The Original Huff-Daddy

Last night we got a call at the firehouse from our dispatch center. They wanted to let us know that a high-speed pursuit had recently ended, right in front of our station. Normally, I shake my fist at rubber-neckers, but when you have a situation in your front yard, that merits some observation.

The smell of brakes permeated the superheated, sticky, nasty, humid air and in the middle of it all were three cop cars surrounding a slightly dented Toyota Prius in our parking lot. Everyone was sweating and there was a howling mad woman cuffed on the ground, shrieking as though she was going through an exorcism. She angrily screamed at anyone while stringing together a list of colorful adjectives that would make a sailor awkward. I loved it.

The cops were standing there, debating their cop-like debates they have amongst themselves when I walked up to them and asked them how their evening was going. This was a tense moment that could’ve gone either way, since we firemen enjoy a precarious relationship with our brothers in blue, probably stemming from their raging jealousy of us. We like to tell jokes like “what do cops and firefighters have in common? They both want to be firefighters.” They respond with loving terms of endearment like “F- you, you f-ing lazy firemen”. Then we all have a good laugh, and they go back to being resented my most of the community while little old ladies and children continue to love us.

But I digress.

The police officers in question could see I was the designated smart-ass of the group, so they came up good-naturedly and gave me the low-down. It helped that I offered them a soda first, as a gesture of our benevolence as firefighters. One of them approached us and said “don’t underestimate those damn Priuses. We’ve been chasing her all around the Northside for a while now. Those little things can move!” I’ve edited that statement, but you get the gist. Apparently, the driver was hopped up from huffing paint and went on a little Tour de North Springfield at high speeds. I’m just glad no one got hurt as a result of her impersonation of an urban TrashCar racer, but it got me to thinking.

Here was this half-baked crazy lady, hauling ass and slinging rubber around Northtown, eluding the long arm of the law while piloting a Toyota Prius, a car that’s better known for making the statement that you’re a sensitive environmentalist rather than a crazy outlaw paint snorter. There’s the old saying that goes something like “it’s the crappy carpenter who blames his tools.” I’ve been known to make a pitch for buying more shop tools by telling The Wife that I can go no further with my labors of love until I buy some better tools, and more of them. Rarely does this marketing technique work in my favor, and I end up blaming the poor quality of my creations on lacking the this and the that, which would make the end results that much better.

Our little speed demon didn’t need a Big Block Oldsmobile 400 cubic inch engine, capable of delivering 360 horsepower and 440 foot-lbs of torque to hold her own against our local police cruisers. She did it in a car with the same engine used to power sewing machines and boat trolling motors. She used what she had to get her job done. And, while it came to an abrupt end in front of our firehouse with relatively little fanfare, it impressed me nonetheless.

Obviously, I need to spend some more time on working with the tools I have, rather than trying to bankrupt my family by purchasing more of  what I don’t really need. As I survey the chaos that is my shop, I’m really pretty good with that which I have. I have more than enough paint in the supply cabinet, and I’m relieved for a moment that I don’t live on Springfield’s Northside. Because when that lady makes bail? She’s gonna be looking for more fuel for her next high speed rally. The Prius can only take her so far.

Busted

I’m sitting here, right now, in this very moment, at a Panera Bread Co. coffeehouse staring at another firefighter. I noticed him when he tossed a crumpled napkin in my face and recklessly close to my coffee. I was wasting time on the computer, waiting for something funny to wander into my mindset, something that would make a good post. Something ironic. Something to which I could offer a scathing review. A tale of amusement from the firehouse.

But never, ever, in the presence of a fireman. Not in a hundred years.

And here, in this unlikely corner of an unlikely strip mall, my worlds collided when he called out:

“Whatcha doing? Are you bloggggggging, Uli?”

Deep sigh on my part.

Shit.

I write out ideas, and have noodled out a post in the station on occasion, but those turdblossoms at firehouse #2 are used to my dropping in the ear buds and tuning them out for protracted periods. They’ve become closet fans, never outright admitting they read any of this, but quick to point out if there was some sort of error in my last post. It pains them to give any credit, and this is a trait of a good fireman, so I understand completely.

