Alaska! Up North and to the Left

by Steven Swaks

  “512 Rosecrans Ave. I have a fire in the wall!”

  “512 Rosecrans Ave, fire in the wall, the fire department is on the way.” A calm and professional female voice answered. “Is there anybody else in the house with you?”

  “There’s a worker, he’s in the garage.”

  “I need both of you to evacuate the house right away. The fire trucks will be there soon.”

  “Thank you!” I hung up, and took a deep breath.

  What was happening? I was used to emergencies, but not in my own house. The feeling was sickening. Was I overreacting? There was nothing inside the condo, no burnt smell, no smoke, nothing noticeable. I walked back into the garage. The smoke had receded. I looked at the plumber still startled.

  “What were you doing?” I shook my head. I opened the electrical cabinet and shut off the electricity. “You were pouring water on live wires, you could have electrocuted yourself.”

  “I think it’s ok now,” Tony murmured.

  I looked at the two-foot wide cut at the angle between the wall and the ceiling. Thick gray smoke rolled out and immediately drew back inside in an eerie Backdraft fashion. Denial was such a powerful force. A large fire engine entered the alley with red lights flashing and a communication radio blaring status and updates, “Engine 61, 10-97, nothing showing.” More sirens were running down the street. This was overkill, I had overreacted, I would talk to the crew, they’d look around to make sure everything was all right and move on. I was embarrassed, all of this for a little smoke, what was I thinking? The engine stopped in front of the house and a captain jumped out.

  “Hi Captain, there was heavy smoke when I called, but there is nothing anymore.” I said while pointing at the work site.

  “Well, we have to check it out and break the wall.” The Captain looked experienced with a professional confidence gained from decades in the fire department.

  “Do what you have to do.”

  The captain looked at a firefighter dressed in full gear, “Tim, go upstairs to take a look.”

  “Got it, cap.”

  The young man ran into the condo. I stood back and contemplated the scene. A police car drove into the alley, and another two or three sirens came squealing down the main boulevard on the other side of the house.

  “WE NEED A LINE!” The fireman yelled from inside the condominium.

  “Brice, you go!” The captain ordered another firefighter.

  I looked up towards the roof, an aerial ladder was deploying above the house with a basket and two firefighters inside. My world crumbled as a thick gray plume of smoke twirled out of the roof towards the blue sky.

  A neighbor walked towards me. “Oh my gosh! What happened? Do you need to call somebody? You can use my phone if you need to.” The middle aged woman was overwhelmed. The narrow alley was chaos with fire hoses dripping water, neighbors coming out of their houses in quest of information, firefighters walking by with axes and breathing apparatus.

  I hesitated, I was in a daze. “Sure… yeah… thanks…” I mumbled. I had forgotten Lydia! I had to call her. I walked into the detached neighboring condo and strode straight to the phone in the living room. I dialed the hospital’s number and composed myself. Stay cool. Relax. Downplay. Keep Lydia calm, she has to drive back here. That was the best approach. I called Lydia’s cell phone. A ring… second ring… what if she didn’t answer?… third ring… leave a message?… fourth ring…

  “Hi, you reached Lydia’s voice mail, please leave…” I hung up. That’s not the kind of message I wanted to leave. Hi, don’t forget to buy some milk on the way home, by the way, your house is on fire. I directly called the hospital, I had never done that before; I was not the type to call for nothing.

  “Long Beach Adventist Hospital, this is Susan?” A young woman answered.

  “I’d like to talk to Dr. Swaks please, in the clinic.”

  “Hold on.” I waited for what seemed an eternity. “Dr. Swaks is not available, she’s with a patient. Do you want to leave a message?” The operator casually said.

  “No, I cannot leave a message, I really need to talk to her, please send somebody and tell her that I want to talk to her right now.”

  “But-”

  “Please, NOW.” My nerves were fraying.

  “Hold on.” It took another two minutes furnished with elevator music, a monotonous piano piece drastically opposed to the ongoing disaster.

  Lydia finally picked up. “Hello?”

