The Big Freeze

December, 1990

There's an unspoken bargain struck between residents of coastal California and residents of most of the USA: we get the quakes; you get the freeze.

Occasionally there are exceptions.  A recent earthquake on the east coast put cracks in the Washington Monument.  Here in La Honda, we have a few frosty nights every winter.  For the most part, however, the bargain is kept.

And then there was December of 1990.  This was just a year after the big World Series Earthquake, so it seemed we were getting the worst of both sides of the bargain.  The lake at the center of La Honda froze over.  Ducks were wandering around in a state of bewilderment until we emptied bags of grain for them on the ice.

Everybody's pipes were freezing.  Nobody had ever bothered to insulate their exposed water pipes because it had never been necessary.  When a pipe freezes, of course, the water inside the pipe expands.  The pipe bursts. 

Readers of this blog who live in Ohio or Maine — and of course my readers in Canada and Russia — are probably laughing at our naivete, imagining a town of stoned hippies standing around in paisley shorts and sandals, shivering and saying "Wow, man, my pipes are shattered!"  Well, it's not exactly like that here, but La Honda does have that image in the public mind.

Saturday, December 22:

I get so many broken-pipe calls that I disconnect the answering machine.  We need to prepare the house for our annual Christmas party — with 30 guests invited — coming this evening.  We have no water.  I make emergency patches to the water entry, then cut off and cap the exposed pipe along an outside wall that extends to a hose outlet.  Next, while my wife and kids deal with party prep, I repair a pipe for the nuclear physicist who lives down the street and another for an old friend who lives on the other side of town.  I arrive home an hour late for my own party.

Sunday, December 23:

I try not to work on Sundays, but today I repair frozen pipes in a yurt owned by a nice man who happened to inherit a fortune.  His swimming pool has frozen over, though we won't be addressing that damage today.  Meanwhile his 14-year-old daughter is driving his new minivan up and down the driveway, up and down, up and down.  Then I go to the house of a musician, a happy-go-lucky guy who plays keyboards in a popular band.  While I solder patches into his pipes, I chat with his new girlfriend, a woman who has moved from house to house in La Honda wrecking one home after another.  She's a coke-head.  Doesn't he know?  More than his pipes are about to burst.  Then back home, I note that many of our plants are dying.  The water meter across the street from our house has blown up.  It simply exploded.

Monday, December 24:

On Christmas Eve I begin the day by repairing another broken pipe, inside the wall this time, for the nuclear physicist who lives below me.  He'd gone away for the weekend and turned off the heat in his house.  When I present the bill, he gives me a check and a bottle of wine.  Good man. 

Then for 10 hours, well into the frigid evening, I repair pipes for Mordecai at his vacation house in the mountains at the end of 3 miles of dirt road.  The house is both modern and rustic, with a hot tub viewing the ocean and the sunset — a frozen Shangri-La.  Mordecai uses the house as a summer retreat but holds an annual Hanukkah party.  This year it will be on December 26.  There is also a geodesic dome on the property where Kilo, the caretaker, lives.  Mordecai is a psychiatrist, and I suspect that Kilo is one of his clients.  Clearly, Kilo needs to live in isolation at the end of 3 miles of bad road.  In fact, as you might judge from his name, Kilo is only half-present even when he is standing right in front of you.  Anyway, Kilo shows me around.  

A pet peacock follows my every move.  I'm wearing gloves with the fingertips cut off, which seems to fascinate the bird as do my hooded sweatshirt and propane torch.  Each repair leads to a new break — a plumber's nightmare — and I leave Kilo and peacock with no hot water and limited cold water.  I'm feeling somewhat defeated. 

Mordecai arrives as I depart.  He is clearly disappointed at the state of things — and his wife more so, and quite vocal about it — but at the urging of his grown daughter, Mordecai gives me a bottle of wine — a fine one, which is the only kind he would have. 

Back home my kids have stayed up late, so I catch them in time to sing a few Christmas carols, have an egg nog, hang up stockings and help put them to bed.  I haven't even had a chance to clean myself up; spatters of solder cling to my sweatshirt.  The kids all sleep together in one room on Christmas Eve, a tradition in our house, bundled on the carpet with blankets and dogs.  All this emergency plumbing has kept me from finishing the presents I was building — trophy cases — in time for Christmas, but I feel good that I helped some people and made some much-needed money.