But I keep the whole enterprise away from view of most of the department, because to advertise you have a blog to firemen is akin to advertising that you watch High School Musical or like vampire “literature”, or scrapbook as a hobby. It just isn’t done. Firefighters relate to one another through the time-honored mediums of insult and shit-talking one another. You can’t tell your best friend how much he means to you, but you can walk up to him in the engine bay and open-handed slap him in the face and he’ll get the idea. It is a world of bizarre tradition and ritual where you must constantly assert your heterosexuality through the act of grabbing ass with other men. It makes no sense to outsiders and is the bane of the Human Resources department, who would just as soon interact with sock puppets as opposed to firefighters. They really, really don’t want to go into a firehouse, because we’re the dirty inbreds of city employment, and it’s best to just call 911 if you really want to see us.

So yeah, blogging is kind of a dirty word. I don’t blog. I post essays. I write stories. I waste copious amounts of time trying to think of something funny to say, but I don’t ever blog for the love of Clint Eastwood and all things manly.

Here I sat and here I was, busted as sin.

This was a fulcrum moment.

To deny is your first instinct. But this particular fireman can smell weakness three miles away, and drops the “bullshit” flag as fast as anyone in the department. And he lives to torture. You say you’re homophobic? Prepare for an onslaught of nudity in your face, in your locker, in the bunkroom. Don’t have money to pay for a meal at the station? That’s fine, he’ll let you eat….if you eat some cockroaches first. But there are two things that distinguish him: you can’t bullshit a bullshitter if you want his respect, and if you’re ever trapped in a burning building he’s the one you want crawling in to get you. Like a junkyard pitbull, he never lets go, he never gives up, and it makes him one hell of a fireman. It also makes him drive co-workers to tears of humiliation and shame. My lucky day, indeed.

And so, after ten years of working alongside him, through several threats and wrestling matches and insults and terror, I realized I’d been had. I could try and insist I was looking at something respectable, like porn, in a public place, but he’d seen it in my face. He caught me dead to rights, as though he’d walked in on me with knitting needles in hand and doilies in my lap.

“I KNEW IT! You’re writing your little bloggy thingy aren’t you, you filthy little bastard?”

As I shrugged my shoulders and threw back the last of the 54th cup of bottomless coffee, I went with the only tactic I could employ:

“Well, I won’t tell anyone you caught me in a coffee shop. Your secret’s safe, dude.”

To which his wife piped up:

“Oh, we love this place. They have the best desserts. We come here all the time.”

Check and mate.

Drink The Lemonade. It Pairs Well With Rabbit.

Top 5 Reasons I Suspect There’s Something In The Water Lately

1.) Suspicious fire in the middle of the day. Firemen go predictably nuts when they happen upon gay porn stash in house, immediately accusing each other of “looking at it too long”. I can’t talk about the fire in too much depth, but I did experience massive hunger-induced panicky hallucinations while waiting for the Fire Marshals to methodically examine the scene. I accused them of spending too much time examining the magazine collection of the homeowner.

2.) Skull-viewing. While working a car wreck, we tended to an un-seatbelted passenger who had “spidered” the windshield with her forehead, tearing it open during the process of ramming a telephone pole. She was exhibiting mild concern over her hysterically screeching unbelted daughter/driver and paid no mind to the fact that we were looking at her exposed skull. I’m reaching here, but I’d bet a paycheck that it hurt like hell the next day, and that’s my semi-professional opinion. Although slightly confused, she was aided in answering our questions by the bearded grandma who was riding in the backseat and who WAS wearing a seatbelt. Outside of being royally pissed and barefoot with nasty toenails I could take an angle grinder to, she was just peachy.

3.) Gangster Chaos At The Courthouse. Another car wreck, this time at the seat of all local law enforcement, the county courthouse. A carload of thugs with gold toofs and gangtastic tatts on their faces pulled some stunts out on the road, then pulled into the courthouse parking lot and proceeded to slightly nudge a sheriffs personal motorcycle. Although there wasn’t any real injury among them, the high drama and yelling and wailing ensured the arrival of two ambulances and everyone looking around in a confused manner and pointing fingers. My favorite quote? “Don’t you take my name down, mister. Uh-Uh. Don’t you do it.” My guess? Warrants. Where’s Dog The Bounty Hunter when you need him?

