Chapter 68: Earthquakes, Foreign and Domestic

October 9, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

"Seventy-thousand demonstrators?" I observed, shaking my head. "It's over. If they don't put down this rally, that's the end of the East German government."

We were watching CNN after karate practice on Monday evening.

"What does THAT mean?" Elyse asked.

"I have no idea. Maybe free elections like in Poland and Hungary? And then some sort of accommodation with the Soviet Union, I guess. I really wish I had a way to talk to someone in Moscow about this, but I don't want to get Tanya or Vanya in trouble. I talked to Katya Sergeyevna last week about them visiting between Christmas and New Year's Day, and she was certain that there would be a crackdown of some kind."

"How is Lyudmila Alekseyevna doing?" Kara asked.

"She's totally lost her Russian accent and speaks like any other surfer chick from California!" I chuckled. "There is no way Lyudmila is going to go home when she finishes her degree. I did ask Katya to call Patrick Shaughnessy again, but she demurred. Of course, if things fall apart in Eastern Europe, she may well change her mind. Should that happen, everything would depend on the character of a new government."

"Did they know what days they were coming to visit?"

"Not yet, but most likely the 27th until the 29th. Lyusya would fly back to California from here. She doesn't want to be away from Curtis for more than a week or so."

"They seem to be permanent," Kara observed.

"So it would seem. But she has four years before she finishes at Stanford, so a lot could happen."

"Did you decide on our costumes?" Jessica asked.

"Yes. I talked to Abbie, and she thinks it's fine. She revealed her plan, as well as Henry's, and it's going to be pretty funny."

"So the three of us are going goth?" Kara asked.

"Yes. Along with Matthew. Jesse and Francesca are coming as Hansel and Gretel, and Josie is coming as the witch from the story. Jennifer is coming as Jane Russell in The Outlaw. That's going to be one sexy outfit!"

"What are Henry and Abbie's costumes?" Jessica asked.

"I was sworn to absolute secrecy," I said.

"Is Cindi REALLY going to come naked with just body paint?" Elyse asked.

"So she says. I'm not sure that Chris will tolerate that, but I sure wouldn't put money on him being able to control Cindi!"

"Who's babysitting the little guys?" Kara asked.

"Fawn. April's coming to the party this year."

"I can't believe Fawn is seventeen," Jessica said. "She was ten when I first met her."

"And she's dating," I said. "She has a boyfriend, much to Al's consternation. When we had lunch last week, he was bemoaning the idea that she would have a steady boyfriend!"

"She's a Senior in High School! It's not as if she's a baby!"

"I agree, but Al does not have our view of how much freedom teenagers should have."

"In some ways, Jesse has more freedom than Fawn," Kara said.

"I suppose so," I said thoughtfully.

"Ready for bed?" Kara asked with an impish smile. "We need to make sure!"

"Lead the way, Honey!" I grinned.

I picked up Albert, who had been napping on a blanket next to me, and my wives and I headed up to bed.

October 13, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

I was on my way back to the office after talking to Doctor Driesson's class and heard on WBBM that the Dow Jones average was down about 200 points, which was almost 7%. Len Walter's analysis was that it had to do with a collapse in the junk bond market, which seemed to have been kicked off by a failed leveraged buyout of United Airlines. As I had with the major crash two years before, I decided to buy some additional stock first thing Monday morning.

I pushed that out of my conscious mind and thought more about the students I'd spoken with both during and after class. None of them had really stood out in my mind as good candidates, though Penny was an obvious exception. It dawned on me that I was comparing everyone to Penny, which wasn't really reasonable, given she'd been working for me for several years. That said, even without the comparison, none of them seemed to be as good as any of our current employees.

My thoughts went back to the stock market, and I wondered what the short-term economic situation would look like. The Fed had reported near-zero economic growth, and the federal government was still trying to sort through the savings and loan crisis that had wiped out the FSLIC.

The more significant concern in my mind was the involvement of the 'Keating Five' — Senator Alan Cranston, a Democrat from California; Senator Dennis DeConcini, a Democrat from Arizona; Senator and former astronaut John Glenn, a Democrat from Ohio; Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona; and Senator Donald Riegle, a Democrat from Michigan.

The allegations were that they had tried to interfere on behalf of Charles Keating with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to protect Lincoln Savings and Loan. That S&L had been seized by the government earlier in the year after its parent, American Continental, went bankrupt, costing tens of thousands of their life savings. If the allegations were true, five US Senators could theoretically go to jail. I didn't believe that would happen, given my complete distrust of the Senate and Justice Department to actually do anything substantial about alleged criminal actions by Senators.

