Burning Down the House

Scene 1: The Stadium, 1991

LESLIE

I wasn’t there. I was at a 49’er football game when the fire reignited. I remember I had my headset on listening to pre-game commentary when news flashes started coming through about a fire in the Oakland-Berkeley Hills. I heard about the scare the day before, so I knew right away the fire was probably near 7121 Norfolk Street but still I hoped it wasn’t our house. We could smell the smoke and see the dark clouds forming and then, by the time the game started, ashes began to rain over the stands and the football field, even though it was so far away. Pieces of pages of books floated down and landed on our heads and shoulders and in our laps. There were printed words floating down on us from libraries up in the hills across the Bay. Some of these might be fragments of books I’d left behind, not to mention the people and our cat, Amelia, and Kathy’s dog, Seaver, and old records and Lord knows what else I thought was safe there. Everything always seemed safe there.

The man sitting next to me said, “I live over there but I can’t get home now. They’ve blocked all the roads. I feel so helpless just sitting here.” I know, I said. I used to live right where the fire first started yesterday when they thought everything would be OK. My friend still does. It’s been our family home for 17 years, you know? But he didn’t know. He was staring into the distance as if he could see whether or not his own home was burning. His house wasn’t like ours. We were not a nuclear family like everybody else in the neighborhood, but a group of transplants, queers and native nonconformists who made a home together, so we could grow into who we wanted to be. Of course we didn’t know that then. We were looking for cheap rent and some place that took pets.

Scene 2: The Kitchen, 1976

(KAREN is in the kitchen ritually making a single cup of Pete’s drip coffee in preparation for starting her work in the living room editing audiotape on a giant freestanding Ampex reel-to-reel tape machine. LESLIE is sitting on a tall stool in the living room area as if at the machine with headphones on cursing.)

LESLIE

(Ripping off her headphones) Oh fuck.

KAREN

(KAREN opens the refrigerator) Oh, fuck.

LESLIE

(Yells to KAREN) No, no, don’t worry there’s half and half. I bought some yesterday. Look on the top shelf.

KAREN

O.K. Thanks. How’s it going in there?

LESLIE

Just great. I can’t get this edit to work. I just cut it off too short and now I can’t find the piece of tape I need to add more breath.

KAREN

Well, maybe I can help you later but I really need to get in there now.

LESLIE

Yeah, I know. Fuck, shit, piss, God damn it. (LESLIE emerges from living room with strands of audiotape around her neck.) Who cares anyway? It’s just a stupid documentary about the history of radio drama, so very relevant to our life and times.

KAREN

Well, it’s timeless. I think it’s cool you went down to the Press Club for that event, since they still don’t let women join. It’s good to remind them we exist.

LESLIE

Yeah, that was cool. There was a guy there who had been a reporter in Viet Nam and he got me a ticket to the dinner and helped me set up my mic and everything. Very sweet, so I got some good stuff—all these wonderful old actors sure can talk into a mic, but I can’t edit for shit.

KAREN

Don’t worry. You’re too hard on yourself. I was listening, you’re getting the hang of it.

LESLIE

You are kind. It’s all yours. I’ll just clean up.

KAREN

(As walking over to living room area) I guess now you know if you think you might need to come back to a section, label it.

LESLIE

Ah yes, (fingering the strands of tape around her neck) now I know. (Addressing cat) Jinx, I certainly hope I don’t need any of those lovely pieces of tape you’re rubbing up against. Those are people’s thoughts and ideas, you’re chewing on. Probably not good for you either. (To KAREN) What are you working on now?

KAREN

The Nina Hartley porn piece. You know 1976 woman porn star turned producer—exploitation or entrepreneurial opportunity.

LESLIE

Sounds good. Are we going to get any more of those fun safer sex kits? (joking) I really liked the flavored dental dams.

KAREN

I’ll put in a special request.

LESLIE

Thanks, babe. I just can’t seem to find them at Macy’s cosmetics counters. Lord knows I’ve asked.

KAREN

I bet you have. There’s plenty of grounds left if you want to reuse my filter and make yourself a cup. (Puts on headphones)

LESLIE

Thanks. I’m considering coffee only because it’s a bit early to start on the wine. (Opens the cabinet above the stove to reveal a poster of a bubbling pot of stew with a ram’s head in it featuring a slogan she announces.) “Eat the Rich.” If only we could. (The phone rings) Hello, Annie? No, I haven’t checked for the mail. OK, I will. Call back in 5. Unhuh. Shit. I hope it’s not there. I hope she doesn’t ask me to open it. What if she didn’t get in? I don’t want to deliver the bad news. Damn wouldn’t you know it.

