him before. He’d been hungry, tried
to heat up some food on the stove,
and passed out on the couch while
it was cooking. The pot had burned
itself out and burned up the kitchen
wall behind the stove, and smoke
was billowing everywhere. She
turned off the stove and opened the
doors and the windows to try to air
the place out. Then she went over to
the couch and woke him up and
started berating him for nearly
burning the house down. He was
too drunk to care.
She came back into the
bedroom, picked up the phone, and
called my grandmother. She started