by Lynn, Davida
Back inside the psychiatrist’s office, I stared out the window as I spoke. “I should’ve waited for an order. I should have waited for my partner. I should’ve taken my time. I know there’s a hundred things that I could have and should have done differently, but it didn’t happen.” The shrink nodded and filled his pad with notes.
“As soon as I kicked in the front door, the thickest cloud of black smoke rolled out. Of course, we found out later someone in the house ran a painting business and there were more than thirty paint cans fueling the fire. I didn’t feel the heat right away, not until I was on the second floor. I should’ve known something was wrong. That was the hottest fucking fire I’ve ever been in.” I reached up and curled a finger under the top of my turtleneck.
I slid it down slowly. I wanted the psychiatrist to see it in all its horrid glory. “Did you know there are worse burns than a third degree, Doc?” I saw his eyes widen. I knew the expression well. Every nurse, every family member, every stranger who saw it made the same face. I’d heard the occasional whisper on the street. It was usually a far worse interpretation than what my ICU doc had given me: “It’s a goddamn miracle you’re alive, Kade.”
“It was hot and loud. It roared like a refinery fire, screaming at me from below. The melting carpet stuck to my boots. At the time, though, I didn’t feel any of it. I didn’t even notice. I just heard the screaming and kept moving forward. I wouldn’t have seen the kids under the bed if the ladder company hadn’t shined a light in the window at that exact moment, but there they were. I found what their names were later at the funeral.”
The doc looked at me. His head was shaking back and forth like a pendulum. I didn’t tell the story very often, but it felt like I did. I had only pulled the turtleneck down an inch or two. Based on the psychiatrist’s look, it was as far down as I needed to show. The scar extended from my neck to my left shoulder and nearly down to my elbow.
Sliding the turtleneck backup, I continued. “I made a judgment call, Doc. I found the two kids, but I didn’t think there’d be enough time to get them out one at a time. The ladder company was already on the roof; no one threw a ladder up to my window. The boy was four, and the girl was six. I thought I could carry them both at the same time.
“I made it two steps out of the bedroom before the floor collapsed under me. I think I tried to throw them forward and beyond the collapse, but I don’t remember. I’d like to think that’s what I would’ve done. I woke up two days later in the hospital. It was them instead of me that time. I would have given anything for it to be the other way around. Four and six, Doc.”
There wasn’t much more to my story. I couldn’t remember anything after the fall, and the rest of my crew said I was unconscious when they found me. There was no catharsis; I didn’t feel any better telling the story again. This guy was just another medical professional wanting to hear the play-by-play.
The psychiatrist kept making notes for almost a minute after I finished. I stared at the clock behind him. The whole story had taken only four minutes, the same amount of time I was inside the burning building.
He cleared his throat and looked up at me. “Kade, I can’t imagine what you went through.” I could hear that he was sincere, but it didn’t do anything for me. “I really mean that. I respect firefighters more than I can say, and I respect you just the same. I know it’s a lot for you to tell that story, but I think it’s important for us to be on the same page about what happened. If you don’t mind me asking, why did you go to the funeral?”
I looked out the window at the Detroit River. It was a gray day. There had been a lot of gray days in the past few months. I thought about his question for longer than I probably should have.
“Good question, Doc. When the CISD didn’t go so well, my battalion chief told me to consider it. He thought…I don’t know, maybe he thought I could lay it to rest with them.”
“Lay what to rest, exactly?” The psychiatrist gave me an inquisitive look. His pen was at the ready.
I gave him a noncommittal raise of my hand. “The memory, I guess. I must’ve bought into it, because I went. I wish I hadn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I met every member of the family. That’s when I learned their names. The girl’s name was LaTonya, and the boy’s name was Marco. The family told me about their favorite games, TV shows, you fucking name it. I mean, if that’s closure, I don’t want anything remotely close to that.” I sighed and put my head in my hand. It was nearly noon, and the exhaustion was catching up. Since the fire, I was lucky to get three hours of sleep a night.
The doc looked at me. “Kade, what is it you think you need? What do you need to get better?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head and looked back out the window. After some thought, I answered, “Time, I guess. It’s a funny thing, though. I’m at my best on the job, but I need time away from the job to wipe the slate clean.” I hated to admit it. I really did. Firefighting was what I did, and I did it well. I did it without thinking, without hesitating, and most importantly, without fear. I had risen to the rank of sergeant in only two and a half years.