(The phone’s already ringing again when LESLIE comes back in and picks it up.)

LESLIE

Annie? Yeah, it’s here. You sure you want me to open it? You sure you don’t want to wait until you get home and can have a nice big glass of red wine to celebrate or . . . OK.” (Starts to open it but the receiver falls out from under her ear and shoulder and she has to pick it up again.) What? You’re coming home? Hello? (Hangs up) Now how can I work? (Sits down at table anyway and tries to jot down a couple of ideas to salvage afternoon.)

(SANDRA approaches the sliding glass doors and pokes her head in holding a yellow legal pad.)

SANDRA

Have you got a minute to come over?

LESLIE

I’ve been trying to work, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, and Annie should be home soon. She got her letter from nursing school but we don’t know if she got in, so I think I need to stay here.

SANDRA

Oh, God. OK then, I’ll come in. (Enters) I need your ideas. Is Karen here?

LESLIE

She’s working on the Ampex in the living room, but she’s on deadline so I wouldn’t interrupt right now.

SANDRA

It’s important but we can get her later. Do you have any wine?

LESLIE

That settles that question. (Gets wine and glasses) After all it’s almost 4:00 o’clock.

SANDRA

Hey, you know how early I get up. This is my cocktail hour.

(LESLIE pours the wine and makes a toast.)

LESLIE

Let’s get the bastards. What have they done now?

SANDRA

They’re trying to reinstate the death penalty?

LESLIE

I thought the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

SANDRA

Yeah, “cruel and unusual punishment” but there’s just been a new ruling in Gregg v. Georgia that says “the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution.”

LESLIE

What?

SANDRA

Yes, if you use “objective standards to guide, regularize and make rationally reviewable the process,” or some such bullshit that ignores the extreme racial bias in who just happens to get sentenced to death and executed.

LESLIE

But not here in California, at least. Jerry’s very anti-death penalty.

SANDRA

But the legislature isn’t. They’ve already got a death penalty bill in session. He’ll veto it but they’ll keep coming.

(ANNIE enters.)

LESLIE

Hey Annie, you got here fast.

ANNIE

Where’s the letter? (LESLIE hands her the letter.) OK you have to open this and read it to me.

SANDRA

Wouldn’t you like a glass of wine first? (Pours one and hands it to her.)

ANNIE

Oh, Sandra. I didn’t even see you. Sorry. Thanks.

SANDRA

So while your catching your breath, let me tell you about the latest judicial nightmare.

ANNIE

Oh, no. Why does there always seem to be one?

LESLIE

Yeah, this will take your mind off your troubles.

SANDRA

Dukemajian’s mounting a state campaign to reinstate the death penalty. They’re//(starts to run on about this; lights up a cigarette.)

ANNIE

(Interrupts)// I know that’s important but right now I need you to do this for me. Sandra, open the letter and read it, please. I can’t do it.

SANDRA

Of course I will. This is more important right now.

ANNIE

I know that’s crazy it’s just a . . .

SANDRA

It’s not. Wait. Do we have a letter opener? I want to do this right. You may want to save this for posterity or something.

ANNIE

(groans)

LESLIE

I have one, my mother’s. Let me get it. (Exits toward bedrooms)

(JOHN enters.)

ANNIE

Oh, great, just what I need—a bigger audience.

JOHN

Hi Sandra. Hi Annie.

SANDRA

Hello, dear. Home early?

(SANDRA and JOHN kiss sweetly and JOHN joins the table.)

JOHN

Yes, I found myself alone in the office, since you weren’t there, so since I’m the boss, at least when you’re not there, I sent myself home. Am I interrupting anything, some sort of women’s confab?

SANDRA

Yes, you know how we love to confab. Just talking about plans to reinstate the death penalty.

JOHN

Oh, that. One of my favorite topics. Anyone care to argue the pro-side?

ANNIE

Not now, John, please, I got a letter from one of the nursing schools I applied to and I haven’t opened it yet and Sandra was just about to do that for me.

(LESLIE reemerges with an impressive and ornate looking letter opener.)

LESLIE

I found it. Hi, John.