Tuesday, December 25: 

Most of our gifts are low-key this year: home-baked goods, baskets of plants, handmade books and drawings, coupons for massages or trips to the beach.  And some partially-built trophy cases, which I will finish today for my award-winning children.  Only my youngest son is disappointed.  He isn't being selfish or greedy, but at age 8 he wants that old magic of Christmas as a seemingly endless unfolding of delights.  Now he is learning that Christmas is finite.  Part of the problem is that we had to cut back on gifts this year because we simply couldn't afford them.  Another part is that Grampa was recently hospitalized and had no time to order presents, though they'll come later.  Otherwise, though, the day is delightful, freezing outside but a warm fire burning within, fresh-baked bread, cookies, and the special pleasure of staying home together making things for each other.

Wednesday, December 26: 

I repair a pipe for Danny, my jeweler neighbor, and then spend another 10 hours at Mordecai's house while they have a party.  A brunch.  His daughter brings me lox, bagel, a cup of tea, and several cookies while I crouch under the floor joists soldering pipe and discovering more problems.  By late evening I've restored most of the hot water.  When I finally get home, the kids are in bed.  They spent most of the day alone so my wife could also go to work.  We really need the money.

Monday, December 31: 

For a few days the temperatures rise above freezing, and I catch up on a number of non-emergency broken pipes for a number of my favorite clients.  Now today, New Year's Eve, it's turned cold again.  I return to the house of a less-than-favorite client, Mordecai, where they still seem to be cleaning up from their party.  While the peacock follows me about, kibitzing, I restore water service to the non-urgent parts of the house.  At one point as I'm taking a break, Mordecai punches out a telephone and then explains to me: his 14-year-old adopted son just got kicked out of school and hopped a train.  Now Mordecai is sending the kid to a 3 week $3400 wilderness survival school.  Tonight the kid will sleep where it’s 30 degrees below, on rocks that were warmed in a fire and buried in a pit.  Mordecai says, "He tests limits.”  Mordecai narrows his eyes and asks me, "How much are you charging me?"

I tell him my standard rate, which he already knows.

"That's unconscionable," he says.

I've never heard that word before, but I can guess what it means.  "I told you my rate before I started."

"Yes, but that's when we both thought it would be a small job.  You've been here for days.  Shouldn't I get a discount?"

For a moment I just stare at Mordecai.  Those days include Christmas Eve, the day after Christmas, and now here I am after dark on New Year's Eve at the end of a dirt road in the mountains that he and I both know wouldn't be visited by most plumbers.  And most plumbers charge more than I do.  "What's your hourly rate?" I ask.

"That has nothing to do with this," Mordecai says.

"I'm sorry but I can't give you a discount," I say.

"I don't have my business checks here.  I'll have to mail it to you."

So he's claiming my work as a business expense to his psychiatry practice.  At current tax rates, he'll only pay half of my bill.  Uncle Sam will pay the rest. 

Talk about unconscionable.

I make it home in time to spend New Year's Eve with my youngest son.  The two older kids, ages 14 and 12, are with friends where they are safe.  My wife, my youngest and I watch the movie Lassie Come Home, which proves to be too intense for the boy.  Plenty of 8-year-olds could watch the slaughter of armies without a moment of fear.  Not my son, who can't handle seeing a dog in jeopardy.  We "guess" the ending for him and let him sit on our laps.  A sensitive kid, like the other two.  We've sheltered them from a cold and crazy world.  And I would have it no other way. 






(Peacock photo and Lassie poster from Wikipedia.)

Bag Lady of the Suburbs

December, 1987

I'm working on a man's shower.  I go out to my truck for a tool and find a crazy lady peering over the tailgate into the bed.  My first thought is that she's looking to steal something but all I say is: "Hello.  You need something?"

She jerks back and says, "I live in the house next door up the hill."  She's old.  She has red scars on her arms like they'd been shot full of holes.  "This is my dog."