4.) Rabbit Sacrifice. Today, while working on the dubious garden project, one of the shop cats I call Darth Macho proceeded to eat an entire baby rabbit right in front of me. Disemboweled, destroyed and devoured. Legs, fur and guts…gone. He enjoyed this entire feast while staring at me with a look that said “That’s right, you silly bastard, and you’re next.” I mean it was downright creepy the looks he was shooting me. He is called Macho for a reason.

5.) Don’t Drink The Lemonade. The Wife has been making some crazy delicious lemonade lately, thanks to the fresh lemons we procured from Rojo and his family while we were in Cali. Seriously, it’s like crack, it’s so addictive. She swears it’s the sweet lemons and 2 pounds of sugar per batch, while I’m prone to believe she’s lacing it with arsenic and making it wildly addictive so that I’ll consume up to a gallon per hour. She wound up the evening by slapping me in the face while saying “You show me some damn respect. I made you lemonade.” I suspect she’s pissed I’m not dead yet.

Sometimes it feels like a royal pain in the a-double snakes to be a government employee – the bureaucracy, the constant cycle of loathing/admiration/hating/envy that the citizens feel towards public safety (pension problems, anyone?), the feeling of being a cog in a blue shirt, replaceable within about 5 minutes or less. The bureaucracy – yeah, I gotta mention that twice, and if you work in government service, you can appreciate this.

But on top of that, I feel really lucky. Lucky that I’ve found the career that makes sense to me. The fire service is loaded with all kinds of wayward issues, but really, what job isn’t? Anytime you have more than two employees, you have politics. Any time you answer to the citizens, there’s gonna be one old grouch out there who wants to kick you in the balls just because he got a speeding ticket once. So we accept where we’re at, but that doesn’t always translate into appreciating it.

Every third day I spend in the company of 5-7 others who endure my lies and copious bull. I drink ungodly amounts of coffee, I get to tinker with a three-quarter million dollar ladder truck and generally when people dial 911, they’re happy/relieved to see us arrive. Little kids never, ever fail to wave up at the truck, little old ladies always coo when we change their smoke detectors and our spouses are generally happy to get rid of us for one day out of three. When the economy is down, our business seems to pick up, not necessarily a good thing in terms of public safety, but it makes for interesting times. We operate on a level of maturity with one another that you may have last witnessed in sixth grade.

And still, we bitch about it.

For the next couple of weeks, I’ll hopefully sleep through the night. There will be no phantom alarms at 3am, no loudly lamenting the empty coffee pot, no staring off at the rest of the world going home at 5pm while we have a whole 14 more hours of gilded cage time. No staring at a giant truck knowing that there’s really several hours of checking it that need to get done. No arguing over what channel to watch. I’ll need to keep my mouth in check, since firehouse humor doesn’t necessarily translate smoothly outside the station. It won’t go well, and I’ll end up saying stuff I regret. The Pimp and The Pirate won’t be around to berate me, and tales of JoBoo’s adventures into Oklahoma will have to wait. I won’t think about funding issues, staffing issues, pension issues, rookie issues or the plain ol’ business of fighting fires.

The Heathens will spend time on the beach, time at Disneyland, and time on my nerves. The Wife will pass judgment on my driving skills and my brothers will point out how great it is to see us and how old I’m looking. The Lyin’ Dutchman will probably make some sort of appearance, trying to ambush Buns and me through a meeting that Bones will have unknowingly set up. I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time missing living on the coast. I’ll watch Barbara get married and lament losing time with my family. I’ll secretly wish for a return to a life that really never was. Hopefully The Author and I will have time to meet up and we can wax idiotic on classmates from twenty years ago.

And in two weeks? Putting on the turnouts and climbing on to Truck 2 will seem like a damn fine way to make a living. Even if the coffee pot is empty.

