This Wheel’s On Fire
And it won’t stop rolling!
WORDS BY Christopher Buchanan
IMAGES BY Johnathan Arellano, Max Van Hosen, Christopher Buchanan & Dalton Feldhut
As a general practice, I keep an excruciatingly long and needlessly disordered list of clever phrases and prose in a note on my phone. I’ve made a monkey’s attempt at distinguishing my own work from my favorite authors’ in the note – I don’t even bother dating the entries — but I think it’s better that way, anyway… Maybe if I can convince myself that the words I revere were symptoms of my thinking rather than that of Joan Didion or Ernest Hemingway or Jack Kerouac, I’ll inadvertently catch a case of whatever genius they had... But that’s neither here nor there. I bring this irrelevant fact to light so as to share what I wrote in that note concerning some rancid clouds I saw on Monday morning, when some of the most angelic parts of Los Angeles went straight to Hell and stayed there for more than half the length of Christ’s Temptation. The paragraph remains unperturbed and as-was on the late morning of Jan. 7.
“Peering over the hills were white, cotton ball clouds that looked slightly worn, as if a woman of ivory brown complexion used (them) to wipe a night of makeup off her face. Probably just a mutated form of alien smog, if I had to guess. Could have been a fire for all I knew, but from where I stood I could tell it was far behind my apartment, so no harm done.”
That was a damned good instinct — I can’t say I’m not proud, typos and all… Especially because I didn’t have breakfast that morning. I’ll concede that the guess wasn’t entirely exceptional, given everyone else was already in the know about the disasters by the time my neck finally stiffened up from its early-morning crane. By God’s fantastic grace, my gut made up for my mind’s lost ground; No debt owed to the house, as far as I was concerned. Either way, the “harm” had already settled into the verdant breasts of Los Angeles on that pinching cold Tuesday afternoon, and that became a more present matter than my gut feelings.
What I saw was obviously not a remnant of The Woman in the Sky, but the Palisades Fire, ravaging the first few hundred acres of the 23,400 it would ultimately consume by late January. Not only that, but a menacing three-headed Cerberus composed of the Palisades Fire, the Eaton Fire and the Santa Ana winds were on the north perimeter forming a wall of smoke so thick that it looked like stone and closing in miles at a time. Between the two fires, nearly 38,000 acres were burned; add on to that the Hughes fire, which started Jan. 22 in the mountains north of Santa Clarita, and the total rises to 48,000 acres. 16,000 homes were destroyed. At least 29 lives were lost. “The Most Expensive Disaster in History,” they’re calling it.
Westwood was just a hop and a skip away from the Palisades Fire, which held the college town by the neck and dared it threateningly to move even an inch during the first week of the burns. Admittedly, I had my concerns… There were a few times I thought of packing a bag or taking my prized posters off the wall in case of necessary retreat… One night — I believe this was the Friday after the fires started, but I can’t be sure because I don’t keep dates — the moon was still out in full sail while the sky held on tight to its blue color… It stood in brave opposition to the drowsy orange sun. Moons like these have always reminded me of Doomsday on a count of my high-exposure childhood encounters with religious apocalypse freaks. I spent a good thirty percent of my adolescent years with my hair gray, stressing about the End. YouTube conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and other underground government ongoings haunted my every waking thought… I even stopped watching certain television shows out of fear that God might strike me down in his infinite, vengeful wrath for laughing too hard at, say, Family Guy. I decided I’d do the same thing to Dalton now and showed him videos of What Happened in the Book of Revelations until he was talking like a televangelist and spreading the word all throughout our ranks. “The fires are getting crazy. It’s the end times. I’m still thinking about Revelations… Are we supposed to accept the mark?” He asked. I myself had to ask him to stop, but the visions had already taken hold… I redeveloped the Fear along with him. I started to think the Devil might actually come out of that smoke to put an end to us Sinners once and for all.
My usually lax work schedule was kicked into high gear during the fires: put all therapy and recovery on hold, the victims needed broadcast cameras and microphones in their faces, Stat! No matter; I needed my $17.50 an hour regardless. In one interview, I spoke to a woman named Michelle working at the Dream Center, an Echo Park resource center for the homeless and other afflicted members of the community. She resembled Julia Roberts, but only after the inciting incident of Eat, Pray, Love. I talked to a lot of crying folk during these fires, but Michelle was a very special kind of tear-shedder: she helped at the Dream Center year-round and spoke about the people that she helped like they meant as much as the victims in that moment. She herself had even been a Pasadena resident up until a few years ago with her kids, whose school friends were displaced overnight. At least ten had lost their homes, she said, but added that she had not seen any familiar friends come through the center, a fact that noticeably worried her. Our interview only had about two usable quotes, at least for that piece, because sweet ol’ Michelle went endlessly on about all the coming and going sad sufferers she saw every day.
“I love seeing everyone out here,” tears shot down her face as she stumbled over her words, her eyes darted around at the hundreds of other volunteers in their stereotypical wear: large tucked t-shirts, medical masks and sunglasses. “I love seeing people just want to help and I'm seeing it all over the place.”
There was an infinite line of plain cars going far down the long asphalt hill, running away from the Downtown skyline and straight into the gated Dream Center. Enough donations were made to take great care of a whole neighborhood and then some; toilet paper and water bottles were made into skyscrapers akin to the ones right around the corner, and were perhaps even more grandiose and ambitious. Michelle had done well. Her tears were proud ones.
