Until fate forced us together in the form of heat and flames, I was able to avoid Berthalee for the better part of her visit. I remember that it was a gorgeous summer day. I also remember Goo-Mama, and Mama were in the kitchen bickering over the many uses of grease. (Southern women think of grease the way architects think of brick...so many possibilities.) Daddy was out on the deck, barbecuing, and I was out on the driveway choreographing my own routine to Xanadu. Just another Saturday afternoon. Typical. Normal. Glamorous.
After some tense dialogue concerning whether or not Berthalee should be permitted solid food so late in the day, we all took our seats outside and began enjoying our hamburgers, iceberg lettuce drowned in thousand island dressing, and home fries.
The conversation was the same as it had been all week. Goo-Mama bitching about my Daddy's drinking. Goo-Mama bitching about my Mama's smoking, and Goo-Mama bitching my fascination with Olivia Newton-John. At the time I didn't understand her concern. I only wore the legwarmers inside.
Goo-Mama was a difficult woman. She had a strict set of codes to live by, and she didn't believe in the existence of cocker spaniels. This would have been hard to do given that Mama had been so fond of them as a child, but with Goo-Mama unable to reconcile her canine belief system, it meant that those spaniels were in constant danger, and before 1954 a total of six cocker spaniels met their death under the tires of Goo-Mama's Cadillac.
According to Goo-Mama, "Oh, we never had any cocker spaniels in our house. Those were miniature golden retrievers! Besides, it wasn't my fault they died. They were too small, too slow, and too soft."
Feeling as if I had read this book one too many times; I excused myself, and went back in the house. Upon pulling back the sliding glass door I was hit by a wall of heat and noxious fumes, then something above caught my eye. It was the ceiling. At least I thought I was looking at the ceiling.
"Why is the ceiling moving?" I thought. Then, the electrochemical process in my brain slowly kicked in, and I realized that I was looking at billowing smoke, and not some fantastic comic book creation. I believe my reaction would have been more of a knee-jerk; however, when your mother smokes during pregnancy, and deep fries everything from Cheerios to green beans, brain development slows to a crawl, and then you find yourself in a room filled with smoke, and an I.Q. below 100, incapable of doing nothing other than pissing yourself. So attractive.
My eyes quickly followed the smoke to its source - the kitchen. It was being swallowed by flames being belched from the stove top. The pot of grease used to fry up our home fries had ignited, and was making quick work of devouring our kitchen.
When I look back on this particular moment, I like to think that I calmly turned, looked over my shoulder at my parents, and said (in an English accent) "Mummy...Daddy...the kitchen seems to be aflame. Shall I call the fire brigade, or shall I simply fetch the extinguisher?" Unfortunately, the reality was quite different.
Lost in a swirl of fumes and cinders I spun about (looking nothing like a gypsy - thank you Stevie Nicks) and began to scream like a white girl at a beauty pageant, but with a bit more vivacity.
"THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE! THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE! I DON'T WANNA DIE! I'M TOO PRETTY TO DIE!"
Yes, I was a cub scout (for a month), and yes fire preparedness was repeatedly discussed in school, but there was no time to stop, drop and roll. There was only time for an Oscar winning moment. I was pathetic on a grand scale, and I proudly owned it.
At the moment I thought I was going to pass out, I felt a huge hand grab me by the nape of my neck. It was Daddy. He took hold, and tossed me back out onto the deck. Through burning, watery eyes I saw Mama and Goo-Mama blur past me, following Daddy into the conflagration.
For a moment I was relieved to be outside, until my vision cleared long enough to see Berthalee lunge at me from her wheelchair. Her wrinkly, decaying man-hands went for my face. I dodged, and we both fell to the deck with me breaking her fall. As the wind was blown from her shriveled little lungs, her dentures flew from her mouth landing with a soggy slap on my face. I screamed. She drooled. I was later told that she simply wanted to console me. To hold me. To reassure me that everything would be alright, but at the time I thought she was out to eat my brains, cut out my tongue, or gouge out my eyes. How was I to know? She was the most frightening thing I had seen since Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein.
Still screaming, I wrenched my way out from under Berthalee, and ran inside leaving her on the floor of the deck to search for her dentures. As I came into the house, I made a break for the front door, and ran outside. I found Mama on the front lawn with the water hose - spraying herself down amongst her precious marigolds. It looked like a bad spread I had seen in one of my Daddy's Penthouse magazines. The water soaking her denim jump suit, the sticky matted mess that was once her finely coiffed Final Net hair-do, and Mama coughing as she sprayed water up her nose. A delicious Polaroid moment to be savored, but there was no time. Mama had to save her wallpaper.
Without a word to me, she picked up the slack in the hose, and ran back into the house screaming, "The wallpaper's gonna catch! The wallpaper's gonna catch!" Pity she didn't realize what the consequences would be if she were to spray that hose on a grease fire. Sparkly.
Fortunately, Daddy already had his hands on the belching pot of flames. Regrettably, in a state of desperation, he threw open the door in the kitchen that led into the garage, and sent the the blazing pot sliding underneath our 1976 Gold Mercury Grand Marquis. An automobile possessing a 24.5 gallon fuel tank. The military veteran had just turned flaming lard into a bomb that had the capacity to blow up half the neighborhood block. I guess the fried green beans got to him as well.
Reacting like a man possessed by a jungle cat (Daddy's own words), my father dashed into the garage, heaved open the car door, and started the engine. Throwing it into reverse, he shot it out onto the driveway, without so much as igniting a spark. Was Jesus involved? Nah. He would have been more concerned with Berthalee squirming, toothless on the deck timbers. He's good like that.
The fire trucks soon arrived, along with the entire neighborhood and the local news. This is when I realized that nothing sells to a large audience like a personal disaster. I was basking in the afterglow of the drama. The fire trucks providing ambiance, the smoke softening the glow of the camera's spotlight. I pouted my lips and let loose a flood of tears. I was Meryl Streep. I was Faye Dunaway. I was mentally ill.
It would later be revealed that the arsonist was Goo-Mama. It seems she had ignited the home fries when in her effort to turn off the stove, she had blasted the gas burners to high. This fact was never to be revealed to her. Supposedly, she would be crippled by guilt, and we couldn't have that. I never understood this. I play with matches and get a slap to the face. My grandmother torches our kitchen, and she gets three nights in a four star hotel. There is no justice. Only old people.
Berthalee died soon after that. I wasn't shocked when she died; I was just disturbed that the family never realized that she had been dead all along. Her funeral, her birthday...it was all the same for Berthalee.
Life returned to our version of normal within a few weeks. Mama was thrilled with the new wallpaper in the kitchen, Daddy's eyebrows grew back, and I was able to wear my legwarmers inside AND outside. Typical. Normal. Glamorous.
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