A scruffy mutt is dropping a pine cone at my feet.  He looks up at me expectantly, wagging his tail. 

The lady, too, looks at me expectantly.  "He wants you to throw it for him," she says.

So I do.  Again and again.  While I'm playing throw-and-fetch with the dog, she says, "I could use a handyman to fix a drain plunger.  And a screw came out of the vacuum cleaner.  The furnace doesn't make any heat.  The dishwasher caught on fire and I had to pull the plug.  I could make a whole list of things."

"Uh huh," I say.  From inside the house I see the homeowner glaring at us.  I'm charging by the hour to fix his shower, so I'll have to adjust for the time spent out here.

The woman is speaking: "I’ve been reading the instruction manual about how to drive my car.  I haven’t driven it in four years but I have to go to the dentist tomorrow because my tooth fell out.”  She sticks a finger in her mouth and makes her cheek bulge where the molar is missing.  “Did you think it only happens to children?  Happy Hanukkah, huh?  I like your shirt.  Now that I’ve sold the property across the street finally I’ve got the money to fix things up.  I only need you for an hour.”

I say, "What you've got sounds like it will take many hours.  Several days."

Suddenly she’s angry.  She draws herself up straight and says, “Listen, buster, it will take less than an hour because I say so.  I’m the boss.  Get it?” 

Back inside the house, the man says, "I see you met Nelda.  You wouldn't know it, but she could probably buy half of San Jose.  She owns six houses on this road.  For God's sake, don't work for her."

"I can't work for her.  She already fired me."

"Lucky you."

Back home when I'm unloading the truck, I realize I'm missing a toilet auger.  It had been sitting in the bed.

After a flash of anger, I feel sad for Nelda.  Is she really going to ream her own toilets?  She's a lonely lady with an old dog.  If she were poor, I'd help her for free; but she's loaded and she stole my tool — a rusty, smelly, ten dollar tool.  She's a bag lady without the bag, with property.  How do you help somebody like that?

Pocketful of Sawdust

December, 1982

Carpenter Sunrise

Outside the window
branches drip
gray fog.
He faces a long day
heaving heavy boards,
testing his brittle back,
glasses wet
with sweat,
porcupine fingers
bristling splinters.
   Carpenter, carpenter, what do you say?
      Cut wood all day,
      bring home the pay:
   a pocketful of sawdust.
With strange joy
he can't wait
to begin.

Maybe this is a Christmas story.  Back in 1982, the Reagan Recession, construction scarce, supporting three kids including an infant while trying to complete — and heat — the house in which we lived, desperate for money I took a carpentry/cabinet job beyond my experience level.  For a week before it began I slept badly, imagining all the ways I could screw it up. 

 
The frigid evening before I was to begin, I loaded my radial arm saw plus 10 sheets of birch plywood and 12 sheets of Wilsonart laminate, and I drove to a house on the Stanford campus where I was to work.  The man had a Nobel Prize and an intimidating bearing.  He had been, in fact, an advisor to Ronald Reagan — on economics, no less.

I'd brought my son Jesse, who was all of six years old but wanted to help.  In the truck, after "If We Make It Through December," I let Jesse select the music.  At the time his favorite song was "A Country Boy Can Survive."  He loved the line:

I've got a shotgun rifle and a four wheel drive,
a country boy can survive. 

Jesse knew I had a .22 rifle and a two wheel drive.  Close enough.  If we were starving, I could shoot a squirrel.  (I never did.)  (Later, all my children became vegetarians, at least for a while.) 

Jesse was small but a willing worker.  We dragged the saw from the bed of the truck and set it on the driveway.  The Nobel prizewinner came out in his bathrobe and said, "Can I help?"  Next out the door came his daughter, a chubby cheerful college student wearing bunny slippers.  Together we lifted the heavy saw and awkwardly shuffled it into the heat of the garage.  Something wonderful was happening.  Carrying plywood, each of us taking a corner, leaning sheets against the wall of the garage, we were humans working together. 

Right then, I knew it all would end well.  And I'd get paid before the holidays.

