The Great Burnside Hotel Fire
Norman and I figured that Bill was probably going to be busy for a while, and the best thing we could do at the moment was to go get a dime beer.
Burnside is a street in Portland, Oregon, on the west side of the
Willamette River. At the lower end, around 2nd and 3rd St., there were
the sort of men one commonly calls winos, junkies, pimps, thieves, and
grifters of various persuasions, while toward the west hills, there
seemed to be a socioeconomic gradient that roughly paralleled the
elevation contours lending credence to the maxims that cream rises, and
that all one need know about plumbing is that shit runs downhill.
Burnside was like a strip of that paper the chemists use to separate a
solution into chromatic components of constituent chemicals, a Jacob's
ladder. That Northwest quadrant of Portlant had a certain flavor of
transition, people passing eachother on the way up and on the way down,
sometimes acknowledging eachother, but more often not.
Bill came back from the Nam with a monkey on his back the size of King Kong, and Bill passed his time feeding his jones and listening to jazz. He lived in an old seven story building on Burnside, had a nice little apartment. We'd met through a mutual friend, Norman, at a bar on "Dimer Night." I'd never heard of "Dimers" until I got to Portland, but it seemed that at one bar on 21st one could get ten tiny beers in paper cups for a dollar. The main attraction to this method of beer drinking seemed to be building fantastic castles from the many paper cups at each table. Norman, Bill, and I had built a few castles on 21st street.
It was one Friday night, Ruby was still working, so I went to Bill's place figuring to listen to some jazz, maybe catch a buzz. I wasn't sure Bill would be home, being Friday, but yeah, he's there, jazz playing, a couple of colored lights on and a candle burning. Bill's already pretty oiled up, he's got what they call "Chinese eyes," and the light from the candle bothers him, his eyes are that light sensitive, so he pushes a big 30 gallon plastic trash can toward the fat candle to shield the light from his eyes. We're listening to Bill's old collection of Charlie the Bird and Stan the Getz. So, Bill's nodding and I'm getting restless, and Ruby's getting off work about then, I tell Bill I'll catch him later, departing for Lovejoy Street.
Next day, I figure to go get coffee on Burnside, and stop by to see if Bill's up, or down, yet. I get to the apt. building, and there's a couple of fire trucks all red with their hoses hanging out into the building, so I go on in following the hoses which lead right into Bill's place. Bill is standing there and three or four firemen are working on chopping into the ceiling and into the wall where evidently the candle had melted the plastic trash can and burned into the wall. The hotel was old and constructed of plaster over wood lathe. There wasn't an obvious fire, and only a little smoke, but the firemen had noticed that the walls and ceiling were getting kind of hot. Bill and the firemen looked fairly busy, so I gave Bill a wave indicating that I'd see him later, and I went to get Norman to have coffee and tell him about Bill's disaster.
Maybe four hours later, Norman and I figure everything is under control by then and we'll go check to see what's up at Bill's. We turn the corner onto Burnside, there's maybe 300 people standing on the sidewalks, and MORE fire trucks, they've got the street blocked off, and the building is smoking pretty good. Me and Norman can't figure why the fire isn't out, after all, it started as just a little fire in Bill's wall, but it seems that the entire interior walls and ceilings were smoldering. We're standing there maybe 15 minutes when there is a very loud and deep Ka-Boom! and all of the tin molding around the top of the building pops off, the walls had filled with partially combusted gas which had exploded. That kind of seemed like the grand finale, so Norman and I figured that Bill was probably going to be busy for a while, and the best thing that we could do at the moment was to go get a dime beer.
Bill came back from the Nam with a monkey on his back the size of King Kong, and Bill passed his time feeding his jones and listening to jazz. He lived in an old seven story building on Burnside, had a nice little apartment. We'd met through a mutual friend, Norman, at a bar on "Dimer Night." I'd never heard of "Dimers" until I got to Portland, but it seemed that at one bar on 21st one could get ten tiny beers in paper cups for a dollar. The main attraction to this method of beer drinking seemed to be building fantastic castles from the many paper cups at each table. Norman, Bill, and I had built a few castles on 21st street.
It was one Friday night, Ruby was still working, so I went to Bill's place figuring to listen to some jazz, maybe catch a buzz. I wasn't sure Bill would be home, being Friday, but yeah, he's there, jazz playing, a couple of colored lights on and a candle burning. Bill's already pretty oiled up, he's got what they call "Chinese eyes," and the light from the candle bothers him, his eyes are that light sensitive, so he pushes a big 30 gallon plastic trash can toward the fat candle to shield the light from his eyes. We're listening to Bill's old collection of Charlie the Bird and Stan the Getz. So, Bill's nodding and I'm getting restless, and Ruby's getting off work about then, I tell Bill I'll catch him later, departing for Lovejoy Street.
Next day, I figure to go get coffee on Burnside, and stop by to see if Bill's up, or down, yet. I get to the apt. building, and there's a couple of fire trucks all red with their hoses hanging out into the building, so I go on in following the hoses which lead right into Bill's place. Bill is standing there and three or four firemen are working on chopping into the ceiling and into the wall where evidently the candle had melted the plastic trash can and burned into the wall. The hotel was old and constructed of plaster over wood lathe. There wasn't an obvious fire, and only a little smoke, but the firemen had noticed that the walls and ceiling were getting kind of hot. Bill and the firemen looked fairly busy, so I gave Bill a wave indicating that I'd see him later, and I went to get Norman to have coffee and tell him about Bill's disaster.
Maybe four hours later, Norman and I figure everything is under control by then and we'll go check to see what's up at Bill's. We turn the corner onto Burnside, there's maybe 300 people standing on the sidewalks, and MORE fire trucks, they've got the street blocked off, and the building is smoking pretty good. Me and Norman can't figure why the fire isn't out, after all, it started as just a little fire in Bill's wall, but it seems that the entire interior walls and ceilings were smoldering. We're standing there maybe 15 minutes when there is a very loud and deep Ka-Boom! and all of the tin molding around the top of the building pops off, the walls had filled with partially combusted gas which had exploded. That kind of seemed like the grand finale, so Norman and I figured that Bill was probably going to be busy for a while, and the best thing that we could do at the moment was to go get a dime beer.