THE BOLAN CHRONICLES: Reading #45

45. Approximate Minutes Reading (AMR): 5

Introduction to Characters

THE BOLAN CHRONICLES

Chapter 3
A Real Live Policeman

**The Birdseye Fire**

In March of 1987, just two days before Dean’s eighth birthday, the Post published a second Bolan story, this time longer and more detailed, characterizing him as even more of a hero than in the first. This time they’d included a photo of Jake. He was smiling—an attractive photo.

Jake and his partner had been on duty late one Saturday night. They’d driven by the Birdseye Apartment Complex just northeast of downtown Bridgeport and had noticed smoke coming from the second floor. According to the article, Jake had pulled into the complex parking lot. He’d had his partner alert dispatch. He’d entered the lobby and found the flight of stairs just behind the desk. Before the young man sitting behind the desk had had time to ask what had happened, Bolan had reached the second floor.  He’d seen smoke coming from under the door of room 202 and had heard screams coming from the room. After having found it locked, he had kicked it open. A picture of horror greeted him. A smoldering body lay just beyond the open door, Jake not knowing for sure if it had been that of a child or of an adult. He'd then seen two children curled in the corner, where the living room met the kitchen, the older of them holding tightly onto the younger screaming child. He had sped through the smoke and flames and gathered the two in his arms. He had to pull the older child from her grip on one of the kitchen cabinet handles. She had badly lacerated one of her fingers as a result. As he'd pulled her away, she had screamed frantically, seemingly refusing to take her eyes off the cabinet. And when he had finally pulled hard enough to break her grip, she had pointed at the cabinet as he'd stood up and headed toward their escape.  

Jake had carried the two victims back down the stairs and out the lobby door to safety. The older of the children, after having overcome the shock, had begun to cry out, "Boo!  Boo!  Oh, Boo!"  At first, Jake’s partner had thought that the little girl had been referring to a lost pet, or a toy, but he had soon learned otherwise. The two victims had actually been three. A baby brother, referred to by the family as Boo, was still in the apartment. When his partner had informed Jake of the baby, Jake at first assumed that the burning corpse that he had seen had been Boo. When he had asked the little girl about Boo, she had simply replied, "In the kitchen. With the dishes...with the...the dishes." Initially, Jake hadn't understood, but he'd then realized why she'd held so tightly to the kitchen cabinet handle.  

He had then returned to the apartment. By then it had become almost completely engulfed in flames, and the smoke had become so thick that nothing could be seen. By the time he had reached the door once again, he had reached down blindly and grabbed the lump that he had seen earlier and had pulled it out from the apartment and into the hallway. When he'd finally seen it clearly, he'd realized that it was the family pet, as it turned out, a five-year old Collie named Roofer.  

He'd then returned to the kitchen, and blindly feeling his way around the cabinets, had eventually found the right one. He'd felt what he'd thought was a cotton blanket, and he'd then pulled it from its safe place and had then, holding the little body closely to his own, run out the apartment, back down the steps, and out the door to safety. Jake had then fallen to the ground, exhausted, coughing, and nearly out of breath.

--------------------

The actual events had not occurred exactly this way. Jake and his partner had indeed noticed smoke coming from the second floor of the Birdseye apartments, and Jake had been the one to make the rescue attempt, but it hadn’t happened exactly as the paper had reported.   

Jake had found the door open when he had reached the second floor hallway.  He’d looked in and had seen that smoke had begun to fill the room, but he had been able to clearly see the entire contents of the apartment:  A small child, two to three years of age, was sitting next to his sister on a couch, she being about six or seven years-old.  They were both scared and sobbing, but unhurt.  A medium-sized dog stood in the center of the kitchen, barking loudly.  In the corner of the living room, an infant lay in its crib, crying and moving its tiny legs and arms to-and-fro. Half of a pink and yellow blanket covered the baby’s lower torso while the other half swung between two of the crib’s wooden dowels. And In the kitchen, a very large fry pan sat on a stove and emitted flames and smoke. The smell of bacon filled the room.    

Jake had, within seconds, created a plan that might well lead to his eventual promotion.  

He had quickly walked to the stove and grabbed a towel that was sitting on the counter next to the sink and had used it as an insulator as he picked up the hot, smoking pan. Jake had seen the dog as a possible hindrance, so he had walked over to the dog and had cornered it then had poured the hot grease from the pan all over its back. It had yelped loudly, and Jake had grabbed the dog and had raised it high over his head. It hadn’t a chance. With it no longer moving, Jake had thrown it out of the apartment and into the hall.  

Seeing all of this, the two young children on the couch had begun to cry loudly.  Jake had screamed at them, and they had then become scared and quiet. Next, he had taken both children in his arms and had attempted to include the small infant, but when it had fallen from his grip once, and then a second time, and become suddenly quiet and still, he had decided that he would simply leave it in the apartment. 

Knowing that it wouldn’t be long before fire fighters would be making their way up the stairs and into the apartment, he’d set the two children on the floor, quickly wrapped the baby in its blanket, and using the kitchen sink faucet, soaked it completely. He’d then placed the infant in the kitchen cabinet. He’d looked around and decided that the smoke in the room was thinning, and if this was going to be convincing, a real fire had to occur.  

He’d walked back to the kitchen and grabbed an envelope and had slid it into the gas flame on the stove until it had ignited, then he had lit the kitchen and living room curtains on fire. Certain that they would eventually become fully engulfed, he had then retrieved the children and had made his way out of the apartment and back to the squad cars.  

His partner had relieved him of the two kids and had asked if they had needed to return. Jake had told him that there was now no reason to return, as he saw no others in the room. And the oldest of the children had then begun to cry and to ask about the baby, "Boo!  Boo!  Oh, Boo!" Jake had gone in and had fetched the infant, and had returned with it to safety. Seeing that by then the fire fighters had arrived, he had then fallen to the ground in a heap, knowing that his story would be more firmly substantiated given the observation of so many others.