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CLEAN BREAK

by

Lionel White

CHAPTER SIX

1

Randy Kennan sat in back of the wheel of the sedan, a newspaper held in front of his face. He hadn’t long to wait. At exactly eight forty, the front door of the apartment house opened and Marvin Unger walked out and turned west, looking neither to right or to left. Randy gave him an extra minute or two after he had passed the corner and turned downtown. Then he climbed out of the car and entered the building.

Johnny had a cup of black coffee in his hand when he answered the soft knock on the door.

“Glad you got my message,” he said, smiling at the other man and quickly stepping aside to let him enter.

Randy smiled back.

“Gotta ‘nother cup?” he asked.

Johnny nodded and went into the kitchen. Randy followed him.

“What’s the rub?” the cop asked. “I thought we planned the meet for tonight?”

“No rub,” Johnny said. “It’s just that I want to talk to you first—alone.”

Randy took the cup of coffee Johnny held out and reached for a chair.

“Everything all right with the others?”

“Everything’s set,” Johnny said. “I just wanted to talk to you alone.” He hesitated a second, watching Randy closely, and then went on.

“It’s like this,” he said. “When the cards are down, here’s the way it stacks up. You and I are the ones who are really carrying the ball. And you are the only one I can actually count on. Not,” he added quickly, seeing the suddenly startled look on the policeman’s face, “not that the others aren’t all right as far as they go. The trouble is, they just don’t go far enough.

“Right now, Unger’s out getting the five grand I’m going to need today to tie up the boys who are helping me out at the track. That’s fine. We need Unger and that’s why he’s in. We need Big Mike, too, and we can count on him. He’s old, he’s tired and discouraged and God knows he probably has plenty of problems of his own. But he’s invaluable to us and won’t let us down. The same goes for Peatty.”

He stopped then for a minute and refilled his cup. 

“What’s on your mind, kid?” Randy said. “We already been over all that.”

“Right. We have,” Johnny said. “But coming to Peatty, we come to another problem. Peatty’s wife. As far as George goes, he knows what he has to do and he’ll do it. We can trust him. But that business of his wife showing up still bothers me. Let me tell you exactly what happened after you guys left the other night.”

For the next ten minutes Johnny talked and as he went over the details of the scene between himself and Sherry Peatty, Randy once or twice grinned widely. He didn’t interrupt until Johnny was through talking.

“So what,” he said at last. “The kid’s got hot pants and George can’t take care of her. That’s all it amounts to. That and the fact that she’s nosy.”

“You may be right. On the other hand, the dame worries me. It’s a little too pat.”

“Well,” Randy said, “you say she’s going to show up at two o’clock? Right? You’ll have all afternoon then to find out what it’s all about. So you should kick? She may be a dizzy broad, but hell, Johnny, she’s…”

“You miss the point,” Johnny said. “She’s going to show up, but I don’t think I’m going to find out anything. I don’t even like the idea of her showing. In the first place, I got other things to do today. I gotta meet Unger at one thirty and pick up the dough. I got to spread that money around.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” Randy said. “You mean you don’t want to meet the girl? My God, Johnny, those years up the river must have done something to you after all. Anyone would take a crack…”

“You don’t get the picture,” Johnny said shortly. “In the first place, if you’d talked to her, you’d realize that she’s wide open. Anybody can take a crack at her. I don’t want to go into details; I just think I’m the wrong guy for the job. There’s too much else on my mind.”

“Another dame?” Randy said, looking up sharply.

“What it is doesn’t matter,” Johnny said. “Try and get the idea. I don’t think I can handle her. On the other hand, you’re a guy who has a reputation for handling broads. I’m suggesting that you be here when she shows up this afternoon. Play her along and see what you can learn. If she’s up to something, we have to know. I can’t tell you why, but for some reason I got the feeling something is sour with her.”

Randy looked thoughtful for several moments before he spoke.

“You think Peatty is in on a double cross of some kind?”

“No. No, George wasn’t putting on an act the other night. He was probably more surprised than we were when she showed up. But I can’t get over the idea that she’s up to something. Whatever it is, we have to know about it.”

Randy got up from the chair and rattled the coffeepot. He put it down and then turned back to Johnny.

“And you say she’ll be here at around two this afternoon? And that she likes Scotch?”

“Right. And Randy, remember one thing. She may be an oversexed little lush, but you have to handle her with kid gloves. She wants to be romanced, not raped. Probably gets enough of that at home.”

Randy Kennan grunted.

“Well, boy,” he said, “you don’t have to tell me how to handle that kind of dame. Is there any booze in the joint?” 

