Saturdays here have no middle. You can wake before the dawn and enjoy the morning, but without fail, it will blend into evening. Never had a Saturday afternoon in years. It’s an odd thing that God made men on Saturday, cause around here we ain’t never made shit on the weekend, except plans. Weekends are wasted. When I volunteered for the fire department, Saturdays were the only day I ever had the strength to show up on calls. No worries about work projects due the next day. No 5 am wake up to exacerbate the hangover. I could sit all day around the fire pit with a pager in one hand and a gin tonic in the other waiting to save a life.
That was before I started writing. For two years, Saturdays woke me even earlier, and I would sit around the computer, reading emails from my editor, a copy of ‘Colleges That Change Lives’ in one hand and a bloody mary in the other. But still, I had no middle. Saturday morning turned into Saturday night every weekend. We threw most of the money into the house. It seemed I could always hear contractors beyond the walls, putting up decks and porches, dropping in a new driveway, re-sodding the yard. They put in a window in the master bedroom bath, directly behind where my computer faces, adding a bit more light as a reminder that Saturday afternoons pass too quickly.
We told stories about past calls, embellishing the details for humor, but never bravery. We prefer to laugh at the fear itself, and not in the face of it. That’s not how we talk. That’s how the city boys do it, loading themselves up with air tanks and 2 ½” hose and seeing who could reach the top of the burn tower first. Young, strong boys with attitudes who wanted this for a living. They’d knock each other over trying to complete their tasks during school. It reminded me of a nature documentary. You’d laugh, but most firefighters have never used a fire extinguisher. Until the fire is full-blown, we’re useless. We’d probably throw water on the grease fire, hoping to envelop the whole house so we’d know what to do.
One Saturday, the instructor sets out a fire extinguisher in front of all of us. He lights a fire and tells us that whoever can don their gear the fastest would be allowed to put out the fire. There were maybe 40 of us. No one there could touch my time, 31 seconds. We all start from a kneeling position. He yells go. I use a different order than the other guys, opening the valve on the SCBA first. The gloves are what usually kill your time, so I’ve trained myself to do everything with them on. I open the sleeves outward. Sometimes I wear latex gloves underneath, keeping the sweat from adding friction to the cloth. I throw the tank over my head and without fail the chest straps always land in each hand, which I yank hard. I keep the mask tight, which forces me to pull it hard over my face, usually cutting into my temple. Four straight times I beat the others, finally quitting on the fifth so that someone else can have a chance. But this isn’t how I tell the story.
“So, I miraculously gear up ahead of the others, more than likely because I was the only one there who could understand directions. ‘What do I win?’ I ask, and the instructor tells me I get to put out the fire. I start walking towards the fire engine, and he has to grab me. ‘What the fuck are you doing? Here!’ He hands me an ordinary fire extinguisher. I look at it, not sure what to do. ‘Have you never used a fire extinguisher before? What kind of fucking firefighter doesn’t know how to used a fire extinguisher!’ He has to pull the cotter pin for me, since my gloved fingers won’t fit through the loop. I’ve always wondered how ridiculous I looked, a firefighter in full bunker gear holding a tiny red canister, scratching the top of his helmet like a monkey.”
Remember that fire investigation on Cedar Lane? Oh, the one where Bill tried to break in through the back door? The neighbor reported smoke, and when we got there, we drove up onto her lawn. Oh, wait, was that the time I got the tender stuck? No, that was later. This was when we rang the doorbell and nobody was home, so Pete sent Bill and Erica around back to see if there was a way to get in. Bill went straight up to the sliding glass door and swung the blade of his axe right at it. He busted the glass in? NO! That’s the best part! It bounced straight back! So he rears back to swing even harder this time before Erica grabs his arms and asks him what the fuck he’s doing! She then opens the door, which was never locked!
It reminds us of other stories about throwing rocks through windows and forgetting to set the parking brakes on fire engines. On a Saturday call I left the gate on a farm open as we investigated a brush fire, and when we returned to the road we saw that the farmer's miniature ponies had all escaped. In full bunker gear we fanned out into the fields to try to herd them back, but a mile and a half later realized we had done nothing more than to drive them hopelessly far from home. It reminded me how long it had been since I walked through a wild field on a Saturday, heather tickling my knees, spear grass catching in my socks, when weekends were full of day and light.