I live in an old city neighborhood where the lots are narrow and the houses are built relatively close; ten feet or so of separation being the norm. It’s a nice neighborhood; we know most of our neighbors personally, and the rest at least by sight. Our neighbors on the one side are a nice elderly couple in their eighties. Jack used to be a boxing trainer back in the day (helped start Kronk’s Gym, I just found out, which ought to mean something to boxing afficianados), and he’s still pretty spry, but he’s getting a little forgetful now. Juliet’s infirm and can barely move with a walker, and can’t at all without one. She’s been in-and-out of the hospital pretty often recently, too.
Sunday night about ten or so I took a shower, which is pretty unremarkable. I toweled off and wandered out to grab a night shirt. I heard a little “ping” outside and my wife got up and walked over to the side window, saying, “All right, that’s the third funny noise I’ve heard and I want to…OH MY GOD JACK’S HOUSE IS ON FIRE!”
I whip a round and sure enough the light seeping through the curtain isn’t mercury-light blue, it’s blazing fire orange. Suddenly everything kicks into high speed, like the old silent movies that are run at the wrong speed. I’m yelling “Call 911! Call 911!” and thinking ohshitohshitohshitohshit. Of course, it’s just my luck that in a serious emergency I’m buck naked. I run over to my dresser to get some clothes. Meanwhile, my wife’s sobbing on the phone. “Ah! What’s their house number?” she yells to me. “Uh…” I think, “1541! 1541!” I finally struggle into a pair of pants and throw on a sweatshirt and slippers. I run downstairs and out the front door.
By now, maybe a minute has elapsed, but flames are shooting out of the side windows and I can hear the fire roaring and glass breaking. Jack’s car is parked out front, which means he’s home. I run up on the porch and beat on the door with all of my might, yelling Jack’s name. I don’t hear anything right away, so I run around to the side, still yelling, thinking maybe someone could hear me through the now-broken windows. I hear kind of an inarticulate yell and then noise at the front door. By now my wife’s there too, and we both run back on the porch; Jack’s opening the front door and smoke is just pouring out.
“My wife…my wife…in the back room” Jack says, and it’s pretty hard to mistake the naked fear in his voice. We’re all standing in the front vestibule, acrid black smoke is billowing around us, and I can barely see or breathe. My wife, wisely, starts hauling Jack out of the house. I know where the first-floor room is where Juliet sleeps, so I drop on my hands and knees, where there’s a relatively clear space under the smoke, and crawl forward maybe two or three paces. I hesitate, because there’s flames licking across the floor ahead of me, and then suddenly a big gust of smoke blows in my face, and I can’t see or breathe or anything. I realize, then, that I don’t know what the Hell I’m doing, and if I go any further I’ve got a good chance of dying in there. I’m not that brave.
I back out, pushing both Jack (who was trying to get back in) and my wife (who was trying to stop him) out and off the porch. I can barely hear sirens in the distance, and by now other neighbors are gathering round, so someone else grabs Jack, and my wife yells at me to get the hose. I run around back, unscrew the hose, and drag it up front. I try to hook it up in front, with the vague idea of spraying water through the window into the back room, but my hands are shaking so much I can’t. I look up to see flames shooting out of all the visible first-floor windows, and I realize this idea is pitifully inadequate, which pretty much sums up the way I’m feeling now.
Right then, three fire trucks come screaming around the corner, and I’m more than willing to let the professionals handle it. Out of nowhere, firemen are swarming all over with reassuring competence. I walk over to where the rest of the neighbors are gathered, and my wife tells me “Jack thinks Juliet might actually be in the hospital, but he can’t remember for sure.” Oh God, I hope so, because right now the entire first floor looks like the inside of a wood stove.
We watch for a little while; the flames get distressingly close to my house before the firemen get their hoses up and running. It starts to drizzle, which is probably good, except it’s also forty degrees and I’m standing around in slippers and a wet sweatshirt, afraid to go back inside my house. Gail from two houses down notices and gets jackets for both my wife and me. Everyone helps Jack up onto our other neighbor’s porch. I have a bright idea and ask Gail to call the hospital to see if Juliet is checked in or not. Gail whips out a cell phone and calls, and I’m tense for a bit until Gail looks up and says “I’m talking to Juliet now.” Whew. I immediately grab a fireman and let him know, although by this time the fire looks to be out and the point is probably moot, anyway.
There were still a few things to take care of…someone had to convince Jack to go to the hospital, someone else got him some clothes. The fire department had a few questions (turned out Jack fell asleep with a kettle on the stove). My wife and I coaxed one of Jack’s dogs out of the basement and got him into the garage. Everything eventually settled down for the night.
I suppose the nice thing about this incident is how many people came out and stood in the rain to help. And, all things considered, Jack’s pretty lucky as these things go. He’s OK, his wife’s OK, he’s got insurance (so he says), a cousin came over to help him out. He even owns another house, so that puts him far ahead of other people in the same situation. But geez, Jack, you really should have had a smoke alarm in your house. Just an extra minute would have made the whole situation much less dicey.
I don’t mind saying that that’s probably one of the most stressful things I’ve ever experienced, and I certainly don’t want to do it again. I wonder, though, what would have happened had we not been home. Even a few extra minutes before notifying the fire department would have been bad for our house, and probably bad for Jack as well.