Johnny laughed.

“You forget whose joint it is?”

Randy smiled.

“Right,” he said. “I’ll pick up a couple of jugs and be back here at one thirty.”

Johnny took the key off his ring.

“O.K.,” he said. “Here’s the key; I’ll be gone. And whatever you do, get her the hell out of here by six, before Marvin gets home. And clean up after yourselves.”

# # #

2

They arrived within fifteen minutes of each other, first the short, heavy-set one with the dead, half smoked cigar between thick over-red lips and with his sweat-stained, gray felt hat tipped on the back of his completely bald, round head. And then the little man with the thin consumptive body and the oversized ugly head which hung forward from his stringy neck and always looked as though it were about to drop off altogether.

They had walked through the barroom, nodding at the big man sitting on the stool as they passed through the doorway leading into the long narrow hall. Each one had gone to the last door down and knocked softly three times.

Val Cannon, his lean, wide-shouldered frame covered with a Chinese silk dressing gown, his silk clad ankles thrust into half slippers, had opened the door leading into the air conditioned apartment, himself. The three of them were alone and although Val had a Scotch and soda in his hand, he had not offered the others anything. He sat back, in a large leather club chair, his long legs crossed. The window of the room was closed and covered by a large pull curtain. Looking around at the modern, almost sparse furnishings, it was hard to tell whether it was a living room or an office.

The heavy-set man was speaking.

“So I talked with Steiner,” he said. “Leo knew him, all right. In fact, like I figured, he owes Leo dough. Quite a chunk of dough.”

“It figures,” Val said. “Go on.”

“Leo couldn’t tell me much, but he did give me this. This cop, this guy Keenan, told him, Leo, that he was expecting to come into a considerable chunk of dough by the end of the month. Well, I had Leo get a hold of him on the phone and put on the pressure. The way it ended up was the cop says he absolutely won’t be able to pay off until the end of the week. He didn’t make a flat promise, but Leo got the feeling that he would get his dough before next Monday.”

Val nodded, thoughtfully. He lifted the glass to his thin lips and took a sip. He turned to the other man. “So?”

The thin man tensed, seemed suddenly to stand at attention.

“It was easy,” he said. “Easy. I got hold the janitor. The joint belongs to a guy named Marvin Unger. He’s some kind of clerk down at the Municipal Building. Been living there since the place opened up several years back. He’s a bachelor and lives alone. Never has any guests what the janitor can remember. No dames. A straight-laced guy.”

“Now about…”

“Getting to that,” the thin man said. “He don’t play the neighborhood bookie; don’t hang out in the bars. Gets the Wall Street Journal so I guess maybe the market is his weakness. Outside of that, I couldn’t find out nothing.”

“The others?”

The little man shrugged.

“God only knows,” he said. He walked over to a desk and took a cigarette from a box. The heavy-set man took a silver lighter from his pocket and held it to the half smoked cigar.

“How about you, Val?”

Cannon leaned forward in his chair.

“I got a little,” he said. “Saw the girl yesterday. She’s going back again this afternoon. Seems a guy staying in the place is making a play for her. Guy’s name is Johnny Clay. I checked on him. He got out of the big house a short time back. A smalltime punk who did a jolt on a larceny charge. I’ll have a run-down on him in a day or so. Seems to be the leader of the mob, if it is a mob.

“All she knows now—and this she got from her husband and not the Clay guy—is that they’re definitely going to knock over the track office. How they plan to do it, and when they plan to do it, is anybody’s guess. But she’s sure they will make the pitch. Her husband’s a cashier out at the track and he’s mixed up in it. You can bet there are a couple of more inside men. What part the cop’s going to take, I wouldn’t know. That’s one angle I can’t figure. Also this guy, Unger. I can’t figure him, unless maybe he’s putting up the nut money. One thing is sure, this is no professional mob. So far the only one who seems to have any sort of record is this Clay guy and he’s strictly small time.”

The fat man grunted.

“Nobody planning to knock off the track is small time.” Val went on, looking irritated.

“The best guess I can make at this point is that it will be along toward the end of the week. One thing, we can probably keep a pretty accurate tab on what they do so that we’ll have a little warning as to when they make their move. That’s all we got to know. There is just one chance in about fifty thousand that they’ll get away with it, although I still can’t see how it figures. On the other hand, that guy Peatty must know all the handicaps and if he’s still going in on the deal, they may have some gimmick which I can’t figure.”

