dre in the morning

Sunday Afternoon: I’m lounging in my upstairs office, watching Lawn Dogs on Hulu, a movie that was shot in my hometown of Louisville, Ky, and one in which I had the most infinitesimal part in producing. My good friend and bass player Suzanne Reynolds was production designer, and I vaguely remember her calling and asking me to procure some props for the film. Seems like a computer keyboard was involved… and some Boy Scout paraphernalia…..

I watch a remarkably young Sam Rockwell dive naked off of a bridge in what looks suspiciously like Cherokee Park when I hear my wife say (downstairs) “Is something burning?”

I feel the trill of terror run down my spine (I’m terrified of fire, and have often spent many minutes haranguing my younger daughters on just what can happen if they leave their crumpled-up school papers and discarded clothes too close to the electric heaters in their rooms), then dismiss it. Charity is always smelling something, and I figure the boy Chris had just lit a cigarette or something.

The girl, Samantha, nonchalantly enters my office, asking if I have a flashlight.

“What for?” I ask.

“Well,” she says, gazing off into the distance, then examining her cuticles, then brushing the hair back from her temple, “The kitchen is full of smoke and we think there’s a fire somewhere in the basement.”

I’m out of my chair and downstairs in a thrice (how long is that, anyway?).

Sure enough, the kitchen is engulfed in a haze of smoke, and the boy (hero) is in the basement with a fire extinguisher, peering into the crawlspace directly below our laundry room.

“It’s the dryer!” I exclaim, much to the annoyance of everyone involved, whom had obviously come to that conclusion long before I entered the scene.

I grasped the corners of the malfunctioning machine and began to scoot it across the floor. My erstwhile wife appears and asks if I need help. I of course crush her fingers between the dryer and the washing machine.

“I’m sorry sweetheart!” I exclaimed, grasping at, and kissing the poor digits. I get kinda high-strung during 911-situations.

Chris, from the basement shouts “I can see it! I can see the embers!”

“Do you want me to call the fire department?” my wife asks. I consider. Then dash to the basement.

Christopher is in the crawlspace, his hair flecked with cobwebs and insulation. I pull the pin from the extinguisher, feeling kinda macho (I bought this thing at Home Depot ten years ago and never dreamed I’d actually get to use it). I tell Chistopher to come out and I hose down the ceiling joist and insulation that is smoldering away.

Then, I climb the stairs and soak the smoking hole from the top, in the laundry room. The smoke begins to clear. I tell Charity to hold off on dialing 911.

In the basement, the smoke seems to have cleared a bit. I feel relieved. Maybe this is done. Back to the laundry room…. a thin curl of smoke rises relentlessly from the opening. I soak it again with the extinguisher. I go to the basement, hand Chris the extinguisher and tell him to soak it from the opposite side. Even in this time of emergency, I want to make sure he gets to use it. It’s fun, for one thing, and nothing teaches like experience, right?

Upstairs, laundry room, burnt hole: smoke continues to curl like a chimney. I can see the airflow, feeding it, pulling it, caressing it.

I grab my leather Bar-B-Que mits from the sunroom and kneel on the laundry room floor and pull and tug at the underlayment, thinking the fire must be smoldering in the sub floor. Pieces come away in my hands, then I see it: directly below the opening, an electrical junction box, blue, green and red wires coiled in their aluminum lair.

I look over my shoulder at my wife. “Make the call” I say.

We clear the house, Sami, Chris and Charity wait with me in the driveway. Katrina and her boyfriend light out for the territory (the back yard).

We wait. “I don’t hear any sirens” I say.

A white SUV emblazoned “Chief” pulls up across the street and a tall man gets out and crosses to meet me.

“Let me show you,” I say.

I lay the story out and he makes the call on his radio. A Fairport Police Officer shows up and asks me some questions. It’s while I’m talking to him, I hear the sirens.

Three Fire Engines, they close down Turk Hill Road. The chief asks for a hose in the doorway, but they don’t use it.

Yet.

Fifteen men, all in yellow greatcoats, with boots and harnesses and oxygen tanks and really big helmets. Some stand around. Some go in my house. I make a move to show them where it’s all going down, but the chief tells me I have to stay outside.

I stand by my wife and children. As cheesy as it may sound, I’m awash in patriotic glee. There’s now 20 men arrayed in my front yard, all ready to do what’s necessary to save my house. If this is the infrastructure in Fairport, then I’m here to tell you. This is where you want to live.