He Who Shall Be Known As Duane

It all started out rather innocently. Okay, it wasn’t innocent at all, but instead, the continuation of a firehouse joke that isn’t even that funny. Sometimes, when I’m in control of the tv remote in the day room, I’ll make the boys watch religious programming (ie- Jim Bakker, the Fleecer of Missouri) or, when bored with that, shows like A&E’s Dog The Bounty Hunter. I’m thoroughly amused by the ridiculous style of these clowns as they tear all over Hawaii and Colorado, intimidating their bail jumpers with cans of Mace and trash talk. After a capture, you can count on what I call “the Jesus talk”, then a proffered Marlboro Red and some sage advice before being turned in. The main players of the show are who make it so funny, what with their mullets, bicep feathers and badges that look like they were picked up in the Claw Machine of a Wal Mart. It’s a train wreck I can’t turn away from; recently, I’ve fallen in love with Beth (Dog’s wife) and it’s not because she’s insane, top heavy and has a penchant for wearing clothes the colors of the American flag. No, I love her because as she scatters to and fro, screaming at perps, she does it while in high heels. And you should know how I feel about that.

So imagine, if you will, my sheer delight when I found out that Dog and his posse would be making an appearance here in Springberg. Apparently, in between moments of kicking ass and taking names around the Big Island, he’s taken the time to “write” a book, and is on a book tour. Never mind the reason, I had to be a witness to this spectacle. There was a fairly good chance I’d recognize many of his fans from my experiences tending to all their woes here on the Northside; it’s a fact that his fan base is very, very solid on our side of town, judging by the unwillingness of many people to turn it off while their cousin/sister/mom is having “the big one” on the couch beside them.

I talked Chad Harris of FairCity News into joining me, figuring if nothing else, we’d get some supreme people watching in; I arrived an hour early, figuring that was plenty of time to get some coffee and meet some people. I was dead wrong. An employee of Borders told me that she’d had people camped out there since the night previous for a chance to touch The Dog. When I finally got some joe and a copy of the book, I must’ve been about the 549th person in line. It was a sight to behold. The smell of stale cigarettes hung lazily in the air, the mullets were plentiful, the teeth not as much, and the gravely voiced chatter of hundreds of super fans prevailed. And then, terror.

A voice came over the store p.a. system to inform us that the tour bus was stuck in traffic and would be two hours late. The collective chatter turned up a notch in volume, with several colorful declarations of incredulity by the crowd. I was hoping for a full-scale riot, but sadly, nothing that violent materialized. Several people went outside to smoke multiple unfiltered cigarettes in frustration. Some dispatched family members to the nearest McDonald’s to grab some sustenance for the long haul wait. I took the chance to meet folks standing around me in line, and discovered some really funny people like Dan, who swore he was only there because his young daughters are uber-fans and Elizabeth who was definitely in the Duane-zone. Some people took the opportunity to dress their infant children up as tarts, some wore the bail bond company tee-shirts of their employers and many looked as though they had active warrants, but were willing to risk it to meet the supposed “greatest bounty hunter of all time”, according to his book.

The Messiah of Bounty Hunting arrives

And four and half hours later? The bus arrived and the crowd broke into shear pandelerium. A three toothed lady shouted his arrival to the crowd while clutching a McD’s bag and had an almost immediate raspy breakdown, she was so overwhelmed. After his Ed Hardy-cloaked advance man surveyed the crowd, The Dog made us wait another twenty minutes before exiting his bus, preceded by the lovely Beth. People went certifiably nuts. THIS was the moment they’d been waiting for, disciples for whom the Messiah had arrived. IT. WAS. GLORIOUS. I had to snap a pic of his arrival. Take a moment to drink in the fingerless gloves, the badge, and the hair. My God, the hair.

No matter. I waited with my new friends in line as we compared notes as to what we’d say to the King when we finally got to the front of the line. What were other people saying? Were they lionizing this lion of fashion? What do you say to a guy who wears eagle feathers in his hair and on his biceps? Does it even matter what you say? Do you offer him a smoke and some advice about Jesus?

