A Question of Will

by Craig Spector

  Score: Russian perverts, one. Children, zero.

  And it was only eleven-thirty.

  Paul entered through the rear, hunching to miss the five-foot clearance of the wagon’s stainless steel interior, tossing the butt just before the doors slammed shut. The cigarette sparked and winked out on the macadam behind him, lost in the darkness. He wasn’t supposed to smoke on board, but at the moment he just didn’t give a damn.

  So far, things were shaping up to be just another night in Jersey. They weren’t even supposed to deal with half the shit that had flown into their fans tonight -- they weren’t equipped for much beyond basic triage and stabilization. Big stuff was traditionally reserved for the ambos, the ambulance crews, but tonight had just been too Goddamned busy.

  To compound the festivities, it was unseasonably cold: bitter, biting and heartless. The kind of weather that froze vagrants in their sleep -- limbs curled and brittle, faces frosted with snot-cicles. Popular wisdom held that cold snaps were low on assaults but high on domestics, DUIs, and the homeless; anything below the freezing point tended to not excite the criminal element, but the resulting move into bars and bedrooms only brought the headaches home. And the homeless... well, the homeless were eternal.

  Since coming on early that morning they’d already responded to some two dozen calls, including six false alarms, two drunk driving crack-ups -- the latter with the driver pinned behind the steering column of his compacted LTD, a Jaws-of-Life endorsee if ever there was one -- a trash fire in an abandoned building, a John Doe floater fished out near the docks, and a heart attack.

  The floater was a suicide, a jumper, maybe three days dead. There was no note, and by the time they fished him out there were no extremities or facial features, either. Rats. They bagged him and let the county coroner’s office do the rest. With luck, they’d I.D. him from dental records. If not, well... one more faceless stiff wasn’t going to make or break anybody.

  The heart attack was a three hundred-pound retiree who blew a hose during an after-dinner argument with the wife. Rescue found him laid out on the kitchen tile, deep in the grip of a V-fib -- multiple points in the heart beating like a coronary conga line dancing out of synch and into oblivion. Paul and Dondi had moved with practiced economy, wasting no time as Tom and Joli brought the backboard and straps. They shocked him twice and bagged him, performed CPR and hit him up with Lidocaine to stave off any premature ventricular contractions that might pitch him back into V-fib before he got his rhythm up. By the time they rolled into St. Anthony’s he was breathing regularly, good beat on the monitor, even bitching about his IVs. Score one more for cranky old fat guys.

  His wife was an irascible immigrant dumpling with a bad perm and ten-dollar housedress. She was blubbering but grateful as they left; apparently she hated her hubby enough to wish him dead but loved him too much to actually want him so. She blessed them profusely, which was both unexpected and appreciated. It was rare to be thanked, and it felt good.

  But Paul was still crept about the kid.

  Dondi picked up on it as Paul squeezed into the shotgun seat and hunkered down beside him, one foot propped on the dash, eyes gazing out at the harsh-lit bay. They were a team-within-the-team, as different from Tom and Joli, or even each other, as two men could be. Dondi’s swarthy mass, smartass smile and wiry nest of oil-black hair was as much a genetic one-eighty from Paul’s lean frame and fair, fiery Irish good looks as his wisecracking demeanor was to Paul’s dry, brooding moodiness. Tommy DeAngelo and Joli Pelligrisi were younger, twenty-six and twenty-eight respectively, and both seemingly sprung from the same beefy, Italian-stallion gene pool: all cropped hair and barely-contained testosterone. When not on runs, they pumped iron in the station house basement until their seams burst.

  But time and experience had fused them all into a symbiotic unit: seasoned professionals whose cumulative skills, knowledge, courage and expertise would easily have commanded twice the salary and three times the social standing were they working in any field where the collars were white and not sweat-stained blue. They were pals, and bros, and family, and they were tight.

