AUGUST 15, 2023 – I don’t know exactly when “Uncle Bruce” became “UB,” but it was definitely after the verdict was in that he was out of his mind. I think it was probably a way for my sisters and me, and Cliff, for that matter, to separate the Uncle Bruce whom we had known and loved in our youth, from the monster that he had become, or perhaps more accurately, that we had come to see, much later in life. It was always in writing to each other that we’d use the short-hand, “UB.” For some reason, we never called him that in person.
At any rate, it was the fire that brought out the demons. By the “fire,” I mean the fire, the one in 1998. By “demons,” I mean . . . well, I’m not yet ready to get ahead of the story.
There had been other fires. The first one occurred around the turn of the 20th century, when the warehouses themselves caught fire, belching huge clouds of black smoke into the sky over Park Avenue and drawing crowds of onlookers to see disaster firsthand and up close[1]. I remember seeing dramatic photographs of the scene, and I can only imagine what George B. Holman must have thought as he watched his life’s efforts go up in smoke and flame. I have no idea what kind of insurance he carried[2], but doubtless George B. Holman had more insurance than what UB carried on 42 Lincoln at the time of the fire, a century later: the warehouses were restored after the devastating fire way back then, and the business grew to even greater prosperity.
There were other fires in the warehouse, not nearly as serious as the first one, but the one house fire before the fire of 1998 could have killed all three of them—Gaga, Grandpa, and UB. Like the fire, it occurred in the middle of the night. It was 1970, and the old furnace caught on fire and ejected thick, black soot throughout the house. A few more breaths of the stuff, and this story would not have been or would have been a far less remarkable story; certainly far less bizarre, if far more tragic. The occasion pre-dated smoke alarms, at least on any kind of broadly available consumer scale. How UB happened to wake up, no one knows. Or maybe he was already awake, who knows, or perhaps he was awake and looking at . . . I won’t go there, not yet. What’s critical is that UB detected the soot in the air, leaped out of bed, shook Gaga and Grandpa awake and got them and himself out of the house before it was too late. In short, he had saved their lives. And had he not, our lives—Mother’s, my sisters, mine—would have been far different.
* * *
When I got the news, Beth, the boys and I were at the far end of our road trip to the Grand Canyon. It was before the age of cell phones, and I retrieved the message by calling into my voice mail at the office from the phone in our motel room in Flagstaff, Arizona. The message was already a day old.
“Eric?” It was Jenny’s voice. “This is Jenny. I’ve been trying to reach you guys, but I didn’t know how to get a hold of you. Last night Uncle Bruce’s house burned down. He’s okay, but I guess the house isn’t.” She laughed, then caught herself. “I know it’s not funny, but when you think about it, the only way you could clean up a place like that is to burn it down. Anyway, when you get this message, call me, okay? Love you. ’Bye.”
Jenny’s humor in the face of such horrible news was not lost on me. Thank God she—and I—could laugh at something like this, though I wondered if we were not a little crazy to have such a reaction, however safe UB might be. I phoned Jenny right away to hear more details, but they were still sketchy. She had heard them from Mother, who, of course, had heard them from UB. Apparently the fire had started in his bedroom. An overloaded electrical outlet. UB had woken up to see flames licking the foot of his bed. He’d gotten out in the nick of time. The house had been completely ruined, half by flames, half by water dousing the flames. But he was safe and without a scratch. That was the important thing.
Next I phoned Mother, and she related the story as Jenny had told it. Mother stated it very matter-of-factly, with no panic or hyperbole in her voice or description. She had no plans to fly out to New Jersey, either, which was just as well. However matter-of-fact she was over the phone, Mother might well experience undue stress on her brain chemistry if she had to face things first hand, up close and personal. And of course she had no clue about what I would discover a few weeks later. Confronting that would most certainly have plunged Mother into psychosis, no matter how strong her meds and no matter how diligent she was about taking them[3].
Mother gave me a number for the hotel where Uncle Bruce was staying and suggested that I call him. I did so right away and asked for his room. “We’re here,” he said, issuing his (and Mother’s) trademark greeting featuring the royal “we.”
“Hi, Uncle Bruce. It’s Eric. I heard about the fire.”
“Yes, but we’re safe.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. We’re out in Arizona right now on vacation, but I got in touch with Jenny and Mother, who told me what happened. I understand the house is in pretty bad shape.”
“Yes,” he said in the dull, monotone voice that he reserved for the matter-of-fact.
“What was the cause exactly?”
“They think it was an electrical circuit in the bedroom. I had the air-conditioner, a TV, a lamp plugged into one circuit. It must have overheated and ignited.”
“But you woke up in time and got out of there?”
“Just in time,” he said, his voice picking up. “I went straight over to the office and called the fire department. They got there within about 10 minutes. Then I called Cliff, and he came down. Stayed until morning. It took firemen from Rutherford and three other towns till the sun was up to put the fire out.”
“Oh my God,” I said, picturing a mighty blaze lighting up the nighttime sky over Rutherford. “When did it start?”
“It was about two in the morning,” Uncle Bruce answered. I was amazed by how calm and collected he sounded—a real testament to his resilience, particularly on the eve of his 75th birthday.
“I just want to tell you how relieved I am you’re okay and how I’m ready to help you in whatever way you need it, Uncle Bruce. You know, to help clean things up or just give you moral support.”