At a hardware store, cashless, with my credit card I bought a dado blade and a laminate-trimming router bit.  Up to now I'd never cut a dado, never installed laminate.  I was scared, but I was ready.

Driving home, wipers slapping, again I let Jesse select the music.  He went for "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."  Warm air blew from the vents.  A wind was rising, shaking the trees as we headed to our half-built house in the mountains.

The next morning after sound sleep I woke joyful — tingly with anticipation — on a foggy, drippy day.  At the Nobel laureate's house I worked 12 hours, the first of many such work days before a Christmas deadline.  I cut my first dado and cautiously with contact cement laid the first sheet of laminate, trimmed with the router.  Success.  The laureate's son, home for the holidays from the University of Chicago, sneaked out to the garage to smoke marijuana while I worked. 

A black limousine pulled into the driveway so a courier could deliver an envelope from the President.  The economist read the one sheet of paper and disdainfully flipped it onto a rosewood table where, later, I read it: a condescending, badly reasoned letter written by some Treasury Department underling.  Apparently the laureate had dared to publicly disagree with the President about how to push the economic levers of the planet.

At the end of the day, he wrote me a check, first payment.  Tomorrow I could cash it.

On the way home, stopping at the La Honda grocery, in search of my last coin I reached into my pocket and pulled out a shower of sawdust. 

Flossing the Deck

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Today's job is cleaning out the cracks between the boards of my deck.  Since I have about a thousand square feet of decking with a dozen giant redwood trees dropping duff all over, flossing is a big task.  For 30 years I've done it on my knees with a screwdriver or a putty knife or by running my power saw with an old blade.

This year, I googled "flossing the deck" and found this wonderful tool.  

Deckhand tool

I called up the guy who invented it, placed an order (he'll talk your ear off), and I'm pleased to report that the Deckhand tool is worth every penny of the $35 I paid for it ($25 plus shipping).  It works fast and handles well.  It saves your knees.  What used to be a multi-day job I can now do in a few hours.  Fantastic!

Flossing the deck

And hey — Santa!  If you're stumped for a holiday gift for the somebody-who-has-everything, I bet your somebody doesn't have a deck flossing tool. 

(I paid for the tool.  I get nothing for endorsing it here.)

Murder of a Client

Friday, September 23, 1988

Isabella my favorite decorator calls and says, "I've got a strange one for you.  He's an alcoholic.  He's wealthy but you never know when he'll drive off a cliff.  Get your money before you leave.  Are you game?"

It's a new-looking community behind a security gate in Cupertino.  The units are conventional, what you get when you build tract houses with a dose of quality.  Large garages, no trees.  Sterile.

Bob is an old man.  He smokes, shuffles around, and mumbles "God damn it" a lot.  He's white.  His girlfriend Lisa is fresh, young — looks about half his age.  She's black.  She says she's studying for the Law Boards.  On the wall she's framed her undergraduate degree: Princeton, 1979.

Lisa Hopewell, Princeton Class of 1979

Lisa lives here with her two kittens — and Bob.

The white kitten, Lisa tells me, has just been declawed so he mustn't leave the house.  Without claws, he's defenseless. 

"And the other?" I ask, indicating the black kitten.

"That little pussy has claws," Lisa says.  "She can take care of herself."

Okay, this is weird.  And none of my business. 

I remove a valence and install one of those multi-globe lights over the bathroom sink.  I'm good at this.  I work fast.  Unfortunately, the faster I work, the less I can charge for labor — just the minimum service call.  I use these small jobs as loss leaders because they often lead to bigger jobs later on.

Every time I go out to my truck for a tool or supplies, the black kitten climbs in.  Mewing, purring, curling up and beseeching me with kitten eyes, she's either very friendly or desperate to escape.

When I finish, Bob is gone.  Lisa inspects the work and says, "Hey.  You're good."

"Good" in this case means you can't tell I've ever been there.  She writes a check and follows me out to the truck.  I roll down the window, hand her the black kitten who has nestled into a cup holder, and I drive straight to the bank as Isabella instructed.

At the bank, they tell me the checking account has closed.

I call Lisa.  She apologizes profusely.  I return.  She pays me cash.  She seems like a spacehead.  Maybe she's stoned.  Anyway, an hour wasted.