  My pulse was racing. “Hey, it’s me.” I said with an overly controlled voice.

  “Why are you calling me? I was with a patient, they said it’s urgent.”

  “There’s been a problem in the garage… the fire department is here. You need to come home.”

  “I can’t. I’m on call tonight. I can’t come back before tomorrow morning.”

  I could hear the firefighters’ chainsaws cutting through the roof. “Lydia, your house is on fire, you come home now.” There was a silence.

  “Ok, let me find somebody to replace me. I’ll come as soon as I can.”

  Lydia’s drive home lasted an eternity. The whys and hows tangled in a cauldron of unanswered questions and fears. What happened? How bad was it? Lydia was trying to stay calm on the busy Los Angeles freeway. She could not even call me back with our condo in a notorious dead cell phone zone between two hills. The twenty five minute drive took hours, the frustration, the words coming relentlessly back in a deafening echo: Your house is on fire. Lydia exited the freeway and turned onto the four lane boulevard. Another mile and she would be there. A last traffic light. The condo was beyond a gentle curve to the right. She stopped, blocked by traffic. Traffic? In the middle of the afternoon? Why was everything so slow? Lydia passed the curve. She was horrified. A police officer had shut down the boulevard at a small intersection with his cruiser parked across the lanes, all lights flashing. The enforcer stood in the middle of the road, his hand directing the traffic towards a side street like a metronome. His calm demeanor contrasted with the scene behind him. For Lydia, it was a nightmare vision with police cars, a rescue ambulance, an aerial ladder truck and multiple fire engines littering the street in a coordinated effort. A firefighter was climbing down a white 100 foot ladder deployed above the condo. It was much worse than she had envisioned. Lydia parked, and made her way around the hoses and apparatus to the entrance of the condo where I was waiting.

  “What happened?” She said, pale.

  “The idiot over there was welding and started a fire,” I pointed my index finger towards the worker who was standing in front of the condo with an empty stare. The captain walked towards us.

  “I had a chat with your plumber. It looks like he didn’t use any protection between the pipe and the wall. Well, if you use a blow torch on bare wood or drywall, there’s a pretty good chance it’s gonna catch fire. The flames started in the garage wall, obviously, and travelled upwards all the way to the bathroom upstairs. The fire travelled into the kitchen ceiling too.”

  “The kitchen ceiling?” I asked astounded.

  “Oh, yes. You’re lucky, this fire wanted to come out. Another few minutes and the entire row of condos would have caught fire!” The captain turned around and looked at the six condominiums attached to each other. “The boys are wrapping up; you can go inside if you want. Watch where you walk, there’s a lot of small debris all over the floor.”

  I thanked him and entered the garage with Lydia. There was a three-foot gaping hole in the wall where the plumber had worked. We could see all the way to our bedroom.

  “Do you still want me to fix the pipe?”

  I turned around startled. My plumber was standing there. I looked at him in disgust. I did not answer and walked downstairs with Lydia. The master bathroom had water damage and the wall adjacent to the garage was wide opened. I did not know what to say. Was there anything to say? I was dreading to go upstairs. I glanced at Lydia. Without a word, we walked out of the room and ascended the stairs. I had climbed
those steps so many times, early morning still tired from the previous night in quest of coffee, late at night for a snack, during parties to find some friends in the living room. Today, we were walking up to find what was left of our material lives. I looked around the living room for a sick survey: the photo albums on the living room book shelf were mostly intact; the carpet was heavily stained with black marks from the hoses. A firefighter had dug a foot wide hole in the wall to find a potential fire. We proceeded into the kitchen. Most of the room was blackened or charred with the roof missing over the dining room. The burnt stench was hardly bearable.

  “This one was spreading quickly.” Tim, the first firefighter to discover the fire, entered the kitchen.

  “I called you guys from here, there was nothing showing,” I said.

  “When I walked into the kitchen, some of the cabinets were already on fire. Look at the beams in the ceiling.” Tim picked up a fire hook and poked the burnt wood. “See how charred it is? This one had been working for a while.”

