should all live near the Pacific Ocean at least once in our lives, so we
kept going all the way to San Francisco.
Mom didn't want us staying in one of those tourist-trap hotels near
Fisherman's Wharf, which she said were inauthentic and cut off from the
real life of the city, so we found one that had a lot more character, in a
place called the Tenderloin District. Sailors and women with lots of
makeup stayed there, too. Dad called it a flophouse, but Mom said it was
an SRO, and when I asked what that stood for, she told me the hotel was
for special residents only.
While Mom and Dad went out looking for investment money for the
Prospector, we kids played in the hotel. One day I found a half-full box
of matches. I was thrilled, because I much preferred the wooden matches
that came in boxes over the flimsy ones in the cardboard books. I took
them upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom. I pulled off some toilet
paper, lit it, and when it started burning, I threw it down the toilet. I was
torturing the fire, giving it life, and snuffing it out. Then I got a better
idea. I made a pile of toilet paper in the toilet, lit it, and when it started
burning, the flame shooting silently up out of the bowl, I flushed it down
the toilet.
One night a few days later, I suddenly woke up. The air was hot and
stifling. I smelled smoke and then saw flames leaping at the open
window. At first I couldn't tell if the fire was inside or outside, but then I
saw that one of the curtains, only a few feet from the bed, was ablaze.
Mom and Dad were not in the room, and Lori and Brian were still asleep.
I tried to scream to warn them, but nothing came out of my throat. I
wanted to reach over and shake them awake, but I couldn't move. The
fire was growing bigger, stronger, and angrier.
Just then the door burst open. Someone was calling our names. It was
Dad. Lori and Brian woke up and ran to him, coughing from the smoke. I