Did you call the fire department?

Since the gypsies’ family moved in, I began to notice that plastic supermarket bags, broken toys and appliances were accumulating in the lot at the end of the dead end. Could it be someone was throwing their garbage over there instead of taking it to the corner dumpster? The fact that I had seen a gypsy lady chucking bulging grocery bags out the window of their apartment at various times over the last months made me wonder. Their apartment is situated on the 4th floor at the corner of the building, overlooking the abandoned property at the dead end. The property, an old ceramic factory workshop, is overgrown with grass, vines and trees, awaiting city planners’ decision to tear down the wall and extend the street. The problems of piling up household waste in an urban setting, the consequent flies and bugs breeding under the hot Spanish sun, as well as the accompanying odors shall not be discussed here. In the meantime, the gypsies had found a solution to any and more of such imagined problems.

I thought I did smell wood smoke as I came into the building one noontime. Seeing nothing coming from over the wall at the dead end though, I went upstairs to the apartment and began putting away groceries, forgetting about it. Minutes later, shouting and insulting somebody, the very upset voice of a lady in my building, brought me back to reality. The gypsies had set fire to the garbage pile and the whole abandoned lot was ablaze. "Did you call the fire department?” I called to the upset neighbor. Hardly catching her reply, hearing loud popping noises of exploding spray cans, I moved down the hall to my living room on the street side to witness tall flames and clouds of black smoke leaping up from the lot and completely blackening the view from my 3rd floor windows. Sirens soon announced the fire truck’s arrival. They then worked for the next half hour dowsing flames under the watchful eyes of the whole block of neighbors, except for the gypsies, who were nowhere to be found for comment.