He stopped then and stood up. Without saying anything more he left the room and came back a couple of minutes later with a fresh drink in his hand. He continued talking where he had left off.

“One thing is for sure,” he said. “Any move we make will have to be after it’s all over and done with. For my dough, I don’t think they’ve got one chance in a million of getting away with it. And it’s a sure bet that none of us want to be seen around Long Island on the day they try this caper. If by any, god damned chance they do do it, and do get away with it, this town is going to be hotter than the rear end of a jet plane and for a long time to come.”

The little man squashed out his cigarette and smiled. 

“It’ll be hot,” he said. “How about a drink, Val?” 

Cannon stared at him.

“We’re partners in getting money,” he said, “not in spending it. Go out to the bar and buy your own god damned drink.”

# # #

3

Walking east to Broadway where he’d get the subway which would take him down to Penn Station, from where he in turn would get the train going out to Long Island, George Peatty began to think over the last twenty-four hours.

At eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, freshly shaved and wearing a white shirt and a blue serge suit with polished black shoes, he’d been standing hatless in a delicatessen store at the corner of Broadway and One Hundred and Ninth Street.

He’d ordered three hard rolls, which he liked, and a half dozen French doughnuts, which Sherry liked. Then he’d asked for two pint containers of coffee, with sugar and cream. He saw a jar of sour pickles and ordered that as well. It would be nice later in the day.

George was going through his usual Sunday morning ritual. He always got up first, showered, shaved and dressed and went down to the delicatessen for his and Sherry’s breakfast. By the time he had picked up the morning papers and taken a short walk along the Drive before returning, Sherry would be up and waiting.

He saw a can of imported sardines and was about to order that also when he suddenly reflected that he probably wouldn’t have enough change to pay for it if he wanted to pick up the Sunday newspapers.

Tucking the bag under his arm as he was leaving, he began thinking how nice it was going to be to really have money. Money to burn. They’d live in a hotel, he figured. Sherry would like that. And on Sunday instead of getting a breakfast from the nearest delicatessen, they’d order it up from room service.

They could spend the day laying around in bed reading the papers and doing other interesting things.

George thought he knew what Sherry wanted; all it took was the money to make it possible.

He hurried home; thinking of Sherry gave him an irresistible desire to see her.

The note had been waiting for him, pinned by a thumbtack to the outside of the apartment door. One of Sherry’s girl friends was sick and had called to ask Sherry to stop by. The note didn’t name the girl friend.

George Peatty had breakfast alone.

In fact, George had spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening alone. Along about six o’clock he had begun to worry a little and he’d called a couple of numbers where he thought she might be. But he’d been unable to trace her.

By the time she did finally get in, around ten o’clock, he’d been so glad to see her that he hadn’t even asked where she’d been. They’d had a couple of drinks together after Sherry told him she’d already eaten. And then they’d gone to bed.

It had been like that other night.

He hadn’t been able to understand why she had been so curious about the stick-up plans. But in order to satisfy her, and also for other more personal reasons, he’d finally told her a little. Not the exact day, but just that it wouldn’t be more than another week or ten days. And then he had fallen asleep.

It was only now, the next day, as he was on his way to work, that he began to wonder. That certain, persistent thought kept crossing his mind and refused to go away. He tried not to think about it, tried to drive it from his mind, but it refused to go away.

When he got off the subway at Penn Station he looked up at the clock and saw that he had about eighteen minutes in which to catch his train. He had a splitting headache.

Turning, he went up the ramp and out onto Thirty-Fourth Street. A moment later and he found the bar.

For the first time that he could remember he ordered a drink of straight whiskey before noon.

By the time he had finished his second drink he realized that he had missed his train. George Peatty was not a man who had often become drunk. By the same token, he was a man who very rarely had faced the truth and recognized it as such, if the truth should happen to be unpleasant.

Standing there at the bar, with two shots of straight rye under his belt on an otherwise almost empty stomach, George suddenly no longer refused to face the little bothersome thought which had persisted in annoying him on the way downtown in the subway.

Sherry had lied about seeing a sick friend. There was simply no doubt about it; she had lied. He realized now, in thinking it over, that he had known all along that she was lying. But he had been too cowardly to face the reality of proving it to himself.

Looking up, George suddenly beckoned the bartender.

“Another shot,” he said. And then, without fully realizing he was going to do so, he added, “And I am not going to work today.”

The bartender looked at him skeptically from under heavy, overhanging brows, but turned nevertheless and reached for the bottle. He was used to them all—every kind of a screw ball that there was. The worst of them, he usually got before noon.

