~ 16 ~

Home Sweet Home

Date: May 29th 1999

Time: 5:30 A.M

Place: Philadelphia, PA (9 days after the emergency landing)

+ Brian +

The last thing I remember was hearing Kevin scream my name, telling me to run for cover and then the sound. It’s a sound I’ll never forget. A whistle so loud it sounded like one of those fireworks that shoot way up in the sky and explode. What are they called? I think Roman Candles? Something like that. My dad used to always take us to the fireworks every July 4th and whenever those things shot up in the sky, I covered my ears. I hate loud sounds. This thing definitely sounded like a firework only instead of being shot up in the sky it was coming directly at us.

The sound of the whistle intensified as I reached the door of the stairs leading to the basement where my cousin was already at the bottom as well as one of the brothers. I still get them confused but I think it was the older one. The whistle suddenly stopped just for a split second and then my feet were taken off the ground as I went sailing down the steps against a huge wave of heat.

When I opened my eyes the air was still and it was so quiet I thought I was dead for sure. It was dark, pitch black and the smell of smoke was all around me. It’s that smell that made me realize that I was alive but wasn’t sure how long that was going to last.

I tried moving my arms and was pretty successful but I also could tell there was something on top of me preventing me from moving anything else. I wanted to yell for help but then I remembered what got me in this position in the first place. Whoever just bombed this house wanted us dead. I wasn’t about to call for help to let them know they did not succeed.

That got me thinking about Kevin. Was he as ‘lucky’ as I was? God, I hope so. I don’t think I’d be able to make it knowing my cousin was dead and I had survived. I felt tears streaming down my face but I couldn’t’ really move my arm comfortably enough to wipe them away. How does this happen? How does it go from being one of the best times in your life to contemplating why you are alive and kind of wishing you weren’t? Just those thoughts alone were enough to make me full on start to bawl. I have never thought about suicide ever! Whenever I heard people talk about when they almost tried to kill themselves or wished they were dead, it would really piss me off.

I can’t even tell you the number of arguments Nick and I have had about this very topic. When he would go on and on as an angst ridden teen about how he wished he was dead. Even now, at the happiest time of our lives, or at least WHEN it was the happiest time in our lives, he would talk about ending it all if he had the chance. I would just shake my head at him and wonder how anyone could really feel that amount of despair.

Until now…

Now, I get it because so help me God, if I had a way to do it, I would. I tried to squelch my sobs but they were long and hard but mostly loud. I bit on my bottom lip to try to prevent anymore noise but then that part of me that stopped caring about if I lived or died wanted them to just find me and put me out of my misery already. Just make it quick.

“Brian?”

I stopped crying when I heard my name. A sudden fear hit me. It was one thing to think I wanted them to find me but another to know they actually did.

“Brian?”

But if it was them, how would they know my name, unless Kevin told them?

“Brian, can you hear me?”

That’s when I snapped out of it and realized it was my cousin saying my name.

“Kevin?” I said as loud as I could. My voice sounded horse as if I hadn’t spoken in months.

I heard a shuffling and then his voice came through loud and clear. “Brian, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so, I can’t really move.”

“Okay, hold on. We’ll get you out of there.”

I sniffled away a new round of tears before they started and felt a giant sense of relief. I have never felt as worry free as I did right at this second. Now I know why people might enjoy roller coasters. This is probably what it felt like falling down. A release of adrenaline and your endorphins go a little crazy. I went from wanting to die to feeling more alive then ever in less then twenty seconds.

I heard Kevin and someone else moving things around and slowly I began to see a sliver of light. It made me wonder how long I had been laying here in the dark.

“We’re almost there buddy, hang on…okay?”

“Yeah.” I wondered if I was the only one trapped.

I took a few deep breaths trying to control myself and my emotions. The last thing I wanted was for Kevin to see me a blubbering mess. I don’t cry in front of anyone. I never have and never will. It’s not like I view it as a sign of weakness or anything, I just find it embarrassing.

It’s not something I even realized until it was brought to my attention. My brother is the one that pointed it out to me at my uncle’s funeral. Everyone was crying and consoling each other and I was just standing there seemingly unmoved by what was going on.

I did cry, but after we all came home and I had a chance to just sit in the dark and think about things. My brother came in all pissed at me and telling me it was okay to cry. It didn’t make me less of a man. It’s just how I roll I guess?

I was finally able to see Kevin’s foot in front of my face as they tried to lift whatever was on top of me, away. My guess is it was more than one thing. For all I know it was the entire house! Luckily I wasn’t hurting so it couldn’t have been that bad, unless I wasn’t hurting because I couldn’t feel anything.

