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Stop, Drop

In Case of Fire by Martha Levison I clawed the zipper, its teeth stuck in flannel lining. I’d never heard my kid scream that way - like he was possessed - and here I was, trapped in a sleeping bag. In a frenzy, I wriggled out and scrambled to the tent opening. Flames flapped around Drew’s back and head like bats. His arms flailed wildly as he ran toward my husband, George and youngest son Sam, latrine-bound hopeless yards away. “Get down! Roll!” George raced toward Drew, tackling him entwining his legs as they rolled in the dirt and slapping the flames frantically, finally extinguishing them. Sam watched from behind, his face white, stretched in terror. I slid into them, vaguely aware of other campers running toward us. My husband gasped, his body heaving, completely covering Drew from his head down. My son’s eyes stared up past me, his lips pressed tightly, working to contain his shrieks. Slowly George rolled away, cradling his bubbling palms and I gently rotated Drew onto his side. His swim-team sweatshirt and T-shirt had burned off his back. His skin flushed pink, but not blistered, and though his hair was singed to the roots, his scalp glowed wonderfully clear. Two of our camp neighbors introduced themselves hurriedly: nurses. One hunched over George, applying antibiotic ointment to this hands, asking him questions. The other stood aside, her arm around Sam’s little shoulders, his eyes black in his pale face. I carried Drew back to the tent and curled around him, both of us cocooned in his child-size sleeping bag, Sam’s and George’s bags blanketing us also. He shivered in fear, whimpering. Helpless, I realized I couldn’t erase his memory. But as he relaxed into sleep, I held him tight, protecting him with my body like I had before he was born. We broke camp later that morning. We all needed to be home, safe in our routine where maybe a few accident-free weeks would restore some confidence. On the drive, we began to talk, struggling for a way to make the whole thing less horrible. “Drew, what about ‘stop, drop and roll’?” “Mom, it was too fast. I wanted it off me.” He spoke of the fire as if it lived, attacking him. “Yeah, but fire needs air to burn. When you ran, it got bigger. That’s why they teach you in school to stop, drop and roll.” I knew he’d practiced it the past year in first grade, and before that in kindergarten and preschool. He’d stopped dropped and rolled all over the back yard after those lessons, impressing his little brother with his big-boy school experience. But when my son actually caught on fire, he did not stop, drop and roll. He failed to connect the lesson with the event. And for the first time, I feared he would forget all of the other mantras, too. Duck and cover. Don’t talk to strangers. Just say “no.” I had drilled these phrases into my kids as soon as they could understand them, believing I was doing everything right, that they would react the way I coached. I believed this would be enough to protect them. And here it was, the grade on my first test as a teacher: a big, fat F. Now what? Should I try and simulate a virtual danger, give my kids the chance to react to the real thing? I could go down to the local fire station, ask the nice fireman to turn himself into a human fireball so my kids could watch the proper way to extinguish oneself. The earthquake simulator at the tech museum was an option. But it was usually broken - too many kids jumping on it, adding their own special effects. And what about the drug thing? Should I just drop my kids off at 16th and Mission and drive around the block several times until they’ve “Just said ‘no’” enough to nail it in their memory? Or should I just give up trying to prepare them at all? It hadn’t worked so far. But I kept talking. Last spring, seven years after the fire experience, a riptide dragged Sam now 12, and his friend Ross out into the Pacific Ocean off Half Moon Bay, where they were surfing with Ross’s dad. John told me it was a hard rip, the kind that rattled the most experienced surfers. While I was here at home secure in the knowledge that I’d pumped Sam full of ocean safety drills, he and Ross were thrashing against the current on their boards, fighting to get in to shore. John shot out beyond the rip, calmly repeating to them the information they’d heard before, and talked them back in to the beach. Once again, one of my sons had not stopped, dropped and rolled. “Sam, why didn’t you swim parallel to shore and then in. Remember?” “Mom, what exactly does ‘parallel mean?” Close calls teach hard but effective lessons. Now Drew prefers his favorite food - s’mores - cooked in the microwave. Sam hasn’t missed a math problem yet involving parallel lines, segments or shapes. And if the flag flying from the lifeguard station is yellow with a big, black dot, indicating the potential of rip currents, he boogie-boards between the beach and the shore break where he can plant his feet solidly in the sand. But I’ve learned the hardest lesson of all: After all my coaching, my kids’ peeks over the edge were their greatest teachers. I will never be sure enough of their safety. But I keep talking. Now, in the split second before waking from my recurring, 3 a.m. dream of clawing that damn zipper, I see Drew’s back, not clear and pink, but charred black. I lie terrified in the prickly sweat of a nightmare, and over the thudding of my heart, I hear my own mantra: “What if, what if, what if?’ And my heart breaks for the children who don’t’ walk away from their close calls. Sleepless, I think of the mantras I will be adding soon. Don’t drink and drive. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. Got condoms? I lie awake, praying that my kids will stop, drop and roll. --------------------------- About the Author: Martha Levison is a mother of two teenage boys, writer, wife, and Welsh Corgi owner who lives in Danville, California. She enjoys running, frequent trips into San Francisco, and boating with her family on the California Delta. Her work has appeared in the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle and KQED Radio. She also sings with the Rolling Stones in her spare time.

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