There wasn’t much to say. He had come back into the house. Quiet. Dropping his car keys on the counter, he picked them up again… as if his hands knew something that the rest of him didn’t. The television billowed information into the living room and he caught a reporters voice… “Malibu is being evacuated. People are being told to grab what they can and run.” He looked at her worried face. They were old. They’d been here for a long time. Everything. Everyday. It was the only thing they knew. A constant in an inconsistent world. Politics and social norms change and spin wildly out of control… but not Malibu. Not here. Never. A peaceful spot of reality. He motioned for her to grab her things. Stepping out onto the deck he watched black clouds of burnt embers growling and boiling over a nearby hillside. Helicopters churned from one side of the horizon to the next. He saw a strip of the Pacific Coast Highway through a stand of green palm trees. Chrome and glass winked in the afternoon light as cars and trucks squirmed like an angry metal snake along the coast. He could almost feel the tension rising up with the smoke. End of the line…
Night fell quickly as they put things into the car and prepared to leave. Everything stank of fire and smoke. He started the car and turned on the air conditioner. She sat inside and stared at the floor. Boxes of photo albums and keepsakes were stuffed in the back and boxes of clothing took up every other space available. A photo was wedged in the back. Them. A honeymoon. Switzerland. 1949. They were young and fresh-faced. If one looked closely, they would see the tight edge to his eyes that still held traces from the horrors of World War 2. At night he’d sweat and think of the camps… Mind-bending horror. They had liberated Nazi camps in Poland. It was always the same dream. He saw the skeletal people climbing out of the mud. Lank hair. No eyes. No teeth. Tattered striped rags hanging off their frames. They’d open their mouths and shriek… the bulldozers would push the bodies into giant holes in the ground. Gasoline fumes. Black smoke… soulless. He’d sit up in the dark night and weep. He told her that he’d find one spot of peace and stay there forever. Malibu was that place. He slipped into the car after a quick look around. “We gotta run…”
Malibu Image: McNew
Once the fire burned to the beach and had no where left to go… firefighters isolated the rest of it and containment was complete. Loss was massive. The black hills rose and fell from the beaches all the way through the gulches, valleys and up to the 101 freeway. Burnt cars sat on metal frames… gutted. People wandered among the rubble hopeful and picking through the smokey remnants of a former life. Most found nothing left. A neighbor was lucky here and there. Fire burned erratically. An inferno at one home would completely consume all in its path…only to move down the driveway, skip the road and leave a neighboring home virtually unscathed.
Two weeks after the fire, skateboarders moved through a Malibu yard. This homeowner asked for help in cleaning up the burnt brush from the trees and hillsides that had caught fire. He had stayed on his property when all others had “run”. He told his girlfriend that day, “Fuck that! I’ll go down with the fucking place…” They ran garden hoses and started soaking the property down. Smoke poured in. Some time on his third day awake, a firestorm descended on him. She screamed his name. He ran to the front gate. A van sat there with a few rough looking guys standing by the front gate. They asked him if he’d seen their dog. They were sizing him up. “You aren’t looking for a dog… Get in your van and go. This won’t be worth the trouble.” He picked up a shotgun he had sitting on a metal box by the gate… He had put it there earlier as a precaution. At the time, he had looked at her grimly, “Looters come baby… they do.” He locked a shell into the twelve gauge and the men left quickly. His hands were shaking. He had saved his house but the yard and trees were toast. The skateboarders spent days cleaning. The swimming pool was filled with black water, smoke and ash. The real prize. They looked it over and smiled to each other. It was going to be amazing.
Rick Stine
Ozzie
Lance Mountain
Howie
Angelo
Thank you to the crew. Thank you Angelo. Thank you to MRZ for the images and thank you to the firefighters… Skate- Ozzie
