Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Jan. 7, 2023, at about 5:30 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a residence on the 5300 block of Alpine Court, in the county’s jurisdiction of Eureka, for the report of an individual attempting to gain entry into an occupied residence.

According to the reporting parties who were residents of the home, a family member, 37-year-old Travis Michael Hensley, had been harassing the residents and was not welcome at the home. While attempting to gain entry into the residence, Hensley reportedly removed a window screen then broke out a window of the home. Hensley fled the property prior to deputy arrival. No one was injured as a result of this incident.

Deputies located and arrested Hensley at his home. He was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm (PC 245(a)(1)), elder abuse (PC 368(b)(1)) and vandalism (PC 594(b)(1)). 

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

Jerold Phelps Community Hospital in Garberville, California is one of the smallest in the country. Its mere nine acute-care beds serve a community of about 10,000 people in southern Humboldt County. The next closest emergency room is about an hour’s drive north.

Despite its small size, the hospital is facing a hefty price tag to meet the 2030 retrofit deadline required under the state’s seismic safety standards — about $50 million for a new single story hospital that would replace its 1960s building.

Although it’s been decades since California implemented its strict seismic safety requirements, paying for those upgrades continues to be a tough task, especially for smaller facilities with limited resources and funding, according to hospital officials across the state. Like Jerold Phelps Community Hospital, two-thirds of California hospitals have yet to meet the looming state seismic deadline that requires hospital buildings to be updated to ensure they can keep operating after an earthquake.

The 6.4 magnitude quake that struck the Humboldt area on Dec. 20 was a stark reminder of California’s vulnerability to seismic activity. Hospitals in the county reported minimal damage and no threat to patients. Two hospitals, in Eureka and Fortuna, lost power and needed generators, according to the California Office of Emergency Services.

“They have had many, many, many years to do this, and to now say they need an extension is just not appropriate.”
— Cathy Kennedy, president of the California Nurses Association

Hospital administrators acknowledge their buildings need to remain safe and available for emergency services following a quake, but they say they need more time to complete their upgrades and construction projects, especially as many are still reeling from the financial strains of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials at smaller hospitals say that in addition to time, they need funding. They also want more flexibility. The Legislature, they say, should revisit the rules and grant them more leeway for buildings that provide non-emergency services.

“Everyone wants to make our hospitals safe — that’s not the issue. It’s just a tremendous amount of capital that is being poured into this,” said Debi Stebbins, executive director at the City of Alameda Health Care District, which oversees Alameda Hospital.

The seismic safety standards debate is a familiar one in Sacramento, and one that hospital administrators expect will come up again during this new legislative term. Officials at the California Hospital Association said their immediate goal is to educate the large new class of lawmakers about the state’s seismic safety laws and the challenges hospitals face.

Labor groups, however, have strongly opposed hospitals’ ongoing requests for deadline extensions and amendments. They argue that hospitals have had plenty of time — about 30 years — to bring their buildings up to the required standards.

“They have had many, many, many years to do this, and to now say they need an extension is just not appropriate,” said Cathy Kennedy, president of the California Nurses Association. “I think they can do it.”

A brief history

In the early hours of Jan. 17, 1994, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake centered in Northridge shook Southern California. The earthquake killed at least 57 people and injured thousands. It resulted in about $20 billion in damages and about $40 billion in economic loss, making it the most costly earthquake in U.S. history, according to the California Department of Conservation.

Twelve hospital buildings sustained severe structural damage and had to be evacuated. Weeks after the Northridge earthquake, California lawmakers passed a law that fortified the state’s existing seismic safety standards for hospitals.

The law requires hospitals to either upgrade their existing buildings or replace them to ensure safety. Buildings that don’t meet the earthquake standards have to cease operating.

The first set of requirements (with an original deadline of 2008 but eventually pushed back 12 years, to 2020) mandated that hospital buildings be structurally fit enough to remain standing after an earthquake. Most hospitals have met this deadline, but 23 facilities out of 414 have at least one building that has yet to comply, according to data tracked by the California Department of Health Care Access and Information. The state gave those hospitals a couple of more years, until 2025 in some cases, to come into compliance.

The second deadline, set for 2030 and the one being debated, requires hospital buildings to also remain fully functional and be able to provide services following a quake. Currently, about 62% of hospitals have at least one building that has yet to meet the 2030 structural standards.Hospitals are also required to make “non-structural” improvements by 2030 so that their systems, including water supply and equipment, can support at least 72 hours of operation after an earthquake. And while 2030 may seem a long way out, several hospital executives said that if hospitals have not yet started their upgrade plans, they may struggle to meet that deadline.

