2003-01-18
happy anniversary
:: morrissey ::
tonite is the nite that five years ago, my house burnt down. it was just a bit colder than it is out right now.
school was canceled that day. lots of snow and ice on the roads. when my parents got home from work, i begged them to take me to my friends house. they refused. i threw a standard fifteen year old fit. i wanted to go over to her house. we we're going bowling with some boys we had just met. finally, my dad caved in hours later.
we did go bowling, and we had a lot of fun. i still remember one boy had red pants on. it was great. i stole my bowling shoes too.
that nite, i couldn't fall asleep. other than being uncomfortable on her floor and freezing, my eyes rejected the idea of sleep and i laid staring at her ceiling.
at one point, i sat up and looked at the clock and it was just after three a.m. i tried to wake my friend up, for what reason, im unsure. she didn't wake up to me, or when the phone rang. no one in the house did. the answering machine picked up and it was my mom. she left a message and a number that i didn't recognize.
i started crying because i knew something was wrong. i got up and replayed the message a couple of times and finally dialed the number.
we moved into a crap hotel for a couple of weeks. one bedroom, five people. i stayed with the same friend. then, the insurance company found us an apartment, already furnished. two bedrooms, five people. i slept in a bed, but refused to live within its walls.
the fire was deemed electrical. i had a black light plugged into an outlet in my basement bedroom, and it turned out to be shotty.
the thing about our basement was it was just fake walls. wood panneling put up to form spaces. you could walk between some of the walls, all of them if you don't mind the itchy pink stuff.
well, the spark ignited all that itchy pink stuff and surrounded my room. i had a tiny window that let next to no light in. it was about seven feet from the floor and about eight inches tall, twelve wide.
the fire spread to the laundry room, right outside my door. then down the hall and into the living room, where the alarm went off. my dad woke up and went downstairs. i can imagine him finding the hallway full of flames, not even being able to see my room door. he say's he forgot i wasn't there.
after he regained his senses, he returned upstairs and woke up my mom and had my brother get all the animals and go outside. my mom called the fire department, who told her to stay on the phone. by then, the flames were taking advantage of the stairway, making their way towards the kitchen where my mom was on a corded phone.
she dropped the phone and ran when the floor starting falling through at the end of the hallway uptairs. it took the firemen forty five minutes to get to our house. they sent one guy out to judge how many men to call, then he had to call his boss, who called the actual firemen and told them to come.
when i finally went back, our house was borded up. there was an immense hole in the roof, as well as one on the sides of the house. inside, everything not burnt was melted. you could still walk inside, but carefully because what had not fallen through had buckled in the heat.
our televison was melted down the front of the entertainment center. our newly found and reburbished antique dining table had been thrown through the window by the firemen. there were beads all over the floor. every where. my mom had been making jewelry on the table.
a bunch of kids had broken into the house a couple of days before. there were eggs splattered all over the walls and things were smashed. they even spray painted "haha" on ceiling, right next to where they had written some lyrics, "the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire." nice.
the fire never really reached the kitchen. i had done dishes before i left and they still remained in the drying rack. the tupperware cups were melted together in a stack. the curtains and blinds were melted. everything was melted and black.
the insurance man told us we weren't allowed to take anything. they would go through the house and return to us what they thought was permissable to have, anything with the least damage.
after he walked outside, i snuck into my brothers room and grabbed his biggest box of baseball cards from his closet. there was a huge hole in his ceiling, and everything was damp, but nothing in his closet had been touched. it was all perfect, other then the smell. i was about to leave when i noticed his fish. he forgot his fish.
they didn't give us much back. just a few pictures, all burnt at the edges, and some random objects from our junk drawers. i got nothing back. and gerrit never got the other boxes of his baseball cards. i hate insurance companies. i hated our insurance guy. he was an asshole, i told him so.
our house took a year to rebuild.
i miss everything i lost. my books, my pictures, my poetry, the autobiography i wrote in first grade, my stuffed animals, everything. im now a pack rat.
im afraid to let anything go.
every year i look back and remember that nite and the year that followed, and all the years that succeeded. and i realize they wouldn't exist, i would not exist if it wasn't for me being a brat and my dad driving me to a friends house.
lunaadored at 12:06 a.m.