Children in the Closet.....Chapter 23

Chapter 23

 

Summer was 20 years old and living at home. She had been working for a year at Barclays Financial Company. Jesse, Jr was 17 and attending a Christian High School. Jesse’s Masonry Company was doing well and he had more work than he could handle. My brother, Lonnie worked for us and Jesse, Jr worked for his dad during the summer. 

From what people could see of our lives, we were the perfect family. We had plenty of money and our children were well behaved. Jesse was a deacon in the church and I was a Sunday School teacher. We continued to work the bus route as a family and most every Sunday, I entertained church members and/or visitors in our congregation for either Sunday dinner or for games and a light meal on Sunday nights.

One of my favorite things to do was to serve a baked potato bar and desserts followed by a card game called NUTS or we would spread out a jigsaw puzzle on the dining room table. Everyone loved to come to our house and we were always doing something to our home that made it more interesting. 

I had taken a decorating course by mail in the 70’s and I loved to think ‘outside the box.’ 

Jesse would bring leftover building materials from the job sites and together, we designed a phone booth in a corner of the living room. It was made of cedar wood and had lace curtains as a privacy door for while you talked on the phone. The phone was a replica of the old fashioned wall phones from the past so it was kind of a novel thing, I found my fulfillment in my home. It was in the making of meals and cleaning, decorating, refinishing things, entertaining and gardening that I found my happiness.

We kept the trauma and drama of our daily life private. Summer and Jesse, Jr and I all walked carefully around Jesse. We tried not to talk because that had a way of turning into verbal abuse. The kids and I kept our mouths shut as much as possible but the swiftness of an innocent remark turning into a violent argument staggered us. The ‘argument’ was all his as he did all the yelling and berating us verbally. Thankfully, he no longer hit the kids now that they were older, but there is other abuse that we learned to survive and cope with. 

One of the warning signs that all hell was about to break loose was when Jesse would whistle. To anyone else, it would be a pleasant sound but it was a warning to us that things were about to get ugly. 

One evening, we were all in the car getting gas at a convenience store. Jesse was pumping the fuel and he was whistling. We all froze. Jesse Jr got out of the car to go inside and buy a gallon of milk. On his way out, a burly rude guy pushed his shoulder into Jr’s and caused him to fall down. Jesse looked over and I am sure he saw what happened. Instead of rushing over in defense of his son, he jerked Jr up and started bawling him out. They got back in the car and he yelled at him all the way home. 

The only people who ever witnessed the way Jesse acted was Lonnie and the other guys who worked for him and our neighbors. Evidently Jesse didn’t care enough about them to protect his image or reputation. He would scream at us when we were outside doing things and he did not hesitate to yell at Lonnie or anyone who worked for him. Even the young men in the youth group at church would work for him in the summers and they were yelled at just as much as anyone, and yet they still held him in great respect. We never understood that.  But none of our neighbors liked him.

One Sunday we had our new associate pastor and his family over for dinner. The table was set with all my best dishes and glassware and I served a delicious meal. While we were all eating, Jesse began to insult and demean me in front of everyone. I tried not to cry but I couldn’t keep the tears from my eyes. I was so embarrassed. Our guests didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know what to do. Jesse was the only one that did not seem to think anything was amiss although this was the very first time he had acted mean and cruel to us in front of other church members – except for the teenagers that worked for him. What happened next set the example for how we handled things both then and after. The couple pretended nothing was wrong and continued to eat and make small talk. I continued to sit at the table and composed myself before clearing the dishes and serving dessert. 

There was a young man who was studying to be a preacher in our congregation and he had a wife and two young daughters. Jesse took him under his wing and helped him financially by buying him a couple of suits and helping him with his groceries.  We were planning on going up to Colorado on vacation – just the two of us. Summer was working and Jr didn’t want to go. Jesse decided to invite the young preacher and his wife to join us as we were going to visit our former associate pastor with whom we had gone to church with back when we were at Northgate Baptist Church. They came over to Crestview not long after we did. A relative offered to take care of the couple's children so it was early morning in June 1983 when we drove to Colorado Springs and we all stayed at our friends’ house.

We had been there for a few days sight seeing and having a good time. At 3:00 on the Saturday morning of June 11th, our host woke us up saying that Summer was on the phone and that our house was on fire. The fire alarms went off waking her up and she was calling from the telephone in our bedroom while the fire was burning in the living room.  We told her to take her brother and get out of the house, go next door and call the fire department. By the time Summer hung up, the smoke was so thick she couldn’t see anything. She felt her way to Jr’s room and woke him up. They tried to go down the hall to get out of the house but by then the dining room was in flames. They ran back to Jr's bedroom and got out through the window, landing in the rose bushes outside. They ran next door to our good neighbors and called 911. 

