Why I Want To Be A Firefighter

For you Babe. At least we try.

January, 1990
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The little girl coughed.










The little girl coughed again, awoke, and was afraid.

She didn’t know why. One minute she had been sleeping peacefully, one arm draped over Pooh (“Thank you Daddy!”) and the next she was awake and coughing. (“What’s wrong?”) Turning on the light she looked around her room. It looked strange. Kind of foggy. She coughed again.

And again.

She smelled smoke and then knew it was not fog. Her room was filling up with smoke, stealing her air. (“Mommy! I need to get out of here!”) The little girl looked towards her door and saw smoke curling up from under the door like a grey cloud of doom. (“This is NOT happening! This IS a dream!”) She ran to her door and grabbed the door knob. It was hot (“OW!”) and burned her hand.

(“Stop …”)

She couldn’t open the door and she didn’t know what to do. She had to get out. She had to get to her mother. (“Mommy?!?!”) Then it struck her. The terror seared her brain. Her house was on fire! (“Oh no! … Oh NO! … OH NO!”) She coughed. It was getting harder to breath. The ceiling was disappearing. The smoke was getting thicker. The room was getting hot and SHE … COULDN’T … BREATHE!

(“Stop, drop and …!”)

What now? Where was her mommy? She cried out for her mother, but her cry was left unanswered, shrouded in a thick cloud of evil. Where was her mother? Why didn’t she answer?

She tried to think. What did she know about fires? One time, a long time ago (“Before Daddy moved away”) a fireman from the local fire station had spoken to her class about fire safety. He looked so handsome in that pretty blue uniform! (“You would have liked him Pooh!”) She almost hoped he would save her someday. (“How romantic!”) She hoped he would come and save her now! What had he told them to do in case of fire? That’s it! Get low to the floor!

(Stop, drop and roll, kids!”)

He had said that it would be cooler there and she would be able to breathe! The little girl dropped to the floor. It was hot and she STILL had trouble breathing. (“You LIED to me!”) The little girl looked up and saw that the ceiling, now made of smoke, was descending, deadly gray tentacles reaching for her. She couldn’t even see the light fixture on the ceiling any more. She had to hide. She had to get away from the smoke and the fire and hide until somebody (“Daddy?”) came and rescued her. She stretched out and pushed her way under the bed.

(“It’s better here. The fire won’t find me and there’s less smoke. I’ll just hide and everything will be ok. I just know it will.”) She coughed and her eyes started to tear. She started to cry. She was very frightened, her throat hurt, her eyes hurt, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t breathe, she was too hot and she couldn’t stop coughing. And she cried, the tears making small clean rivers down her once pretty face, now filthy from the inescapable smoke.

That damn smoke.

Suddenly she heard noises. The little girl heard her mother cry out her name. (“Mommy, I’m here! Help me!!”) She heard sirens and people shouting. She heard strange noises in the house. Glass breaking, crashing noises and crackling. (“Snap, crackle, pop!”) Her mother screamed her name. (“Mommy!”) She coughed. (“Mommy!”) But her mother just screamed her name.

She coughed. (“Pooh! Where are you?”) She forgot to take Pooh with her! She reached out from under the bed but the smoke tried to sneak into her cave. (“Sorry Pooh”) He was still on top of the bed! (“Stop, drop and roll Pooh!”) The little girl peeked out from under the bed and the smoke attacked her eyes once more. She could not reach Pooh. (“Oh Pooh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”)

The little girl coughed and could not breathe. The air was full of dark smoke that smelled ugly, like burned plastic. She started to grow faint.

