Burning Car

My neighbors’ car was torched Tuesday night.

At about 1am, I was finishing up some work on some Christmas presents. Tamika was up with me, doing some photo editing for Lisa Locker’s wedding. We both smelled gasoline, and after checking to make sure my motorcycle was ok, I ran outside to discover one of my neighbors’ cars ablaze.

Michael Dowling used to live on Augusta (an adjacent street) but after the landlord of the dope house cleaned everyone out, he offered to rent the place to Michael in return for some handyman work and a nominal rent. Mike is a former bad apple, was locked up for a while, but got back together with his girlfriend about a year ago and has turned over a new leaf in attempts to be a better father to his kids. He enrolled himself in a couple programs and through that got a job.

His girlfriend has two kids (one of them his), and we’ve been helping them out in any way we could.

We sold the Mercury my dad gave us to Mike, who was able to fix it up in a matter of weeks and resell it for a profit. We were also planning on selling our old Saturn to him too (he’s already started working on it).

Michael used the money he earned from our Mercury to buy another ca;, this time an 89 Grand Marquis with a Police Interceptor engine in it. He was $75 away from getting a new front grill, the last piece he was missing.

Earlier this week Mike repaired a scooter of another neighbor, charging him $80. The scooter was later stolen, and the man demanded his money back. Mike refused, and suspects the man had something to with the fire.

The fire had just been lit when I got out there, but I didn’t see anyone around. Mike had put a tarp over top with a cinder block on it to weigh it down. The whole curbside was in flames. I pounded on Mike’s door. No answer. I tried tugging at the tarp and was able to get some of it off, but the fire was too big. I went back to pounding on Mikes door. Nothing. I ran into our house and called 911.

Mike finally woke up. The flames were reaching as high as two stories at this point, coming dangerously close to Mikes front porch. In these row houses, with everything all connected, if one house went, they all might.

The firemen were there within 10 minutes. They doused the car, and then got Mike to open the doors and doused the inside, which billowed smoke.

Mike was torn up. He had been working so hard to stay clean and to support his family. And yet, this happened. On top of all this, Michelle, his girlfriend, is in the hospital with her infant son who is having seizures.

He gave me a call today. CSI determined the fire was indeed set on purpose, and even got some gassy fingerprints on the roof of the car. Mike is determined to fix the car. He plans on gutting it and getting it on the road. He says he’s not going to let this get him down.

I think Tamika and are just going to give the Saturn to them.