Red Hats by Damon Wayans Page B

and stared at the glove still in her hand. She put it to her nose—it smelled . . . like James.
    Winter came fast.
The trees were left naked and the ground bald with patches of slush and snow. Alma still spent most of her day at the window, fearful of what the outside had to offer. At night, she read her Bible, seeking comfort and understanding of why life had dealt her such an awful blow. It seemed as if nothing ever stayed the same in her life. There was always something to make life miserable.
    Today it was the heater. The radiator had been making loud banging noises for the past week, from not being bled, and all of a sudden, it upped and stopped working. She complained to the building’s assistant manager, who claimed there was nothing he could do. He suggested she use the oven to heat the place. What nerve! She went over his head and called the building’s owner, threatening to alert the authorities. Again, she was told this was a problem the city had to fix.
The city,
she thought.
Who the hell is the city?
It was too vague for her to figure out.
    She spent the day wrapped in a blanket on the phone trying to reach
the city.
Finally, a woman with the electric company explained to Alma that the problem was not the city’s and referred her to an agency you call for “got no heat.” They told her it was being handled and they should have it fixed within the next few hours. That was ten hours ago.
    Alma broke down and turned the oven on to stay warm. It was so cold she could see her breath. She pulled the love seat into the kitchen and set up a nesting place in order to stay warm and rest. Because it was Friday, she feared the problem wouldn’t be handled until Monday. City workers were off on weekends, so there wasn’t anyone to respond to complaints. To make matters worse, a huge snowstorm was in the forecast.
    Alma nodded off to sleep. Her subconscious dream state told her the heat must be back on, because she suddenly felt extremely hot, especially around her feet. It felt so hot it almost burned. Alma started awake, kicking the smoldering blanket from her feet just as the first flames took hold. She must have settled too close to the oven, and the flimsy blanket had caught fire.
    The blanket quickly ignited the tablecloth and then the kitchen curtains. Alma screamed for help as she fought to extinguish the flames with an even flimsier blanket. She panicked, seeing the two fires spread quickly. Within thirty seconds, the flames were too intense to put out. She couldn’t even reach the sink for water.
    Alma freaked out. She backed away, standing in the middle of the living room, screaming for help. Smoke filled the apartment, making it difficult to breathe. Not knowing what else to do, she grabbed the only thing that mattered to her, a framed wedding photo showing a smiling, unknowing Harold and her leather bible.
    Run,
she heard her mind say.
    So she did. Alma ran from the apartment, yelling at the top of her lungs.
    “Fire!” Alma banged on every door she passed. “Get out! There’s a fire!”
    Doors opened, and mothers with children and husbands with wives fled for their lives. Fire engines could be heard in the distance.
    Alma huddled outside
the building, wrapped in a nice, warm wool blanket Mrs. Johnson had put around her shoulders as she coddled the only things she had left in this world—a bible and a picture in a frame. She was too shocked to cry and more than a little angry, knowing that her apartment was the only one lost to the fire. All her antique dolls gone! She wished she could have stood the pain of the flames so she might have burned in the hell that was before her eyes.
    What now?
People returned to their apartments. No one asked what she was going to do. They acted as if theinconvenience were all her fault. Where was the neighborly love she read about in the Bible? As she stood there alone, she noticed Bob, Seymour, and Rae Ann standing across the street staring at her. She pleaded for