the barista with the pierced septum pay as little attention to the dog on the far end of the leash as to me at the other. Other than the sound of dripping coffee and Chino’s panting, the room is silent.
When the dripping stops, the barista takes the cup from the saucer with both hands. Just as it looks like the barista is going to take a sip, the cup is flung toward a bus bin on the floor, with the same concentration and precision with which it was filled. The barista stops only to preserve the sediment at the bottom of the cup.
The barista holds the cup close to their face and turns it side to side in a way that reminds me of Por Por and her tea leaves. I clear my throat, but this only elicits an angry grimace from the barista. Still gazing into the cup, the barista points in the direction of a kiosk at the far end of the counter.
My order for a drip coffee goes into the kiosk and comes out from a printer back at the opposite end. As it does, just loud enough to be heard, a speaker begins playing something old, something that sounds like it was born in the fifties and hit puberty hard in the early seventies.
The barista lifts the kettle. The water hits the filter, and the grounds inside turn to quicksand. Next come hot little burps of carbon dioxide, and then the grounds settle back below the high-water mark in the funnel.
The world outside returns in a rush. I see the surface of the coffee grinds rise as if inhaling, but somehow it’s also Fourth Street that’s gently breathing. Inside the funnel, buildings teeter to angles grotesque as their foundations slip on the muck. All around, glass and facades clap down. The grinds exhale steam that hisses from between rocks, chunks of concrete, and submerged conduits of pipe. In the filter, a dirty mix of clay and water runs knee deep down the length of the street as ominous as grinds coming toward you from the bottom of a cup.
When the water runs out into the cup, the grinds come to rest. The gooseneck tips again. The grinds inhale. An aftershock turns the ground back into soupy sludge. The ground belches. Cars are half buried. Urban wreckage floats along the jets of a filthy pond where a parking lot had been.
When the water has all drained out of the filter, the cup beneath it is filled with a black liquid. The barista’s eyes meet mine for the first time, and I recognize those dark eyes. A still, steady hand extends the cup my way. A small wisp of steam rises from it. The barista says something in a deep yet soft voice, and it takes a few moments to register, Feel yourself again.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
On the morning that the Big One finally hits, the sun doesn’t so much rise as the gray cloud sky starts to glow like a red paper lantern. Tendrils of my thought propagate along the milky soup of marine layer substrate. A mile or so out, they reach a ferry gliding north in silence, abetted by an ebbing tide that hastens its progress. As for the pilot and me, though we cannot see each other, all distance collapses, and our thoughts are no secrets. In the skein of slow-moving fog, a veritable web of synapses, indistinguishable from the very folds of my own brain, teems with connection. My skin is no longer the limit of my being, comes the reply to a question not asked.
The ferry and its invisible pilot slide out of view. Another streetcar grinds its tracks south toward the Dogpatch. The driver fails to make any visible notice of me as the train passes by, and yet her soft whisper fills the gaps between my thoughts. What you seek you already are, she says, describing the soul of our wholeness.
Chino is tugging at the far end of the leash. There is no sound of birds chirping, hasn’t been all morning. A streetsweeper creeps up the opposite way. I call myself by your name, says the driver in the same quiet way as the others, without any outward acknowledgment of my existence.
On the morning that the Big One finally hits, we are all of us together, every driver, every baker, every barista, the whole village between the bridges, no matter where we lay our heads.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
My thoughts turn to Joy. To the north, the skyline barely peeks out from the remnant of the morning fog. Fourth Street leads across Market, becomes Grant and the Dragon Gate. The buildings are erect and intact. There are no holes in the streets or parks. It all looks exactly like my memories. Like there was no earthquake.
When the call box buzzes to release the metal gates, it finally dawns on me where I’ve been headed this whole time. I pull open the gate at the door to the building where Joy and I first contemplated living together. The building where Por Por lived and died. It still smells of her soup.
At the entrance to the condo door, I fumble in my pockets but have no keys. Someone answers the ring of the doorbell. It’s Joy. Her face is friendly. She smiles with grace and dignity. Behind her, loud deep barks of giddy excitement erupt from a large black and tan Rottweiler wagging the clipped stump of its tail. The dog pounces on me with kisses. A large gold tag in the shape of a bone hanging around its neck reads “Chino.”
Now at last, Joy is about to fall into my arms. But the floor gives way. Then, for Xiaoxuan “Peyton” Li, lying face down against the dark-stained cobbles of Mission Rock, all is darkness and silence and the smell of heaven.