Earl Falling Into a Chasm Formed by the Great Earthquake Ron AI

The Bay Area was in total disarray after the largest earthquake in recorded history, the Big One. Ross not only had had to go out and try to save people with his crews, but he had had to attend to his own family. For the first couple of days, there was no way he could drive up to where I was because of landslides, huge cracks in the roads, and other damage.

Ross told me that he feared I’d be dead because he didn’t get a call from me. When he finally did get to the house where I’d fallen and discovered a huge crevice behind it, he had to drive back down to our headquarters and get a Jeep with a winch on it and enough cable to go far down into the crevice. And he didn’t know how far.

While I thought it was three days before I heard the bullhorn, Ross told me it was the seventh day after the earthquake when he found me. Most people don’t survive without water after four days. I must have been unconscious part of the time, and my lack of movement conserved what water my body retained.

I was given an IV drip and lots of fluids. Within a day or two, I had regained my strength, my back muscles had healed, and I was ready to go out and continue to rescue people and shore up buildings free of charge. I made a lot of friends during that period. My small house had survived the earthquake well but so many others hadn’t.

That dream of my father kept haunting me. I had to find out. When things became more stable again, I went online and did a search for Charles S. Hamilton.

To my surprise, I found one living in Ensenada, Baja, California who was the right age. I was shocked! But my mother was gone, and I couldn’t ask her. My sisters, now working feverishly to recover and nurse those crushed in the earthquake, only knew what I knew. I had to find out!

# # # 

For several months, there was much work to do, however; and my firm was busy checking existing buildings for their stability and instructing contractors either how to restore them to safety or, in the worst case, demolish them.

As I worked every day, the thought of my father kept bothering me until it became an obsession as strong as fixing cracks had been. That no longer seemed to interfere with my thoughts. It was just regular, rather boring, work.

I didn’t tell my sisters, and I didn’t tell the man who might be my father when I finally hired a pilot and plane to Ensenada. if I’d had to. I was becoming so obsessed with getting there and surprising him, hoping beyond hope that this Charles Hamilton was he, and that it wasn’t a wild goose chase. 

It was a clear blue day that morning, and the flight went well. About four hours later, around noon, we landed on a small airstrip with a clear view of the Pacific to the right. I asked the pilot to wait for me a few hours in case I was going to fly back, and I paid him.

I rented a car and drove to the location the Internet had given me as the address for Charles S. Hamilton. My anticipation grew as I came closer to where the GPS told me he lived. I made the pleasant ocean-side drive to a beautiful tile-roofed, sprawling hacienda on the beach with palm trees and fruit trees, making it nearly priceless.

I knocked on the front door and got no answer, so I walked around the house and saw an elderly man working in the garden. He wore a big straw hat and resembled what I remembered of my father. I called out to him.

“Charlie! Charlie Hamilton!”

He turned and squinted at me. “Yes, what do you want, stranger?”

“Are you the Charles Hamilton that hails from Salinas Valley?”

“Yes, and how do you know that sonny? Are you here to serve me or something?” He took off his work gloves and started walking toward me, a look of concern on his face.

“I believe I’m your son, Charlie. I thought you were dead!”

“Well, I’ll be! How you have grown! I thought I would never see you again.” He quickened his steps, and when he reached me, he threw his arms around me in a hug.

Emotion overcame me, too, and I started to cry for no damn reason at all. We cried together for a moment. Then he said, “Come on, let’s go in the house out of this sun. I’ve got some fresh squeezed lemonade in the fridge, and we can talk. I want to tell you everything.”

When we arrived in the house, he brought two ice-cold glasses of lemonade to the counter of his beautiful, high-ceilinged front room. We sat on stools, and he began to tell me a story I didn’t know.

“I was in Vegas making some small wins with the horses and playing poker, when I made a bet on a long shot for the Kentucky Derby. And the nag won! I cleared over $1.2 million on that one bet.