Between his third and fourth drink, George went to a telephone and called the track. He told them that he wouldn’t be in, that he was home sick and expected to be all right the following day.

Then he went back to the bar and ordered another drink. There was no point in kidding himself. Sherry was a tramp. She was a tramp and she was a liar.

She’d come home last night with lipstick smeared all over her face. Her breath reeked of liquor. She had been with no sick girl friend. She’d been with some man, lapping up whiskey and God only knows what else.

George ordered another drink.

He wasn’t, at the moment, curious as to who the man might be. It was enough to finally admit that Sherry was running around with other men. But the fact, once he was willing to accept the truth, was irrefutable.

At once George began to feel sorry for Sherry and to blame himself. If she was running with other men, it could only mean that he had failed her. George felt a tear come to the corner of his eye and he was about to beckon the waiter to refill his glass. It was then that he caught sight of his face in the mirror behind the stacks of pyramided bottles. In a split second he sobered up completely.

What kind of god damned idiot was he? Good God, here it was the most important week in his life and he was standing at a public bar getting drunk. He should have been at the track. The last thing in the world he should have done was to have failed to follow the usual routine of his days.

Quickly he turned from the bar, not bothering to pick up his change. Well, it was too late now to make the track, but at least he would go out and get some food into his stomach and some hot coffee. Then he would go to a movie and take it easy. He fully realized how essential it was that he be completely sober before evening.

Tonight was the big meeting. And he, George, wanted to get there a little before the meeting. He wanted to talk to Johnny alone for a minute or two before the others arrived. He wanted to assure Johnny that they would have nothing to worry about as far as he, George, was concerned.

# # #

4

Watching her through half closed eyes as she lay back on the bed, her arms spread wide, her breasts slowly rising and falling with her deep breathing and the long lashes closed over her own eyes, he thought, my God, she’s really beautiful.

It was a nice thought.

He pulled deeply on the cigarette and then slowly exhaled, still looking at her through the veil of smoke.

His next thought wasn’t so nice.

A tramp. A god damned tramp. A push over. Jesus—it hadn’t taken an hour. Less than sixty minutes from the time she had walked through that door until they were in bed together.

That was the trouble. She was beautiful. She was a bum. He was nuts about her.

For a minute he wondered if he was blowing his top. Anybody had told him, Randy Kennan, that he could run into a girl, especially some other guy’s wife, talk to her for a few minutes, end up in bed with her and then convince himself he was half in love with her and he’d have said the guy was simply plain crazy.

Randy was a cop and he had the psychology of a cop. There were good women and bad women. This one there was no doubt at all about. She was bad.

And by God if he hadn’t gone and fallen for her—hook, line and sinker.

Maybe it was because he was bad, too.

Suddenly he threw the cigarette into the far corner of the room without bothering to butt it. It landed in a shower of sparks. He leaned down across her and found her slightly parted lips. They felt like crushed grapes under the pressure of his hungry mouth.

She didn’t open her eyes but in a moment she moaned slightly and then her arms went up and over his shoulders.

It was exactly five-fifteen when Randy finally got back into his clothes. He poked his head into the bathroom as he finished pulling on his coat.

“So I’ll call you tomorrow, honey,” he said. “Sorry I can’t wait now, but I just have to report in within the next fifteen minutes. If I don’t call in there’ll be hell to pay and I don’t want to call from here.”

“You run on,” Sherry told him. “I’ll be out of here in another ten minutes myself. I want to be back home anyway by the time George gets in tonight.”

She looked up from where she was kneeling, pulling on a shoe, and blew him a kiss across the top of her overturned palm. Randy twisted his mouth in a smile. And then he was gone.

Pulling on her second shoe, Sherry realized that she’d have to hurry if she was to keep her appointment with Val Cannon. She had arranged to meet him in a cocktail lounge on the upper East Side at exactly five-thirty. Val wouldn’t be inclined to wait if she was late.

Suddenly it occurred to her that she didn’t really care whether he waited or not.

There was a startled look on her face as the idea hit her. It was the first time in months that she had become even slightly indifferent to Val and to what Val might do.

And then her mind went back to Randy. Randy Kennan. A cop.

My God, what was wrong with her that she never seemed able to resist falling for heels? And there was no doubt about it; she had fallen for Randy. The thing had hit her as suddenly as it had hit him.

Putting on her lipstick in front of the bathroom mirror, she made no effort to hurry. If Val waited for her, well and good. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t make the slightest difference.