Doug and Reaoma were wonderful neighbors and they loved both me and my children. The fire station was just a few blocks away from our house and the trucks arrived within minutes of the phone call. It was a traumatic time for Summer and Jr as they watched in horror as the flames burned our house. Summer had a 55-gallon fish tank built in between the living room and the foyer. She watched the water in the tank boil and explode killing all her beloved exotic fish. This was a blessing in a way, though. The water from the aquarium acted as a fire barrier and slowed the flames down.

Summer was able to warn the firemen of potential threats in the house such as in where I kept my art supplies – oils and turpentine – all highly flammable. Another thing was a huge glass container full of match books we had collected over the years as well as dozens of bottles of perfume. This knowledge helped them fight the fire better. Another thing that helped was that the attic fan was on. This fan is in the ceiling of the hall and it caused the fire to burn horizontally instead of vertically.

The fire started on a Saturday morning. On Friday night Summer and Jr had invited the youth group over for an impromptu dinner and movie party. They had cleaned the house and prepared a meal. Jr set chairs up in the den theater style and they rented Rocky III which had just come out the summer before. It was a Rocky Marathon since we already had the first two films. Everyone brought something to add to the meal or for snacks at Intermission. They knew how to throw a party and were very responsible young people. 

The party had nothing to do with the house burning although there was an investigation. It turned out to have been caused by a power surge from the power pole in our back yard. We had been having surges and our stereo would get extremely loud with static – and then go back to normal. The surge apparently affected the stereo and caused an electric fire that began to burn the grass weave wallpaper in the living room and then moved on to the other rooms. Every single room had either cedar wood walls or wallpaper. Not one room was simply painted. A church member friend was a fireman and he used to tease me about how he would not want to fight a fire in my house! There were too many things that would burn fast in it! As it turned out, he was not on duty when it burned.

The kids called Brother John, their youth pastor, while the firemen were still there. When he answered – this was now about 5:00 in the morning – Junior said, “Brother John, remember when you said we could call you anytime of the day or night if we were in trouble and needed you? Well, our house just burned.” John knew they had hosted the youth group just hours earlier so he thought this must be some kind of a joke. However, he hung up and told his wife, “Junior just told me their house caught on fire.” Thinking this was a prank call, he was in the process of going back to bed when his wife said, “You better get over there just in case this isn’t a joke!”

Meanwhile, back in Colorado, we prepared to drive home. Our hosts made coffee and put together a quick breakfast while we threw our things into our suitcases and loaded up the car. We comforted ourselves with the knowledge that Summer and Junior were not hurt. Brother John had taken them home with him and we knew they were safe. All we had to do now was get home.  A thermos of coffee was given to us and we left Colorado Springs just as the sun was coming up. We told our friends we were sorry to have to cut their vacation short but they were only concerned for us.

That was a long drive – 13 hours at best – but it took even longer as the wife of our young preacher friend had to stop often and long due to a medical issue she had. Stress made it worse and it was barely daylight when we drove up in our driveway.

I had talked to Summer and to Jimmy, one of the youth group kids now grown up. They both tried to paint a prettier picture than it was and I appreciated that. Best to see it in person. I was unprepared for the emotional impact of seeing my home all black and charred. The fact that it was still standing was incredible. Because of the attic fan blowing the initial fire horizontally, the firemen were able to keep the flames from going through the roof. Another factor in saving the house was the kind of insulation we had put in a few years back. It was essentially small white pellets of Styrofoam. They basically melted and prevented the fire from going through the roof.  While the interior was completely destroyed, the structure itself remained sound. I was so grateful for that. What shocked me was the gawkers and strangers who came to look. I felt as though my home had been raped and I had a strong urge to shield her from the public.

My sweet neighbor, Doug, had bought sheets of plywood and covered up all the windows which were gaping holes now. He had secured a lock for the front door to keep people out. The inside was black and since it was already nearly dark, we took our friends home and then went to the motel a mile down the street from our house. Summer was so resourceful and thoughtful in providing us a place to stay. She had rented a suite so we could all stay together. She thought I would feel better to be so close to the house. That first night we just hugged each other and I let them talk. They needed to process what they had been through and handled so well.

Jesse was uncommonly quiet and even kind to them. Normally he would have upbraided them and told them what all they had done wrong. Not that Saturday night. I think he was shaken by it all. I thought, perhaps, he realized how close he came to losing both of his children and maybe he would have a change of heart in the way he treated them. That wasn’t to be the case but at least we did have that one night of consoling each another as a real family.