Our special "moment"

All of these hypotheticals were for naught, because soon, ever so soon, we were blessed with the visage of Beth, making her way up and down the aisles, meeting and greeting her legions of fans. To my utter dismay, she was not wearing heels nor was her hair built up near enough for my liking. My disappointment was quickly quelled when she high-fived me – the chemistry was obvious to all present and our eyes locked for an eternity. We both knew in that very moment that we were destined for one another and no Dogs nor Wifes could stand in the way of the intertwining of our souls. At least that’s how it seemed to me. She also took the chance to chew Chad’s ass out for his using the family image without getting paid. THIS? Is when I laughed in his face and told him not to get in the way of me & Beth. In fact we took a pic to commemorate the moment, and we’re seriously considering using it for the wedding invites.

The rest of the event was a haze of wrinkled skin and tattoos for me.

What else can compare when love is in the air?

And yes, I have the signed book. It may well be the best afternoon I’ve wasted in an entire month.

Thanks for the memories, Sweet Beth. And thanks to that canine husband of yours for bringing you to the event that you and I will never forget.

Somehow a chicken drinking beer seemed right

Sometimes those closest to us make choices that, at the very least, are hard to understand. When they do, it’s never easy to shake the funk that follows. I recently found myself in such a funk.

And here’s where the beauty of the fire station kicks in: your co-workers are forced to spend 24 hours with you, and as such, we all become de-facto therapists for one another, unwilling to leave any stone unturned in our search to humiliate each other. JoBoo and I were soaking up the last of the suns’ rays yesterday evening out in the engine bay, keeping an eye on the barbecue grill as the flames were licking the walls of the firehouse, each of us wondering who would get up first and deal with it. We were discussing such issues, waiting for dinner and lazily noodling out ideas for improving our lot in life. As I sat there unloading my burdens on him, it struck me that what we really needed was a good house fire.

Now, let me be clear: I do not wish for someone’s home to burn down. It’s just a given fact that fires are going to happen, and if they’re inevitable, I’d just as soon they happen on my shift in our district. There’s nothing like a good worker to remind you why you signed up for this gig, why you spend a third of your life away from home, subjecting yourself to the whims and fantastic bureaucracy of local government.

When we finally sat down to eat, The Wife decided to make an appearance, coffee and kids in hand, knowing I could use a little uplifting. The boys were climbing all over the ladder truck when the tones struck for a house fire. This part was cool, since my boys aren’t at the station too often anymore, and what can beat tearing out of the firehouse, lights blazing and siren wailing – especially if you’re six. What I didn’t know was that she decided to follow the howl of the wind-up sirens and the column of smoke in the sky to the scene. And, as we rolled up and got to work, heavy smoke pouring out of the basement windows, The Heathens got to witness just what it is I do when I leave every third day. Chaos, smoke, flames and a cacophony of noises and smells and sights. After we had the initial attack set up and I was tooling around the pump panel, I finally noticed my family standing behind me. The look on their faces was enough to make all the other bullshit seem pretty irrelevant; I was never more stoked to be their dad than in that moment. No matter what my job on the fire ground was, I was part of something big in their eyes, and, when you realize how important you are as a parent to them, it’s pretty humbling. Heathen 1 came up to me, hugged my leg and said “Daddy, please be careful”. No worries, son…. I’ve got half a dozen jackass co-workers who keep me in line, even when I can’t. When we sat down to dinner at 9:15 pm, I realized that all things considered, this life is pretty damn fantastic.

I considered that victory #1 in my defeat of the funk.

Victory #2 came tonight.