She then decided that even if he did wait, he would learn nothing further as far as the track stick-up was concerned. At the thought, she couldn’t help smiling. She had, in fact, learned nothing herself. She and that handsome six foot two Irishman had spent the afternoon discussing much more personal problems.

Carefully she wiped up after herself and dusted the powder off the washbasin. She threw several dirty pieces of kleenex into the toilet bowl and then flushed it.

She was careful to see that the door was left unlatched, as Randy had instructed her to do. The keys were lying on the table in the living room.

She took the elevator down to the ground floor and hurried from the building. Looking neither to right nor left, she started east.

George Peatty, stepping from the curb on the opposite side of the street, suddenly stopped with one foot in mid-air. His face became deathly pale and for a moment he thought he might faint. And then, like a man in a slow motion picture, his foot again found the ground and he stepped back on the curb.

As he slowly followed his wife from a half a block’s distance, there was but a single thought in his shocked mind.

“So that was why Johnny didn’t beat her up.”

He would have followed her into the subway, but he had to duck into a nearby doorway instead. The tears were running down his face and people were beginning to look at him. Even George himself didn’t know whether it was self-pity or hatred which caused those tears.

# # #

Tune in next week for the next chapter of Clean Break!

Stark House Sunday Serial is brought to you by the Lost Coast Outpost and Stark House Press.

Based in Eureka, California since 1999, Stark House Press brings you reprints of some of the best in fantasy, supernatural fiction, mystery and suspense in attractive trade paperback editions. Most have new introductions, complete bibliographies and two or more books in one volume! 

More info at StarkHousePress.com.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about why we shouldn’t take stories about unexplained sightings — UFOs, UAPs and the like — as evidence that extraterrestrial aliens are here. Camera anomalies, drones, fireballs, Venus, weather balloons, etc. etc. offer more prosaic (though more boring) explanations for the many oddball reports, civilian and military, that make the news every year. There remains the big question, with hundreds of billions of planets in our own galaxy, many perhaps with the potential for intelligent life: Where are they? It’s the so-called Fermi Paradox. Fourteen tentative answers:

1. Too soon. Yeah, they were here, they checked in on Earth a few hundred million years too early, “Nothing to see here, move along.”
2. Too big. he universe — even the Milky Way — is just too big to traverse. You’re stuck with that speed of light problem — the closer you get to the speed of light, the more energy you need to accelerate until it gets to be infinite — and with a galaxy 100,000 light years across, the ETs just don’t have the resources to check out every Podunk planet.
3. Too picky. They wait until they detect radio waves from a candidate planet before checking it out, or reply to. And since Earthlings have only been emitting radio waves for 100 years (which are probably garbled beyond about one light year — it was only in 1974 we sent out a deliberate, high-power radio signal), we’re limited to alien civilizations within 50 light years of us. That’s maybe 2,000 stars and their planets — pretty slim pickings when there are some 400 billion stars in the Milky Way.
4. Too incurious. They just decided not to explore the cosmos.
5. Too little knowledge. Perhaps they don’t even know there is a cosmos — they evolved in an ocean deep inside a frozen planet or its moon, trapped below the surface, but shielded from cosmic rays or a poisonous atmosphere. From their point of view, there is no outside universe.
6. Gravity well. They’ve evolved on a “Super-Earth.” That’s the name astronomers have given to (apparently common) planets having much more mass than that of Earth. If your home planet has a mass ten times that of Earth, but is about the same size, you’re going to have a devil of a job leaving it, since the escape velocity is so large. Think NASA’s Artemis rocket is big and powerful? You’d need something with about 2.4 times as much oomph to get off a typical Super Earth.

7. Invisible. We don’t see them because they’re invisible to us. We’re stuck with the confines of our Hollywood-honed imaginations, and the idea of not being able to see, hear or touch them is beyond our capabilities. “We’re looking for analogues of ourselves,” says SETI’s Seth Shostak, “but I don’t know that that’s the majority of intelligence in the universe.”
8. Robots. Any aliens speeding through space aren’t going to be biological creatures — they’ll have been succeeded by machines, which might be much harder to detect.
9. Over-population. Their numbers increased until their population outgrew the available resources of their planet, and they died out. It’s too easy to imagine that happening here. Perhaps that’s the fate of all technologically advanced civilizations, one of the “Big Filter” scenarios that winnow out visiting ETs.

