Dear Ann (Part Six)

Dear Ann, Part Six :

Okay Ann, so we had left my house after finding no one there, and now we were traveling south on Reseda Boulevard from the intersection of Rayen Street. To reiterate, the occupants of the car were you, Lys, myself, and Mary the driver. I have assumed over the years that after leaving my house, we were driving south in order to go back to Concord Square. That is where we ended up, and I suppose that we went back there at the very least so that you and Lys could get back to your own cars. I don't think there was a plan for what to do with me, but I imagine the decision was made to go back to the apartment house, where your cars were parked, to at least have a place to regroup.

However, on the way there, as we drove down Reseda Boulevard, we saw something that shocked us to our respective cores. I am sure, Ann, that if you remember the overall experience of that night, then you cannot have forgotten what I am about to describe.

We were driving on Reseda toward Roscoe Boulevard. Northridge Hospital is located on Roscoe just east of that intersection. The time by now would have been at least 11pm and possibly later, considering everything that had transpired to that point. Everyone in our car was on edge. I was still feeling weak and far less than 100%, despite the adrenaline jolt from the confrontation with Howard Schaller, but I was once again snapped to attention because, as we came within 200 yards of the Reseda/Roscoe intersection, it was clear that something wasn't right. Things happen fast when you are driving, and all of a sudden we could see that the intersection was blocked off. I don't remember if it was marked with traffic cones, or flares, or just blocked by police cars, but it was blocked off from all four directions to form a large square in the middle.

We came upon this situation very suddenly, and it seemed even more sudden because we weren't expecting it. It felt like it came out of nowhere. I will never forget it as long as I live.

A split second after we saw that the intersection was blocked, we heard an unmistakable noise. I looked up to see a helicopter hovering above the intersection at an altitude of less than 100 feet. It looked like it was attempting to land right in the middle of the area that had been blocked off, but it was doing so very slowly, to avoid electrical wires.

We had the unfortunate timing to arrive at the intersection just as this was happening, and I remember the ladies in the car becoming very startled and unnerved. "Keep going"!, someone shouted, most likely Lys.

"Drive around it, drive around it"!!

Memories that derive from a certain location may be the most powerful of all, in their ability to be recollected. Think of the old saying, "Can you remember where you were when (insert a historical event here)". Most people can remember where they were when a life changing or unusual event took place or was announced on the news.

I first remembered this startling encounter with the helicopter sometime around 1999 or 2000, and my recall was triggered by literally driving the same route. It is a route I must have driven hundreds if not thousands of times in my life, but maybe on that day I was thinking about the events of September 1989, and all of a sudden, as I approached Roscoe Boulevard, I experienced a "visual replay" of the memory that was triggered by the yellow lines that separate the two directions of traffic.

This is one of my strongest memories of the entire twelve day experience, and to this day, if I call it up when driving past that intersection, it will play back like a movie.

Everything happened "split-second" once we saw that the intersection was blocked. In the next instant, we heard the noise and looked up to see a helicopter hovering over the street, trying to land. Imagine how bad that would freak a person out if they came upon it suddenly, late at night. Well Ann, you were there so you know what I mean. All of us in the car were already freaked out, and after Lys screamed at Mary to "Keep going! Drive around it", that is exactly what Mary did. I remembered this with extreme clarity on the day I drove past the intersection sometime in 1999.

All of a sudden, without thinking, Mary swerved the car, over the double yellow line and onto the wrong side of the street. Luckily it was late at night and no cars were coming. The intersection was within 50 yards by now and the helicopter was lower, near to the ground and just to our right.. Without stopping, she drove from the wrong side of the street into the exit ramp of the 7/11 store that stands on the northeast corner of the intersection. She drove through the small parking lot without pausing and exited through the entry ramp onto Roscoe Boulevard. The street was empty that late at night, and we then drove east on Roscoe, having no other choice.

As you will remember, Ann, everyone in the car was totally spooked by now. From my own perspective, I was still "in shock", a subjective term that I describe as a feeling of being "inside myself", and so I may not have been responding to the stimuli in the same vocal way as were the three ladies in the car, but I was well aware that something very unusual was taking place, and that it had now become extremely weird in addition to being scary, amplified even past the point of our encounter with Howard Schaller, because all of a sudden the situation had become something much bigger. We knew instinctively, in the seconds that passed during the sighting of the helicopter, that it's presence was related to the events of that night, and we were terrified, wondering what could possibly happen next.

Mary drove us through the 7/11 parking lot on pure instinct and hightened awareness, swerving to the wrong side of the road automatically as one would do to avoid an accident.

Since my memory of that incident came back in 1999, I have not only never forgotten it, and can replay it at will, but I use it to bolster other location memories that are not quite as vivid. It is easy, as an amnesia victim, to second guess something that, on your first instinct, you knew to be true. But when you receive a location memory as powerful as this one, that re-establishes what actually happened so that it is indelible forever after, it reinforces your trust in everything else you have recalled.

I have a saying, Ann, that I tell myself about certain aspects of the 1989 event, specific but highly unusual details that are not as strong in memory as what I have described to you tonight. About an unusual detail that is still foggy, I will first ask myself, "did that really happen"? Then I remind myself of all the very unusual things I know for certain did happen, incidents that remain visceral in memory, and I conclude that it is very likely, considering all the weirdness in total, that the "foggy" memory I am questioning did indeed happen as well. After all, I tell myself : "why would my mind concoct that"? That is my little saying regarding strange memories that aren't as vivid.

And I know that, 9 times out of 10, or even 99 times out of 100, my mind would not concoct a memory that seems strange, first of all because I am a clear thinker with an acute attention for detail, secondly because I have an excellent memory to begin with, and finally because it is an absolute fact that all of us saw the helicopter hovering above the intersection of Roscoe and Reseda Boulevards, late on the night of September 1st, 1989, and we knew subconsciously at the moment we saw it that it had to do with what had begun at Concord Square, and that whatever the situation had been up to that point, it had now become a whole lot weirder, totally confusing, and much more frightening.

(to be continued tomorrow night)