| P Street Inferno
By Andrew Curry
Web exclusive, July 1999
A true story
for your general amusement --
So it's 5:30
am on a muggy DC Thursday morning. Andrew, typically a heavy sleeper,
is roused by a funny smell -- smoke. Suddenly panicked into awareness,
he grabs for the lights and his glasses, stumbles out of bed into the main
room of his Georgetown apartment looking for fire. Finding none,
he returns to his room -- only to see light flickering out on the porch.
Opening the
back door, he looks down to see what seems like the whole backyard on fire,
the flames licking up from the basement apartment down below. Knowing
the tenants downstairs (two tattooed night-shift waiters notorious for
their late-night guitar playing) have no phone, he calls 911.
"Uhhhh ... There's
a fire in my backyard. I'm at 3336 P St."
"We'll be right
there, sir."
Having taken
action, he rousts his roommates out of their bedroom at the other end of
the apartment, just to sort of let them know the fire department is on
its way, the backyard is in flames, and maybe they should put some shoes
on. The three stumble out onto the front stoop in the pre-dawn light,
joined by one of the downstairs rock stars -- who immediately asks if anyone
has a cigarette. Two minutes later, a fire engine drives up P St
-- the wrong way up P St., God bless them -- and the fire fighters proceed
into the back yard, returning shortly thereafter to grab gas masks and
oxygen tanks. The first engine is soon followed by a ladder truck,
and two more engines, an ambulance and a cop car. The firefighters roll
out hoses, crack open a hydrant and race back with water.
Asked what happened,
the downstairs tenants explain that they woke up with one of their beds
on fire, which is why they dragged it into the backyard. They surmise
it could have been a cigarette, since the taller one was smoking when he
went to bed, but that had been a few hours ago, so he wasn't really sure.
The firefighters seemed taken aback by this immediate acknowledgment of
responsibility. Andrew was amused by the irony of their chain-smoking
reaction.
In the end,
the fire engines drove away, and Andrew left the
downstairs tenants to deal
with the fire inspectors. Aside from a lot of smoke, there wasn't
any damage to his apartment. The backyard survived, too, though there
is now a thoroughly charred set of mattress springs and some badly singed
leaves. The downstairs tenants -- who are sub-leasing from a sub-leaser
-- are in considerably worse shape, property-wise, though emerging unscathed
after waking up with your bed on fire is something of an
accomplishment.
Unused to being
awake at that hour, Andrew walked to Wisemillers to pick up a few bagels
and watched Lance Armstrong on Good Morning America. Arriving at work on
time, he is now hoping his apartment airs out by the time he gets home.
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