10. Climate woes. Their energy use triggered one-way climate change. See above.
11. The way of all civilizations. They killed themselves off. Perhaps intelligence and aggression inevitably go together, and once you’ve got one, you’re on a one-way path to annihilation. (Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks that any aliens we encounter would be peaceful; if they weren’t, they’d still be fighting among themselves, unable to coordinate a serious venture into space.) FWIW, on Earth, empires last an average of 250 years before imploding, according to this.
12. Too smart for us. They’re out there, alright, but they’re avoiding us: We’re just too primitive to attract their interest.
13. We are they. They’re already here — that is we’re already here. We just don’t realize we’re aliens. Google “panspermia hypothesis.”
14. We’re alone. And, IMHO the most likely, at least regarding life in our galaxy (life beyond the Milky Way being moot because of the distances involved): We’re alone. Not that there isn’t life out there — I bet other planets are teeming with life, just not intelligent life. More like algae and lichen and etcetera, unicellular stuff. To get from there (the first reproducing molecules) to here (self-driving cars, NFTs and Fox News) is just too unlikely. True, it did happen here, but it took a quarter the age of the universe, nearly four billion years, and a chance meteor (—not too big, not too small, see painting) and a whole bunch of other coincidences. If the odds of intelligence arising are worse than one in 400 billion, chances are we’re alone in the galaxy.

A recent paper by scientists working at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena mulled on several of these possibilities, under the general rubric of “The Great Filter.” Here’s a good summary and a timely reminder why we Earthlings may be well on the way to filtering ourselves out before we become interstellar spacefarers ourselves.

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S QUIZ

“I got you, you son of a bitch.” Ripley, Alien

“The rug really tied the room together.” The Dude, The Big Lebowski

“Don’t talk to me about ‘the greater good,’ sunshine. I’m the archangel fucking Gabriel.” Gabriel, Good Omens miniseries

“Clever girl.” Muldoon, Jurassic Park

“You are Sherlock Holmes. Wear the damn hat.” Watson, Sherlock: The Abominable Bride TV show

“Yeah. I got invited to a Christmas party by mistake. Who knew?” John McClane, Die Hard

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?” Romeo, Romeo and Juliet

“How much lab training do you have?” “I dissected a frog once.” Dr. Augustine, Jake, Avatar

“You can’t handle the truth!” Colonel Jessup, A Few Good Men

“I coulda been a contender.” Terry Malloy, On the Waterfront

“You talking to me?” Travis, Taxi Driver

“Stella!” Stanley, A Streetcar Named Desire

“We have clearance, Clarence.” Roger Murdock, Airplane!

“Play it once, Sam.” Ilsa, Casablanca

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” Mae West

“92 years old and I’ve never watched a woman urinate.” Mr. Simnock, “Cocoa” sketch, A Bit of Fry and Laurie

“There’s almost nothing a person can do that a computer can’t, except ride a horse.” Philomena Cunk, Cunk on Everything

“No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.” Auric Goldfinger, Goldfinger

“When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I’ll be waiting.” The Bride, Kill Bill, Vol. 1

“Once I had a love and it was a gas, Soon turned out to be a pain in the ass.” Blondie, Heart of Glass

“That’s the second album I ever bought!” Shaun, Shaun of the Dead

“If you don’t make mistakes, you aren’t really trying.” Coleman “Hawk” Hawkins

###

Thousands of Humboldt County residents are still without electricity days after heavy rain and high winds knocked out power across the region. While power has been restored to the vast majority of Humboldt Bay area residents who lost power on Jan. 4, many others could be left in the dark for nearly two weeks.

Looking at PG&E’s Outage Map, estimated times for power restoration extend all the way to Jan. 20. Sure, that last storm was a doozy, but two weeks? Really?

“Well, there are a number of factors that continue to hinder restoration for some folks in counties across California, including Humboldt,” PG&E spokesperson Melissa Subbotin told the Outpost. “Localized flooding, soil instability, tree failure and other weather-related factors continue to hinder access for PG&E crews.  … We recognize the urgency around customers wanting restoration of power but in some areas, we’re having challenges with accessibility.”

When asked about specific areas and whether the estimated dates for power restoration are subject to change, Subbotin said she could not speculate but, once again, offered assurance that “crews continue to make progress in certain areas.”

On top of the existing outages, another atmospheric river is expected to bring more wet weather and strong winds to the region, according to the National Weather Service. There is currently a wind advisory in place for all of Humboldt County. Communities in Southern Humboldt can expect over two inches of precipitation in the next 24 hours.

“We’re forecasting that this next storm will bring additional challenges to accessibility,” Subbotin said. “As we look to restore power from the latest storm, we’re pre-positioning people throughout the service area to prepare for what’s to come.”

This big storm is going to last for a few days. Stay safe out there, Humboldt!

