I've been thinking a lot about the Apocalypse. I’m not a pessimist by nature, but disaster scenarios have been forced on me by the culture’s obsession with them. I read The Road; I saw The Book of Eli. Along with millions I have been recently introduced to some lithe and colorful creatures called the Na’vi, who apparently represent our best hope for salvation in the face of civilization’s maniacal drive toward self-destruction. If that were not enough, the real world has complied as well. Stores keep closing on the boulevards, and people continue to lose jobs. A malaise of uncertainty has settled over us all. Add to this the horrifying situations in Haiti and Chile, and it’s hard not to imagine what might, with a little help from our carbon footprint, lie in store.
But apocalypses can be writ large and small, which is why a certain basement in Silver Lake has captured my attention. It’s in a Spanish bungalow rented by Lynne Oropeza, a friend of mine. One day she casually tells me that she lives above an ancient bomb shelter. I’m so intrigued, I jump into my car and drive to Silver Lake. As Lynne leads me to the basement entrance, she tells me the provenance of the house. It was built in 1926 by John and Phyllis Fliegauf, who lived there until 2004. When the couple died, the bungalow had to be dug out of the impenetrable tangle of trees that had been allowed to grow around it. The backyard was a junk heap of pipes and huge slabs of stone, random materials John had culled (for reasons obscure) from his years working for the DWP. Inside, the house was layered with clutter, a thick jumble of saved and found objects that begged logic. The windows were covered with aluminum foil, as if the Fliegaufs had wanted the home to double as a giant tanning box.
Lynne takes me down a flight of stairs softened by the house’s original faded carpeting. I enter a warren of dark, cramped, and unfinished rooms. Each space leads to a smaller one, which gives onto a smaller space still, until I realize that the basement was built with a nod to some sort of architecture. The light is dim, the air teeming with dancing dust particles. The weather in this basement is chilly. It’s a cold one suspects greets the buried, suggestive of a suspension of time during which things neither grow nor completely decay. Makeshift shelves hold what at first appears to be the kind of detritus we all have packed away into a garage or a closet: old tools, jars of nails, musty books whose pages are yellowed and brittle. A pile of records fills one shelf, those heavy-as-lead 78s that might have spun on an early Victrola. Dishes and glasses are stacked next to cloudy bottles of various shapes and sizes. Everywhere, it seems, there are lamps. It looks like a massive yard sale waiting to happen.
As I walk from room to room, the objects become a little stranger. Rusted meat hooks hang menacingly from the ceiling beams. Nailed to the walls are sharp-tooth saws and heavy mallets. A hoe and a rake dangle from the beams, their wooden handles like vines. Large cans of caviar are stored next to some rather disconcerting bottles of boric acid. I pause and ask myself, Is this really a bomb shelter? If so, where are the cans of beans and peaches? Where’s the Spam? Where are the flashlights and emergency kits? We’ve all been briefed on what to have on hand in case of a disaster. But there’s not a blanket or an extra pair of sneakers in sight. Exploring further, I pry off the lid from an industrial garbage can and discover that it is packed with at least a hundred bars of soap, their wrappers dating them from the ’50s and ’60s. Another canister overflows with lightbulbs. I unscrew a large Ball jar containing what look like fist-size shards of concrete, but with the release of the trapped air comes the smell of chocolate. Why did the Fliegaufs save chunks of chocolate? A collection of ceramic dogs and cats sits on one shelf; on another, a wooden box holds a set of filigreed silver. A cardboard box, falling apart at the seams, is full of maps from every state. Then there is the wine. There are boxes of the stuff and intriguing bottles of home-brewed brandy. A narrative is taking shape that makes me reconsider the bomb shelter theory. When I open a metal file case and discover the couple’s personal papers, the story ratchets into focus. There beneath a Bible lies a letter written on crisp, translucent bond stating that Mrs. Phyllis Fliegauf wishes to withdraw her membership in the Eastern Star, because this fraternal organization is part of “Babylon the Great that will soon be destroyed by Jehovah. Revelations 18:4.” Ah, I think, this was not simply a bomb shelter. This was a safe house where the Fliegaufs, true believers, intended to live through the End of Days.
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