Sometimes Angels Weep

The night it happened was cold and windy. They had made their way down to The Shamrock for some of Mrs. O'Grady's good Irish cooking, and by the time they got back it was late. They locked up the museum for the night and went to their rooms upstairs. Jenny was in her own room wrapped in a blanket, reading a novel she'd borrowed from the Fat Lady, and Frank and Mamie were in their room talking. Mamie went to bed to try to get warm, while Frank sat in his shabby old armchair reading the paper. He lit another cigarette and took a drag, then set it on the edge of the ashtray beside him. He turned the page of his paper, looking over the editorials, swearing under his breath at the 'idiots' in Washington. He didn't notice that the edge of the first section of the paper had dropped onto the cigarette ... not until the paper suddenly flashed into flame. Instantly, the whole thing was burning in his hands. He dropped it on the floor and tried to stamp out the fire, but it was no use; the dry old wood and the loose cover of the old chair caught fire almost instantly. "Fire! ... Fire!" Frank shouted, "Come on, get out of here! Fast!"

Mamie grabbed her blanket and her shoes. "Jenny!" she yelled.

"I'm here Mom!" Jenny called from the doorway. The fire was clearly out of control now. They ran for the stairway and almost fell down it. The fire crackled behind them, and thick smoke billowed through the air, choking them and making it hard to see. They stumbled their way down to the little hallway where Frank kicked the back door open and they spilled out into the dark alley. The wind grabbed them, pushing them back toward the building, chilling them to the bone as it rushed beyond them through the building's open door, making the fire burn even faster. The velvet draperies that decorated the booths on the first floor caught in another minute, and by the time the fire department arrived 5 minutes later the building was completely engulfed in flames.

The firemen battled bravely to save the surrounding neighborhood, but it was touch-and-go, what with the wind whipping the flames and carrying them on like great tongues hungrily licking up the old buildings. Mamie and Jenny struggled their way around to the front of the museum and across the street, where they huddled in their blankets and watched numbly, as the structures seemed to melt before their eyes. More fire trucks arrived, and firemen worked heroically pumping water into the inferno. Smoke and flames were everywhere, people ran to and fro, women screamed, children cried. Jenny pulled her blanket tighter around herself in a vain effort to get warm. "It’s like a scene out of Hell!" Mamie said, and went into a spasm of coughing.

Suddenly Frank loomed up beside them. "Listen," he growled, "don't either of you say one thing about how this happened, you hear? Nobody needs to know anything about it!" Mamie nodded, shivering with cold. Jenny just stared at him.

When morning finally came the fire was out, but the museum was only a blackened hole in the ground, along with the burlesque house next to it and one of the pawnshops. As far as anyone knew though, nobody had been killed. Wrapped in her blanket over her flannel nightgown, Mamie stumbled along beside Jenny and Frank to The Shamrock. Mrs. O'Grady took one look and welcomed them into the back room, where she made them sit down while she went scrounging for some clothing. "You poor, poor things," she crooned over the women, as she helped them wash and dress. The clothes were warm if not stylish, and soon Mamie began to revive, the color coming back into her cheeks.