Shattering glass disturbed me, but on that hot August night in Atlanta, I was lulled back to sleep by the humming air conditioner unit in the bedroom window. I was alone in our Midtown apartment across from PIedmont Park. My musician husband was out playing a gig and not due back until the dark hours of early morning.
Crashing glass again! Through the fog of sleep, I thought there’d been yet another car wreck on that busy road on a Friday night. More glass breaking, and now I’m wide awake.
I went to the sunporch off the bedroom to peer out toward the street, which I could barely see from my angle. I cranked open the window to look and hear the street noise.
More crashing sounds, and the shouts, “Fire! Get out!” I thought, no! the building next door is on fire! I pulled on jeans and grabbed my wallet and keys. I wonder why that was my natural instinct when I’m thinking someone else’s building is on fire?
I went to the front door and opened it. The stair landing was all dark – no lights at all. I took the time to lock the door, if you can believe that, and then I ran down the now smoky dark stairs. I burst out the door down below to find a crowd of people on the street and fire trucks battling the blaze on the first floor and then up and then bursting out through the third story roof and windows. I hadn’t heard the firemen pounding on my door earlier. I was the last one out of the building.
The fire had started on the floor below ours where a couple was running an illegal restaurant out of their apartment.
I sat on the hill across the road, watching the blaze. My partner finally battled through the roadblocks down the street and found me. We sipped coffee supplied by the Red Cross truck and thanked them for the fifty dollars they gave everyone to find someplace to stay the next night.
I thought of our wedding pictures and the box of handmade lace of my great grandmother’s.
On the second day after the fire, we went in to see what could be salvaged after the looters took what they wanted. Odd things were gone from our smoky water soaked rooms: an owl, stuffed and mounted, illegally, and left with us by a friend passing through. A leftover bottle of wine gone from the fridge.
The blender full of black smoky water remained, as did bookshelves full of art books with coated paper pages permanently glued shut. A light fixture crashed through the glass top table in the dining room. The piano full of water.
Most people lost everything. We were lucky – everyone was lucky. No one was hurt, no one lost lives. The blue sky and clouds showing through the roof a reminder that the stuff is of no significance. We began again, with fewer possessions to take care of and our lives ahead of us.
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