Working Fire

BAM!!! The bells go off and I'm pretty sure the sound waves lift me out of bed. Some guys manage to sleep through that sonic blast. Not me. It hits me like a freight train. The heart goes from 40 to 120 in half a second. Head for the rig and listen for the tone: two short ones and it's a car wreck, automatic alarm, or some drunk passed out on the street; one long one and it's MOVE. YOUR. ASS. Shove your feet into your boots, feel that lump of sock that somehow always gets wedged where it shouldn't be. Grab the suspenders, wing 'em around your shoulders and jump on the rig. Try to get dressed in a four-ton runaway rollercoaster going 60 down streets never meant to be taken at 60...with a load that tends to shift. Watch that car always creeping closer in the intersection, never knowing if it's really going to stop despite the Bright Flashing Lights, Two Different Wailing Sirens and Constant Blast of the Airhorn. The windows are down, you can smell the smoke from 6 blocks away. It's a worker and your heart beats that much faster. You get close enough to see the house--another pumper beat you on scene--that's ok....they're gonna need water and there's plenty of work for everyone. You pull up next to a hydrant, the plug man jumps out, grabs big yellow and the hydrant wrench, wraps the hose around the hydrant and gives the signal to GO! shuck....shuck....shuck Big yellow flops out the backside of the pumper and into the street. The fire is a block up and the neighbors are out, migrating toward the scene. You pull up to the house, thick black smoke chugging out of the eaves. Grab a hook and an axe and up to the front porch. Your driver is fixing the first pumper up with water. Other guys are on the roof, chopping away. Flashing lights and radios speaking up everywhere. It's your turn to work. Don the facepiece and fumble with the regulator. Put on your gloves and go in. The smoke is lower and thicker with every step until, finally, you can't see six inches in front of your face. Don't fall into a hole--test that ground in front of you. You can hear it now, always louder than you think it would be--crackling and blowing like a furnace. The ceiling needs pulled in that room. Jam the hook up into the plaster and through the lathe, now pull down. It crumbles, but you need a hole twenty times bigger. Arms churn, hook jigsawing up and down, falling debris covering you in God knows what....until the black gives way to glowing orange--"I got fire here!!" The guy on the nozzle comes in, you open the hole up more for him. He lets it fly and the orange immediately darkens. The smoke begins to clear out through the 4' by 4' holes cut by the guys on the roof. What was invisible before begins to reveal itself. You can take a breath, remove the facepiece, take a look around. The smoke still burns your eyes and throat, but the amount of air left in your bottle is directly proportionate to how much of a man you are (this just in: cancer risk is twice as high for firefighters). There's that pile of junk you tripped over on the way in. There is always junk, everywhere. You chuck it out the window if it was or is on fire. The fire is probably in the walls, so you go to town on them. Some idiot is still breaking windows--NEWS FLASH--this fire is almost out and there is no more need for ventilation. It could be nine degrees out, or ninety. Either way, you're drenched in sweat inside your gear. If it is cold, now is the time you start to notice. You mop up the hot spots--don't want to be coming back two hours later. "Chief Rekindle" does not work here. You exit the house, drop your air bottle and tools in your rig, and help the other companies roll up, all the while avoiding any TV camera that might be present. Back at the station, rolled up dirty hose is tossed on the bay floor--the next shift can get that. Dirty tools don't get cleaned--the next shift can get that too. Peel off and hose down your nasty gear and replace it with dry stuff. Smooth out that lump of sock. Wet gear hangs from every conceivable place. Maybe you take a shower, or maybe you fall right back into bed. Maybe you sleep the rest of the night, maybe you run 6 more calls of homeless alcoholics and automatic alarms. Either way, that serene woman's voice wakes you at 6 a.m. every work day. The next shift can tell you had a fire that night the second they walk into the bay--the smell hangs in the air. You sip coffee, skim the paper, talk about the fire a bit and watch the local early news with a keen eye looking out for any fireman's face--any TV time earns you the privilege of buying a couple dozen donuts. Take your gear off the rig, roll up your bedding, and go home. Take another shower, the smell is still there, lingering in your hair. Kiss your wife, your kids, whoever, and tell them you love them. Wait two days. Repeat.

It begs the question

We were dispatched to a car wreck last night, which, en route, turned into a pedestrian hit by a vehicle. (This is common; you can't blame the dispatchers, as they are only relaying the information they receive.) We were then told to stage for the police, as a disturbance had supposedly developed. So, we sit at the corner for a moment until we see the ambulance barrel on through and go to the scene, which happens to be right outside a bar. We figure we'll follow them in. Once on scene, we are told by a really drunk and loud guy that his friend was supposedly hit by the big-ass tour bus idling in the middle of the street. "I saw everything," the drunk guy says, which is an immediate indicator that he is the last person from whom I'd want to get the story. Anyway, I'm looking at the three guys standing by the bus, one of whom was supposedly hit by said bus, and I can't tell who that would be, because they all look fine and drunk to me.

So, it begs the question--if someone was hit by a bus, but you can't immediately determine who that person is, was anyone really hit by a bus?

Cormac McCarthy is right

For all of my three readers out there, this thing will probably start to get a little more personal. I've been leaning a bit hard on the politics, but I've come to the realization that there are probably more than enough blowhards out there yapping about how much Bush sucks or rules--I don't need to be constantly adding to that pile. But, I promise, I still won't talk about my feelings.

I said: It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Any time you quit hearin Sir and Mam the end is pretty much in sight. I told her, I said: It reaches into ever strata. You've heard about that aint you? Ever strata? You finally get into the sort of breakdown in mercantile ethics that leaves people settin around out in the desert dead in their vehicles and by then it's just too late.--Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

I sat at a wedding last night while the best man gave a speech that may have been a bit long, and he may been a bit preachy for some by quoting Biblical passages, but that was his time. He laid it out there the best way he thought, and I respected that. Lots of other people didn't, and it was all I could do to restrain myself from slapping them upside the head (women too!) and saying, "Look, you self-important little snobs--this isn't your time to talk about your new apartment, it's his time to talk about his brother getting married. Shut the f#$% up, eat your free food and drink your free alcohol and give the man his due respect." It wasn't one or two people, either. More like 20 or 30.

Bad manners.

I was punked by a 10 yr. old

Some kid was riding his bike to school this morning. Guess from where I saw him...yes, my car window. Because I'm too lazy and too weak to get up early and ride. This shouldn't happen again.