Fire Extinguishers

 I wrote this story after my uncle died in a fire. Disclaimer to any family members reading: It might be disturbing. Please don't continue if you think it may be too upsetting to hear some of the events of that tragic day replayed.




Fire Extinguishers 

            My mom shook me from my sleep.
“Get up. Come into the hall. We need to talk.”
           

            As I threw back the quilt and unfolded my body, stiff from sleep, I squinted at the clock on my bedside table. It was five in the morning on a Saturday in November.  I slowly made my way out of my bedroom and into the hall where I found my sister, sitting arms crossed at the top of the stairs. We exchanged glances and seemed to both be thinking one of us, if not both of us, were about to be confronted for something we had done the night before. My sister had a friend spend the night, and she was peeping in and out of my sister’s bedroom at the end of the hall, likely wondering the same thing as my sister and I: Who did it and what did they do?

“Girls,” my mom quietly said in an unsteady voice, which hinted toward what was to follow.

“Girls, there was an accident last night. There was a fire. Finley… Girls, Finley’s house caught on fire last night. He was inside. He didn’t make it out. Girls.. Finley is dead.”

The depth of her words hung in the air. Every letter of every word seemed to slowly float down my throat, creating a knot, then carry downward to my lungs taking my breath, and finally piling into the small opening of my stomach where it hardened like a stone.

We didn’t cry. Not my mom. Not my sister. Not me.

            I don’t remember much about how we dropped off my sister’s friend or the hour-long drive to my Uncle’s house. I just remember arriving there.

            As we pulled up I saw the fire trucks, police cars, and ambulance lining the street.  I saw the yellow police tape fencing off the perimeter of the two-story house, or what was left of it, anyway. The remainder of the walls stood eerily outlining every would-be room, which could now be seen from the street. The once-white house was now gray. Smoke and ash stained the wood siding. It was November, and the leaves had changed to brilliant hues of red, orange, and yellow. His house stood in a street of painted historic homes, lined with colorful trees, like a black and white photograph in a lineup of colorful, happy paintings. It was so surreal. It felt like a dream until I heaved open the heavy van door and stepped onto the yard. The leaves, coated in gray ash, crunched under my feet and the sound made it all too real. The air smelled of sulfur. There were ash particles floating through the air, like snow. In the yard were pieces, remainders, of my Uncle’s belongings. I bent down and picked up a page from a book. It was from Killer Diller, a book I wasn’t aware my Uncle liked until that day. I later bought it and have read it every November since, in some type of twisted ritual I created to cope with the pain of his death.

           

My mom’s voice interrupted my thoughts and she called me over to her. She stood next to the angel. My uncle had purchased a large stone sculpture of an angel and placed it in his garden. The stone sculpture now sat eerily over the desolate yard, its stone was clean except for one ironic smudge of gray under one eye, which resembled a tear. My grandmother still reflects on that angel and the ash under its eye. Losing him made all of us cling so tenderly to so many tiny things. We grabbed, with the impatient hands of a child, at anything we thought might ease the pain, justify there was a god, or help us feel close to Finley again. The truth of that day, the horror, and tragedy of it all, sat in each of our stomachs like a stone. We all knew our rituals, the angel, our religions, could not bring us any real comfort. 

I listened as my grandmother, between sobs and gasping breaths, pleaded with the firemen and police officers.
“HE HAD A LARGE DOG!” she cried. “IT COULD HAVE BEEN THE DOG YOU FOUND!”

My grandma was 80 years old and Finley was the youngest child of five. She lived with him up until a month before the fire. The visible pain I witnessed that day made me wonder the extent she felt inside, which could not be seen.

A few days later his memorial service was held in the Episcopal Church he attended regularly. As I walked through the hall of stained glass windows I understood why he loved the place. It felt like church. It felt like an old, sacred place with a story and history. Two things my Uncle loved so much.
           

After our family gathered in a reception room and met with the Church Rector, the services were said to begin. We participated in a family march, pew by pew, filled with family and friends of my Uncle.  I sat on the front row, between my sisters, and stared at the decorative urn, which held the ashes of my Uncle. I couldn’t help but wonder if those were really his ashes, or a just a pile of dirt containing portions of his remains, dust, and his burned possessions. I spent the entire funeral service thinking that, or versions of that thought.
           

After the service concluded and every person at the service came by and hugged us and apologized as we smiled politely and shook their hands, the Rector gathered us and asked if we’d like to say our good-byes. In small groups of three we took turns going into what was seemingly the Rector’s office, and viewing the Zip-Loc bag, which contained my Uncle. Again, all I could think about was whether or not this was truly his remains, and if so, how much cremated remains resembled things I had swept into a dust pan the week before.
           

Once everyone said their good-byes to the dust in the bag they deemed my Uncle, his ashes were sealed in the urn and placed in a metal box in the wall, much like a post-office box, with his name, birth and death date, engraved on the front.

Finley’s death reminded me of a story he’d tell me growing up. Fire Extinguishers, he called it. It was about the death of Woody Guthrie’s sister, Clara, whose body was consumed by flames in her home. The similarities now haunt me. I can still hear his powerful voice, which when telling a story, would put listeners into a trance.

            “Woody… It’s Clara.” He’d say. I’d hang on those words, even after hearing the story more than once I always hoped Clara would recover or live through the fire.

Finley’s death has consumed in the way his stories always did. It is like that day, that fire, consumed more than his house and belongings and body. That fire, in a way, woke me too from my sleep, and reduced so much of his legacy along with his life. In his ashes I didn’t see his brilliant red hair. I no longer hear his booming voice or his telling laugh that started with air pushing through his nostrils and ended in a loud, harsh roar from his soul.

            Death, like patient kindling, sits quietly beside us all waiting to be set fire to. Once ignited, it engulfs each of us, extinguishing our lives and reducing us to small bits of dust, either bagged or boxed, which our friends and family will secure to in hopes of coping with the reality gathered in each of their stomachs, like stones.  As leaves in November change color and dry, plaiting into footfall traffic, and sinking into their final resting place in the dirt, we too return to the earth. And left here are just photographs, memories. Stories told of our lives. Finley was a storyteller. His life, like a story, can be found on tongues and trees, in Angel sculptures, in photographs and memories, and in the lines of the book Killer Diller.