The folks at CrossFit Springfield decided to host a social night with everyone toting in side dishes while a man named Jay smoked enough meat for a small army to consume in the snowing sleet-rain-crap we call weather in Missouri. It was nice enough to not have people see me in all my sweaty, nasty glory for once, but rather, showered, shaved and slightly less stinky. But, and this is important, it got my pitiful ass out of the house and surrounded by folks who are upbeat, positive and generally in a same mental reference in terms of getting slightly less fat. There was a copious amount of beer flowing, families mingling and, in the middle of it all, “Ryan” The Sadist, holding court and telling tall tales. A couple of other firemen were there as well, and, as ever, we gravitated to one another and immediately began regaling one another with bullshit and laughter. As each Guinness was cracked and another plate of delicious food was passed around, I could feel the mood lifting. These? These are the moments when we’re glad to have the friendships we do, and I’d be well served to remember these facts. Whether shooting the bull with JoBoo behind the rigs while sunning like lazy cats or in a group of one hundred, those moments we get when we’re in the company of good people? Yeah, that’s good stuff, and moments we need to treasure.

I might lose sight of that fact from time to time, but I hope you know this: I’m a grateful mo-fo for all that you bring to the table.

Thanks, amigos.

Don't sass this man. Just don't.

Tomorrow marks the last fire department shift of Scott Routh. After twenty years of time given to the City of Springfield, Mr. Routh will calmly attend his punch-and-cake send off party at the firehouse, walk out of the station for the last time, get in his car, start it and, in all likelihood, leave out with a middle finger extended to all his work colleagues. And, just like that, someone else in a blue shirt will fill his slot, the square-toothed cogs of bureaucratic service set in perpetual motion. But in its own way, his departure will be significant; Scott stands for all the old-salts in the department, grouchy, mean and just plain cantankerous.  AND THAT’S EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD BE.

The fire service is filled with young bucks trying to mark hydrants with acts of derring-do and swagger; false senses of invincibility are the norm, and there’s only one thing keeping these boys & girls in line: the Irritated Veteran. As easy as it would be to write these old hands off as bitter and jaded, I think we’re better served by taking the time to glean from them what a career in firefighting has taught them. Scott hired on when firemen were still riding the tailboards of the engines. He arrived before there were women on the department, before people wore breathing apparatus into every fire, back when firemen still smoked at the kitchen table. He’s seen some things, and he deserves respect for putting in his time.

But what I’ll miss most about Scott is not his short fuse, nor his fondness for being left alone, no. One icy night on the northwest side we had a house fire that was stubbornly refusing to be extinguished in a reasonable amount of time. At this point in his career, Routh had transitioned to driving the Air Van, a support rig that provides lighting, works on breathing air systems and general scene support. It was a perfect move for a man who sweats details, and he filled the role admirably. Meanwhile, at 2am on a crappy house fire on a crappy night, I was standing by to stand by, waiting for the next orders from the Decision Makers and muttering to myself about the whole scenario. Out of nowhere, Scott ambled up with a cup of hot coffee, knowing that I need the joe as much as I need oxygen to survive. This gesture, small in it’s act, was enormous in it’s meaning. You’re not gonna get an “atta boy” out of him; he’ll never offer up useless words of false praise aka “blowing sunshine up your ass”, because that’s not his style. He has no problem cussing you for idiocy, but that’s modus operandi for the fire service.

After a decade on the department, I finally earned a cup of coffee.

This means more than any letters in a file, more than anything a local politician, who’s support is dictated by election cycles, could offer. This is Scott’s way of saying “hey, Smartass, you’re all right.”

And, as firefighters, the grudging acceptance and respect from a co-worker is a currency unto itself, one we value highly.

So, as you leave our company, Mr. Routh, I’d like to wish you the best of luck out there in the real world. I hear it’s an odd thing, sleeping through the night all the time, not wearing blue every third day and finally having permission to grow out some facial hair. Make sure you stop by Station 2 at some point and let us know what it’s like.

We’ll have a cup of coffee ready for you.

Station 2 Therapy In Session

I think I’m gonna become a marriage counselor. What with the national average hovering somewhere around 50% and the firefighter rate something like 97%, I’m in what some may consider a “target-rich” environment. Plus, despite being untrained, unlicensed and prone to making up statistics like percentages, I’ve been married more than once and have thus been upgraded from “amateur” to “semi-pro”.

