Burning Down The House pt 2

Click Here for Part One or just scroll down one post.

I was gonna make this Monday's post, but I finished it so I might as well post it....

"Hey, man. Come get me. My house burned down!"

I admit, I didn't believe Kareem when he said that. He and I have that strange sense of humor where we would just say the craziest thing that came to mind. Usually, we were in sync and I could tell when he was joking and vice versa. This time however, I thought he was just bullshitting.

"Man, what's up! I just got home. I'll hit you up later."

"Nah, man! I'm serious. My house burned down."

"Fuckouttahere, man! It's too early for this shit."

"Seriously, Rashan! My shit burned down. I had to hop out the window butt ass naked"

"Damn, you serious... You all right? Where's Chandra?"

"She left a little bit after you guys did."

Then I heard the garbled transmissions from the fire trucks in the background. This nigga wasn't playing at all.

"I'll be there in 10 minutes."

I got up and threw on some clothes, and grabbed an extra set for Kareem. I hopped in the VW Fox and sped out to Kareem's mama's crib in Georgetown. When I got there, I couldn't believe what I saw. The condo was gone. Other than the foundation, there was nothing left to indicate that people once lived there. Kareem was sitting in the back of an ambulance. Thankfully, someone had already given him some clothes. I wasn't trying to know that much about my homeboy. When he saw me pull up, he came over to the car and got in.

"Shit, man. You straight? Did you get burned or something?"

"Just got some smoke inhalation. I couldn't get out the door so I had to break a window, so I got cut a little."

"What happened?"

"Between me and you... were those candles still burning when you left?"

"Damn, I don't know. Did you call Chandra yet?"

"No, you know how she panics. I just want to get outta here."

"You sure it's okay to leave?"

"If anyone asks...there were no candles. Let's ride out."

So we did. I continued to question him and we worked on getting our story straight just in case anyone asked. We sat in front of my grandmother's house for awhile until we were confident that our stories aligned. In between hacking coughs, a result of the smoke inhalation, we decided that if anyone asked I was with Lisa and he was with Chandra the previous night, but he went home alone. We decided to skip the whole candlelight dinner portion of the evening, just in case that was what caused the fire.

We went inside and told everyone what happened. My mother cried a little. My grandmother prayed over us. And then he had to call his mom. I couldn't bear to hear that conversation so I went in another room and watched TV. Tupac and Dr. Dre's California Love video premiered that day and they were showing it every hour on MTV. It's totally unrelated to the story, except for the fact that I think of the fire whenever I hear that song. Kareem stayed with us for about a week, wearing my clothes and even hanging out while I went to school and work.

We talked to Lisa and Chandra, and neither of them could remember definitively if the candles were still burning when we left. For all we knew it wasn't our fault that the house burned down. It could have been faulty wiring, or the lights on the Christmas tree could have shorted out. Shit, Kareem might have left the oven on after cooking our dinner. We honestly didn't know. But in our hearts, we really thought it was those damn candles. The same candles that set the mood and added to the ambiance of our perfect evening were more than likely responsible for the destruction of their home.

Months later, the official insurance report blamed faulty wiring for the blaze. Due to the extent of the fire, they really couldn't tell what caused it, so they paid the settlement. Kareem's mom got a bigger house, but we still lived with the guilt that we may have been responsible for setting the blaze. I don't think Kareem's mom trusted him for years after that. If she suspected anything, she never said anything to me about it, but I could just tell in the way she interacted with Kareem that something was different. Along with the fire, all trust went up in flames too. We tried to do something nice for our girlfriends and ended up with a burnt down condo.