The Night the Kitchen Caught Fire

My grandfather was an abusive, combative and ugly drunk and in ways that never made the slightest sense to me, was admired by many for it. He took inordinate pride in the fact that he could out smoke, out drink, out gamble and out philander any man alive and he liked to say so, loudly and often. What little he had to do with raising my mother was done with an iron hand and a mean mouth and every great once in awhile, I think I ought to be more charitable to her memory. And I might could if forgiveness was in my nature or if pigs could fly.

“I suppose,” my daddy once remarked to me in a rare, unguarded moment, “You could say your mother comes by it honestly.”

“Her drinking or her parenting?” I'd asked nastily and even when my daddy paled and looked so desperately hurt, I couldn't find it in my heart to take it back.

The conversation had taken place in what was left of the kitchen after my mother had spilled a glass of her favorite cooking sherry onto the broiler. It ignited a grease fire which rapidly spread to the dishtowel she was using as an oven mitt and then, when she jerked the broiler out and tossed it into the sink, to the curtains and the cabinets and the wicker baskets of paper plates she kept atop the refrigerator. Hearing my mother's helpless screams and the wild howling of the dogs brought my daddy running otherwise the whole room, maybe the whole house, would've been ablaze. He yanked open the under the sink cupboard - where the fire extinguisher should have been - only to discover several cardboard cartons of empty beer bottles, each individual bottle inexplicably wrapped in a paper towel, but no fire extinguisher.

“Holy Jesus Christ, Jeanette!” he roared and my trembling, hysterical mother, still clutching her sherry bottle, staggered and fell to her knees with a whimper.

“Wet towels!” he yelled at my brothers and me, “Now! And get her the hell out of here!”

We got the fire put out with a combination of the sink sprayer, water soaked towels and a pitcher of lemonade. The curtains, not to mention the steak on the broiler, were a total loss and the kitchen with its singed and blackened cabinets smelled of smoke for days. My mother made it halfway up the stairs before collapsing in a drunken, sodden heap and for the first and only time in my life, my daddy let her lay. Both my brothers protested, wanting to carry her the rest of the way and into her own bed but my daddy was adamant.

“Leave her be!” he told them sharply, “Let her wake up right where she is!”

The boys were shocked into silence and crept away. I was wondering when he'd discovered he had a spine and thinking it wouldn't last long.

“I have to leave this house late at night a couple of times every week to drag your grandfather's sorry ass up the stairs and into his bed,” he said and his voice was colder and harder than I'd ever heard it, “It would mean my job if I didn't but I'll be goddamned if I'll do it with your mother too!” Then he sagged against the stairway wall and finally crumpled, burying his face in his hands. “Dear God,” I heard him say, “Dear God, I can't keep this up.” It was shattering to watch. For a brief moment, the world I knew had been turned upside down. For a brief moment, my daddy and I had changed places and I had become the adult, the clear thinker, the strong one. It was beyond my understanding.

“Go to bed,” I told him, “I'll clean up.”

He raised his face, cleared his throat, distractedly brushed his hair out of his eyes and the world shifted back to its original and familiar orbit. Only not completely.

“No,” he said quietly, “Your mother caused all this. For once, she can clean it up.”

Strong words from a man who had spent his entire marriage drowning in denial, making excuses for her behavior, covering up her drinking and teaching his children to do the same, only better. I didn't doubt he was sincere, at least for the moment, but suspected he would have a change of heart in the not too distant future. He was wearied out and angry but he wouldn't stay that way. He wasn't made for hate, couldn't sustain it. I had no such difficulty. I stepped over my mother's body and left.