Cryptonomicon

The house's stone foundation rises three feet above grade. The wooden walls of the house were built on top of that, but not actually attached to it (a common practice in the old days, which, at the time he blew town, was on Randy's list of things to fix before the next earthquake). When the earth began to oscillate side-to-side at 2:16 in the afternoon yesterday, the foundation oscillated right along with it, but the house wanted to stay where it was. Eventually the foundation wall moved right out from underneath the house, one corner of which dropped three feet to the ground. Randy could probably estimate the amount of kinetic energy the house picked up during this fall, and convert it to an equivalent in pounds of dynamite or swings of a wrecking ball, but it would be a nerdy exercise, since he can see the effects for himself. Let's just say that when it smashed to earth the whole structure suffered a vicious shock. The parallel, upright joists in the floors all went horizontal, collapsing like dominoes. Every window and doorframe instantly became a parallelogram, so all of the glass broke, and in particular all of the leaded glass was rent asunder. The stairway fell into the basement. The chimney, which had been in need of tuck-pointing for some time, sprayed bricks all over the yard. Most of the plumbing was wrecked, which means that the heating system is history, since the house used radiators. The plaster fell from the lath everywhere, cumulative tons of old horse-hair plaster just exploding out of the walls and ceilings and mixing with the water from the busted plumbing to make a grey slurry that congealed in the downhill corners of the rooms. The hand-crafted Italian tiles that Charlene picked out for the bathrooms are seventy-five percent broken. The granite counters in the kitchen are now seamed tectonic systems. A few of the major appliances look repairable, but ownership of those was in dispute anyway.

"It's a tear-down, sir," says Robin Shaftoe. He has spent his whole life in some Tennessee mountain town, living in trailers and cabins, but even he has enough real estate acumen to sense this.

"Is there something you wanted to get out of the basement, sir?" says Marcus Aurelius Shaftoe.

Randy laughs. "There's a filing cabinet down there . . . wait!" he reaches out and puts a hand on Marcus's shoulder, to prevent him from sprinting into the house and diving like Tarzan into the stairway-pit. "The reason I wanted it was because it contains every single receipt for every penny I put into this house. See, it was a wreck when I bought it. Sort of like it is now. Maybe not as bad."

"You need those papers for your dee-vorce?"

Randy stops and clears his throat in mild exasperation. He has explained to them five times that he was never married to Charlene and so it's not a divorce. But this idea of living with a woman to whom one is not married is so embarrassing to the Tennessee branch of the Shaftoes that they simply cannot process it, and so they keep talking about "your ex-wahf" and "your dee-vorce."

Noting Randy's hesitation, Robin says, "Or for the IN-surance?"

Randy laughs with surprising heartiness.

"You did get IN-surance, didn't you sir?"

"Earthquake insurance, around here, is basically unobtainable," Randy says.

This is the first time it dawns on any of the Shaftoes that as of 2:16 P.M. yesterday afternoon, in an instant, Randy's net worth dropped by something like three hundred thousand dollars. They skulk away from him and leave him alone for a while, taking pictures to document the loss.

Amy comes over. "Oatmeal's ready," she says.

"Okay."

She stands close to him with her arms folded. The town is uncannily quiet: the power is off and few vehicles are on the streets. "I'm sorry I ran you off the road."

Randy looks at his Acura: the gouge, high on the left rear fender, where the bumper of Amy's U-Haul truck took him from behind, and the crumpled front right bumper where he was forced into a parked Ford Fiesta. "Don't worry about it."

"If I'd known--Jesus. The last thing you need is a body shop bill on top of everything else. I'll pay for it."

"Seriously. Don't worry about it."

"Well . . ."

"Amy, I know perfectly well you don't give a shit about my stupid car, and when you pretend otherwise, the strain shows."

"You're right. But I'm sorry I misapprehended the situation."

"It was my fault," Randy says, "I should have explained why I was coming here. Why the hell did you rent a U-Haul, anyway?"

"They were all out of regular cars at the San Francisco Airport. Some kind of big convention at the Moscone Center. So I displayed adaptability. " (20)

"How the hell did you get here so fast? I thought I took the last flight out of Manila."

"I got to NAIA only a few minutes after you did, Randy. Your flight was full. I got on the next flight to Tokyo. I think my flight actually took off before yours did."

"Mine was delayed on the ground."