  I was staring at the blackened beams with a bitter taste. I turned towards him. “Thanks for your help.” I shook his hand. I looked at him in the eyes and nodded gratefully.

  “You’re welcome, it’s our job. You can go check out upstairs; the fire went all the way up there.”

  I sighed and walked up with Lydia. The bathroom was demolished as if somebody had thrown a hand grenade into the room. The cabinetry was in pieces, the sink was on the floor, a wall was gutted, a large section of air conditioning duct laid on the ground. We could not even walk inside. There was no point anyway. I peered at the adjacent bedroom where a student had moved out two weeks prior. The ceiling was also heavily damaged.

  We had seen enough. We gathered some belongings, pictures, clothing, a laptop, it all seemed so futile. We locked up the front door. We looked at the façade. It was intact. Who knew? It was an empty shell. Behind the immaculate walls, our life was in shambles. Alaska was waiting for us. California was history. It only took an afternoon, a few hours to turn the page and move on to the next chapter.

  Up She Goes

  August

  The next few months were an uncontrolled slide like a child letting go of the rail for a wild ride. My in-laws opened their home to the refugees that we were with the realistic hope to steer us away from our recent fiery episode. We took a few days to shake off the dust and move on while the insurance company did their assessment of what was left of the condo. Soon after, the contractor came and promised a timely reconstruction. We did not dare say it, but there was an immediate and unavoidable consequence to the fire, Lydia would move by herself to Alaska. One of us was forced to stay in California to oversee the construction and sell the property. Lydia was bound to a contract. I was not. She was going, I was staying. I would have liked to travel with her and start the adventure together, but it did not work that way.

  One more trip to the airport. One more series of hugs and goodbyes, wishing wells and pay attention to everything. This one was different. It was a goodbye for months, we both knew it. The contractor had promised a delivery by September, but, well, you know, it was not our fault, it was the architect, the city delaying the plan approval, it was everybody else but them. Either way, it did not change anything, the condo would not be ready on time and a November timeline seemed more realistic. Buyers waited in line with the opportunity of purchasing a brand new unit; at least we did not have to worry about the sale. Lydia and I hugged on the terminal’s white curb. It was an unwritten rule. Stop the car, get off, take the bags out of the trunk, quick hug, leave. We both did not like the lengthy farewells and the drama. She was starting her new life; I was lingering in the old one. The terminal automatic doors opened and Lydia disappeared in a surge of people. I climbed back into the car heartbroken and drove away.

  The flights allowed her to think and reflect on the past. She contemplated the years in the condo -our first home-, the fire, packing up in a disaster zone, and the few months in her parents’ house. Now, Bethel. What would happen there? She looked through the airplane window into her life to come. She knew Deborah, Sergei, and she’d talked to a few people, her future boss, and a handful of coworkers to be. She did not know what to think. Should she be excited? There was nothing left in L.A. aside from her family who would come visit anyway. Should she be scared? Why? Perhaps because she was moving to a foreign state, in the middle of nowhere, in a climate she was not used to. Sure, she used to live in Minnesota, but it was a life time ago when she was a young child. California was all she really knew.

  Anchorage airport. Lydia often enjoyed stepping out of a plane to a gate. There was a sense of freshness; she was discovering a new land, a new culture, sometimes a new language. Even within the United States, Miami International was not like Seattle Tacoma, or New York LaGuardia. She hadn’t seen Anchorage last time. She’d been on damage control while trying to make sense of what was happening. Today, she was going with the flow; there was nothing else to do anyway. She exited the plane and walked through the boarding area and a large concourse. She stepped away from the disembarking crowd and looked out for an instant. Alaska was waiting for her. On this late afternoon, hanging high in the sky, the warm August sun was shining through a large window, and the sky was a dazzling blue. The main attraction was there, almost unnoticed but so obvious. A mountain chain stood a few miles away, so close she could have touched it. A few snow caps dotted the mountain tops here and there. Another few weeks and the snow would reclaim its territory; it would travel back to the window and stay for months.