Great, now I found myself going from sad to anxious that maybe I was seriously hurt. Funny how a few minutes ago I probably would have welcomed that and now the thought of dying here under a pile of house was the last thing I wanted.

Finally I felt something really large being hoisted off of me and I was able to really let out a big breath as the sun shone down on me from above. It was definitely sky, no sign of house anywhere.

Kevin knelt beside me and threw off the small debris that was on my stomach, “Are you okay?” He asked softly as he gently pulled me to a sitting position.

I nodded, happy to know that when I moved it didn’t hurt. I just felt stiff, as if I spent the entire night sleeping on a very uncomfortable couch. I gave my cousin the once over and apart from a nasty looking gash above his right eye, he seemed to be fine.

I shook my head and a whole slew of dust came off the top. I probably looked horrible, but it didn’t matter because I was alive. “What happened?”

I asked as Kevin gave me a hand standing up. I felt a little wobbly on my feet but quickly balanced myself out.

“We were lucky.” He answered.

I looked around at what was left of the house. Some of the first floor by the kitchen was still intact but pretty much everything else was gone. The basement remarkably was untouched besides all the debris that landed on top of us.

“The fireplace and that bar saved our lives.” He pointed to where I was. I had managed to land right in the crook of the bottom of the fireplace that was the only thing left standing above us and he and Scott managed to duck under an old bar that had been built into the basement wall.

“What about the others?”

Scott walked away. I knew my answer. “Did they come in here looking for us?” I asked after a few seconds.

“I don’t know, by the time I woke up they had gone. My guess is they didn’t think anyone could have survived the blast and moved on.”

I was kind of baffled how anyone could survive after seeing all the destruction myself. I walked over to Scott, trying to find some kind of consoling words, but not really knowing what to say, I turned and started walking in the opposite direction.

“So, what now?” I asked my cousin, but it was Scott that answered.

“Now we go to Clara and Randy’s place before these people decide to come back and check on things.”

Kevin and I looked at each other, “Okay.”

“Scott, I’m so sorry…”

“Save it…” He cut me off and walked away.

“Maybe they’re alive, did you guys find them?”

Kevin nodded, “Ralph is over there. It looks like he broke his neck and well…the other one never made it down here before the blast. Scott found part of him over there.” He pointed off in the distance.

My heart broke for a second and once again the tears started to flow. I felt bad for this family but most of all I felt guilty. This was our fault. If we hadn’t lit that fire, they would be alive right now.

“It’ll be okay Bri.” Kevin pulled me into a hug and that’s when I really started to full on cry once again.

“We’re going to make it out of this place and find the others.”

I pulled away and wiped my tears, “How do we ever make it up to him?” I asked looking over at Scott who was standing there and staring at his brother’s body.

“We can’t,” Was his honest answer.

I did know something we could do, however small of a gesture it would be. I walked over to Scott and put my hand on his shoulder, “Do you want to bury them before we go?”

At first he ignored me as he continued to stare. His eyes saw his brother but when I looked down I saw mine. For all I knew my family was laying under a heap of their own. We were all victims. Just as I was about to walk away he answered, “Yes, that would be nice.”

He glanced at me as tears fell from his face. I wanted to hug him but for some reason I just nodded and walked away, leaving him to grieve in peace.

I sat down on a piece of wood and watched as Kevin helped our new friend carry his brother outside and continued to watch as he grabbed a shovel from the debris and started to dig a grave. When I offered to help I was told to sit down because he wasn’t quite sure if I had hurt myself and he didn’t want to take any chances. I pulled my shirt up and saw a huge bruise forming on my stomach and couldn’t’ help but wonder that myself. I did feel okay though.

Once the grave was dug and the earth was thrown I made my way over with the only thing I could find that was close to a gravestone. It was a plaque that probably used to hang on the wall of the kitchen, welcoming home the family that this place once belonged to.  Now it was going to be a makeshift gravestone for someone these people didn’t even know.

I handed the sign to Scott as he stood over the new plot and despite all that happened he actually laughed when he saw it.

“Ralph and my Uncle would have liked this. They were just twisted enough to find the irony.”

He bent down and placed the plaque on top of his brother. Because there was so little left of his uncle, he decided it was best to just leave him be.

“Should we say a prayer or something?” I asked.

“No, we aren’t exactly religious.”

“Okay.”

“Rest in peace,” was all he decided to say.

I looked at my cousin who had tears in his own eyes as he stared down at the words “Home Sweet Home.”

Scott turned off his emotions, wiped away the last few tears and took a deep breath. “Let’s get going, I don’t know how much time we lost but we need to get to Randy’s before it gets dark!”

He started to walk away, never looking back and we were quick to follow. I did look back though, seeing the Home Sweet Home sign in the distance as we continued to walk. Snow once again started to lightly fall from the sky.