I don’t think it’s just us: 2023 has been stressful, right? Between earthquakes and a bomb cyclone, you could use to take your mind off things. Never fear! Gang Green is here with some poetry to soothe your soul and reset the new year on a more positive note.

The EcoNews welcomes poets Jerry Martien and Katy Gurin to read some of their poetry, discuss their creative process, and how the act of writing poetry helps spark greater joy and wonder in life.

If you want more, check out:

• katygurin.com
• Gurin’s contributor page on Narrative Magazine
• Jerry Martien Live at the Arcata Playhouse
• “Southern Cascadia Poet Jerry Martien,” paulenelson.com, Dec. 28, 2015.

AUDIO:

“The EcoNews Report,” Jan. 7, 2023.

PREVIOUSLY:

• “Going Down,” Jan. 5.

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Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On January 5, 2023, at about 10:45 a.m., the Eureka Police Department was notified that a deceased female was located amongst recycling that had been transferred to the Samoa Resource Recovery Center on Vance Avenue by a Recology truck. Based on the pickup route, it is believed the female had been picked up from within the City limits of Eureka.

The Eureka Police Department has identified the adult deceased female and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Coroner will be working to notify next of kin. An autopsy will be scheduled to aid in further investigation. This is an active investigation and anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Bailey at (707) 441-4215.

Longtime Humboldt newsman and personality Dave Silverbrand passed away this morning at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka. He was 76 years old.

If you’ve lived in Humboldt for any length of time, there have been numerous occasions when Dave’s kindly spirit has shone out at you from your screen of choice. For the past 30 years, he’s held down reporting jobs for a number of television news operations, most recently with North Coast News. While a good portion of his career was spent in an anchor’s chair, in recent years Dave’s reports have focused on human interest stories highlighting people and events he’d run across in his daily Humboldt life. His final report for NCN — a visit to a drive-thru nativity scene in Eureka — was filed only two weeks ago. You can watch it below. 

In addition to his onscreen exploits, Silverbrand was also an active presence in the IRL Humboldt community. For years he acted as emcee of Oyster Fest’s oyster calling contest. Among other projects, Silverbrand found time to pen an autobiography and a stage play. In recent years he even offered his services as a wedding officiant — in Spanish, if you so desired. 

On a personal note, Dave was always beloved by all of us here at the Lost Coast Outpost. He will be missed. 

Above: Silverbrand shares moments from the many encounters he had with President George Bush

Dave Silverbrand’s role in the film Outbreak remembered.

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The Westwood Garden Apartment Project is a go.

After more than three hours of discussion on Wednesday evening, the Arcata City Council voted 4-0, with Councilmember Kimberley White recusing herself, to deny an appeal brought forth by several residents of the Westwood Garden Apartment complex and uphold the Arcata Planning Commission’s decision to approve the housing expansion project. In an effort to address some of the appellants’ concerns, the council requested that Strombeck Properties and its hired consulting firm LACO Associates include bike lockers on site and work with residents of the complex to establish an appropriate space for a community garden.

The project, which was approved by the planning commission back in October, will more than double the size of the existing 60-unit apartment complex by adding 11 new buildings that will hold 102 one-bedroom units. The plan also includes riparian enhancements to the Janes Creek/McDaniel Slough at the southern end of the parcel, as well as the removal of 21 trees (10 of which are greater than 16 inches in diameter) and the planting of 33 additional trees. 

Several residents of the complex — including recent council candidate Raelina Krikston – argued that the planning commission’s decision was based on “misleading, misrepresented, and false information” contained in the staff report. 

“The qualities of the development will result in a lower quality of life for current and future residents if the development is allowed to move forward as it is currently proposed,” according to the appeal. “​​Instead it contributes to a degradation of the living standard on this parcel for current and future residents. Due to the nature of the project as well as inconsistencies in the staff report presented to the Planning Commission, we find the grounds for the proposed development to be appealed.”

The planning commission’s “Findings for Approval” notes that the housing expansion project would “provide important, unrestricted affordable housing for the community.” The appellants argued that “unrestricted affordable housing is a meaningless phrase” and, on top of that, “there is no affordable housing in this project,” noting that the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development considers housing to be “affordable” when a household spends 30 percent or less of its income on housing costs.

“The commissioners referred to this project as affordable housing,” said Arcata resident Fred Weiss, who accompanied Krikston during the appellant’s presentation to the council. “The[ir] vote was made based, I believe, upon the statements … that this was supplying affordable housing for the city of Arcata. … I think that the commissioners were far more compliant about the inadequacies of the project than they would have been because we all want housing and we all want affordable housing.”

