I always liked Chuck. He was really nice to me and was always very interested in what was going on in my life. He was sort of like an uncle or a grandfather. A godfather, maybe? But what he really was was my mom’s ex husband, so I heard a lot of unflattering things about him. I was always fair though and I was friendly with him up until the day he died when I was 18. He never did me wrong, so I saw no reason to be hateful, and anyway, he was this sister person’s dad, so I had to like him, right?
Alicia and Chuck were prominent periphery figures in my early childhood. I maintain that I was an only child, because I was raised as such, but that’s not the case on paper.
My whole childhood, up until sometime several years after my dad died, Chuck had this tannish/orangish car. It was a huge, long thing that had to have been from the late 60’s or early 70’s. The paint had no sheen to it at all, it was rusting, the seats were falling apart, there was no AC, it stunk like stale cigarette smoke, and as long as I can remember the thing would not drive in reverse. This necessitated them parking it in such a way that they could always pull out. You can imagine what that looked like in a parking lot – always on the outer edges parked horizontally when everyone else was vertically parked in their own individual space. Oh, and it had a fire truck twirly light on the dash, and firefighter plates. He was a volunteer firefighter.
My mom more of less thought that his firefighting was a joke, but I thought it was pretty cool – right up to the moment my sister made me sacrifice my afternoon cartoons to watch Backdraft. For most of my life, Chuck was a fire station mascot – but I do remember his big moment of Glory – The Pic-n-Sav fire. It was an electrical fire they said, and it was literally across the street from the fire station. It was the biggest thing to happen in Crescent City in years. Not much has happened since either . . .
I don’t know why we were in Crescent City that day, and I can’t help but imagine that someone called my mom and we went up there to be voyeurs. I can remember standing with my mom and my sister in front of Peacock’s Furniture (our favorite spot for watching the Catfish Festival parade, and Chuck’s place of employment) and watching the flames coming out of the windows and the roof. Apparently the fire hadn’t spread to the whole building by the time we got there. As we watched in awe we began to hear tiny explosions that sounded like fire crackers or bottle rockets. Everyone standing on the street began to wonder if the whole building would blow and whether or not we should all run for cover. Then, a very smart bystander suggested that the fire had reached the aerosol cans of hairspray.
There were more fire trucks than I had ever seen in my life (which wasn’t very long at this point). The fire was so big and out of control that they had called in fire stations from all the surrounding communities to help. And in the middle of it all was Chuck. He was brave. He went in and fought that fire as best he could, but like so many of the firemen, he finally had to call it quits from heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation. I think it was the last fire he helped to fight. He still rode rescue, but after that I think he hung up his boots. What a way to retire – in the biggest fire our town had ever had.
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