  Firefighters were like that. They were an odd breed: mythological anachronisms, archetypal unsung working-class heroes. They routinely went where no one in their right mind would go to do a job no one in their right mind would want to do, risking life and limb to protect a public that ignored as much as it relied upon them. Joe and Jane Civilian would vote down referendums for better equipment if it hiked their property taxes a dime, park in front of hydrants to buy milk or bitch when they pulled over to let a rig or an ambulance go screaming past, all because it inconvenienced them in some way, stole a dollar or a moment from their busy, busy lives. They complained when sirens woke them up at night or a two-alarm tangle made them go around the block, unless of course it was their block, their house, their life or loved ones facing the flames. They saw firemen as ciphers when they saw them at all, faceless functionaries in clunky gear and funny hats. They just didn’t get it.

  But for men like Paul and his crew it was different; exactly the opposite, in fact. Wearing the shield was more than just a steady job with a pension at the end, more than simply a means of escaping the grueling monotony of factory work or the stultifying hive-mind of the corporate yuppie warrens. To be a firefighter was to live a life that was never boring. It was a chance to make a difference in an indifferent world. Being a firefighter mattered.

  Paul and Dondi had grown up together, taken their department entrance exams together, graduated from the Academy together, and saved each other’s butts more times than either could count if they ever tried, which neither ever did. They loved and sometimes hated each other, as only the closest of friends could. But for all Dondi’s annoying personal habits, which were legion, he possessed one sterling trait that Paul valued above all others: he knew when to shut up.

  This he now did, as they sat in the silent confines of the big red rolling meat wagon that was Rescue One. Outside, the managed panic of St. Anthony’s raged on, distant, oblivious. A muted voice squawked urgently over the intercom; heads and blue scrubs bobbed on the far side of the gritty safety glass, and were gone. Paul let out a long sigh, as the knot unbound inside him.

  "I dunno," Paul said at last. "I just hate it when it happens to the kids."

  Dondi nodded -- so that’s what the silent treatment was about. "At least we got the other one out," he offered. It sank as fast as he said it. Dondi shrugged. "Anyway, Social Services got ‘im, and with any luck mom and her hump’ll do some serious time."

  "Great, three more wards of the state," Paul replied. He gave a short husky huff that Dondi knew was Paul’s characteristic weight-of-the-world warm-up. "I mean, doesn’t it ever get to you that we follow these people practically from cradle to grave, mopping up after them? Jesus. It’s like this big dysfunctional machine, churning out assholes like snack chips. They ruin their lives, they ruin everyone else’s lives, and we get to clean up the mess."

  Paul stopped. Dondi watched, concerned; it was the longest speech he’d made all day. Something else was eating at him, simmering just beneath the surface. What it was, Dondi couldn’t say, and he knew better than to ask. He shrugged again.

  "Hey, we did what we could, you know? You can’t save everybody. Last time I checked, you didn’t have a big red P on your chest." He looked at Paul, deadly serious.

  "But if it’ll make you feel better," he added, "I’ll pee on your chest."

  Paul smiled at that one, and Dondi winked. Just then Tom and Joli pushed through the ambo bay doors, snickering and zipping up against the cold. From their posturing it was clear that they’d failed miserably in the pickup department, and didn’t mind a bit. They climbed aboard, took their customary positions in the rig’s rear jump seats. Joli leered at Paul and Dondi.

  "She wants me," he said.

  "Oh, yeah," Tom scoffed, then explained. "She invited him to self-administer an enema, bag first."

  "Hey, at least she talke
d to me," Joli punched Tom on the bicep; the two started mock-sparring across the aisles. Dondi rolled his eyes.

  "Girls, girls," Dondi admonished. "Recess over. Duty calls."

  The two calmed down marginally. Business as usual was restored for the moment. Dondi keyed the ignition. The big Mack diesel rumbled to life. Dondi leaned toward Paul, who still looked miserable. "Buck up, binky," he said. "The night is young."

  Just then a harsh crackle blasted on the radio, as another call came in.

  And it got a little older.

  TWO

  The siren wailed, high and keening. In the cab, a nasty little nasal voice came over the headsets, cutting through the engine noise, pinging in their ears.

  "Heh-heh... heh-heh-heh..."

  Paul and Dondi rolled their eyes as the second voice chimed in.

  "Huh-huh-huh... Fire!"

  Behind the partition separating the cab from the rest of the truck, Tom and Joli were on their Beavis-and-Butthead jag again. The two animated idiots had become a timelessly annoying running joke for them since they’d first glimpsed them on MTV, and they egged each other on mercilessly.

  "Fire!"