“I called your mom and told her after I had a few to drink in my exuberance. When she answered, I’d woken her up in the middle of the night, she lashed out. She lamented, ‘Oh, Charlie, you’re drunk! Calling me long-distance again with some pipedream of yours that isn’t true ! When will you ever learn? I want you out of my life for good! I’ve already told the kids you’re dead. And good riddance.’ Then, she hung up. Wouldn’t answer the phone again . . .”  He shook his head.

“You just let her tell us a lie that you knew was wrong?” I was both concerned and curious why.

“I decided to just let things be. I knew you’d be better off without me. I knew it would make you stronger. I was a real mess, and I knew it. I invested some of the money to go to a local rehab center for celebrities. It cost a lot, but it straightened me out.

“When I realized I had some outstanding warrants for a felony or two in Salinas County, I knew I couldn’t stay in the country with all that money, or I’d go to prison. Where I'd be a target and still must pay a large fine. That’s why I never went back to your mother and you. I knew the law there was looking for me if I showed up.

“I met an outstanding money manager rehabbing with me, and he advised me to buy houses because the housing market was currently in a downturn in Vegas, and there were many foreclosures at bargain prices. I hired him to buy four homes at auction and had him renovate and rent them out for me. In addition, he found this place, and I bought it sight unseen.”

Dad waved his hand in the air. “As you can see, it’s been a real nice place for my early retirement. I haven’t had a drink since. That guy’s company sends me a check every month that’s way more than I need. I’ve got some buddies here that I hang out with, and we go fishing sometimes, and golfing. It’s a great life . . .  How’s your mom?”

“She died two years ago. I tried to get her to leave that shack, but she refused to leave that place and her life cleaning other people’s homes. I bought her a propane heater and put wood siding and a new roof on it. I dressed it up a bit for her, but she developed some lung problems and, eventually, emphysema, even though she never smoked, unlike you. It was those cleaning agents she inhaled, the doctors told me.”

“That’s too bad. I often thought about her but was afraid to even call. How are the girls and Gregory doing?”

“Greg was following in my footsteps, even took over my paper route when I left for college, but someone slipped a drug into his drink at a party and that put him on a course like yours. He overdosed when he was 21.”

Charlie was clearly shaken by what I’d just said and started to cry, wiping the tears from under his eyes with his hand. “And the girls?” he asked again with a worried look.

“Holly is a practical nurse, and Ginger’s a registered nurse. Both aren’t married yet, but they live together and work in the Bay Area where I see them often. Right now, they’re doing heroic work treating people who’ve been injured in the earthquake.”

“That’s good to hear.” He looked greatly relieved. “I felt that earthquake here. Must’ve really been bad from the news. Did it affect you?”

“It sure did. I was inspecting a house in the hills on the Peninsula, right on the San Andreas Fault. The ground opened, and I fell into a crevice.

 “I was trapped there seven days without food or water, they tell me. One of my employees knew where I was but couldn't get there. Finally, he was able to make it and rescued me. That’s where you came to me.”

“I came to you?”

“I was delirious, and you came to me in a dream. Told me that you were alive. I searched for you on the Internet and found you. It’s why I’m here. And I’m so glad I did.”

Tears came once again to my father’s eyes. Charlie stood up and came over to hug me again. 

I stayed for another day. Then I had to return to help the Bay Area recover.

It took over five years. I worked nearly 24 hours a day sometimes to restore living like it had been before the “Quake of the Century”—maybe the millennium—occurred and had to be dealt with.

I paid for Holly and Ginger to fly down and see their father. It became an annual ritual for us to get together at Christmas and Cinco de Mayo in Ensenada. 

I was no longer obsessed with cracks after falling in one changed my life. I found after a few years my work was not as fulfilling as it once had been.

I sold the business to Ross Jenkins and retired down here to take care of my father in his old age. I’ve even found a beautiful señorita, Carmen Rios, as my companion. We were married last year and have a baby on the way.

Copyright 2023 © Ronald W. Hull

7/19/23