Page 31 of Love Again

The job was pretty simple: look at some photos of fires and try to determine the causes. It was an easy five hundred bucks.

I had driven out to Carlson’s house, looked at the address again, and then checked it a third time.

I never saw any houseboats in Colorado.

Jack Carlson lived on the water, in a low-slung houseboat, and was laid up with a twisted ankle and torn ligaments.

It was an early spring day two years ago that I gingerly stepped onto his converted barge. Having left landlocked Colorado, I was fascinated by boat life. I spent much of the first ten minutes of our visit pointing out obvious design features of his own house. The tiny propane stove, the galley, the folding cooking area, how much headroom there was for overhead lights, cute curtains.

Watching a forty-something-year-old man try to walk around on crutches as his house pitches and rocks from one side to the next was almost comical. If I’d known him better, I would have said something funny, but I really wanted that five hundred dollars, and I didn’t know if he had a sense of humor.

He showed me over three dozen photographs, none of them were really any good, and I had to tell him that. “I don’t know if you can work it out with the local fire chief,” I said, trying not to grimace, “but you might want to invest in a camera that both departments could possibly use. I don’t know if that’s ever been done?”

He leaned forward, all ears.

“It’s called an OSCR . . . I can’t remember—OSCR 360, that’s it. And it’s a system that will take a three-sixty view of any site. Why are these so important?” I said.

But that turned out to reveal one of his rules: I wasn’t really allowed to ask questions.

It was a week later, after I was paid the five hundred, that I was driving back down through Rockland. It was three in the morning, and I had just taken off in my car. That’s what I do sometimes when I can’t sleep. I’ve never been sleep challenged, and having weird shifts has taught me to drop off when I need to. The flip side is that my days and nights are often mixed up, and sometimes my body is out of sync.

It’s why I sleepwalk too.

I drove down by the marina. I’m still not sure exactly what made me roll down the window. It was still very chilly, and there was snow on the northern slopes of the hills. Maybe I wanted to be braced by something.

As soon as the window slid down, I smelled smoke.

They used to call me a super sniffer out in the field. I got to where I could smell smoke ten miles away, depending on how the wind blew.

And then there was a flicker and a low rumble and something that sounded like a hiss and a pop. At least that’s what I’d thought I heard—I doubted myself later when I had to give a report.

There was Carlson’s houseboat, and I realized the little glowing light inside wasn’t from a lamp bouncing cheerful light off those cute accordion curtains.

It was fire.

All my instincts kicked in. I picked up my phone, hit 911, and because I had checked his address so many times before, his slip number came easily. I dropped the phone on the seat as I flung myself out the door.

I had to get him out of there.

I hit the pier hard, and it shook with each stride. There was a splash in the water. Again, I thought there was. I didn’t have on my boots. I had on some running shoes, and I broke my second toe when I kicked the door in.

“Jack Carlson! Jack!,” I yelled and then pulled my turtleneck up over my nose and mouth. The smoke was thick. I heard a voice in the other room. Then I saw something that made my heart stop.

On boats, every door has a handle to grip in bad weather. Next to his bedroom door was a handle to a cabinet, and there was a pipe between the two.

Carlson was pulling on the door, and it shuttered with each effort, but there was no way it was going to open.

“Stand back!” I shouted. Without thinking, I grabbed the pipe and tried to work it out, but it was jammed in there. It wouldn’t budge.

Fire can overtake a home in about ninety seconds, a small houseboat less time than that. The heat was getting ferocious. Fire swept straight down the belly of the boat. I pressed myself against the door. On the floor was a large rock with fossils in it. I picked it up, struck the pipe twice, and it slid right out.

At that point, a wave of flame shot down. I opened the door and slammed it shut behind me as fast as possible. The electricity was out, and the room was totally black except for the crazed orange glow seeping under the door.

We were both choking on smoke.

“Drop to the floor,” I said, and he did as he was told.

I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him near me. The smoke was horrendously thick.