So, last night, my apartment caught fire. I don’t mean my apartment as in, “the rooms in which I live” but the rooms in which someone else lives in the building in which all of our rooms are. So, an apartment in my apartment complex (which I refer to generally as “my apartment” although my actual apartments are a few doors down).

We were leaving for a movie, and just before we opened the door, I asked my husband if that beeping was something I should worry about (by which I meant, is it coming from inside my home). He opened our door, the beeping got louder, and I concluded it was not (something I should worry about). We locked our door and noticed our managers going door to door, listening to see where the beeping was coming from. Recently, my next door neighbor had cried wolf by having a hyper-sensitive carbon monoxide detector installed and leaving a turkey in the oven while she went shopping. I assumed it was the same thing. Our manager determined it was the apartment a few doors down from ours and opened it. Smoke immediately billowed out. We opened our apartment back up, got our (tiny and probably ancient) kitchen fire extinguisher and a selection of flashlights to try to ford the smoke. Yes, our first reaction was to put it out ourselves. The managers called the fire department, who advised that we leave the building, and our movie was forgotten.

The fire department arrived relatively slowly (it’s just down the street) and, though we were waving and pointing, they took a while to get out of their truck, “Is this 268?” nope, we’re just waving a fire truck with lights & siren on because we like putting other people’s homes in danger. Once they determined they were at the right place, however, they worked like lightening. Everyone got out of their apartments and stood just barely out of their way as (defining a Slow Day in Burb-Ankh) 9 fire trucks, 3 police cars, and one helicopter descended to our never-quiet street.

It didn’t take more than a half hour to let us back into the building (though it took much more to roll & fold all the hoses back up and put away all the ladders), but time moved very slowly for me. Not able to get (or really desiring) a closer look, I didn’t know what started it, who might have been in danger, or what was going on now (had it spread?). People who hadn’t been home at the time appeared out of no where, called by neighbors from dinner or work. Including the girl whose home it had been.

I still can’t think of her as other than “girl” though she’s at least as old as I. She never seemed to me to have her life “in order”, if you will. I liked her well enough, didn’t know her name but greeted her and talked in the courtyard with her. What do you say to someone who has just arrived on the scene to be told that her home is on fire? “How’re you doing?” “You okay?” “Do you need anything?” I contented myself by not avoiding eye contact and making sympathetic faces at her, through the crowd. By this time, we’d been backed up and there was a FIRE LINE DO NOT CROSS in front of us, along with a few policemen.

Rumors rippled through our throng, each of us getting information from different sources (or making it up, possibly) and passing it along: It was an electrical fire (which meant it could be in the walls). It was a candle fire (I can’t believe she was so negligent). Firefighters walking around with chainsaws (two! because one just isn’t enough?) and axes (in a very nonchalant fashion, as though he & his friends were posing for a calendar) fueled (if you’ll pardon the term) the rumors. They’re done & they’re packing up. They’re going back in, it must’ve started up again. It was an iron. It was a space heater. She had a methlab.

This started speculation about the girl whose home it was. I learned her name (after living near her for 3 years) and that she was known by most people to be a tweaker (I had to look it up). I knew for a fact that she once left a candle burning and came home to find it burned down and still flickering. She maintained that it was because it was a (scary) Jesus candle that it didn’t burn down the house. We had shared a relieved chuckle about three months before about this story. I didn’t inject this into the rumor river I was floating in because, well, I’ve done that, too. I’ve probably left electronics plugged in, too. I wasn’t going to cast any stones, but I had no problem watching them get thrown. A woman behind me yelled in her general direction, “This is your fault!” while laughing, following it by, “You knew this was coming, crackwhore.” Since she was laughing I thought it was an inside joke between the two of them (you know how some women call each other bitch and it’s okay because they’re good friends). I remember thinking that, good friends or not, this was not the time to joke like that.

One of the policemen (and the policemen were all men, allegedly there was a firewoman, but I didn’t see her) told us that residents were allowed back in, but asked that we stay single file and out of the firefighters’ way. We dutifully traipsed back in, taking in the sights on our way to our respective apartments. Everyone went into their homes and checked that all was well. Then we all came back out. Drinks were made & passed around. Firefighters were oogled. Husbands and boyfriends were chagrinned.

