When I was working on the Haldeman ms, I brought it home with me to make corrections and retype some chapters. I had it spread out on a desk and went to bed. In the middle of the night, I heard a great crackling noise and awoke. The noise was the telephone lines popping. I glanced out the rear windows and they were bright yellow. The building was on fire. I awakened Jay. At that moment, we heard a fierce pounding from the street. Because it was a loft, the firemen were assuming no one lived in the building and were axing the door. Thank God it was metal. They ignored the sign over the door that said “A.I.R.” which meant “artist in residence" and was supposed to alert firemen that the building was occupied.

I ran down the steps and started yelling and they were making so much noise they couldn’t hear me so I started pounding on the door from the inside and they stopped and I let them in. They came up and walked through. The fire hadn’t penetrated our premises but we were filled with smoke.

I went to the desk and criss-crossed the sections of the Haldeman ms, wrapped it in a towel, put my coat on over my nightclothes, and walked down to the street to wait things out. In a bit, the firemen said it was okay for us to go back in. Jay stayed on the street, talking with them. Once back upstairs, I couldn’t just go back to bed because there was so much smoke. Our windows were wide open of course and the winter air was cold, but we needed to dissipate the smoke. I went up front, sat at the piano and started playing a Schubert impromptu. Jay later said, the firemen looked up, looked at Jay, he just shrugged his shoulders, and said, “She’s bored.”

I got a lot of mileage at the office when I said I saved the ms while ignoring my personal safety. I would do it again, I said, for the C*o*m*p*a*n*y. They knew I was laying it on but I enjoyed the moment.

We were living on the Lower East Side, a curious mix of the affluent and the beggars. There was a lean-to on the West side of our building and squatters were living in it. Apparently, they had neglected their hot plate, or whatever it was, and it had overheated and started the fire. I wasn’t afraid, but, in retrospect, I ought to have been. It’s good we didn’t have traditional furniture, because all of it would have been ruined by the smoke. That’s another story and I may never tell it.

xx, Teal