  "FIRE! Heh-heh-heh!"

  "Knock it off," Dondi barked into his headset mic.

  "FIRE! FIRE!"

  "Fire is cool! Huh-huh..."

  "WOULD YOU TWO MORONS PLEASE SHUT UP?"

  Silence. Then, "Heh-heh... huh-huh-huh..."

  "Jesus," Paul groaned, smiling despite himself. It was too stupid. He looked at Dondi. "At least they haven’t picked up on South Park, yet."

  From the backseat, a pause. Then a screeching falsetto, "OmiGod, they killed Kenny!"

  "Heh-heh-heh."

  Paul and Dondi both groaned. Then Paul glanced out the shotgun side window, and funtime was over. "Heads up," he said. "We’re here."

  The joking stopped instantly. They cleared the corner, saw thick black smoke billowing from the windows of a three-story brick structure on the corner of Helm and Chelsea streets. It was an older residential building in a lower middle income neighborhood, prey to bad wiring, bad landlords and falling real estate prices. Engine Company 13 and Ladder Company 33 were already on site: men in black canvas turnouts scrambling amidst gleaming machines as red light flashed off the reflectorized strips on sleeves and backs and legs, a manic ballet. Rescue One inched forward through the morass; they glimpsed tongues of flame flitting in the roiling blackness above.

  "Fuck me," Paul muttered. The others nodded. This was a bad one.

  Rescue One weaved its way through the chaotic sprawl, past five-inch feed lines snaking from the hydrants to the pumper, getting in as close as possible. They could see the building’s inhabitants scrabbling out of doorways, clutching crying children and shivering pets, clothing and toys, TVs, boomboxes, family portraits, whatever came to mind. Heavy coats were hastily thrown over pajamas and slippered feet, refugee chic. The team parked and jumped out, sussing the situation as they grabbed their gear.

  Georgie, the Fire Chief, was already shouting orders, directing operations, improvising a game plan. Fighting a fire was coordinated chaos, synchronizing teams against an elemental adversary that was as voracious as it was unpredictable. Easy to die if you screwed up, easier still to kill someone else. Ladder 33 was busy smashing glass from hallway window frames, ventilating the upper floors as the Engine Company divided into teams and hauled the attack lines into position. The walkie-talkies on their belts buzzed a hornet’s nest of crosstalk.

  Georgie paced and stewed like a Rolaids poster boy. Every Chief was different, and each ran the show according to the dictates of his style and personality. In Georgie’s case this was not happy news -- Georgie was a hardcore workaholic with flaming ulcers and a prostate like a thermite grenade, and he liked to share the wealth, lodging as great a pain in everyone else’s butt as the fire which ever throbbed in his own. He was a thick and grizzled fifty, with a full head of gray hair under his helmet and surprising power in his rotund form. When pissed he spoke in booming tones almost devoid of consonants, like one great vowel movement, and he seemed only truly happy when he was bitching at someone.

  Right at the moment, that someone was Tom and Joli, who had pissed Georgie off simply because someone had to. "Whaddafuckah yas doin?" Georgie bellowed, gesturing to the huddled inhabitants. "Gedd ovahdeyah!"

  Tom and Joli grabbed a medbox and hustled toward the rattled evacuees as Paul and Dondi yanked oxygen bottles and donned their bulky SCBA gear. Paul called out to a short, stocky man at the pumper’s control panel. "Hey, Maytag, what’s up?"

  "Dunno yet." Maytag replied. His real name was Bobby Maitland, but everyone called him Maytag because he was built like one. His dark skin glistened from perspiration and spray. "Started in the basement," Maytag added. "Looks like Mr. Toast has struck again."

  He said the last part casually, not taking his eyes off the pressure gauges. Paul nodded. Mr. Toast was the tag they’d given a mysterious firebug who’d popped up three years ago around Halloween. No doubt inspired by the coverage of Detroit’s annual inferno, some twisto had tuned in and found his true calling, creating his own personal Devil’s-Night-on-the-Hudson. His burns always started in the basement, and after a while, any blaze of suspicious origin invariably invoked his name. He was a bogeyman, and an unofficial mascot.

  Maytag threw the pumper’s switches, and the hoses charged and grew fat with thousands of gallons of pressurized water. Just then Georgie caught sight of them.