“Well,” he said. “We have to do the best we can. We can only put one foot in front of the other, and someway we’ll get through this.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“Yes, we’re fine. We made it out okay. The cats are fine, a little nervous, but they’re fine[4]. We’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Well, maybe once the dust settles a little bit, I can take a trip out there and help you regroup. Would that be okay?”
“Yes,” he said. The monotone voice was back. “That would be good, yes.”
“Alright, then. I’ll stay in touch and plan to come out at a helpful time. In the meantime, you take care of yourself and know that I’ll do whatever it is you need me to do. You understand?”
“Yes, good, thank you.” We then signed off, and I slumped down in a chair in the motel room, trying to picture the frightful sight of my great grandparents’ dream house, my grandparents long-time home and all of its rare contents, all destroyed by fire and water.
Just then I thought about Cliff. Though UB had barely mentioned him, surely Cliff had been fielding left, right and center, and going to bat every which way for UB in the aftermath of the catastrophe. I called Mother back to get his number, and then phoned him straight away.
“Fun Ghoul,” a woman answered.
“Hi, I need to talk to Cliff right away.”
“He’s busy right now, can I ask who’s calling?” The accent was New Jersey strong.
“Tell him it’s Eric—Bruce’s nephew, Eric.”
“Oh, hello, Eric,” the woman’s tone changed. “This is Sis, Cliff’s mother. You heard about the fire?”
“Yes I did.”
“Terrible, horrible. Absolutely horrible. Your uncle’s okay, thank God, but the house was pretty much destroyed. I know Cliff has been trying to get a hold of you. Let me get him.”
A moment later, he picked up the phone. “Eric, what’s happenin’?” The volume of his voice made me reflexively jerk the phone receiver away from my ear. “Just a minute.” I then heard him yell out to someone, ‘Hey, can you transfer the call to my office? I’ll take it in there.’ A click, a few seconds later, and Cliff was back on in the privacy of his office. “Eric?”
“Cliff, I just heard the news,” I said. “Tell me about the fire!”
“Eric, it was a fucking disaster, you hear me? Fucking disaster. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit in my day, but this was over the top.” Cliff was known to drop the F-bomb once in awhile, but he normally kept the lid on profanity. He used it judiciously, for appropriate emphasis, and his profane utterances right out of the chute signaled just how bad things must have been.
“I can imagine,” I said, sincerely trying to convey my grasp of the situation.
“No you can’t,” said Cliff through bittersweet laughter. “Look, when are you coming out here?”
He caught me off guard. I had no desire to go out there just yet. The family was on a road trip, for crying out loud. I couldn’t just beam myself to New Jersey and leave Beth and the kids to find their own way back to Minnesota without me.
“Well, actually, Cliff, we’re on vacation right now way out in Arizona. I wouldn’t be able to make it out there for a couple of weeks, at least, but I’ll get there soon, I promise.”
“Okay, but I’m telling you Eric, sooner would be a lot better than later.” There was disappointment in Cliff’s voice. “Why don’t you let me know as soon as you think you’ll be comin’ out here. You’ve really got to see it.”
“Sure, yeah, of course.”
“And Eric, there’s something that I’m going to have to tell you that you aren’t going to believe.”
Hearing that, of course, I had to ask about it, but Cliff said he couldn’t tell me over the phone, that it would have to wait until I flew out to New Jersey. Cliff was a promoter, but he was never melodramatic and never one to play mind games. He was simply honest. Of course I badgered him, but he resisted. “No, it’s something you just won’t understand over the phone,” was all he could say.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
[2] In digging through old photos that Cliff had cleared from the wreckage of the 1998 fire, I found a vintage advertisement card distributed by the local insurance agent that included a photograph of the Holman warehouse fire.
[3] On the other hand, Mother had inherited Grandpa’s unflappability. gene. What would shock a normal person would have a nominal effect on her. As I listened to her on the phone after the fire, I recalled to myself the time when she appeared at the school nurse’s office to pick my bloodied self up and carry me off to the dentist after I’d smashed my teeth out but good on the playground pavement. I was wailing like an air aid siren. Mother was as cool as a cucumber. Or the time when in a fit of anger I slammed the door on Elsa’s left hand, nearly severing her little finger—at a young age but by which she was already determined to become a concert violinist. Elsa was standing next to Mother who was at the phone desk, talking to some school- or music-related adult on Elsa’s behalf, when in a huff I walked through the doorway against which Elsa was leaning and slammed the door. Elsa howled bloody murder. Mother switched gears without grinding: she hung up the phone, wrapped a towel around Elsa’s hand and drove her to the local hospital (a converted Victorian house four blocks from our house), where the on-call surgeon happened to be on hand. (Dad was at his courthouse office, catching up on work matters. He drove straight to the hospital, then home. His reprimand was simple and effective: “Now you know what can happen when you do something in anger.”)
[4] Months later, Cliff told the story of how a couple of firemen had come out of the house carefully handling what they thought was the ash-like fragment of a cat carcass. Apparently they had been told that UB had pet cats. When they encountered the “cat remains” in the room where the blaze had started, they gathered them up and carried them out for proper burial or whatever other disposition the aggrieved owner would desire for his beloved pet. As it turned out, though, the “remains” were of UB’s backup toupee, not his pet.
