Evicted_ Poverty and Profit in the American City - Matthew Desmond Page 0,81

gambling. “Bam, there goes fifty dollars right there,” he murmured after Sherrena lost another hand.

Cards fell. The night unfurled. Quentin took a phone call, hung up, and approached the blackjack table. He brought his face next to Sherrena’s and whispered that Eighteenth and Wright was on fire. She immediately collected her chips and followed Quentin out the door.

“Doreen’s?” Sherrena asked when she caught up to Quentin.

“No. The back unit.”

“Lamar’s?”

“No. The upstairs. Kamala’s.”

Quentin sped away from the casino. “Lord, please, please let this be something minor,” Sherrena prayed, holding on to the door handle as the Suburban careered through the back roads that lead to Eighteenth Street. Lifting her head, she fretted, “Shame on them….I hope my shit ain’t burnt to a crisp.”

When Quentin tried turning down Eighteenth Street, he met a roadblock. “Already that motherfucker lit up like Christmas down here,” he said. He could see fire trucks in front of the property, their red and white lights shooting out in every direction, but not the house itself. Quentin tried another route, then another, but fire trucks and ambulances had blocked off the surrounding streets and alleyways. As he maneuvered the Suburban, Sherrena caught brief glimpses of the scene as it flashed up through breaks in the neighboring houses. Finally, Quentin tried a back alley a block behind Eighteenth Street. Through the Suburban’s window, the shadowed rear of a garage gave way to a snow-covered abandoned lot, and the property showed itself in full view.

Sherrena lost her breath.

“Damn! That’s real bad, Sher,” Quentin let out.

The house was engulfed. Flames were leaping from the roof and disappearing into a milky column of smoke and steam towering into the winter sky. Quentin and Sherrena watched firefighters’ silhouettes dash around what had been Kamala’s apartment, now a gutted, charcoaled shell. What was not burning was slicked in ice from frozen hose water.

Quentin headed toward the house. Sherrena stayed put. The fire reminded her of the time a disgruntled mortgage customer tossed a homemade bomb through her office window. Since then, the sight of fire disturbed and reduced her.

Quentin recognized Luke as Lamar’s eldest son, even as he was crying with his head between his knees. A teenage girl consoled him on Doreen’s steps. It was hard to hear over the noise: the grumble of diesel engines, the jackhammer whirring of the water pumps, the sizzle of water meeting heat, the splitting of wood under axes. Patrice was outside too, shivering in only a T-shirt and jeans. She motioned to Quentin and, lifting her voice, hollered in the direction of a firefighter, “He the landlord!” The firefighter nodded and approached Quentin. Bystanders’ faces glowed orange out of the darkness when the flames burst upward. Patrice allowed herself one more look at the paramedics gathered at the rear of an ambulance and went inside.

The Hinkstons’ house, separated from the back house where Lamar and Kamala lived by only a small patch of mud and weeds, was crammed with people. Doreen was sitting near the front door, cradling her youngest granddaughter, Kayla Mae. Natasha was on the floor next to Ruby, draped in a blanket. The rest of the Hinkston kids sat in a row on a mattress, wide-eyed at the weight of the moment. Lamar was slumped in his wheelchair, rubbing his head and drying his eyes. Eddy and Buck stood by his side. White people in hard hats milled through the crowd, apologizing and collecting information. “I’m sorry. Can I get your name?”

Patrice, who had seen a firefighter carry something to the ambulance under a white sheet, looked to Kamala. She was writhing on the floor, screaming, “My baby! My baby!” Her hair had been burnt off on one side. She arched her back and pressed her face into the ground. An older woman nobody recognized tried to hold her. “Whoa!” she would say as Kamala lurched. “Whoa.” When the old woman grew tired, she let go, and Kamala collapsed onto the floor, wailing.

Devon walked into the house, carrying two of his daughters, both toddlers. He pushed the scared girls past the crescent of police officers who were surrounding their mother. Kamala sat up and pulled the girls in. She clung to them, kissed their faces all over, and pressing her head into theirs, spilled her tears onto their hair.

An older firefighter stepped into the Hinkstons’ house. He knelt down beside Kamala and told her what she already knew. Her youngest daughter, eight months old, was dead. Kamala fell back and let out a