I arrived back in the office and reported what I'd experienced to Dave. He didn't think it was a big deal because we had no plans to hire programmers in May. In addition, our intern for the current semester was a UofC work-study student, much to Doctor Bauer's displeasure. I'd pointed out that Dave made those decisions, not me, but I'd taken the brunt of the complaint. The fact that Penny would have the internship during her Senior year didn't mollify him because she was technically already an employee.

October 17, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

"Watching the World Series?" I asked Elyse when I came home from karate.

"I was, but the game was postponed. They had a huge earthquake just after the coverage started at 7:00pm."

"How bad?"

"They reported the preliminary number as around 7.0 on the Richter. Part of the Bay Bridge collapsed, and so did part of Interstate 880 in Oakland, something they're calling the 'Cypress Structure'. There's also a lot of damage in the Marina district. ABC has their blimp there because they were covering the game."

"We'll have to call Barbara in LA and make sure that we don't have anyone caught in San Francisco," I said, concerned.

"She called already," Elyse replied. "They're all safe and accounted for. Everyone was in Los Angeles today. She'll check on our customers in the morning or as soon as possible, as phones may very well be out."

"Thanks!" I said. "I need a shower. I'll be right back." I said.

I hurried upstairs and showered and then went back to the great room. My wives joined us after their showers, bringing our kids with them.

"Any deaths reported?" I asked.

"Not yet, but I imagine a bunch of people had to have died when that freeway collapsed. The upper deck crashed onto the lower deck. There's also a fairly big fire in the Marina district. And power is out all over the place, including Candlestick Park. They have Al Michaels on by phone, I think."

"Remember when we used to listen to him on WLW broadcasting the Reds?"

"I do. Did you hear his coverage of the 1980 US Olympic hockey game when you were in Sweden? Or was it Swedish coverage?"

"Unfortunately, it was Swedish coverage," I said.

I smiled because that made me think about the bet I'd won over nine years ago, and I wondered how Suzana was doing. I exchanged occasional letters with Torbjörn and regular letters with Tina Hoff, but besides them, I was really only in touch with Karin and Katt and their husbands. I'd more or less lost touch with everyone else.

"I know that smile, Tiger. Who was she?"

"My host sister while I was in Sweden. We made a bet about the US-Soviet ice hockey game. I won."

Jessica laughed, "I bet you did! And I bet she did, too!"

"I wonder what Major League Baseball will do about this, given that the game was between the Giants and Athletics. I'm guessing both cities are going to be severely affected."

"Good question," Elyse said. "What could they do? Move the games to a neutral site?"

"I'm sure they have some contingency plan, but at some point, if they can't play in either stadium, they'll have to do something besides wait. You said the game hadn't started?"

"Right. It was still about thirty minutes before the official start time. Tim McCarver was narrating some highlights and sort of freaked out. Then Al Michaels came on and said they were having an earthquake. They lost the signal and put on that stupid Roseanne show before they restored the audio feed. They went to news coverage just after 7:30pm. You came in about 8:10pm when they were just receiving the first good reports. Ted Koppel was doing a lot of talking while they were showing video from the blimp and stuff like that. I guess many of the local stations were off the air because of power outages."

"I suppose we won't get any more information about the protest in Leipzig yesterday. The paper said more than 100,000 people had protested, and the government didn't do anything to stop it."

"I had CNN on when I arrived home, and they were talking about the East German government having crisis meetings."

"You think?" I chuckled. "They have to do something because those people will soon realize they can overthrow the government. The question is, will East German troops fire on their own people? It's not like they can bring in troops from the hinterlands the way the Chinese government did to put down the Beijing protests. Well, I suppose they could use Soviet troops, but that would get ugly fast if the East German government didn't coöperate or if the East German army backed the protestors."

"Well, Tiger, I know you're a news junkie, but I think you and Kara have some important business to attend to!"

"Duty calls," I sighed.

Kara giggled, and we gathered up Albert and Birgit. We put her down to bed in the nursery, then put Albert in his crib and got into bed.

"When are you due?" I asked Kara.

"What? You don't mark my period on your calendar?"

"No," I chuckled. "Sorry."

"Saturday. So by Tuesday, we'll know. I think I'm pregnant, but we need to make sure!"

I pulled her to me, and we made love while Jessica lay next to us. When we finished, Kara and I made love to Jessica.

October 18, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

"No fucking way!" I declared in disbelief. "Just no fucking way!"

My wives and I had come home from our counseling session and were eating dinner.

"I'm not kidding," Elyse said. "Erich Honecker resigned today. They claimed it was for health reasons."

I chuckled, "As in, he wants to stay alive. Did they say who took over?"

"Some guy named Krenz."

"Egon Krenz," I said. "Honecker's deputy. Did they say anything else?"

