Think of a memory related to fire...
Just days after my eighteenth birthday, I moved to Austin – a three-hour drive south on I-35 from my hometown of Arlington, Texas. I was enrolled in summer school at the University of Texas at Austin. I wasn’t in summer school to get a head start on college credits or because I was a brainy kid craving academics. I was there craving a new me, and I had zero backup plan.
Earlier that year I’d gotten the skinny one-page letter in the mail telling me I had not been accepted at UT. I’m pretty sure my mom and everyone around me breathed a sigh of relief – I wouldn’t be leaving home, and we wouldn’t have to figure out UT tuition, housing and living costs. But I wouldn’t give up that easy. If I had to stay in Texas for college then I wanted to be with all the weirdos in Austin.
UT hosted a provisional summer program for rejected freshman applicants like me. Take 12 credits – get at least a B average across all classes without failing any – and be accepted as a freshman. That summer I attended every minute of every class, went to every study group and TA hour offered, socialized exactly zero hours, made exactly zero friends, and came out with a 3.75 GPA. I am still holding a grudge with the math professor that wouldn’t bump my 89 to a 90 and kept me from a 4.0. But I digress.
That summer I knew only where my classes were held, the walking paths to get me there, and the walls of the apartment. My diamond in the rough apartment. The big hurdle to me getting to attend the provisional program was finding affordable housing. We went to a few off-campus dorms (on-campus dorms were not available) that certainly cost more than my mom’s mortgage at the time. It felt like a no go, until I found a small two-story building that mostly housed students at the even smaller seminary school across the street. The school and this apartment building happened to be just yards off the official UT campus. Rent was cheap and I shared a bare bones two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with another female. It was a bit of a miracle and meant I would have a private room and be able to attend the program.
Today the building has been mowed down and is the site of the very impressive UT Alumni Conference Center and Hotel. But before that happened, I almost brought the building down myself.
As a freshman, I kept my head down mentality. I needed to keep proving to me, my family, and the school that I belonged there. I was lonely as hell, but I was staying in that apartment and I was determined to make it. My roommate and I barely spoke. Ami was even more studious than me, and she’d asked that I stay in my room and not use our communal living room because any noise interrupted her studying.
I was happy to keep to myself and one afternoon after putting some oil to warm in a pan on the stove (to fry taquitos), I retreated to my room until it heated. I forgot about the oil on the stove until it was too late. The kitchen was suddenly ablaze in a grease fire. Everything happened so quick, including that the fire department arrived in record speed and put out the flames. Thanks to cinder block walls there was no real damage.
I continued to live in the apartment for another year. From that day forward the apartment held a slight smoky air and the cinder blocks towards the top of the living room walls were gray from the fire.
As a sophomore my loneliness was palpable enough to force me out. I made friends and did a lot more of the typical college things. When I’d have friends over they were always like what in the world is this place you live in and what’s up with the smoke ring?
I think I kind of liked it that way. Growing up I did my best to keep secrets, to hide my imperfections and troubles. But this, this was my glowing badge that I’d messed up. And people didn’t abandon me when they saw the imperfection. Maybe, just maybe, the stain of that fire helped me forward.