They wanted to burn down the Cup Factory

When I was 17, my boyfriend loaned me $800 to buy a car. This led to me working the only job I hated, but that's a different story. When the car was paid off, I became a delivery driver for Dominos Pizza. This was lots of fun, and profitable too. I could bring home $60 to $80 a night on weekends, and I received a paycheck for about $175 every other week. I earned enough for fast food, cigarettes and books with money left over to help mom pay the utilities.

Mom was still working at Royal Papers Inc. She did accounts payable, and was getting paid around seven dollars an hour. Royal Papers was a distribution warehouse for paper and plastic products. They bought from companies like Dixie, Fort and Georgia Paper, and resold it in smaller quantities to local businesses. They had recently been bought by Villa Lighting, and Villa had purchased 5 brand new trucks for the company. Those 5 trucks and the kindness of strangers saved my mom's job one winter night, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

One night I was working at Dominos in the middle of a bitter cold snap. Cold is good for pizza drivers, we get lots of orders in bad weather. I had been called into work even though it was my night off. I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay home with my mom that night, although I had no reason and usually took every opportunity to earn money. I went to work because they needed me, and I went out on a delivery and saw the sky lit up with fire. Big fires are rare in St. Louis, so I turned on the radio to find out what could make that kind of blaze. I heard, "...on Vandeventer, near Choteau... Villa Lighting appears to be on fire. 80 firefighters are on location right now."
And I knew. It wasn't Villa, it was Royal Papers. Villa had nothing that would burn like that, but a warehouse full of paper products would. I rushed back to the store and asked my manager if I could go home, my mom's work was burning down, and she would need me. He said, "We need you here more." I spent that long, long shift trying to talk myself into quitting school so I could work full time. I could always get my GED, and go to college later, I thought. I can't describe how much that hurt to think about. At the time, I had already saved almost a thousand dollars for college. I had priced an associates degree at the community college, and checked out my options for St. Louis University for my Bachelor's Degree. I had it all planned. I needed about three grand to get started, and I could cover the rest with 30 hours a week and maybe a few student loans. I had long since learned that most plans go straight down the tubes when they meet with life, but I've always been an optimist.

My awesome co-workers gave me as many good tipping runs as they could find, and when I finally got off work it was with more than $120 on my pocket. My mom was in tears when I got home, and she wouldn't take the money from me. I insisted, she refused, and then we cried together in front of the television watching her life burn in a beautiful pyromantic display. The phone rang all night long. All the employees were calling each other to worry over their jobs, the company and the valiant firefighters who were trying to keep the blaze from spreading to other buildings. 200 firefighters, some from as far away as Chesterfield came to save what they could, and we prayed for each and every one of them.

Around 11 o'clock, mom got a call from one of the drivers. All the drivers lived in Illinois, and four of them had driven into St. Louis to try to save the brand new trucks. They arrived and told the firefighters they needed to get those trucks! The firefighters said it was too dangerous, they were butted up against the building, and the wall was going to collapse. One driver (who's name I sadly can't remember) said, "Please! You've got to let us in, that's all the inventory we have left!"
One of the firefighters said, "You've got 5 minutes. Save what you can." The drivers needed no more encouragement. They grabbed a tow chain to tie 2 of the trucks together, and hauled ass outta there! It must have been a beautiful sight. Four 18 wheelers smashing through the chain link fence, towing a fifth one behind. Not more than a few minutes later, five stories of brick wall came down where the trucks had been. That must have been a sight too. Royal Papers had inventory! And I could go to school!

Some time after midnight, mom got a call to show up at Villa Lighting for work the next day. It would be their temporary home while the bosses decided whether to try again or just give up. The next day, mom was very busy answering calls from customers. "Yes, that was us on fire. Yes, we are still in business." She stretched the inventory in those 5 trucks to include every customer who called. "The trucks were saved, so you'll get your products on X day." Meanwhile, others were busy talking to their competitors, all of whom gladly helped out. They sold their inventory to Royal at cost, letting Royal's trucks pick up from their warehouses. By the end of the week, management had found a new warehouse; and within 2 weeks, mom had an office to work from again.

The blaze was started by a pair of children, aged 7 and 9. They thought it would be fun to "burn down the cup factory" and they made malotov cocktails out of beer bottles and kerosene. I can't imagine how many of those bottles they must have thrown through the windows, because Royal had a damn good sprinkler system.

One wall survived, and you could see the twisted remnants of the iron elevator shaft.