Weis and Krikston also criticized the layout of the housing plan, noting that the space between apartment buildings would limit access to sunlight within the individual units and the communal areas on site.

“I think it goes without stating … but sunlight is required for healthy living,” Krikston said. “To propose a development where community members are blocked from sunlight at the height of summer is not healthy for people. When we think of the health of the environment … we’re talking about the frogs and the trees and the grass and everything, but we’re also talking about the people who are living there, first and foremost.”

Speaking during public comment, Arcata resident Dan Duncan acknowledged the urgent need for housing in Arcata as well as the “huge pressure” placed on the planning commission to move the project forward to accommodate the anticipated influx of Cal Poly Humboldt students.

“That’s a lot of pressure,” he said. “I believe a big part of Arcata’s housing problem originates from the state mandate for the hyper-fast expansion of the university and not from the normal pressures of growth of a town. The main responsibility to house the incoming students, in my opinion, belongs to Cal Poly, not the city. … Some of the commissioners I know openly expressed dismay with the Strombeck design that is under appeal today but voted for approval anyway because of the urgent need for housing.”

Several other speakers acknowledged the need for affordable housing but felt as though the term was being used as a buzzword to “sweeten the deal” for commissioners. Others criticized the design of the project and urged the developer to “do better.”

Speaking on behalf of the applicant, Mike Nelson, president and CEO of LACO Associates, defended the project proposal and any assertions that the plan did not adhere to the city’s land use code.

“The project was designed to meet the land use code and the land use plan, both in its letter and in its intent,” he said. “They are clearly different interpretations about how those come out when you apply them to a specific project under a microscope and every minutia but it does meet those standards. It does meet those requirements.”

Strombeck Properties and LACO Associates underwent “considerable site redesign” to address the public’s concerns with the first rendition of the expansion project, Nelson said.  Initially, the planners proposed adding 12 buildings to the complex, but during a meeting in September the planning commission rejected the proposed project, asking that the planner return with an amended design that retained more open space on the property. 

“Not everyone is necessarily happy with it, but we did make real tangible changes and improvements to the project based on that input, some of which came at considerable expense to the redesign as well as the actual construction costs,” he said. 

Earlier in the discussion, Krikston noted that the plan did not include a secure area for residents to store their bicycles within the covered parking area. Nelson said the developers could easily include bike lockers in the design. He also expressed willingness to adjust the location of the on-site community garden.

Steve Strombeck, the owner of the property, said his team worked really well with city staff, even if they didn’t agree through every step of the design process.

“It takes a long time to work on a project like this,” he said. “We took all the input we heard, both from the audience and from the planning commission, and we made those changes. … We did the best job we could and we feel it’s a really good project.”

Turning to the council for discussion, Councilmember Stacy Atkins-Salazar asked Community Development Director David Loya if he thought commissioners were confused or misled.

“No,” he said. “The planning commission meeting, especially one as complex as this is pretty fluid. … In any kind of situation like that, you know, some things are misunderstood, they’re misheard and the commissioners asked for clarification. I believe that the majority of them – if not all of them – understood the project in very good detail by the time they made the decision to adopt the findings that are in your packet.”

Loya added that the applicant has admitted “to some extent” that “these are not fantastic designed buildings, but that’s not what the code requires either.”

Councilmember Alex Stillman said she felt as though the planning commission “did a good job” and made a motion to deny the appeal and uphold the commission’s previous decision. After some additional discussion, Atkins-Salazar offered a second. 

Ultimately, the council voted 4-0, with White recusing herself due to her previous involvement on the planning commission, to deny the appeal and approve the project with the additional requirements that the developers include on-site bike lockers and work with residents to relocate the community garden. 

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At the beginning of the meeting, the council unanimously approved two appointments to the Arcata Planning Commission: Matthew Simmons, staff attorney with the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), and Peter Lehman, founding director of the Schatz Energy Research Center at Cal Poly Humboldt.

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You find a recording of the meeting here.

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PREVIOUSLY:

• Big Housing Project in Westwood Neighborhood Bumps Gateway Talk From Arcata Planning Commission Discussion Last Night
• Arcata Planning Commission Approves Big Apartment Expansion Project in Westwood Neighborhood
• Will Tonight’s Arcata City Council Meeting Happen? It Depends on Whether or Not Brett Watson Shows
• The Long-Delayed Final Decision on the Big Westwood Gardens Apartment Project Should Come at Tonight’s Arcata City Council Meeting