Tuesday, October 4, 1988

Isabella sends me back for more work behind the security gate in Cupertino.  Another woman is working there, hanging wallpaper.  I'm installing wall sconces and an overhead track light.

While we're working, Bob and Lisa get into a shouting battle.  After cussing each other out, Bob yells, "You're a junkie!"

Lisa says, “That’s right.  I’m addicted to your love.  If you don’t quit, you’re going to die of cirrhosis of the liver.”

Bob: “I don’t drink that much.” 

Lisa: “You’re an alcoholic!  You quit AA, you quit every treatment program...” 

“Junkie.” 

“I haven’t had a joint in so long...”

The wallpaper lady finishes up quickly and somewhat sloppily.  Outside she tells me, "I'll never go back there.  Ever!"

I should probably feel the same.  These people are out of control.  But when I finish, as Lisa watches Bob writing me a check, a calculating look comes over her face.  "Could you replace these downlights?" she asks, indicating the living room ceiling.  "Is that all right with you, Bob?"

"God damn it," Bob says.

Apparently that means yes.  Lisa and I make arrangements for me to come back.  I give an outrageously high estimate — I'm not interested unless the money's good.  She accepts.

I don't know what Lisa's game is with the lights.  The robotic tone of her voice as she told Bob "I'm addicted to your love" sounded as if she were reading a line — badly.

Tuesday, October 18, 1988

Lisa is home when I arrive; Bob is out.  Good.  It's easier to work when they're apart. 

Everything goes well, working fast, but the blankety-blank electric supplier short-counted me and I have to drive to San Jose and back to pick up another can for the downlights, wasting an hour on a hot afternoon.  When I return, unfortunately, Bob is there.  He and Lisa commence fighting.   

She taunts him: "In eight days you're going to jail.  You got a string of DUI's.  They caught you driving with a suspended license.  You ready for jail?  They're gonna fuck your butt."

Bob throws a bowl of soup at her.  He’s shaky. 

In the kitchen is a placard: 

It is better to have loved and lost. 
Much better. 

I get paid and immediately drive to the bank and cash the check.  I never want to see them again.  Good money doesn't justify shit karma. 

January 10, 1991

Isabella calls and says, "Remember Lisa Hopewell?  She was murdered.  Isn't that awful?"

Immediately I ask, "Was it Bob?"

Apparently it wasn't.  At least he was never mentioned as a suspect, though Lisa was described as a "caretaker" of his "upscale condo" in Cupertino, and she was killed in that condo, and the killing had sexual overtones.  (The condo is not the same place as the house where I worked for them two years before.)

It's a gruesome story.  Lisa's hands had been tied behind her back.  Her face was bound with duct tape.  She died of suffocation and from knife slashes to her throat and vaginal area.

And then the wrong man was convicted of the crime.

Fingerprints on the duct tape led police to Rahsson Bowers, a drug dealer.  Bowers originally blamed "two white guys" for the murder, then changed his story when detectives suggested the name of Rick Walker, a former boyfriend of Lisa Hopewell.

On the stand, Bowers claimed that after smoking crack cocaine, Walker had forced him to wrap Lisa's face with duct tape.  Bowers described Lisa repeatedly gulping as she died. 

Bowers cried on the witness stand.  The jury was visibly moved.  One juror had to ask for a tissue.

Rasshon Bowers was found guilty of second degree murder.  Rick Walker was convicted of first degree murder.  

Bowers had lied.  He'd made a secret plea deal with John Schon, the Santa Clara County prosecutor.  Another witness, an ex-girlfriend of Rick Walker, also gave false testimony against Walker (after being coached by Schon) in secret exchange for lenient treatment of a drug charge.

In June 2003, after 12 years of hard time in San Quentin and Pelican Bay, Rick Walker was freed on the basis of DNA evidence, the result of dogged work by attorney Alison Tucher, the only hero in this sordid tale. 

From every house, there runs a sewer.

(Information about Lisa's murder comes from SFGate.com, from the San Jose Mercury News, and from the Princeton Alumni Weekly.)