Today, I feel like writing about the fires.
I remember setting two of them. If there were more, I don’t recall. I don’t know which fire came first. Let me set the stage, to begin.
In the 1970s, my parents, brother, and I lived in an apartment in Panama City. I think the apartment had been my father’s bachelor pad before he married and had children. The building walkways were open like a long balcony, with stairs at each end. On every story, a ledge ran along the entire exterior as though the floor extended out beyond the walls. I don’t know how many stories high the building was. Beyond the high wall on three sides of it, there was a street on one side, other apartments and the Instituto Panamericano school behind, and an undeveloped lot on the other side. Because of the tropical weather, that empty lot was either overgrown with sturdy vegetation during the rainy season or heaped with desiccated vegetation during the dry season.
Ours was a one-bedroom apartment with a balcony, on the second floor. (In the U.S., it would be the third floor.) The floors were cool tile. High up on one living room wall there was an opening, so my parents could hear whether we were playing instead of sleeping, and we could hear their music or television programs. The kitchen was a small L shape with a propane stove one lit with a match after turning on the gas at a burner. The balcony was always in shade because of the balcony above it.
I have fond memories of that apartment, except for when I left my favorite yellow-clothed doll on the step just outside our door, and it disappeared in a matter of a few seconds.
It seems that I have always enjoyed drinking hot chocolate, even on warm tropical days. Once, while my mother slept after a full night’s work, my brother made us hot chocolate. I was old enough to want to help, so after lighting the stove he gave me the match to blow out and toss into the trash, which I did… I think. Moments later, however, the trash was on fire. Yes, on fire. My brother quickly snatched up the garbage bag, ran out to the balcony, and tossed the trash over into the empty lot.
I remember standing on tiptoe to watch, but not whether my brother watched too. I remember the bag’s swift decent, but not the sound of its landing. I remember how the flaming bag left a hollow in the overgrown grass, but not when the nearby flora caught on fire. I remember the field ablaze. I remember the fire engines arriving. I remember watching the bomberos work.
The other fire must have happened on a New Year’s Eve night. Why else would my brother, cousin, and I have had sparklers? Mom lit them for us, and we waved them about. Then I took too much to heart the warning not to let it burn down too close to my hand. After only a few seconds holding the thing, I pitched it—yes, still sparkling—over the balcony and into the empty lot. Pretty light falling, sizzling, growing. And then the firefighters.
Which came first, the trash fire or the sparkler fire? I don’t know. I don’t remember either having a penchant for tossing things over the balcony, but that happened on occasion, too. More on that later.