I went into my apartment and put some water on the boil. The ritual-cum-repetitive motions of fixing tea helped me calm down. As the water boiled, I chose a tea, put it in the pot, gathered cups, and chose my favorite, the one with a dragon on it (it’s actually a coffee mug, but, you know). When the water boiled, I poured and waited for the steep. Then I drank. Once I had a bellyfull of Mankind Tea. I went back outside, to firefighter oogling, speculation, and blaming.

While drinking my tea admist “creamsicle” drinkers, I mainly listened. Though I didn’t hesitate to advise some of my neighbors on how, exactly, to use the whole firefighter fantasy to their advantage (there’s a sex shop in Pasadena I’m sure could supply our little apartment with a few pairs of yellow pants and helmets). Leaning on my second-floor walkway and looking over into the courtyard, I was confronted with something I didn’t know happened after fires. I guess I never really thought about it. In movies, a if there’s a fire, the building burns to the ground. People walk, stunned, through the ashes. Here, after putting out the fire, we were let back into the building but not into that apartment. Two firefighters in the apartment packed charred rubble into washbasin buckets and tossed them over the balcony onto a tarp below. One firefighter below made sure the debris stayed (mostly) on the tarp and a second helped empty it into the dumpster.

Things that went over the edge were mostly charred, some recognizable as what used to be an ironing board, others now simply charcoal. Some things didn’t appear damaged at all. One was a bag filled with papers. The bag was charred on the edges but the papers were not and as it fell, they escaped and floated forelornly to the ground. The woman whose apartment it was stood on the balcony, watching her life being tossed out of her home into the public eye. There were no tears, no anger. I’m sure she was simply shocked. I know I was. I can’t imagine how I would feel if my own apartment was simply emptied for all to see. Not that I have things that I don’t want others to see, but the feeling of being ripped open and thrown around.

I don’t know where she stayed last night, her door now has FIRE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape on it, only one room (according to rumors) was damaged, but my friend’s car, parked across the street, still smelled like smoke, and I can’t imagine how that apartment must be. I don’t know if they let her back in, we found another showing of our movie and left in the midst of all this. When we returned at midnight, everyone was in their home, there was no bustle. The yellow tape moved slightly in the wind, the only reminder (in the dark) of the night’s events.

In retrospect, Pan’s Labyrinth was not the best thing to go watch after that. I didn’t really want to go anywhere. I picked up food to smuggle at Famima: a turkey sandwich for my friend, a VitaWater for my husband, and something comforting for me: a tuna & mayo onigiri.

I was still in shock when we came home. I was still thinking all the what-ifs. What if it had been me? What if it had spread? What if we had left 5 minutes earlier and come home to the aftermath? What if the managers hadn’t been home and we didn’t bother to inspect the beeping? What would I take if my apartment was burning? What would I leave behind? I poured myself an eighth-shot of something strong, not because I wanted to be drunk but because I wanted something to hold and sip while I whatifed the night away. I was not tired. I turned on our (super fake) fireplace and stared at it, feeling that I had no right to be cold after the part fire had played in my night. I nursed my itty bitty drink and finally went to bed, tossing, turning, and eventually crying my eyes out. It wasn’t my apartment. I was safe. My husband was safe. My cats were safe. My computer was safe. I was in my bed, yet I couldn’t help feel kinship to the woman whose apartment it was, whose place I so easily could have been in. I was very lucky and felt guilty for being so. I was feeling very selfish. My husband and I shared “I don’t want to lose you”s and it struck me how selfish a feeling that is. I don’t want my husband to die for his own sake: because once he’s dead (I believe) he’s not going to care about anything here. I don’t want him to die because then I’d be without him. It’s a very selfish sentiment.

I had earlier discussed with a neighbor (whose name I don’t know) the fact that Evangeline Lilly’s house recently burned to the ground and she was very zen about it. Lying safely in my bed, I felt surrounded by things. I didn’t get to sleep until I drugged myself with chamomile, something that I think is a stronger sedative than any opiate. And I slept dreamlessly.

Today, life goes on. It still wasn’t my apartment, but the whatifs are still dancing. Speculation continues (the firemen are “officially” saying it was an electrical fire but, due to the number of police on the scene (personally I saw two inside our apartment complex), it was clearly started by the methlab the crackwhore has), and the tape still locks her out. Potential addiction and accidental negligence notwithstanding, I feel very much at this time that she very nearly could have been me. My heart and thoughts are with her. I hope she stayed with friends last night. I hope, if there is addiction involved, she gets help. And, selfishly, I’m still glad it wasn’t me.