“We want to make sure they (lawmakers) understand that hospitals’ buildings are safe given the first seismic deadline, but that this next deadline could have very dire consequences for their communities,” like the closure of hospitals, said Kiyomi Burchill, group vice president of policy at the California Hospital Association.

Engineers say that meeting the 2020 safety requirement so that hospitals won’t collapse was a big achievement, but not sufficient. Buildings also need to function.

“If you have a hospital that serves a population that may not have a lot of mobility, say a disadvantaged population, and that hospital can’t work after an earthquake when you might have a lot of injuries, that is a big problem,” said Jonathan Stewart, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA.

Because needs and resources can differ by hospital, Stewart said it makes sense to review extension requests on a case-by-case basis. “I think we have to respect the appeal made by (hospital) administrators and where reasonable grant an extension, but maybe not in all cases because there could be cases where hospitals reasonably could do it and they’re just not prioritizing it.”

Devon Lumbard, an engineer with the Structural Engineers Association of California, said that any potential extensions for hospitals should come with a clear way to measure incremental progress.

“The key issue is if it’s an ask that doesn’t have a clear process for how it will demonstrate continued compliance and ultimately achieve the goal, that’s concerning,” he said. “If we just move the goal post, that’s not good, or take the goal post away and reduce requirements, that’s a concern.”

Price tag: Billions

Seismic upgrades and construction are estimated to cost hospitals across the state from $34 billion to $143 billion, according to a 2019 study the think tank RAND Corporation did for the California Hospital Association. The lower price is the cost to retrofit buildings, the high one is for building new. Although some experts say the state is due for a more updated cost assessment.The RAND study found that the cost of upgrades would put 40% of California’s hospitals in “severe financial distress,” with community and public hospitals taking the biggest hit.

“And so that’s why it hasn’t been done. That’s why everybody’s asking for extensions, because it’s just an insurmountable amount of money,” said Matt Rees, CEO of Southern Humboldt Health, which oversees Jerold Phelps Community Hospital.

Labor unions and others opposing extensions will often point to systems like Kaiser Permanente, which raked in $8.1 billion in profits in 2021, a record for the health care giant. But not all hospitals have that kind of money, Stebbins said.

For example, public hospitals typically rely on bonds or loans to fund construction projects. Campaigning for a bond measure is expensive and a tough sell to voters. “In this economic time I would hate to be floating a bond measure to the electorate,” Stebbins said.

California soon will provide at least some aid to small and rural hospitals for these projects through grants funded by the state’s e-cigarette tax. The first round of funding is expected to be made available by April of this year. Although it is unclear how much each hospital would get.

Hospital executives also say there is irony in having to spend billions on these projects while at the same time being asked by the state to control costs.

“Our focus should be on improving health outcomes, keeping health services affordable, and investing in developing the delivery system of the future, not on expensive operational mandates that will further drive up the cost of care for patients,” Shelly Schlenker, executive vice president for Dignity Health, said in an email statement.

Dignity Health, which operates 31 hospitals in the state, so far has spent about $2 billion in upgrades, Schlenker said. As of now, Dignity Health expects its hospitals will be compliant with the state requirements by 2030, she said.

In the past, hospital groups have in large part been successful in securing extensions. But hospital lobbyists say time alone doesn’t solve the problem. Ideally, an extension would come with some creative financing solutions, said Sarah Bridge, a lobbyist for the Association of California Healthcare Districts.

In the midst of last year’s budget surplus projections, Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, a Coachella Democrat, sought to secure $1 billion in the state budget to help California’s 32 district hospitals with their seismic projects, but those efforts ultimately went nowhere. District hospitals are public hospitals governed by an elected board and largely located in underserved areas.

“I think the problem with just giving an extension, which would be welcomed, is we run up against the same problem at the end of it. We still can’t fund the project,” Bridge said. Still, “at the very least an extension would buy us more time, and allow us to get contractors to our areas to build these projects.” Hospitals in the state all have the same deadline and are all vying for the same contractor workforce, she said.

In search of its own solution, Alameda Hospital, which serves the city of Alameda, a Bay Area island community of about 80,000 people, sought its own two-year extension during the last legislative session. The bill made it out of the Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In his veto message, Newsom said any consideration of a deadline extension must occur in a comprehensive manner and include all types of facilities — which some hospital officials took as an indicator that his administration is open to a statewide extension.

When asked if the governor was open to pushing back the 2030 deadline, his office only said that it would carefully review any new legislation.

