CHAPTER ONE
It began as a trickle. As the rain continued unabated, the trickle quickly became a stream and the stream became a river. Unfortunately, the river wasn’t above ground. Actually, this is not quite correct. It was running on what was the original ground but the original ground now lay below tons and tons of harbor debris that had been dumped over the edge of the escarpment in the 30’s. It made sense at the time. The harbor was too shallow and the escarpment needed to be expanded; this, according to the land owner of record at the time.
The North Vancouver mayor at the time, William “Bucky” Buckson made out like a bandit on the whole deal. Wilson Dredging and Barging Ltd, managed by the Bucky’s brother-in-law, but owned one hundred percent by the Buckson family, a fact that was not mentioned in the election disclosure forms at the time. Nor was the ownership of a huge portion of the Blueridge Escarpment and ditto for the logging rights that resulted in the clear cutting in the early thirties. Sand, silt, sea shells and barnacle encrusted stones make for great sea bottoms but make for lousy slope retention, as the gentle folk at the bottom of the Escarpment were to find out that very rainy Saturday night.
Ronny and Bernie Combs loved their home. Originally built in 1928, they had carefully rebuilt the old house to become the envy of a number of their neighbors. Ronny was a retired forestry executive, born and bred in North Vancouver. At the age of 64 he was in good shape and arose at 6:00am, rain or shine for a 30 minute run followed up by another 30 minutes of weights and stretches. He had close cropped grey hair, weighed an even 170 pounds and though not a vain man, took great pride in the fact that many people assumed he was in his fifties.
Bernie Combs was a no nonsense woman, five foot two, blond blue eyed and 120 pounds soaking wet. She was a woman of boundless energy, unlimited faith in the goodness of the human psyche, volunteered for everything that came along and was a good wife and an enthusiastic mother to the Combs three adult children and was eagerly awaiting the role of grandmother. Her sunny disposition and her willingness to provide help to anyone who asked made Bernie a neighborhood favorite.
The Combs upper next door neighbor, Gerry Gerryford was a curmudgeonly old coot; a born and raised North Vancouverite of the old stock who never understood anyone who wanted to take a vacation. He was a grizzled 70 year old, pile driver straight with a bristling beard, a bristling attitude and a penetrating gaze that when angry that could halt a herd of charging water buffalo. Gerry’s house was self built of west coast cedar and fir, planks hand sawn from trees he felled and roofed with cedar shakes he had cut and split himself.
Having never married, Gerry did not have a lot of time for kids and even less time for politicians. He was a voracious opponent of progress and stated loudly and clearly to anyone in earshot that the Internet was an abomination, mobile phones were an alien conspiracy and devices such as Ipods and MP3 players were invented solely to drive him crazy.
Though Bucky Buckson was just a footnote in memory, the Coombs and Gerry were to feel the consequences of Bucky’s underhanded, though profitable dealings.
Regardless of the finger pointing from the municipal council, it wasn’t the unlicensed fishpond loosely cemented onto the back of the Grayson’s house that caused the ground to begin moving. Nor was it the pouring rain that had continued unabated through the previous seventy two hours, though this was a contributing factor. And, it wasn’t the lack of trees on the slope even though they were mostly second growth cedar and fir that hung on grimly to the side of the previously clear cut slope. No, the real reason for the slide was the tons and tons of undersea muck that had been dredged from the North Vancouver side of the Vancouver harbor in the thirties and forties and unceremoniously dumped over the edge of the escarpment with no thought of any form of anchoring.
As the water gushed down the original slope, it gradually loosened the grip of the harbor muck over a wide area of ground. The second growth trees did their best to hold onto their precarious positions on the slope to no avail. Too much water and too little in the way of root mass to hold the mass of sodden muck and earth and with a barely discernible groan, everything let go. Bucky Buckson’s legacy began a fairly rapid descent down the slope of the Blueridge Embankment, picking up speed and heading directly towards the Combs beautifully manicured property. The young cedars and firs began leaning downhill which was fortunate for the Coombs. Had they fallen backwards on the slope, it would have been a different story they were told the next day.
“Imagine half a dozen two foot cedar trees coming through your walls, roots first” chuckled Rodney Jones in his broad Lancashire accent, the rescue coordinator when interviewed the next day. “Would be sure to ruin your day”.
Ronny and Bernie had just settled down for thirty minutes of therapeutic sex, as they liked to call it. Bernie, very much into all things holistic had discovered a new natural substitute for Viagra and had fed Ronny many healthy doses, she being a being a strong believer in if one is recommended then two is better.
Ronny in a state of great readiness was grateful his wife liked the superior position and was lying back with his eyes closed while Bernie proceeded to take great enjoyment from the results of her Internet surfing.
They probably would have been aware that something untoward was happening in their back garden if the volume of the bedroom stereo had been set at normal. As it was, ACDC belting out Thunderstruck at 300 decibels provided a good cover for the sound of mud, trees, rocks and assorted shrubbery building up speed and targeting their house.
Bernie was also picking up speed when the earth actually moved and their bedroom wall collapsed inward to be replaced by a wall of what was formerly the escarpment face. The conjugal bed rose rapidly on a bed of mud until Bernie’s head engaged the ceiling. Not too surprisingly, Ronny’s tumescence rapidly disappeared as he stared with growing disbelief at the bedroom ceiling now just a foot away from his nose. And. He felt himself getting forced downward in the bed as the rising mud below the bed and Bernie above him began creating a sandwich with Ronny as the central ingredient.
“What the fuck ……………….?” Ronny began.
Bernie’s bare backside was now hard up against the ceiling and she was still attempting to make sense of what had occurred.
“Ronny. I think the earth moved”.
CHAPTER TWO
(Coming)