She heard footsteps coming up the stairs. (“daddy?”) Heavy foot steps that stopped and then started again. (“i’m here daddy. save me”)

The foot steps stopped outside her door. (‘save me’) The door crashed open and the little girl peeked out. In the doorway stood a monster. It was a huge man-like beast. It had an ugly flat face with no eyes and a nose that extended all the way to its waist(?). It had a strange looking hump on its back. It hissed at the room. The flames of Hell burned brightly behind the beast and it hissed her name (!) in anger. The beast suddenly dropped to all fours and started crawling around the room like a strange dog. (‘it’s going to hurt me’) The flames burned brighter. The monster breathed its strange noise as the room became even hotter. The creature looked around the room and began to feel along the wall, crashing into furniture, coming closer to the little girl. The girl slipped deeper under the bed, curled into a ball and pushed herself into a corner up against the wall. (‘i will hide. it won’t find me.’) The monster crept closer to the bed swinging its legs out looking for the little girl. (‘pooh. help me. don’t … let …..’).

The monster paused at the bed for a short while and then moved on, hissing its disappointment at not finding a victim.


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The man suddenly awoke and felt at peace. He lay there for awhile not moving. He listened and tried to figure out why he was awake. No reason. No unusual noises came from any part of the house. His wife (“Thank you God”) lay at his side peacefully dreaming. His pager, on the bedside table, had not cried out in its sleep. The man turned his head and squinted at the blood shot eyes of the clock, trying to read its mind. 4:30 a.m.

4:30 in the morning and he was awake. Great. It was still dark outside and February cold. Wonderful.

The man gingerly sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and took inventory. His arm hardly hurt anymore, the burn on his hand was healing nicely, and his body no longer ached.

Not bad for an old fart.

OK, then why was he sitting up in bed at 4:30 in the morning? (4:33 the clock corrected him)

And then he knew.

It was payback time It was time to add a check mark to the positive side of the ledger.

Finally.

The man stood up and put on his robe, slipped into his slippers and carefully glided from the bedroom. He proceeded downstairs to the kitchen. He turned on a light, grabbed his favorite mug (“I love you more that chocolate itself”) cracked the faucet and filled the mug with water.

(“The man …”)

He placed the mug in the microwave and zapped it for the required two minutes. He added instant coffee to the now hot water and stirred the witch’s brew as he quietly went back up stairs.

(“The man …”)

The man turned into his dark and cold office, (“Never could keep it warm in February”) closed the door and turned on a light.

(“The man on the wall”)

He slowly strode over to one wall, and for the longest moment stared at the photograph of a man. A talented man. A respected man. Forever young.

The man studied the photograph, but his mind was on the little girl. His thoughts wandered.

Why is it that one moment he is an aging businessman living a normal life, then the pager screams and suddenly he becomes a firefighter.

Go figure.

The man studied the photograph. He thought of the little girl.

The fire had been a tough one. Hot, smoky and a little girl was somewhere in the house. It took two rescuers just to hold the mother back and finally get her to tell them what the little girl’s name was and where she might be. Even with that it was no picnic. (“Are we having fun yet?”) The roof had already burned through. Because of this the inside of the house was hotter than Hell, but at least they could see. (“I’ve got some bad news and some good news”) He had headed towards the bedroom where the little girl was supposed to be. The door was stuck and he had to bash it in. (“Sorry”) The room was still full of smoke as the fire had not yet burned through the roof in that part of the house. The whole house was going up in flames and he would have to search the room by feel. (“Great, bumper cars in Hell”) The firefighter started to his right and followed the wall. He swung his arms and legs out trying to find the little girl. (“I sure hope you’re in here …. I sure hope you’re NOT in here”) No luck. The firefighter banged his arm against a dresser hidden by the smoke. The dresser won. (“OW!”) He moved on. Finally he came across the bed. He swept the bed with his arm but came up empty. (“Nuts”) Something fell off the bed. The firefighter picked the object up, turned it over, brought it up close to his mask and stared at the face of a doll. (“Pooh?”) The bed was empty, the flames were starting to claim squatter’s rights to the bedroom, he was getting scorched, and it was time to boogie.

The firefighter moved past the bed.

(“Pooh?!?”)

The firefighter paused. (“Wait a minute. If I was a little girl in trouble would I abandon my doll?”) He moved back and quickly swept his leg under the bed. The leg struck something. The firefighter reached under the bed, pulled out another doll, and she moaned.



