Fire!

In 1935, when I was three years old my mother took the opportunity to teach me about fire. The Rossiter House in Nyack, New York had burned. The roof was collapsed and the windows were gaping dark holes. There were streaks of smoke across the exterior, a bleak scene indeed.

“This is what happens when children play with matches.” She said.

The scene emerged from the oldest memories stored in the deep recesses of my brain where first traumatic scenes are encoded.

Today I went with my friend Eugenia to view what is left of her condominium association building in Lexington Massachusetts.

“I’ve seen this before,” bubbled up in my minds eye. We stood looking at the big brick historic building, the Hancock School on the National Register. Workmen setting up a Pigeon trap on the roof had ignited the roof with their acetylene torch.

What a sad scene. The thick brick walls and chimneys stood clean, almost new looking, but the slate roof looked like some broken rollercoaster ride created by the "Mad Hatter". It heaved and sagged, gave way to the burned timbers that had supported it these one hundred and ten years. The rough edges of the slates dangled as if still trying to cover and protect that top floor. The fourth floor under the roof was totally burned out. Across the facade the windows of the third floor were dark holes.

Eugie and I stood at the yellow tape looking up to the windows of her unit. She was on the third floor, a home to twenty-five people, four floors, four units on each, twenty-five souls who called this building home. They are now caste upon the waters to find a new berth. No one was hurt. Most residents were at work. Eugenia's bedroom windows are intact but the window to her sitting room was gone. We heard there was only water damage on the third floor.

Eugie had been stopped as she turned into her street.

“There is a fire.”

“At what address?”

“33 Forest Street”

“That’s where I live.”

I have her with me now, in my extra bedroom. We are both in shock.

“I’ve lost everything.” She says.

Slowly, protectively, her mind recalls the material representation of her life.

“Its just things” she says. Then later, “I feel sick to my stomach.”

How do you deal with such a loss, death come early, books, Manuscripts. Photographs, Antiques passed on by your parents.

My twins started kindergarten here. One had suffered from school phobia after the neighboring building where they walked in a line for gym, burned down.

“I always thought it was a fire trap.” He said.