That’s yours truly in August of 1987. I’m at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel where we had been living since June after our house had a terrible fire. I’m hosting a faux telethon to help raise money for “Ross Aid.”
Jerry Lewis Sidebar: I actually did raise some money from our amused guests. One woman went home after the party and sent me a “Money Tree” covered in one and five dollar bills. I used it all the time to tip my way around the hotel.
Our “Paint The Town Red” party was fun but the fire had been no joke. After ten years of renovating, the outside painters had set the roof on fire. My new kitchen wing burned up and the smoke and water damage affected everything in the house. We had to move out.
Here’s part of my living room pre-blaze.
EVERY SINGLE THING IN THE HOUSE reeked of smoke and all the furniture and floors were checked by the intense heat or warped by the water. It was a real mess, and although no lives were lost and it was “just things,” I had a mini nervous breakdown the day it happened.
After the firemen and the police had left the house- now a smoldering pile- I went upstairs to my bedroom and locked myself in.
I wasn’t leaving. Like a captain with a sinking ship, I was determined to go down with it.
The kids and Bill went to my brother Kenny’s house for the night. I was in my bedroom for the duration.
First Kenny came over. He walked upstairs and spoke to me through the crack under my bedroom door.
“Ellen, you have to come out. The police and the fire departments say it isn’t safe for you to be here. The fire might not be completely out and there could be electrical problems, as well. Come out and let’s go to my house.”
“Go away, Kenny,” I replied. “I have to be crazy now.”
He went away and I lay there for hours thinking about …I don’t know. I was in a state of shock.
Finally around nine o’clock, Bill walked back into the house.
“Your shrink told me that I should come back and be with you,” he said through the crack. “So here I am. Open the door.”
“No.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going in Natasha’s room. I’m beat.”
In a few minutes I heard a sound that finally made me open the door.
I heard snoring.
That tore it.
“How can you sleep at a time like this?” I shrieked. “Our house is a wreck! Where are we going to live? How can we move everything out right away? Natasha is going to camp in a few days! What will we do? Who’s going to watch this place? Every window and door is wide open!”
“Don’t worry,” Bill soothed. “The police swore to me that they would keep a watch on the house starting tonight. ”
I was less than convinced. I walked back to my bedroom and re-locked the door.
About eleven p.m. I heard the sound of a car in the driveway. Before I could get out of bed to check on it, I heard the front door open.
I bolted into Natasha’s room.
“Bill, wake up! There’s someone in the house!”
He jumped out of Natasha’s bed, grabbed a tennis racket and ran downstairs. As I followed him, I heard footsteps running out of the entry hall, the door slamming and a car starting.
Then I heard another car start. Bill had jumped into his and was in hot pursuit of the would-be robbers.
Twenty minutes later he came home worn out- and angry.
“I had the Northfield cops on the phone the whole time I was chasing those guys. The police told me that they couldn’t quite find them because they were on a shift change. And do you know who they finally pulled over? Me.”
He was disgusted.
“You know they came here to rob us, don’t you? I asked. “Everything is wide open. Nothing is secured. I am so glad that we stayed in the house tonight.”
And surrounded by the acrid smell of smoke, we made our way back to our respective bedrooms and I laid there wide awake staring at the ceiling until the phone rang around six a.m.
“Mrs. Ross? It’s the Northfield Police calling. We caught the two kids who tried to rob your house last night. They’re here at the station.”
“Great! Fry ’em! Put them in prison! How dare they come here and try to take things? Who would do such a thing?” I cried.
“Well, to tell you the truth ma’am, you know one of them.”
“I don’t know people like that,” I said flatly.
“Yes, you do, ma’am. I’m sorry to tell you this but one of them is H.Z. and he tells me that you’re friends with his parents. His mother is on her way here now to post bail.”
I was furious. That little punk had come over here to rip off anything he could get his entitled paws on. How could he? And what about his parents? How dare they raise a delinquent like that?
(We never got an apology from either one of his parents, btw. In fact, his mother called me at the Ritz and was thoroughly irate. “How dare you have a fire and entice my boy over there?” she asked me.)
That was thirty years ago but I remember it as if it was yesterday.
And last Saturday I got a Facebook Friend request.
It was from H.Z.
F.U.