  "O’Connell n’ Kelly!" he said. "Whaddaya waitin foah?"

  "Say no more, Chiefie," Dondi said. "We’re already there."

  Georgie growled and turned, directing his attention to more pressing matters. Despite his rancor, his curtness was a sign of respect; he knew they would do their job, and thus felt no need to elaborate. They were rescue, and their job was exactly that: search, and rescue. They were free agents on the scene.

  Paul grabbed his helmet, pausing to glance at the stained Polaroid tucked into the webbing: Julie and Kyra, mugging for the camera. Kyra was eight at the time, and his wife and daughter were smiling and serene, light years from this madhouse scene. A reminder. Paul grabbed his mini-Haliburton tool, an eighteen-inch titanium bar with a head that flattened into a short blade on one side and a thick spike on the other. Among other things it was an all-purpose entry tool, and could force locks or pop hinges on virtually any door. That and a flashlight were all he carried on a search; Paul walked point, and he liked to travel light.

  He sucked in a breath and pressed the SCBA mask to his face, cinching the straps until it hugged his skull. For the second it took to thumb the feed valve on he was encased in a claustrophobic vacuum. Then the oxygen hissed in, and he could breathe again.

  Paul donned his helmet and looked to Dondi, who was now likewise thoroughly encased in boots and turnouts, thick gloves, hood, helmet and airtank. He had the other medbox in hand. The black rubber mask hugged his face like an alterego, colors refracting off its scratched Plexiglas visor. His voice came over the headset, a muffled squawk.

  "Ready when you are, pal."

  Paul gave Dondi a clumsy thumbs up.

  And in they went.

  ~ * ~

  Darkness. Total, complete. Heart pounding, adrenaline pumping senses into overdrive. Breath huge, aqualung gasps. Regulator hiss.

  Move.

  The hall lights were off, but it wouldn’t have mattered; if it were broad daylight, it would make no difference. Fire loved the darkness, and hated any luminance not its own. Gray smoke drifted on currents, swirls and eddies sucking through the door and up the stairs. It quickly choked off visibility as they checked the first floor, then climbed upwards and came in low, searching door to door, room to room.

  Hot. Sweat, clammy under heavy gear. Sight useless through poison clouds. Follow sound: garbled crosstalk, the sound of flames feeding. Move by Braille, hugging the walls. Stay close. Ignore instinct. Keep going.

  The second floor was clear: nobody
living, and even better yet, nobody dead. But the third floor hallway was worse, a thick sea of swilling smoke swallowing their flashlight beams, tracing oily patterns in the air an inch in front of their faceplates, which was as far as either of them could see. They pushed forward into the swirling void, working together but utterly alone, listening for cries and feeling for heat. Paul thought of the old fireman’s saw about finding a fire dick-first, felt his own shrivel like a hibernating turtle even as his thoughts attenuated down to the next moment, the next move, the next step.

  Find a door. Check the knob. Locked. Pop it. Pause. Kelly’s first law: fire is cunning. Fire eats available oxygen, then goes out. Tricky. Heat rises. Gases expand. Pressure builds. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen hundred Fahrenheit. Waiting. Charge in too fast, and boom! Reoxigenation, ignition, explosion, fireball: backdraft. Or incinerate down like a molten sky, burn from ceiling to floor in two seconds flat: flashover.

  Either way: death.

  Remember. Fire is more than force of nature, more than physics of combustion and cubic room volume of air and science of oxidation. Fire is alive. It breathes. It feeds. It grows and breeds. Fire has personality, jealousy, ambition, hunger. Fire loves and hates and needs. Fire is alive.

  And, like all things greedy with life, it wants more.

  Paul stopped. There was a something heaped before him on the floor. Paul leaned closer, saw. A body. Curled fetal, turned in on itself. Paul couldn’t see the face, but he could tell by the arc of the hips, it was a woman.

  "Got one!" he called out.

  Up ahead in the hallway, it was hot now, very hot. The fire was lurking there, somewhere in the roiling clouds. Paul rolled the woman over. She was Hispanic, maybe twenty. Black mucus striped her lips, her chin. He brushed her hair back, saw her eyes were rolled back in her head. She was already gone.