I also went to film a broadcast at a high school where we’d be hearing from a Pasadena all-girls softball league who lived well within the conquered territory of the Eaton Fires. They were deep behind the new enemy lines and had not come out unscathed… Some had lost their homes… Others had barely escaped with their lives… All seemed quite detached when they arrived. When the young ladies all got together in their assorted softball jerseys and shirts for the first time since the fires, they smiled and laughed and joked like it was another day on the diamond. They were the first of the affected that I saw that could crack and joke and keep on going. You couldn’t find more grit in any military order.
My entire job was to monitor a camera on a pike ten feet above where they’d all be interviewed. I was a glorified tripod. Once everyone settled in, the group of girls took turns talking about their shared loss of community. The tears were contagious; one would tell a story about their grief and the others would sound off a symphony of soft weeping. It’s funny… Whenever you’re interviewing someone as a newsman, their tone and demeanor change completely. Some feign professionality, others overdo the dramatics in hot pursuit of 5PM infamy… But these young women were talking like, well, normal young women. They were regular Winston Churchill’s; requests for aid and demands for safety ang throughout the broadcast crew like an ancient gong. The most unruly, pervasive fire was right there in front of me, burning ferociously in the hearts of our young sisters.
I don’t remember a ton of what they said verbatim, but I can reliably report one parroted quote: “We’re gonna get through this together.”
Well… Where to go from here? Usually, these pieces fade into pointless soliloquy on the unpredictability of things. What can I say? I’m enamored by the mystery of life, and sometimes I refuse to pull the dark hair from in front of its face; I’m content seeing just one of its eyes. This time, I think I have a better idea of where we might go from here. Let us contemplate history for a moment:
On a cold, early 1906 morning, the great ending bay of America, San Francisco, was struck by a furious 7.9 magnitude earthquake; the most ravenous, predatory earthquake it has ever seen. A fire then broke out that, combined with the earthquake, destroyed over 80 percent of the city. More than 150,000 were left homeless. An estimated 3,000 were killed. The fire got so mean that the use of dynamite was authorized as a countermeasure. You can guess how ugly that was.
The conditions in the city afterward were unfathomably poor. Immediate relief was out of the question… There was nowhere to even go for help, according to some of the accounts I’ve read. Jack London, a London journalist and a forefather of the American magazine industry, had this to say of the scene:
“Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories and a fringe of dwelling-houses on its outskirts. Its industrial section is wiped out. Its business section is wiped out. Its social and residential section is wiped out. The factories and warehouses, the great stores and newspaper buildings, the hotels and the palaces of the nabobs, are all gone. Remains only the fringe of dwelling houses on the outskirts of what was once San Francisco.”
The city had to be rebuilt completely from the ground-up. Architects from around the country came to reinforce the new town with steel and sturdier beams than ever before. Practicality trumped aesthetics and much of the architecture moving forward was plain, for pure industrial function. Some simply migrated in whatever direction best fit their harsh circumstance, others remained in the ashes.
But who remembers that San Francisco?
I think of Haight and Ashbury. I think of the expansive hills in Chinatown. I think of the wild Castro. I think of Beat Poetry. I think of the painted ladies and two other sisters, the Twin Peaks. I think of Jefferson Airplane. I think of the Black Panthers. I think of BART, bay windows, Dolores Park, the Mission District, Golden Gate Park and for some reason the Embarcadero Station. Rarely does the devastation of 1906 come to mind.
I think it will be that way for the parts of Los Angeles we have lost. Granted, there are some nasty flaws with how they handled each of these disasters: Black residents were disproportionately affected by the Eaton fires because of poor access to water and Chinese residents were segregated to an area with less access to care during the Great SF Earthquake, but what’s new? Both generations of burn victims were able to hold hands and sing kumbaya while trying to make the place spiffy again. The land will be sown and soon will resurrect.
We shouldn't be too pessimistic. Los Angeles is very used to fires, anyway… And I don’t mean the matter-of-fact, elemental kind. Let me once again consult my mess of a note to show you what I mean:
“Taco Bell guy with messy dreads and a jacket that said “Sell out.” He started talking like we were already in the middle of a conversation, or maybe I just missed the beginning. He told us he was obligated to wear the jacket because of a promotion effort for his “Gold Group,” collective. He talked about how Robb Banks is an alleged sex pest and cosplays a character from Berserk to harm Beyonce. Said he’d be going to New York later this year to do ONTHERADAR, told us to meet him there.”
“7-11 employee woman who takes care of pigeons and other birds. Never crows, though. It’s legally dubious, she says. Asked her if that’s her passion, and she lit up like a bulb (very pale as well, Amy Winehouse look). ‘It’s so sad what happens to them, do you know what people do to them?’ I hope nothing too bad, for her sake.”
“Religious freak shouting about being a former crip and his whacked-out love for God… ‘Don’t play with me… Play with yourself.’ Questionable messaging.”
“In Downtown Los Angeles, near the Lost (typo, Last*) Bookstore. A brown man with an Irish cap yelled at passersby with his trumpet, screaming his brass orders at them with bulging eyes and exhausted cheeks. ‘Give me a morsel of what my thousands of hours of dedication and praise to this instrument (and yes, praise is the appropriate word for the playing this man exhibited on that Friday street corner) deserves! I’m making it sing for you!’ But nobody listened to that tired old plea. Who even carried change anymore?”
These little, uncontrollable fires are littered all throughout the great western cowboy expanse of Los Angeles. It has yet to burn down… I don’t think these new ones ever had much of a chance.
This wheel’s on fire, rolling down the road.