My apartment building had 8 apartments in it. There were four on the top floor and four on the bottom floor. The building had four on the front of the building and four on the back. This information is important to the story. My apartment was on the front on the top floor. I lived at Ravenwood Apartments were almost 14 years. During that time, we had several fires in our building. Many more than other buildings in the complex. Almost all of them involved cooking.
One strange thing about those fires was that I seemed to be home, when they occurred. Some of the residents accused me of setting them, as it was suspicious that I was the one to call 911. Now, I know that I have written about setting a fire in the woods, when I was much younger, but I had nothing to do with setting these apartment fires. In fact, I think it was a blessing that I was home to call 911. One of my greatest fears in life is an apartment fire. After all, I have had a lot of expensive pop culture memorabilia in my apartment, and the worse thing in the world would have had it burn up. I had it insured, but a lot of it couldn't be replaced.
There were several neighbors to come and go from my apartment building. One was a woman who liked to cook cabbage on Sundays, and that awful smell would come into my apartment. Another was a woman who liked to entertain male guests during the day. She was very loud. I really liked to keep to myself in my apartment building. I never really knew the names of my neighbors, and I liked it that way. One of the constant stream of neighbors lived across the hall. I saw them come and go, and they seemed to not speak English. I figured out that they were speaking Russian. I had known some Russians who worked at Macy's, but they lived in Chapin. I knew a few Russian words and would speak phrases to them in Russian. It was a way to cheer them up, as they lived in a strange land.
I never spoke to my Russian neighbors until one night. I was watching TV when a frantic knock was on my door. I opened it to find the young blond Russian woman screaming. She was pointing to smoke coming up through her carpet. If you don't know the language, gestures are the next best thing. I learned that in Europe. She only knew the English for "911". I called 911 and ran outside. I ran to the top of the hill to direct the firemen down the hill to our apartment building. When they rolled up to me, I was waving my arms. They went down the hill to the apartment on fire. I followed them down, and I heard one fireman tell our apartment manager that they knew where they were going, but some guy was trying to stop them.
Anyway, the apartment was a total loss. The tenants had left something on the stove and gone to the movies. The other apartments, including mine, suffered some smoke damage to our clothes and furnishings. Everything had to be aired out. As luck would have it (I don't believe in luck), the firemen said that they had just finished up a call not far from Ravenwood. They were quick to respond. Had the fire gotten into the attic, the whole building would have burned down. There were no firewalls. We were just minutes away from that happening. My neighbors couldn't accuse me of setting the fire. The Russians moved out. Their apartment got new carpet. From the kids snickering under my window watching me change to the fires, there was never a dull moment at Ravenwood. I moved out a year later.
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