WESTSIDE COVER STORY : 3 Dimensions of Pain : The Perales Family : ‘We feel like we’re playing with a pistol to the head.’

A note in Santa Monica’s Red Cross shelter gives earthquake victims a prayer and inspiration hot line number. But the “hot line” tells you to leave a message--no prayer, no inspiration.

Much to hope for but little to count on--that’s the way it’s been for thousands of dislocated Westsiders since the Jan. 17 quake. From fortress houses in Bel-Air to tarpaulin encampments in Santa Monica parks, the displaced found themselves in straits as varied as their backgrounds.

Rescue came in many forms. For the more fortunate, it was a sympathetic insurance adjuster or a healthy savings account. For others, it was a housing voucher, a friend’s couch.

Trouble also came in a variety pack. Some of the lucky who could go home were afraid to, even to clean up. Others had to rely on an alien bureaucracy for a new place or cash to stay afloat.

Here are the experiences of three Westside families--the Peraleses, Coopers and Nelsons--as they coped with distinct slices of the disaster.

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Other people may have prayed for the green-tag designation that means a building is safe to live in. Hector Perales dreaded it.

The last thing the 33-year-old restaurant worker wanted was to return to the single room he shared with his wife, Maria Martin, and their two children in Santa Monica’s ramshackle Pico neighborhood.

The family slept at the Red Cross shelter across the street out of fear their five-unit building wouldn’t survive the next temblor. During a stopover, Perales traced a crack that circled the structure’s entire base, like the peel-away strip on a tin of Spam. Smaller cracks scored the walls and ceilings indoors.

“We feel like we’re playing with a pistol to the head,” he said.

The family stayed with relatives in Whittier during the week after the quake, then moved back to Santa Monica, where the children go to school. But returning to the apartment was out of the question. “I don’t want to go there and swish, swish , swish, “ Perales said, moving his arm like a washing-machine agitator.

Eight-year-old Elizabeth was in the top bunk when the quake hit. A window shattered onto Gustavo, 6, who slept below. A television broke against a dresser but never hit the floor because the place is so cramped. The family stayed outdoors the first day. Elizabeth can no longer stand going inside, even for a few minutes.

“As soon as she goes inside, she wants to leave,” Martin said.

To make matters worse, Perales said he has been threatened in the past by friends of two gang members who went to jail last year for beating him up. He would like to leave by the time they are released this year.

The family scrapes by most months on about $600 from Perales’ evening job in a Malibu restaurant and Martin’s occasional work in an El Segundo factory. It would be hard finding a new home for anything close to the $306 a month they pay now.

By the end of the first week at the shelter, the worry began to show. Elizabeth had developed a rash. The couple thought it was time to leave the shelter. Their building had just received a green tag, all but dashing their chances for emergency aid to help them move to a new apartment.

Perales pleaded his case to Santa Monica’s housing authority, which is dispensing the federal housing subsidies. “I think it’s very dangerous,” he told a housing supervisor. “I don’t want to put my family there just because this guy put a paper there.” To no avail; the house was deemed safe.

On Tuesday night, a gap remained in the shelter where their four Red Cross cots had been pushed together. The family had moved home hours earlier; Elizabeth and Gustavo had the chicken pox. In the apartment, the children huddled under blankets as their mother tidied up. Perales sat glumly in front of a borrowed TV. Home didn’t feel like home.

“I’m here because there’s no other choice,” Perales said. “Not because I want to.”