Eight months ago, on a Sunday afternoon I heard people screaming inside my apartment building. I didn't know what was going on, but I looked outside my livingroom window and saw a blinding
ora
nge light and crackling sounds from the flames that were now escalating my building, an image that still haunts me today. I went out into the hallway to see it clouded with smoke, I heard somone yelling "There's a fire, we have to get out!!" I ran back inside took my most treasured items (one of which was my childhood teddy bear) and evacutated the building.In all the frantic, no one even called 911. I ended up making the call and 4 fire trucks arrived promptly. We all stood outside the building looking up as our buldiing was scaled by firefighters. Everyone's faces were filled with panic. About 40 minutes went by, and the firemen were starting to come out of the bulding.
We all went back into the building, and it was completely dark, with a str
ong suffocating smoke filling our lungs. I went up the stairs, all the way to my floor, and went inside my place. I walked out just to make sure it was actually my apartment I was stepping into. My bathroom was wrecked, there was a huge gaping hole stretching from the walls up to the ceiling. I walked down my hallway to see huge holes in my wall and debris everywhere. The same went for my kitchen.My mom and I went to visit our neighbors to see how much damage was done to their place. First apartment, no damage. Second apartment, no damage. I was really hoping at this point that someone got it worse than us. We went to the floor below us, and I saw their wall had holes in it too. It might be wrong, but I was glad we weren't the only ones, although our damages turned out to be the most extensive.
The Beginning
So how did this fire start? Let me rewind a few months back. In Septemer 2004 the owner of the building just couldn't keep up with his debts and decided to sell the building to some Jewish people. I am not racist or stereotypical in any way, but forgive me if I come off as that in this entry. As soon as everyone heard Jewish people were taking over, everyone in my building was upset and angry.
There's always been a quiet rumor about Jewish people who take over buildings. It's been said that they've burned down buildings to collect insurance money, and to eventually get everyone out. They also find any excuse possible to evict you so they can move their own families and fellow jewish people into the building. This has been happening for as long as I lived in this neighborhood. I was definitely afraid. I was paranoid that they'd evict us and we'd have no where to live. I lived in this building all my life (22 years) and there's no way i'd want to leave it. I love living here so much.
The building had a laundromat ajoined to it, which the Jewish owners also bought. They decided the washing machines and dryers in there were not good, so they decided to buy new ones. They fixed up the place real nice, and everything was going smoothly.
As it turned out, the fires initially started inside the laundromat when one of the dryers got overheated (or something like that). Because my apartment was on the same side of the laundromat, the fire ran all the way up the gas pipes and did their worst inside the walls of my apartment.
Rebirth
After the fire, there was a sense of "connectedness" amongst the
neighbors of our building. The same kind of feeling I got around my city during 9/11. For three months they worked on this building, fixing each apartment simultaneously. The owners used the insurance money they got to try and make this crummy apartment look like a palace. In my opinion they went overboard with the gold ceilings, but it is better than it was before.I don't really know why I decided to write about all this today, but I just thought i'd like to share it with you guys. Ever since that night after the fire, I couldn't sleep. I mean, how could I? The building could burn down while we were all asleep.
I felt like I was some sort of guardian watching over the building as everyone slept. Till today I stay up really late (like 5 am), but I'm not sure if it's because of the fire, or because I'm just you're run of the mll insomniac.
In all my years of living here there was never a fire. Then the building took new ownership with a group that were known to start fires, and there was one. Although this sounds like too much just to be a coincidence, but in all reality it probably just is. Though I can't tell the future of this building and how long I'll live here, I do know i'll be able to withstand tough situations. posted by psychobabbler @ 4:43 PM