Last summer, the California Hospital Association also sought the support of a powerful health worker labor group, SEIU-UHW, in a last-minute deal that would have delayed the seismic deadline seven years in exchange for boosting the minimum wage for hospital workers. But those negotiations quickly fizzled.

What’s taken so long?

One reason Jerold Phelps Community Hospital in Humboldt County couldn’t start planning its seismic safety projects sooner is because it has spent the last couple of decades working its way out of a financial crisis, Rees said.

In 2000, the hospital filed for bankruptcy. And in order to qualify for a loan to fund its construction project, the hospital first needed to be in good financial standing. For the past three years, the hospital has been busy raising $4 million for the downpayment for a federal loan.

The financial plight of small hospitals is well documented. Just last week Madera Community Hospital closed its doors due to financial constraints.

The hospital, in the Central Valley city of Madera, was set to be sold to Trinity Health Corporation, but that deal fell through. That means residents of that community will have to travel about 40 minutes to the next closest emergency room. Trinity Health did not respond to requests for comment on why it backed out of the purchase. The Office of the Attorney General, which has to approve certain healthcare acquisitions, said in a written statement that Trinity Health refused to meet basic conditions, such as agreeing to keep services affordable. Among the requirements set by the Attorney General: that the corporation invest $45 million in medical records upgrades and seismic retrofitting.

Kennedy, with the nurses union, said she agrees that smaller and rural hospitals absolutely need assistance, but the solution is not to continue delaying deadlines.

“As a nurse I know that it’s those small rural hospitals that need to stay up and running more than ever (after an earthquake),” she said. “That’s what the Legislature and Gov. Newsom need to look at. Not just kick the can down the road, but do something about it, and they’ve had a lot of time to really think about this.”

How soon hospitals get to these projects is also about right timing, said Julia Drefke, government relations director with Adventist Health, which operates 20 hospitals in California, about 80% of them in rural parts of the state. It is typical for Adventist hospitals to plan projects seven to 10 years out, she said,

“You want to plan in advance for your building, but can’t plan too far in advance,” because health care trends and needs of communities can change over time as they saw with COVID-19, she explained.

“Now we’re seven years out (from the deadline) so now we can ask ‘What does that look like?’” she said.

Glenn Melnick, a health economist at the University of Southern California, said progress could be slow because there isn’t much financial incentive for them to move quickly on these projects. And “If nobody is moving quickly, it kind of builds the case for another extension,” he said.

Add to that the current high interest rates on loans and the financial shock of COVID, he said. “The stars are aligning in a negative way for hospitals that haven’t already done this.”

###

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Kia Ora (Kay) Ann Zeleny passed away on the morning of January 4, 2023, at the age of 90.

She was born in Queens, New York on October 27, 1932 to Peter and Nan Breslin. She graduated from Nutley High School in New Jersey. She completed secretarial school and worked in the Empire State Building before marrying Richard Zeleny.

After moving from the Mid-West to the San Francisco Bay Area, raising their four children, and separating from her husband, Kia Ora went on to successful careers at Kaiser Engineers, and later as a real estate broker. She eventually moved to Yreka, California where in retirement she followed her lifelong dream of getting a college education, gaining an AA degree from Weed community college.

Based on her grades and achievements at Weed, Humboldt State University offered her a scholarship. She moved to on-campus student housing at the age of 63 and began a new life in academia, which were some of the most fulfilled years of her life. She earned her BA degree in Anthropology in 1996, graduating magna cum laude, and then went on to work on her Master’s degree.

Her focus and passion were Chinese Studies. She attained a good command of the Mandarin language (no small feat) and took three trips to China. The last was as a full-year foreign exchange student in Xian at 68 years of age.

Kia Ora was smart and feisty! She was a great cook, gardener, and artist. She loved books, words, puzzles and games, and nature. She avidly followed local, national, and world politics and news. She was active in many groups, including the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at HSU, the American Association of University Women, book clubs, and local walkathons.

Humboldt was the home of her heart. She loved the community, the ocean, the redwoods, and the beautiful clean air.

Kia Ora is preceded in death by her parents and brother Tom. She is survived by her children Cathy (Sue), Richard, David, and Lynne, as well as her grandchildren Kirsten, David, Christopher, Jeremy, Brandon, Jacob and Andrew, and her great grandchildren.

Her ashes will be scattered privately. Donations may be made in Kia Ora’s name to a favorite charity.

###

The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Kia Zeleny’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

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Find the beginning by clicking here.] 

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.