  Lydia waited and boarded the last flight before the rest of her life. The combi plane did not feel so strange anymore. She ate her pretzels, drank a ginger ale, and waited. The 737 landed in Bethel. The back door opened. She stepped out of the plane with a knot in her stomach. She did not know what to expect. There was no more sweet visit with hubbie, no I don’t know, what do you think about it? We can sleep on it and see. We had made our decision and it was time to assume the consequences. Lydia’s Alaskan life started when her right foot stepped off the airplane metal stairs and touched the concrete. Concrete? Not ice? That was her first reaction, the ground was not frozen. It was not even cold. The temperature was almost pleasant in the high fifties with a sun well above the horizon.

  She walked into the terminal. It was a sequel, a déjà vu from a few months prior. Deborah was waiting for her, again. This time Sergei had come along. It was strange; the situation did not feel formal. Debby was not a recruiter coming to pick up her prize; Sergei was not a seller delivering the fruits of his labor. They felt like friends waiting for her. She hugged Debby and shook Sergei’s hand. They picked up her bags on the carousel beside them, and walked out. The trio climbed into the car. Sergei was quiet, aside for his houses, he did not talk much. Deborah was more diplomatic, Lydia was in a transition period and she knew it. It was not the time to rush her. Deborah had to give Lydia space and time to find her bearings. They went for a quick dinner in a small restaurant. The food was tasty and the conversation pleasant, but Lydia was somewhere else in the limbo of torments and doubts. Four years, Steven was not there. She liked the irony, she’d move to Alaska for him and he was not even there. She just wanted to go home, rest, and become acclimated to this new life.

  The short ride to her new house was quiet. There would not be a flight out tomorrow. She was in Bethel for good. Lydia vaguely looked at her surroundings. It was still daylight. She wished it would have been nighttime, she would not have seen the piles of discards and abandoned cars. Lesson one in her new life, the snow covers the dirt and trash, Bethel was never as beautiful as it was in the winter. How long before the first snow? A month? Two months? It did not matter anyway; she only wanted to go to the house and rest.

  “Welcome home!” Deborah said with yet another heartwarming smile. Sergei opened the front door of her new house. “Tomorrow morning I’ll pick you up to switch the name on the utilities. Everything is immediate, except for internet; it might ta
ke a few days for that.”

  “Thank you, and thanks for dinner,” Lydia told them without emotion.

  “I live down the street, the tall house with the red roof, don’t hesitate to come if you need anything.” Sergei was solemn.

  “I should be fine, thank you so much,” Lydia said with a dull voice. Sergei and Deborah walked out in silence.

  Lydia closed the door behind them, and on her old life.

  She walked upstairs to the master bedroom. She unzipped her large suitcase and took a small box. She opened and unfolded an air mattress. She plugged the electric pump and watched the mattress deploy. She did not want to wander the house. It was cold and empty. It was not her house, it was somebody else’s. It was not her life, it was somebody else’s. She had not chosen to be there. It was for Steven. Steven who was still in California, she could not even call him. She missed him so much. The mattress was ready. She did not even have a pillow. She rolled a sweater, laid the blanket Deborah had lent her, and went to sleep unchanged, exhausted.

  Today is a Better Day

  August

  The daylight woke up Lydia. She consulted her watch, 7:05. She got up, looked outside, the sky was overcast and drizzly. A few tall bushes were dancing in the light breeze. She went into the bathroom and took a shower. She walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, Sergei, or perhaps Deborah, had left a few groceries, a few eggs, milk, orange juice, two apples, and two oranges. That was nice, she thought. The front door bell surprised her. She trotted to the door and opened it.

  “Hi!” Deborah was holding a large cardboard box.

  “Good morning,” Lydia said hesitantly.

  “People from the hospital are lending you some pots and pans, enough stuff to cook until you receive your shipment.”

  “Oh, that’s very nice. Thanks.” Deborah walked her way into the kitchen, hardly seeing what was in front of her. “Speaking of shipment, I called the company before I came here…” she paused. “There’s going to be a delay for the delivery.”

  “A delay? Why? How long?” Lydia said startled.