Switch

by Austin Lott

There was no light.  Nothing.

The kind of dark where you put your hand in front of your face and you can't see your hand.  The kind of dark where you imagine your hand waving, but it's just your imagination.  Click.  The LED headlamp I'm wearing casts a cool bluish light wherever I look.  A thin stream of water runs down the center of the sloping sides of the 114-inch concrete pipe I'm resting in.

Forward, back, it goes on forever and your light trickles off into blackness as you strain to see what lies ahead.  In a pair of old shoes, shorts, a dirty t-shirt, work gloves, and a hat sits my accomplice, Zay.  He's one of the guys I go to school with, the kind of guy who says yes to odd late night adventures.  At this moment, we were probably sitting some 25 or so feet below Harbor Boulevard, the lifeline of Costa Mesa.

It's cool and both of us have worked up a decent sweat by now.  You have to figure out a method for walking because your ankle starts to tire quickly when on an angle.  One two three, switch, one two three, switch, one two three...  That's how you walk down below.  You have to be careful of the water though - it's deeper than it looks and a tiring leg can cause your foot to skim the surface and soak your leg as you cross to the opposite side.  As we continue deeper and deeper, it seems as if we are seeking the heart of the city.  The muffled, deep thmp thmp gets louder as we continue.  Switch.

Zay stopped, "Check that out, 'The End is Near,'" reading the red scrawl of spray paint on a wall.

I respond with a chuckle, "Well, not quite yet.  This is only halfway from where we got last time."

"Yeah man.  Hey, 'Repent Your Sins.'"

"Hey, come check this out."  I motion for him to come further down to where I'm standing, "'Genesis 12:22.'"  It's a verse that doesn't exist.  Switch.

As we continue, a new sound joins the heartbeat, a metallic twang, pew pew.  It's a sharp sound, different.  Thmp thmp, pew pew...  Each distinctly echoes down and past us.  The acoustics allow us to whisper and hear each other clearly.  Our footsteps hit the floor and bounce all around us.

"I never did anything like this as a kid," I confess.  "I probably would have.  I just didn't know about it.  I was a good kid too, didn't really do much that was too sketchy."

"Me either, man.  Just the usual sort of running around you do as a kid."

Thmp thmp!  Pew pew!  It gets louder as we go.  Switch.

We stop by a junction, the dry ledge of a 48-inch branch invites us to sit.  We switch off our lights.  I had discovered a map, courtesy of the local flood control district, that showed in great detail the sizes of drains and their paths below the streets of the city.  Drains in most modern cities are the redirected rivers and streams that were built over, not the sewers.  Drains smell like caves, like wet concrete.  There's always the danger of stale air, or gas pockets, but our particular drain was fairly well ventilated, allowing us to explore without much fear of dying in obscurity.

Thmp Thmp, pew pew.  Switch.

As we walked on, nearing the heartbeat, it grew infrequent, but infinitely more surprising.  You could walk several minutes and without warning find it wasn't the dull thmp thmp, but a sharp, quick BANGBANG.

"It's like we're viruses, creeping through the veins of the city," Zay says from behind me as we approach a manhole.  There are 22 rungs on most of them, all a little over a foot apart, and the cylindrical shaft up is crisscrossed with cobwebs and spiders.

"Yeah, how crazy is it..."  I'm cut off by BANGBANG.  "Shit!... No matter how much I try to expect it, I always get surprised by it."

Zay laughs, "Me too, man."

Switch.

As we walk, our footsteps echoing off the walls, stopping to read the more infrequent graffiti, I think about how we got here.  Earlier that week, I had discovered an out-of-print zine called Infiltration.  Some of their articles were free to read on their website.  There was this group called the Cave Clan, a group of urban explorers, the kind of people who do what Zay and I were doing, who explore the rather elaborate storm drain system of Australia's major cities.  The group was founded in 1986 by three teenagers and focused on exploration while minimizing tagging.  It's an interesting group, but it was blessed with a few gifted writers who had the ability to communicate their passion for draining, and in turn inspire me to check it out.  Part of their recommendations was not going alone.  Thus, I recruited Zay, a fellow writer.

