Goodbye to Paradise

The thing about an earthquake is the uncertainty. It’s existential. What could be more solid than solid ground?

That isn’t what I was thinking at 6:30 a.m. as the walls chattered and shook. I was wondering whether to drop everything and run, or keep brushing my teeth.

A few minutes later, Carol and I were downstairs in the parking lot, milling around with other guests of the Copamarina Beach Resort outside Guánica, Puerto Rico. Some were less than fully dressed. Others were lugging suitcases to cars. Some were already behind the wheel, getting the hell out.

Not us, not yet. We gravitated to the restaurant to meet our resort friends. Richard and Valerie, to compare notes, strategize, get a bite to eat maybe.

The restaurant was waayyy behind schedule.

Breakfast was supposed to be out at 7, but here it was 7:30 and coffee and juice was all there was. I grabbed some and found the table closest to open air. If another shock hit, I figured, we could jump to the grass before the ceiling fell on our heads.

Richard and Valerie arrived bearing Frosted Flakes and milk, so I went back and discovered bagels and cream cheese. Eventually there was French toast and bacon too. It was all self-service though. The staff was busy just bringing stuff out.

I had my epiphany as we chatted. It’s that solid-ground thing. An earthquake says to you: So you think it’s solid? Is that what you think, my friend?

* * *

The earthquake we experienced registered 5.8 on the Richter scale. That was big enough to get us on a JetBlue flight from San Juan International to Washington Reagan National 12 hours later, but not enough to plunge a third of the island into darkness and leave 10% of the population without safe drinking water. No, that would be the 6.4-Richter earthquake that struck in the night as we snoozed

in our Maryland beds.

An earthquake-damaged home in Guánica PR. Note presence of cars beneath porch. Courtesy AP.

Richard and Valerie opted to stay. Then the 6.4 hit and the resort was evacuated. Everyone was transported the 2½ hours back to San Juan on the north side of the island. Richard and Valerie must have made it home by now, but they were stuck in a generator-powered San Juan hotel for 2-3 days before they got a flight out. They say we were smart to leave when we did. Smart? Lucky, more like.

* * *

The Copamarina, our little slice of paradise, is located outside of Guánica near the southwest corner of the island. Palm trees wave in the breeze, the water is glassy smooth, and the sun sets on the far side of the cove in a spectacular nightly show. While San Juan is rainy and humid, where we are usually is bone dry due to the location within a so-called Tropical Dry Forest. Dry forests are climatological phenomena where trees and plants somehow survive on scant rainfall year round. The Guánica Dry Forest, designated a U.N. biosphere reserve, is the world’s largest.

The Copamarina from our balcony.

It’s also about eight miles from the epicenter of the earthquakes.

Now, this is weird. Puerto Rico is a seismic danger zone, true, but the focal point is 100 miles distant—the undersea Puerto Rico Trench, off the north coast. We’re on the south coast, where there’s been no seismic activity to speak of.

Until now.

The shocks began with a tooth-chattering 5.0 jolt on Dec. 28, four days before we arrived. They rumbled along, dozens every day, many imperceptible. A pity the resort didn’t warn us before we got on the plane. We might have come anyway though. It’s our ninth visit in 11 years.

It’s beautiful. The people are great. We’ve made wonderful resort friends, Richard and Valerie. I take a tennis lesson every morning with the pro, Efrén Alfonso, who’s not only a super guy but the best tennis instructor I’ve ever met. There’s nothing else to do but eat, drink, read, lay around, watch the sun set. It’s enough.

What we wait for all day. What we may never see again.

But it’s gone, I’m afraid. Our little corner of paradise is doomed..

* * *

I’m writing a novel set in this, our doomed Eden.

In said novel, global warming causes the world’s largest glacier to cleave in two in the Antarctic. That sets off tsunamis worldwide, churning up weird shit from the ocean’s deepest depths. Some of this stuff causes people to get sick, real sick, sick unto death. But an evil scientist, working in a lab 220 feet below the Puerto Rican soil, comes up with a vaccine to save us all. He seeks to use his vaccine to hold the world hostage.

Well, he’s evil. I said that, right?

He succeeds. Puerto Rico achieves world domination. How’s that for poetic justice?

It doesn’t last of course. Lourdes, the evil doctor’s gorgeous, brilliant lab assistant, uses the same beach muck to compound magick that enhances human intelligence. Her lab rat is Michael, a gorgeous hunk who looks like Superman but is mentally retarded—until he’s not. Together, Lourdes and Michael will do battle to ... well, you’ll just have to read the novel and see.

* * *

Yes, Friends of Frank old and new, we’re back for a while.

Since this blog or e-blast or whatever-you-call-it petered out, I’ve had my ups and downs. I’ve finished my “Chicago Trilogy” at long last. I’ve found a literary agent who, God willing, may get it published. I got a new shoulder.

I’ve grown older. We all have.

I’ve thought a lot about Puerto Rico and what it represents. In the coming weeks, I’ll talk about that.

I may talk about writing fiction—how it’s different from journalism, how maybe not so different. I may talk about writing vs. selling one’s writing. I may talk about truth and facts, truth vs. facts. I may talk about Fake News.

I may talk about tennis. I may even talk about getting older.

You’re under no obligation to listen, of course. You can opt out at any time and no hard feelings.

But it’d be nice if you’d hang around.

keycom@verizon.net

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/Frank-S-Joseph-Author-797574090306259/

P.S. ...

Puerto Rico is us.

Despite what our President—not to mention a huge percentage of everyday Americans—seems to think, Puerto Rico is part of America. Your dollars are good, your English is good (in the cities anyway, though not everywhere), you don’t need a passport or a visa, and JetBlue flies nonstops from lotsa places. (So does Southwest, Spirit, the flag carriers, everyone.)

But it’s another country too in interesting ways; it has its own culture, cuisine, customs. After three or four visits, I started to get curious about this place where the temperature hits 84 every January afternoon without fail and the gentle breezes never cease.

I’ll share some of what I’ve learned in future posts. For now, start paying attention to PR. The best single way I know is the New York Times, which has three reporters stationed there and excellent coverage. Check out the latest at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/us/puerto-rico-electricity-power-earthquake.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage And if you want to go into greater depth, get a copy of How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr. It’s an eye-opening look at the real America—the one we didn’t learn about in school—and one of the most informative, fascinating and readable books I’ve come across. Here’s an Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/How-Hide-Empire-History-Greater/dp/0374172145