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The man studied the photograph on the wall and he thought of the little girl. The man on the wall had died too soon. (“The good, they die young”). The little girl had not.

Payback.

The room seemed to darken .. it grew silent … bitter cold crept in past the windows … the whole world went away.

Only the man and the photograph remained. The man looked at the photograph, the photograph stared back at the man.

The man lifted his cup of coffee to the man on the wall and in reverent salute said “That’s one, and I dedicate it to you”.

People die, people are saved. Check marks on the negative side, check marks on the positive side. This is one check mark on the positive side of the ledger. More positive check marks are needed.

And God, that’s the deal. You watch over me (Always) and I’ll do my part. It’s You and me all the way, OK? And, if You decide to smile upon me during a fight with the devil, then help me steal a life back from him. Help me balance the ledger.

And people ask “WHY would you want to be a firefighter?”

Why indeed.

The man was tired of good people dying young. He had lost many friends and one real fine relative because of a bitter war with no cause. Accidents happened. People drowned. Terrorists struck. Airplanes crashed. Trains hit other trains. Cars hit other cars. Good people died young. And what was he doing about it?

Nothing.

Nada.

Zip.

Just sitting there watching the news and clucking his tongue like an old lady. (“Oooh, what a shame!”) Enough. Time to do something. Time to fight back. Hard. He could read to kids with cancer or he could run hot meals to shut-ins. (“No! Not enough! If you’re going to do something, then put it on the line.”) But that wasn’t enough. So he became a firefighter. When he helped somebody he wanted to walk away with bruised knuckles and a fat lip. He wanted the bad guys to know he had been there.

He wanted to step into the ring with the devil and have only one of them walk away from the fight. The other one would have to be carried out.

That made things real easy.

You knew who the bad guy was and you knew who the good guy was.

The bad guy danced his dance of death and destruction. When the bad guy partied people were hurt and lost their homes. (“All my pictures! All my memories!”) The bad guy was the devil and he couldn’t wait to belch his fiery breath onto the puny interlopers.

The good guy was the one making a fashion statement in Nomex.

The good guy fought the devil with his tiny tools of the trade. Sledge hammers for smashing, axes for chopping, pike poles for tearing and ripping walls and ceilings, hatchets, hammers, and finally water to cool the bad guy off and kill him.

Big deal. Water.

The bad guy had his own tools. Tools of destruction. Heat, flame, smoke, exploding windows, poisonous gasses (“Honey, that carpeting will look ADORABLE in our living room!”) collapsing roofs, collapsing floors, falling objects, falling power lines, falling firefighters and that ignoble fate, being clobbered by your own fire engine. Finally, when you hit the devil with water (“And the puny human jabs with his right!”) he just sucks it into his mouth, heats it up, and then blows scalding steam right back at your face. A fire scene is an accident looking to happen. It’s already found the place.

So why DOES the man want to be a firefighter?

For the dead who died too young. For the chance, just the chance, to add check marks to the positive side of the ledger.



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The man sipped his coffee.

He probably would never live down all the jokes about him saving one little girl and one Pooh. They could never understand that Pooh had saved the girl, he had just listened to the silent doll.

Suddenly he heard an electronic scream from his bedroom. He raced into the room in time to hear the pager cry out for help. (“Station 3 alert, house fire, smoke showing”)

Somewhere out there in the bitter cold the devil, with satanic glee, waited for the firefighter and plotted his furious attack.

The pager had cried for help and the fire engine’s siren wailed in response. A mating call filled with fear and anger and hope. As the fire engine hurled down the road the firefighter struggled into the harness of his air tank. The fire would probably be a good one. (“Yeah!!”)

The engine roared.

The air horn bellowed.

The tires moaned.

The siren wailed.

The cold wind blew.

Good against evil.

The great red war machine with its flashing lights and tools of saving destruction carried the firefighter towards his destiny.


And he smiled.