JOHN

(Nods to LESLIE) Okay then, since we’re all here, let the ceremony begin. However, I think it only fair to warn you I will be rooting for your rejection.

ANNIE

What? John, you can’t be serious. Did some nurse break your heart?

JOHN

No, because as you well know, nurses are under the thumb of doctors who often don’t have their patients best interests at heart and don’t know as much as the nurses do, certainly not about people. You’d be better off doing some kind of alternative medicine that really helps people.

(ANNIE gulps her wine and lights a cigarette.)

SANDRA

Thanks John for that perspective. Now let’s see what the fates have to say.

LESLIE

I hate to say it but in a way I agree with John. I mean it’s great if you do get in. I think it would be terrific. But if you don’t, I do see the down side of nursing. My dad was a doctor and he always told me not to become a nurse.

ANNIE

You too, Leslie? What is this? Everybody’s down on nursing now?

LESLIE

It’s just that women have usually been the nurses and men have been the doctors and the nurses do all the work and the doctors are in charge. You know. Plus you could end up like my cousin, Cherie, who married this guy and put him through medical school, and then he divorced her and married her best friend, after she nursed him back to health from a very serious gunshot wound for a year, which he got on his way to interview for an internship. This Viet Nam vet just shot him when he pulled over to the side of the road to pee because he thought—the Viet Nam vet thought—he was after his girlfriend. And to top things off, he told his family he left her because she was sleeping around with the other doctors at the hospital, which was a boldfaced lie. I mean, really, doctors can do whatever they want. That’s all I’m saying. It happens.

ANNIE

Are you crazy? Well, thank you all for your fucking unsolicited opinions. But has it occurred to any of you that you might be being incredibly elitist. And you don’t have a clue why I might want to be a nurse, because nobody thought to ask me. I might actually want to help people, be by their bedside when they’re sick and dying, and have a good job with benefits and a pension—unlike my dad who was an actor and could never take a vacation without calling in to see if his agent had an audition for him. Maybe you don’t all know as much as you think. So Sandra, read the letter, goddamn it.

SANDRA

“Dear Ms. Chandler,”

LESLIE

That’s good they used “Ms.” (LESLIE interjects extraneously to a round of stares.) “Sorry, sorry.”

SANDRA

“We received your application and supporting materials and our admissions committee has reviewed them thoroughly. Unfortunately, due to the large number of applicants and their high academic standing, we are unable to offer you a position in our program for the coming academic year. We regret that we can . . . ”

ANNIE

That’s enough. I’ve heard enough. (Gets up to leave)

LESLIE

Annie, I’m so sorry. (Starts to get up)

ANNIE

I just need my own space right now. (Exits toward bedrooms)

(JOHN lights a joint.)

LESLIE

Shit, I know how much she wanted that. I should have never told that dumb story.JOHN

I’m telling you there’s something better out there for Annie than nursing school. (Passes joint to SANDRA)

(SANDRA inhales and passes the joint to LESLIE.)

LESLIE

I hate that philosophy, like it’s supposed to make you feel better when you don’t get what you want, like there’s some silver lining lurking in the rubble of your lost dreams.

SANDRA

Whoa there, way to mix your metaphors but very poetic. Do not blame yourself. She knows we all love her.

LESLIE

I know. Where did you get this dope anyway? Very mellow.

(Loud noise off stage)

LESLIE

Annie, what are you doing?

(LESLIE gets up and moves toward ANNIE’S room followed by SANDRA and JOHN.)

ANNIE

I’m O.K.

JOHN

Jesus, don’t do anything drastic. Does anybody know First Aid?

(LESLIE, SANDRA and JOHN exit)

KAREN

(Removing headphone) What the fuck’s going on?

(Lights down on scene)

Scene 3: Something Went Wrong

KAREN

On Saturday, when the grass first started to smolder in the vacant lot across the street, we called the fire department and they came right away; first a couple of trucks and then two more showed up. They weren’t going to take any changes because of how hot it was and how dry everything was and how the wind could come up just like that. They seemed to put out the fire right away. I had our current resident cat, Amelia, in her carrier in my car and my Labrador, Seaver, in the front seat and we were ready to go, if it became necessary. But everything seemed fine. They had hosed down the hillside and said they would keep an eye on it. They said it was safe. I was leaving for New York early that morning and when I took off for the airport, the air was already feeling warm but no sign of fire or smoke or anything to cause concern. I put a letter in the mailbox on my way out. I wasn’t worried.