"Just that he promised to bring democracy to East Germany."

"Jesus," I said. "This is moving too fast. It's nuts."

"Hang on to your hat, Steve," Elyse said. "The Hungarian National Assembly voted to restore multi-party democracy today."

"It's over," I said. "The East Bloc is done. The only question now is how it happens. Poland, Hungary, and East Germany are all going to break with the Soviets. Czechoslovakia will go with them. The question is, do the Russians use the Red Army to stop it?"

"What do you think?" Kara asked.

I thought for a minute, then shook my head, "They won't, at least not after Afghanistan and not with Gorbachev in power. If he's removed and replaced with a hardliner, then yes, we'll see something like what happened in China. But I don't think so. Poland would rise up, and we're talking 80,000,000 people. No, the Warsaw Pact is finished, and the Iron Curtain is toast. It's just a matter of time. And a question of how many people die. Damn. The Soviets appear to have given up. Well, let's see what Gorbachev has to say. We may well be in 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' territory."

"Unbelievable," Jessica said.

"This is a seismic shock bigger than the California earthquake," Elyse said. "By the way, they're reporting at least forty dead so far, and rough estimates of damages already exceed $3 billion. The Commissioner hasn't said anything about resuming the World Series, but that's unsurprising. They did get most of the power back on."

After dinner, we watched CNN and then headed up to bed.

October 24, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

"Well?" I asked when we woke up just before 5:00am on Tuesday.

"Nope!" Kara giggled. "I'm pregnant for sure! Well, I'm late enough that I'm sure. I'll pick up an EPT on my way home from teaching today. I can't really use it before Friday because we want it to be accurate."

"And you're going to call your mom when we wake up again, aren't you?" I grinned.

"Of course, silly!"

"I'm happy!" I said, pulling her to me for a hug. "But now I need to run. See you for breakfast at about 6:30am!"

I put on my sweat suit, and after I kissed my wives, I headed out for my run with Jacquelyn. The weather was closer to normal, which meant it was in the 50s and would go up to the mid-70s. I knew that soon we'd be thinking about running inside. We covered our distance, and after walking Jacquelyn home, I jogged home for a shower.

"We already showered," Kara giggled. "You missed it!"

"Now that's just mean!" I groused, stripping off my sweat suit.

I quickly showered, and the three of us went downstairs. I got breakfast ready, and we sat down to eat. Jessica nursed Albert and ate with one hand while I read the Tribune.

"Did you see this explosion in Texas? A plant that makes plastic for milk bottles blew up yesterday afternoon, killing at least twenty. Supposedly, there were six total explosions that destroyed most of the plant. They didn't get the fire under control until late last night."

"I saw it on the news last night," Elyse said. "But you guys went upstairs to shower after karate and never came back down!"

"My fault!" Jessica giggled.

"There's also an article here that says the Hungarian Republic was officially declared yesterday on the anniversary of the 1956 Revolution. Hungary is officially no longer a People's Republic. I'm guessing they're going to leave the Warsaw Pact any day now and abandon whatever vestiges of communism are left. I read in The Economist that they'd already done quite a bit to loosen things up economically. Now they're free politically, too. The dominoes are falling."

"Opposite of what the US claimed in South-East Asia. This time, it's the communists who are being consigned to the ash heap of history."

"Amen to that!" I said.

October 27, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

"Positive!" Kara shrieked from the bathroom.

She came out waving the test kit, which had two pink plusses showing.

"Go on, call your mom," I said with a grin.

"Men!" she huffed.

"I've seen this movie! I'm going to get dressed to go run. Say 'Hi' to your mom for me."

"Go run, husband, before you say something that will get you in real trouble!" Jessica laughed.

Before I could leave the room, Kara was shrieking into the phone just as she had the first time. I shook my head and headed out for my run. I was back just under ninety minutes later to take a shower. Once again, I showered alone, with the girls teasing me about the joint shower they'd taken while I was running with Jacquelyn. After I finished my shower and had dressed, we went downstairs to have breakfast.

"Is everything set for tomorrow night?" I asked Elyse.

"Yes," she said, patting Michael on the back to get him to burp.

"How many guests RSVP'd?" Kara asked.

"We'll have around eighty," Elyse answered. "I heard the squeals earlier. I'm assuming your pregnancy test was positive?"

"Yes! Sorry if I woke you!"

"It's OK. You're just the excitable type!" Elyse laughed.

"Having children is really all I ever wanted out of life."

"And orgasms," Jessica teased. "Don't forget orgasms!"

"Well, duh!" Kara giggled.

"What did your mom have to say?" I asked.

"Just that she was happy for us. Obviously, it's at least eight months before they'll come up to see our new baby."