Switch.

There is a more frequent system of markings left in a uniform white paint.  It seems to be from the original crews that installed these pipes.  There are typically several numbers, followed by a date.  Much of the system was installed in the 1980s, with dates ranging from 1982 up to 1986.  Some of the earliest tagging we saw was dated 1991.

Thmp thmp, pew pew.  As we continue on, the pipe narrows.  We're both around the six foot tall mark, so we walk with our heads bent, lights bobbing back and forth over the water as we cross.  Switch.  It's more tiring now; we've been under for almost two hours.  Switch.  Our legs are getting tired more quickly, and we have to stop and rest frequently.  Switch.  Then we come to a portion where it gets so small we have to walk doubled over.

I chuckle as I read the graffiti, "TURN BACK" accompanied by an arrow urging us back the way we came and follow its orders.

We end up back at the last manhole shaft, water dripping from the cover and plinking softly onto the concrete floor.

"Well, we can try to lift this one, or we can walk back..." I tell Zay.

"It's up to you, man.  I'm down with whatever.  I don't think we can lift it though."

"Well, we haven't heard anything run this one over, so I'm gonna go try..."

It's a long way up.

Cobwebs and spiders cover the walls, the kind that can't hurt you but you don't want in your hair anyway.  I swing my gloved hand around above me, clearing the way but not quite getting them all.  Whack!  I kill a spider.  I don't want to imagine it crawling down my shirt as I try to climb up.  If you've ever had a spider's web drape unexpectedly across your face, you know what I was experiencing at this moment.  When I reach the top of the shaft, I push on the cover.  It doesn't budge.  I change my approach and prop my elbows on the top rung and push hard with a little more leverage.  For amount of dirt and a little water fall on me and trickle down towards Zay.  Another push and I have the manhole cracked open with about an inch of the outside world showing.  I see a light pole, a street light, and the tops of some buildings.  I can't tell where we are in the street though.

"Zay, I can see a light.  I think we're on a side street."

"Alright..."

At the bottom of the shaft, we discuss the dangers of popping a manhole cover where we don't clearly know where it is in the street, Harbor Boulevard being the busiest street in this section of town.  As I thought about the eternity of pipe that lay behind us, and the sharp pain in my ankles, the burning of my leg muscles, the dull ache in my lower back, I said, "Well, it would be easier to walk on the surface."

CRUNCH!  Above us, a car pushed our exit back into place.  This was bad.  You never popped a cover in the street.  What would we do?  We could backtrack, pop one we figured wasn't in a street.  We could just play it safe, walk all the way back, and climb out of the channel.  We could, we could...

"Let's just get out and run," Zay says.

"Alright," I reply.  "Hey, let's just pray real quick, seems fitting before a risk."

"For sure."

"God, please clear this spot of traffic... and protect us, warn us if we're in danger here... and please don't let there be any cops... guide us.  Thanks, amen."

"Well, let's go."

I climb back up, and as soon as Zay is right behind me, I pop the edge up like before.  It's heavy, really heavy, and as I lift it, the back edge dips down, allowing me to get my left hand on it, sliding it up and out over to the side of the road.  I pop my head up and, to my horror, we're not on a side street, we're in the crosswalk right in the middle of Harbor Boulevard.  There are a few cars waiting at a light about a half mile away.  I rush to climb out, yelling at Zay.

"Oh shit, we're in the middle of f*cking Harbor!  Hurry up!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!"

He comes out quickly and I slide the cover back into place as quickly as I can.  It falls mostly into place, leading the trailing edge slightly popped still.  We run as fast as we can down the side street and duck behind a truck, our hearts pounding.  We strip off our gloves, I take my headlamp off.  Donning our sweatshirts, we wait a few minutes, then stroll back in a nonchalant kind of way, and hit the walk button on the traffic light.