But something went wrong. The fire continued smoldering underneath the brush all night long and reignited late Sunday morning. I didn’t know what was happening. I was in the air reading a mystery novel and prepping for my interviews for the program I was doing. Six hours later, I arrived at my friend Laurie’s apartment in Brooklyn and she was standing at her door with a glass of wine in her hand for me. I knew something was very wrong. She said, “Come in. I’ve got some really bad news.”

Scene 4: Dinner, 1976

(Same day, SANDRA, LESLIE, KAREN, ANNIE and JOHN are seated around the large wooden plank kitchen table for dinner, then lights up.)

SANDRA

OK I want to propose a toast. Bad news or good news, we’re here for each other and that’s what I love about being with all of you. Here’s to us in 1976.

(Toasts said in rapid succession overlapping)

LESLIE

Mazeltov.

JOHN

Here’s lookin’ at you kid.

KAREN

Here’s mud in your eye.

ANNIE

I never understood that one.

KAREN

I’m not really sure either.

SANDRA

Salud.

LESLIE

Remember last year when I applied to like 23 graduate schools?

KAREN

I think it was more like three.

LESLIE

Yeah, maybe it just felt like 23. When I was doing that I had this weird dream. I was up in an attic somewhere and I opened a trunk and inside I found a letter addressed to me. It began with this line: “I don’t know how to tell you this . . . ” It was a rejection letter from a graduate school, but it was so nice that I appreciated the thoughtfulness and how hard it seemed for the writer to break the news to me.

(Silence)

ANNIE

I’m not sure that would help.

LESLIE

Yeah, maybe not.

ANNIE

However, kicking a hole in the wall really did make me feel better.

LESLIE

Good for you, damn it. Women usually hold their anger in and I think it’s better to express it, as long as you don’t hurt anyone. Speaking of that, sorry for being such a jerk about it. I know you really wanted this.

ANNIE

No, I know. I do. You were just trying to make me feel better. And you know you kinda did. I have been thinking of some other options like maybe chiropractic.

JOHN

I think that’s a good option because most of us will eventually have a bad back. I do already.

KAREN

Well, I would like to propose another toast to all of us for believing in each other and what we are trying to do, even when we don’t exactly know what that is.

(ALL toast again)

SANDRA

And here’s to Karen for finishing off Nina Hartley, her program I mean, in spite of all the interruptions. That’s one success we can chalk up right now.

(Yeahs and salutes all around)

KAREN

Thanks, but next time there’s a family emergency, I want you to rip those headphones off me. I don’t want to be like my dear old dad. You know—the last one to know anything.

LESLIE

I think we should all say something that we are wishing for right now. I mean something serious.

JOHN

OK, I’ll start. You all know my wish—to be a judge someday and soon I hope.

ALL

(Cheers)

SANDRA

I know you will be.

LESLIE

Me too. I’m sure of it. I, of course, want to be a writer but I also love being here with all of you. I hope somehow this, whatever this is, can continue as long as possible.

ANNIE

Why not? I wish, well I know you’ve heard me talk about this a lot. Maybe you’re sick of it by now but I want to find my son—the one I had to give up for adoption when I was 15. I want to know he’s OK. I want to know what he’s doing. I want him to know me. I mean if he wants to. I want that chance.

SANDRA

And you should have it.

KAREN

That’s incredible what you went through. Nobody talks about what happened to women in our generation. Girls were just sent away to those “homes” for unwed mothers with no prenatal care.

ANNIE

Oh, no nothing. I was alone and completely unprepared when I went through labor.

LESLIE

I can’t believe your parents weren’t there.

ANNIE

Oh, no they weren’t supposed to be. That’s not how it worked. Maybe it was part of the punishment or penance or they didn’t even think of it. I don’t know. You were sent away pregnant and when you came back you weren’t any more and life was just supposed to go on. Anyway we don’t have to get into all that now. That’s just what I wish. That’s what I stay up late at night listening to music dreaming about.

SANDRA

And it will happen.

ANNIE

If he wants it to. I should add that.

LESLIE

You know, I think you’d make a great mom. Look you already worry about him. (LESLIE and ANNIE hug) OK, what about you Karen?

KAREN

Oh, I don’t know. Get some grants to do radio productions with Sadie, travel, maybe combine those two.