The fire service is prone to an exceedingly high divorce rate and I think this has to do with several factors. When you spend 1/3 of your life away from your family and surrounded by some of the most audacious mo-fos around, it’s hard not to be affected, and harder still to separate life in the firehouse from life at home. As I’ve watched several marriages fall apart around me in the department, I began thinking what any good co-worker might: “I need to compile a list and thus find humor in the misery. It’s the brotherly thing to do.” Here are a couple of things I’ve picked up -

Uli’s Surefire Marriage Salvation Techniques For Firefighters

1. Spouses should not be called by the same name you address your brothers and sisters in the firehouse. Rare is it the marriage partner who finds the term “you one-dog, one-bone motherfu**er” endearing.
2. Your better half is not going to get through life’s trials any easier when you adopt the attitude that all could be solved “with a thicker skin”. It never works in your favor when you tell them to “tough it out”, “get over themselves” or “grow a pair, for chrissakes.”
3. Never, ever, and I mean EVER, take the advice of your crew-mates without a healthy dose of skepticism. There’s a good chance they’re rooting for your relationship to fail if for no other reason than to have something new to gossip about.
4. If you don’t want her/him to know about it, don’t tell a firefighter. Especially me.
5. By the same token, you can’t claim to your spouse that you don’t need professional counseling “because the boys at the station said……” . She will never accept this form of unlicensed therapy as legitimate.
6. Whatever situation you find yourself in within the parameters of marital issues, never try and relate them to any aspect of the fire service. Just because you’re scared shitless of losing her, don’t tell her it feels just like you’re being abandoned by your back-up man (or woman) while you’re on the nozzle. She can’t relate, and nor should she. This only works if your married to a firefighter and that’s another discussion for another day.
7. Drop the nonsense. Strangers on the street may be enthralled by the trucks and lights and sirens and too many viewings of firefighting-stripper calendars, but this is the person who has seen your hairy back, who’s willing to exaggerate your virtues to others and may well have bore your children. They deserve respect, not bullshit bravado. Save that stuff for the station kitchen where, while no one believes you, they’re willing to tolerate it, if for no other reason than they are assigned to that house and thereby stuck with you.
8. It’s hard to instill in your kids table manners if you allow yourself to fart at the table at home. This is an awesome defensive technique when being ganged-up upon at the dinner table at the station, but is a little harder to justify off-duty. And don’t even try to explain it. It just is what it is.
9. The realm of marriage is rarely subject to the laws of seniority. You can’t welch out of house chores in your own home by throwing out an “I’m promoted dammit! I got twenty years in this thing and I ain’t washing the dishes.” While you can earn the title “Grouchy Old Salt” in the firehouse and command a modicum of grudging respect, it just makes your spouse hate you that much more. Thin ice, my friends.
10. Finally, we need to remember that while the crew is forced to spend time with us, our spouse has chosen to of his/her own free will (unless you’ve entered into it like I did, using deceit, trickery and blackmail; it’s no big deal). This is not to be taken lightly and I’ve found the best remedy is to leave the firehouse and it’s culture right where it stands. When shift is over, it’s time to be grown up for 48 hours. That gives you plenty of time to drum up more heinous immaturity for the next shift.

First off the facts: our station, Firehouse Number 2, is home to one engine (pumper) company, one truck (ladder) company. We have three shifts, each comprised of two captains, two engineers and four firefighters on an ideal day. This brings us to a total of 24 guys living out of three refrigerators, two urinals, three showers (two for the captains, one for the other eighteen enlisted-types), and seven recliners. Citizens regularly ask “why is there always a firetruck at the grocery store? My tax dollars are paying for what kind of meal tonight?” I stand by my earlier statement of fact – 8 guys gotta eat every day. And, no, contrary to crotchety old men in grocery store parking lots all over the city, we pay for each and every meal out of our own pockets. And if you want to avoid merciless ridicule that can last for years, you better be able to feed all eight guys two meals, plus enough for coffee and some sort dessert for no more than $8/man. The pressure can kill a man, assuming the boys on the crew don’t get to him first.

