JT, Mom and me ride out the fire

 

I was in Lake Isabella again, though not at Gracie and Bill's place. It was a bit more run-down, a 1950's time capsule of a place that belonged to my Grandma Buckwitz. I have an image of her being there, wearing an atrocious purple blouse, a brooding expression on her face, etched from years of suffering stoically under the reign of my grandfather's oppressive silence. She was a flower whose bloom was stunted, frozen in the frost of his emotional indifference. He wasn't there in the dream, but his presence was still felt by the residual effect he had on my grandmother's countenance.

I was in the closet rummaging around for a pair of boots to wear. So many choices. Most of them were old and worn out. It was like an entire lifetime's worth of the same boots, purchased over and over, had gone into retirement and were living in this packed closet, stacked floor to ceiling, taking up every nook and cranny. 

Some were in boxes and some were not, but all had seen better days. Or perhaps not actually better, since they'd have been worn by my grandfather to work and had machine oil and coolant spilled on them and been scorched by welding sparks daily. Perhaps they were glad to be here, living out the rest of eternity in the respite of this communal hording cell of a closet, in the company of fellow sufferers of my grandfather's indignities.

I had to settle for a pair picked at random from this lot, since my time browsing was cut short when I became aware of a fire creeping down from the hills outside the window of the bedroom. It first started as an eerie orange glow. I made mention of this to Jim Turnbough, who pooh-poohed the idea that yet another fire would encroach upon our land.

"Nah. I don't see it," he said, ignoring the obvious flashes of orange light peeking through a gathering cloud of dark gray smoke at the top of the nearby mountain, giving it a sinister, volcano-like appearance.

"Are you kidding me?" I said, alarmed at his nonchalance.

The wind was picking up, and within seconds flames leapt out of the smoke clouds explosively, like a barbecue whose gas jets had been on too long before igniting.  

"Come on, Jim!" I said shrilly, my alarm turning to outright panic. "You have to be seeing this!"

Reluctantly, he acknowledged that, yes there was a fire, but it was certainly nothing to get panicked about. By now the fire had descended the entire side of the mountain, and its flames were licking the dead branches of trees and singeing the corners of nearby houses. 

The wind was at a gale pitch, and the fire would soon overtake our house. If we didn't leave this instant, both we and the house would soon self-combust, as most things do when fires reach their tipping point. We had to leave now.

Jim got in the car and began to drive us down the road at a leisurely pace, like he was on his way to a Sunday church picnic, taking in the scenery and making small talk unrelated to the fire. I thought to mention the fact that we were in immediate danger of the fire catching us if we didn't pick up the pace. 

He became so incensed at my constant bitching about "the fire this and the fire that" that he jerked the steering wheel and sent the car over the embankment. We free fell for a second before landing smoothly, without losing any speed, as we traveled off-road through the sandy sagebrush of the valley floor. 

"Really, Jim?" I said, appalled at his petulant driving antics.

Soon we arrived at a roadside diner which looked suspiciously like the dingy outpost we'd just left. In fact, the interior was identical, right down to the bowl of day old nachos on the table and the half opened bag of flour tortillas in the fridge. I was hungry, so I helped myself to a cold flour tortilla and a handful of greasy nachos. Once again Jim showed his displeasure with me and made a snide comment to my mom.

"They ought to have a rule for everyone born after 1998," he began, but I cut him off.

"I was born before that, so whatever you are going to say is irrelevant."

He wrestled half of the nachos from my hand nonetheless, and we continued our previous argument about the fire. He continued to downplay the immanent danger of the encroaching fire, even though the whole mountain had been singed black, and all the nearby structures had yellow flames creeping from their innards.  

That's about where we left it: My mom, Jim and I, sitting in a decrepit roadside shack of a diner, eating stale tortillas and bitching at one another while a fire threatened our very existence.