JOHN

(Joking) What nobody wants to get married, settle down, have a couple of kids?

SANDRA

Well, John you’ve seen what that’s like. Do you recommend it?

JOHN

I’d say that’s an unfair question. Depends on the people involved. How’s that?

SANDRA

Very diplomatic.

LESLIE

And you Sandra?

SANDRA

I’d like to win some of our cases. See the death penalty permanently put to rest. And I’ve never been married, so I’m not sure how I feel about that.

JOHN

The jury is still out, huh?

SANDRA

Exactly. (Raises her glass to make a final toast) “Most of all, I hope that we continue to find each other (pauses looking for right words) worthy of the love and trust we have for each other tonight.” I mean, it’s really just incredible. I’ve never experienced anything like it, even with my sisters.

(LESLIE, ANNIE, and KAREN express agreement in overlapping responses.)

ANNIE

It’s true.

LESLIE

Certainly compared to my sister. (To ANNIE) Well, you have a cool sister.

KAREN

Now, let’s not get into comparing our own families. I don’t want to deal with my brother, Jerome, who tops them all.

LESLIE

You win.

ANNIE

Yup.

SANDRA

Wait, wait I’m not done. “I hope that nothing remains so bad for so long that we know real regret.” That’s how I know you’re going to find your son, Annie. “And finally that our failings,” whatever they might be, I mean, who can say among such a unique and talented group,

(Much laughter and side comments, such as “Right”)

LESLIE

I want whatever she’s smoking.

SANDRA

Be serious for once, Leslie, all of you. “That our failings remain ever so modest and inconsequential.”

LESLIE

That’s beautiful.

KAREN

It is. I wonder if we can live up to it.

ANNIE

I think we can.

JOHN

I’m in.

(ALL raise their glasses to toast, lights fade out)

Scene 5: The Remains, 1991

LESLIE

I walk up and down the street calling “Amelia, Amelia,” hoping she’ll come out of hiding complaining loudly about where we’ve all been. One house at the end of the street remains beautifully intact. Not even a broken window.

I always wondered what would happen to our household on Norfolk Street. How it would end but I never imagined fire—the deadliest urban wild fire in U.S. history, killing 25 people including Terry and Bob from across the street, injuring 150 and destroying over 3,000 homes. At 7121 Norfolk Street, the housemates in residence were sleeping late and awoke to the fire licking at the back of the house where the bedrooms were. They only had time to put clothes on their backs and grab the dog, Karen’s precious Lab, Seaver. They looked for the cat but she hid under the bed and they had to leave her.

The ground, the chard branches, the remains still smoldering and the smell of burnt wood, metal, and plastic was noxious and disturbing.

“Amelia, Amelia,” I walk the black and grey charcoal street calling without much hope of an answer into what used to be the canyon behind what used to be our house. As I walk the black top road a woman comes toward me from the last house.

“You looking for your cat?”

“Yeah, a calico. You seen her?’

“No, I’m afraid we haven’t seen anybody’s pets since the fire.”

“I didn’t think there was much chance, but I had to try and I wanted to see for myself what was left. I can’t believe this. There’s nothing but your house. How did it survive?”

“The fire fighters got trapped and took a stand here and we had fire retardant on the outside of the house so . . . ”

“That’s amazing. It must have been like a fire storm.”

“I know we can’t believe how lucky we are.”

“Yeah,” But then I thought they have to live here now all alone in this disenchanted forest.

I go to our house and stand in the middle of the layout, because there are no longer walls or furniture or anything, and look around. The stove is somehow preserved in ash. I can see where the cupboard was over the stove all collapsed in now, the doors burned off but somehow the shelves remained as shadows with the tins and canisters molded in place. There were only a few things left—a few Pyrex dishes survived but not the fondue pots that used to line the top of the kitchen cabinets, or the sewing machine now melted into art. The other appliances all fallen on their faces, twisted free. I find a page from a cookbook with a recipe still readable on it. I put it in my pack not knowing why. Later I thought this shows something can survive.

One other object remains: our purple and yellow country mailbox. I open it and am surprised to find a letter inside that Karen had posted for the mail carrier to take only charred on one edge. So I pick it up off the ground, since the steak it rested on has burned, and I wrap my arms around it to take it with me as I drive down the hill. The only salvageable thing from our 17 years of living in this house that is now gone forever. We were the last family to ever live there.

What I don’t know is will our family survive without our house.