“Interesting.”
I looked from the window back to the doc. “What’s interesting?” I knew he was baiting me, but I still had fifteen minutes left of the session, so why the fuck not?
“Well, believe it or not, I think we might be on the way to something, here.” He leaned forward and put his notebook to the side again. “You work every third day, right? What do you do on your days off?”
I raised my eyebrows as I was about to respond, but then I stopped. I thought about it. If I wasn’t working at the station, I was working somewhere else. Some of the guys from my house laid carpet, others were carpenters, and some worked on cars on the side. They all needed my help from time to time. I let out a small laugh and dropped my hands to my thighs.
“I don’t like free time, Doc. I like to keep busy.”
He nodded. “I thought so. Idle time lets your mind wander.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Firstly, Kade, thank you for not bullshitting me.” I looked up at the doc, surprised to hear him speaking like a human being. “We both know you have to be here for an hour, whether you play ball or not. If you want to get better—and I mean really get better—it’s going to take work. I know you’re not afraid of work, but this is different. This is looking inside yourself and asking yourself tough questions. You think you can do that?”
I really wondered if I was bullshitting him or not. Yes, I had told him what had gotten me stuck here with him. I had told him what was keeping me up at night, too, but I didn’t feel all that much while I was telling it to him. Truth be told, I wasn’t feeling much of anything.
I was no stranger to hard work. I’d had at least one job ever since I turned fifteen, and I’d worked my ass off getting onto the Detroit Fire Department. I needed to beat the demon inside me, and I’d do it just like anything else: hard fuckin’ work.
“What are you suggesting, Doc?”
He smiled as if he knew I’d made up my mind about therapy. “What I’m suggesting for you is a little volunteer work.” I opened my mouth to shut him down, but he kept going. “Hear me out, Kade. I don’t want you out on the roads cleaning up trash, or anything like that. What I’d like to suggest is something fairly low-stress. For now, that’s the name of the game. At first I thought about a Big Brother program, but I don’t really feel like you’re ready to work with children.”
He was right. I could barely even visit my sister’s kids. Her youngest was six and reminded me so much of Marco that my heart tore apart whenever I saw him. I didn’t want to be near any children. I almost would have preferred trash duty.
“Then what?”
“Well,” he took out a card and stared at it for a second before handing it to me, “I know someone that works at a local soup kitchen. It’s not far from your station, right?”
After looking at the address,
I nodded. “Right.” Leslie Woods, Helping Hands Community Kitchen.
“Think of it this way: it’s low-stress, good for public relations if anyone recognizes you, and I’ll personally let Leslie know that you might need to take frequent breaks, no questions asked.” He must have seen the skepticism on my face. “Kade, you’ll have to trust me. I know it’s not heavy lifting or running into a burning building, but it is hard work in a different way. I think this will be a great step toward tackling the difficult tasks you’ll have to work on within yourself.”
“Ladling out soup?” I didn’t really get what he was trying to tell me.
He laughed. “That’s what you’ll be doing, probably, but it’s more about the human side of it. Getting in touch with the kind of people your department serves. As a firefighter, you only see them at their worst, right?”
I nodded.
“Think of this as a way to see them on their way back to their best.”
I understood the concept. It was just hard for me to buy into. It seemed like I’d have to take a day off to go work for free. At the station, we did community outreach with things like chili cook-offs and fundraisers. This just seemed a little pointless.
I shrugged and turned back to the window. “I mean, is this really going to help?”
“I don’t know, Kade,” he said. The smile he flashed was equal parts concerned and hopeful. “To be honest, I just don’t know.”
I stepped back outside onto the busy street. After checking that my turtleneck was pulled up all the way, I looked back to the river. As far as I could tell, I had the doc fooled. I’d told him I would give Leslie a call and that I would give him the run down when we met a week later for my next session.
As I dug in my pocket for my keys, my fingers grazed the business card and I pulled it out. I looked it over one more time. Volunteering wasn’t going to help. I wadded the business card up.
Sorry, Leslie Woods, but you don’t have what I need. I let out a deep breath and tossed it into the trash on my way to the parking lot.
Kade’s Rescue
Davida Lynn grew up reading everything she could get her hands on, including books she had to hide. At nearly thirty, she has stories pouring from her fingertips. She enjoys nothing more than letting a story unfold before her. When Davida isn’t writing, she loves watching trashy TV, reading pulp fiction, and daydreaming about her next travel destination.