Consequently, interpersonal relationships within the firehouse are built upon factors that cause psychologists to have sleepless nights and mental breakdowns. We don’t worry about issues like “validation” and “empowerment”; we focus on such timely concepts as “when’s dinner gonna be ready, you filthy rat-bastard?” and “what’s that? Homophobic, you say? Well, you’re in luck, we all sleep naked. In one bunk.” Most fire department spouses interested in keeping a healthy marriage learn to ignore their lesser half every third day while they’re at the station occupying downtime by destroying any self-esteem they encounter in a co-worker. It’s a weird system, and, most importantly, it works.  We don’t trust sunshine that is blown up the backdoor. It keeps you grounded. Not coincidentally, that’s why we can never have any respect for Sean Penn (it’s sorta hard to take the guy who played Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times At Ridgemont High seriously, especially when he’s out trying to command “respect” because he’s an “actor” and is thereby qualified to know lots of things that you and I don’t.)

And every once in a while you’ll get a moment in time, when all the gears are clicking, the crew is busting each others chops in perfect succession and you can just feel it. Kind of like when you figure out, during some point in your senior year at high school, that you’re living in a moment, and that moment will be gone all too soon, but right now, it’s perfect. You want to hold on to that moment, because you’ve never laughed harder, felt more alive, more in sync than in that micro-second of time.

Last night, I was lucky enough to experience such a moment. As chance would have it, I was covering another engineer’s shift at the station, and we were enjoying some fresh-brewed coffee at 9:30pm, sitting in aforementioned recliners and waxing brilliant about such intellectual fare as UFC fights and martial arts in general. And at some point, while the Truck Captain was vividly recreating some fight scene, his limbs flailing in every direction, all of us laughing uproariously to the point of choking, it hit me. Five or six guys, one furniture fire barely worth mentioning recently quenched, splashing coffee around a firehouse day-room, more amused in this moment than they’ve been all day, and all feels right in that very moment.

That right there?

That’s chemistry.

It just took me a while to figure it out.

So, to answer the question without seeming flippant or full of crap, I tell them the best description I’ve come up with: put a black garbage bag over your head, fill it with smoke and crank up the heat and you’ll get the basic idea. What Top Gun did for portraying all fighter pilots as short, ill-tempered young Scientologists, movies like Backdraft and Ladder 49 have done little to temper the fantasy of fighting fire with any sort of reality. A more accurate description could be found in Star Wars, where the protagonists are sloshing about in the trash compactor of a spaceship. Add some acrid smoke and a little more chaos and you’re pretty close. All the training in the world can’t prepare you for the dismal fact of crawling around blind, looking for a distant glow, or worse, a person. Much like CPR has been described by some medics as “the ritual flogging of the dead”, on the rare occasion that a person is pulled from a fire and survives, we’re as relieved and surprised as anyone.

That’s probably why we’ve developed such a macabre sense of humor; it’s a screwy coping mechanism for dealing with the improbable scenarios we encounter, and it can come across to outsiders as insular behavior. As much as I can try and understand what it was like for my brothers and friends who’ve gone and fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, the truth is that I’m only imagining the horror, the fear, the boredom. And that’s why those vets understand one another better than anyone else does, and I can appreciate that fact. In the same fashion, there’s something about bumbling through some meth freaks domicile on a snowy Christmas Eve, tripping over hose and dragging through trash and filth that allows us to bond with one another. You’re not thinking about the danger, you’re wondering what in the hell possesses these people to live like this. And, if you happen to be crawling towards the fire and encounter some bizarre sex toy, you’re expected to pass it back to the guy behind you and ask if he lost something out of his coat. That sort of behavior would make my mother die of a shame-induced aneurysm, but in our world, it’s unofficial standard operating procedure.

The fact remains that for whatever reason we got into this line of work, we like to claim that we stay for the schedule, the benefits, the job security that comes with a never-ending list of people who get themselves into trouble, whatever. But the truth is that when the tones go off and we strap the black garbage bags over our heads, there’s nothing that beats the feeling of heading into chaos with people we can call our friends. At the very least, we’re looking for some piece of discarded trash to abuse one another with; if we’re lucky, we’ll get to do our jobs right and someones bad day is made just a little better.