yesterday was a normal 140 afternoon. Michael was playing with his medium format camera and making some pims (british sangria?), I was playing banjo in the living room, Zoe was chilling with her hamsters. Ralph was doing whatever he does in the basement.
at around 5:30, I thought i smelled smoke somewhere in the building. My first thought was Michael’s room. his wiring had caught fire a few weeks ago, and i assumed it was happening again, so i checked through his room but couldn’t find any fire.
I called in to Zoe, and asked her if anything in her room was burning. She was startled and looked around, but couldn’t find the fire. The smoke was getting thicker, and now everyone was smelling it.
I called Michael in from outside. By the time he came in, there were visible clouds of smoke filling the apt. Michael was quick enough to realize the smoke was coming up from the basement, and then it all came together. Ralph’s basement is an incredible fire hazard. He is blind and crazy, and he spends his days filling our basement with all manner of combustible garbage and electronics.
As we walked down to investigate, Ralph was walking up the stairs to ask us to borrow a bucket.
“Is there a fire in the basement Ralph?”
“I just need to borrow a bucket.”
against my better judgment, zoe and i started filling buckets of water and handing them to ralph, but smoke was really billowing up from the stairs at this point, and michael and i agreed we needed to call the fire department.
I told zoe to get her hamsters and her computer, I grabbed my bikes, michael saved chicken wing, and we met up out front. smoke was now visible from outside, and was leaking out from the basement onto the sidewalk.
michael went back inside to save the pims and get more ice. chicken wing jumped back inside, because she is a afraid of being outdoors.
the fire dept showed up in less than a minute. really impressive, totally professional, put out the fire, cleared the smoke, no problems. they had to brake down a few doors upstairs, which will be expensive to replace.
Michael saves the Pims
I’ve always known 140 was a bit of a fire trap, so i had a mental plan of things i would save in case of a fire. I pulled serotta and long haul trucker off their hooks and stacked them outside. i wanted to get RB-1 out as well, but it was getting kinda smokey, so i wasn’t sure if that was smart.
things i saved from the apartment
ralph can usually pass a normal friendly guy, but in stressful situations, his crazy starts to show. he mentioned a few times how he owned the building, he blamed peter on the 6th floor for starting the fire (despite the fact that peter wasn’t home, and lives on the 6th floor, while ralph was home and in the basement at the time the fire started). he kept dancing around and saying how he saved the building, how he was hoping certain people got kicked out of the building, etc. I’m not very happy with him at this point.
Anyway, a hot water heater appeared in out living room. i can’t really say where it came from. we lean bikes against it now.
Also, during the fire, I met a lot of the upstairs neighbors. they all seem really cool. people can bond really well in stressful situations.