Sunday afternoon, 4:30 pm, some of these guys were probably getting ready to watch the game, hang with their girls, maybe go out and have some dinner. But now they’re here. In less than 10 minutes, they were all here, ready to fight the fire.

That’s way fucking cool.

I feel like a doof. In the way. I keep putting my hands in my pockets then taking them out. I’m watching the hose they’ve left on my doorstep. If they grab that, we’re in for some deep shit, and I know it.

My father is a building contractor, and he’s had his share of restoration on houses that have been on fire. I’ll never forget him telling me: “You wouldn’t believe it, firefighters go batshit crazy. They break every window, they tear out walls, go crazy with axes… it’s a pretty good deal, we make a lot of money fixing what they leave behind….”

I ‘m looking at the hose on my doorstep, the axes and hammers they’ve left close at hand. Chris looks bored, Sami is wondering if one of her friends will drive by and see all the ruckus. She doesn’t realize that the street is closed and no one is driving by.

There’s a reason firemen go batshit insane… anyone who’s ever tended a campfire knows you can’t just flip a switch. Fire gets in the walls, the insulation, the meat and marrow of your home. No wonder they cut and flay to get the tiny red-hot embers.

We were lucky. The hose was never used. The crew trooped out and the fire was out. We were WAY lucky. This could’ve happened at night, while we were asleep. It could still happen.

There’s a lot of standing around. It’s kinda like making a movie. Another official shows up. He takes pictures. Then the fire marshal. Then the investigator. There’s a process. The first man who showed up, the chief, was the 2nd to last to leave. At one point, I counted 3 white SUV’s, all marked “Fairport” all marked “Chief.”

The man who I showed my small fire to to begin with came out and shook my hand. “Thank you.” he said. “Thank you!” I said. You were lucky. he said. I know. I said. I am lucky.

Then the sales guys showed up.

These are like ambulance chasers, only they chase fire trucks. Construction dudes, insurance adjusters that come in on your behalf, they have their scanners tuned to the proper frequency.

Luckily, one of the locals had slipped me a card with the name of a man who could get the job done. Because, after it was all over, I was left with a house not burned down, but a house that was not a home.

The fire marshal had made it quite clear, that since the fire had impacted my homes electrical system, there would be a number of steps before electricity could be restored. He was explaining this while reps from Fairport Electric were disconnecting my meter. Off the grid. Offline. Ack.

Dying for a cigarette (which I didn’t dare smoke because, well, you know) I listened to the last fire chaser and finally escaped his salesman’s grasp by explaining that quite a lot had happened today and I needed to speak to my wife. Charity, was of course, fine. Left to her own devices after the firemen left the scene, she’d a seized a broom and was sweeping debris and detritus from the scene.

Three or four of the fire professionals had recommended we find a hotel for the night (as insurance covers “unlivable” and no electric equals “unlivable” in a fire situation. In an ice storm, not so much).

I made two calls, the reconstruction expert, then the insurance company.

The recon dude was awesome. He prepped me for the insurance co. (not that our agent was anything but great, but it’s nice to hear that you’ve got someone on your side who’s not corporate, but in it for the money anyway, so you kinda have to play them off against each other) and he also recommended we stay at a hotel. And then he told me to take any jewelry or firearms I might own, as certain people monitor 911 and they might target our home, even though we weren’t exactly in what he phrased as a “High crime area.”

This gave me pause. There was no fucking way I was going to leave my homestead (disasters have a way of making you instantly a pioneer) to the ravages of looters and thieves.

I immediately envisioned myself on sentry duty at Charity Farm, smoking a cigar, reading Jim Harrison and drinking whiskey with a smoky lantern and my twelve gauge whilst the wife and children slumbered comfortably at the closest Marriott Courtyard. But lets be real. My wife would not slumber anywhere comfortably without me beside her. The iPhone made finding a room for the night unbelievably easy… just like those commercials. A web search gave me the closest lodging, based on gps, and after talking to a couple of hotels, I secured rooms.

So I packed up what I could not replace. Christopher did the same. There were katanas and big knives, pistols and guitars. The girls brought make-up.

But I have to tell you, coming home the next morning, I was prepared for the worst.

Thankfully, no one tracked down our vulnerable position. So here I sit, waiting for the Fairport inspector to give Fairport electric the go-ahead. I’ve got bourbon, cigars, money, guns and an iPhone.

And my entire family intact. I am lucky.