Oh God,
I am not kidding here, but... like... a bomb was just lobbed onto the roof of my house and it sort of has me dumbstruck and agitated. Actually, it's been a few hours..
I am nonplussed. The arson team ( 2 women, let's hear it for the gals ! ) the bomb squad, fire department, and police have all finally left the block. The entire street was cordoned off for several hours, and there was talk of evacuation. 5 police cars, 3 fire engines, and several cars and armored vehicles. It was fucking surreal. The sheer number and color of flashing lights was enough to pitch a person into a seizure. The (terribly frightened) Girls have had chamomile tea and been tucked into bed. There is an 8 inch (gaping) hole in our roof, plaster all over the living room floor, and a nice hole in the ceiling. (Thank God Chief had just moved the homemade (warm no more) peach cobbler off the stove, as there is explosives detritus under both skylights in the house. Chuh.)
I cannot even describe the absolute terror we felt/might still feel. There we were, gathered as a family unit to watch a TiVo'ed 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' after a kick-ass lasagna dinner - and we hear (not unusual around here) fireworks going off. No big, right ?
Right on the very heels of the crackling little "fireworks", though, was the single biggest/loudest explosion I have ever heard/seen/felt. (The fire dept, said they SAW it from 9 blocks away. They were on their way before we called. Maybe because it was on our actual fucking ROOF was why it seemed so loud). We are accustomed to the occasional M-80 or whatever - causing all manner of car alarms to whinny. Kids these days. This particular bitch rocked the entire house, and we immediately saw a FUCKING HOLE IN THE LIVING ROOM CEILING. There's christing plaster all over the joint. We see the hole, we think 'gunshot !', and we all run, screaming "stay down, stay down !!", to the back of the house. Practically goddamned army-crawling in my own hallway. What is going on? Are we on TV ?
Chief lingers to look for the phone, I am huddled on The Girls' bedroom floor, they are sobbing. I tell them everything is all right, even though I don't know if this is true or not. I grab a cell phone and call 911, Chief is on another phone doing the same. The kids are agitated - and, when I get some perspective - I'm going to wonder how it is that they just...flew across the room and immediately dropped into a perfect "army crawl" to the back of the house. My little war vets. Mommy's angels.
So Chief checks on us, then goes outside for a meet-n-greet with the emergency responders. I secure the ladies, and go outside myself. I am thrumming and shaking. I see the Chinese neighbors outside, and some white guy with a dog. I hear snippets of things like "...the neighbors next door" and "...fireworks exploded." I make a nanosecond judgment (best kind, I've found) and think "if those goddamned neighbors have a cache of effing fireworks in their house, I will, in fact, kill them. Dead."
Nothing seems like it is actually happening. My heart is making my blood make heretofore unheard sounds and sensations. (Last week at Lucky, my BP was 170/something. I wonder what it is now.) I hit the ground running, and apparently screaming and swearing to quite an amazing degree. The family cowers in the living room and listens. I scream at the unsuspecting Asian : "What the FUCK is going on here ! I have a fucking hole in my fucking roof ! Somebody better fucking tell me what the fuck is going on ! Fuck me !!!" You get the picture. I am clearly upset by the events that have transpired, I have 2 very upset children huddled together on the floor. I have tunnel vision - I can see nothing around me but a slight blur - I am existing in some kind of a weird-ass vaccuum. I am aware of nothing. Plus, if I don't express myself sufficiently when under duress, I'll get an ulcer (the one medical problem I don't currently boast. Fuck it.)
It comes to pass that someone has shoved a ...box of firecrackers under the gate next door, there is smoke billowing out, and we cannot for the life of us figure out how this translates to a hole in our roof. Okay, so they're apparently victims too, but I ain't takin' back any of my 'fucks'. No suh. (Put those on reserve for the next time you pepper MY lawn with YOUR stinking ciggy butts or leave your house to move your car from the space in from of YOUR house to the space in front of MY house. Fecking fecker. You think you've seen an "explosion" ? Don't touch that dial, dickweed.) The scene is quite chaotic, and I run between making phone calls, emoting out in the street, and re-huddling with The Girls. My poor poor babies. I call my sister, Aunt, as I am in shock. I am slated to visit with her out of town. Time to throw a bomb at my day planner, then : I cannot be away from the family/house now. No kids will be home alone for a bit, I think.
I call my pal Lynnie (who is absolutely convinced that we.. know the perp, ( i.e. one related Prince of Darkness who actually wants me....dead.) Lynnie wants to cancel her trip to Ireland, wants us to all come over to her house. She leaves tomorrow, and she wants to come right over. I only hold her back by saying that the block was cordoned off with guards posted and she'd have to walk a long way and never get in anyway. Gee, if I had a dime for every time I said "don't bother coming over - the block is roped off and you'll never get past the armed guards" - well, I'd have one thin dime. No less than 15 people have come in and out of the house. (The women, notably, were the only people who shook our hands and introduced themselves and called us by name and said they were sorry this had happened and said what their job was. A little human goes a long way. ) But I figure the cops and firemen are pretty self-explanatory, and the Bomb Guy was just this tough dude like you see in the movies. Pinky ring and all. Walked right out of the fucking "Sopranos". (I hatehatehate that he keeps repeating : "...a few inches in either direction, it would have taken out either your bathroom or your kitchen". He says "taken out" with an irritating calm. TAKEN OUT ?!) Most of the....staff have taken pictures (Sparky was the first on the scene with camera, cell phone, iPod.) At maximum capacity, we had 8 people on the roof. (Or was that 8 tiny reindeer ? I'm so confused and weary). I ridiculously asked Missy if she was having a Vietnam flashback as we were being questioned by the arson squad...
It chills me to my very core that the fireworks were a "separate issue" - they are now saying that a bomb has been lobbed onto the roof of our house. Bomb Guy sez : "It could be an M-1000, but it was surely at least a half a stick of dynamite in power, maybe stronger. This is not a 'firework' - this is a lethal explosive device. Do you know anyone who's really mad at you ?" Um, well, define "mad".
This makes me start to pee myself. Someone has lobbed a bomb at my house. Lobbed. A bomb. At my house. A bomb.....at my house. The hole is there. This is not Beirut. This is so fucking un-American. What are we - Anne Fecking Frank ? There is a hole in my roof. From an explosive device. Lobbed (why always "lobbed"?). Pitched, tossed thrown, launched, catapulted, projected, flung, heaved, chucked, propelled, let fly, sailed, billowed, wafted, crashed, exploded, destroyed, darted, strewn, cast, plunked, dumped, dropped, aimed, fired. At my house. There is a hole.
Well, there is so much more to this interesting 'you are there' account - but I am no longer sure that... 'I am there'. I've actually had such a bad headache for about 4 days, plus I "slept wrong" a few days ago. The latter may sound minor, but for those of us who have "slept wrong" - there is nothing minor about not being able to move your neck and your head is pounding to begin with and now your neck is shot and then...you guessed it : a fucking bomb gets lobbed at your house. Maybe I should get a massage. I can't move.
The really weird part is going to be when I "wake up" tomorrow and realize that this was not, in fact, all a dream... right ?
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