by Cassie Cole
But for now, I enjoyed the ride back to the station.
There were good days and bad days. Fuck the house, we’d saved two lives today. That woman and her little girl who had been upstairs while the house smoldered around them? They were more important than wood and wallpaper.
A house could be rebuilt.
We stopped at Wal Mart to buy a few cases of beer on the way back to the station. The fire was at the end of our shift, so we could afford some drinks. Hell, we needed them. It was important to share a few beers and celebrate a call that ended without anyone injured or dead. It was far better than drinking and mourning.
Ours was one of the largest fire stations in the Miami area. We had seven pumpers—fire engines—and three trucks, 100 firefighters in various shifts, and two full medic teams. The place was always full, and tonight was no exception.
Rogers got to work making dinner for everyone while the rest of us sat around and drank.
“He went straight for the baby,” I said. We were all three beers in and having a good time. “Leaving me to carry the unconscious woman!”
“Are you kidding?” Vazquez said when the other stopped laughing. “Your squat max is higher than mine!”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said as if I’d forgotten, even though the weight lifting records were written on the white board in the gym. I leaned in and feigned concern. “In that case, are you alright after carrying that heavy baby?”
“A healthy baby is probably near his curling max…” Dominguez teased.
I reached over and lifted Vazquez’s beer bottle for him. “Here, let me help you with that. Wouldn’t want you straining something!”
Everyone roared with laughter, Vazquez included. He rolled up the sleeve of his uniform and flexed a bicep. “Next time I’ll carry the heavier person.”
“Or heaven forbid, two babies!” I said.
Dominguez laughed so hard beer dribbled down his chin. Vazquez jumped to his feet, knocking his chair back in the process. “Someone give me a basket of babies right now and I’ll lift the entire thing!”
Vazquez and I had graduated together from the Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland. We’d been with Dominguez and most of the other guys for years without anyone leaving. They were like my brothers. We’d seen a lot of good together—and a lot of bad. Those kinds of experiences made you closer than any family.
And it was completely, utterly platonic.
It was nice that way. I grew up with two sisters who were nothing like me. They helped mom bake and plant flowers. They were girly girls, whereas I…
Well, I wasn’t.
I played every sport my parents signed me up for. Soccer, baseball, basketball. I even tried out for the football team in middle school, though they would only let me play kicker. Fuck that. I was strong. I wanted to hit people.
Dad and I camped and fished. I was essentially the son he didn’t have, and we both liked it that way. It’s who I was. I liked getting dirt on my face rather than concealer.
Growing close to Vazquez and Dominguez was like finally having brothers. We all loved each other unconditionally. We had each other’s backs in a way nobody else could understand. It was special.
I should have known it was too good to last.
Rogers was serving up turkey burgers when the common room of the station drew quiet. I put down my beer and turned toward the door. The man standing there wore a perfectly ironed black uniform with yellow rings around the cuffs and a heavy amount of insignia on his chest. He held his white hat under one arm and looked around the station.
Vazquez gasped. “That’s Chief Elliott.”
The Fire Chief’s gaze swung around the room before stopping on me. I felt my heart stop in my chest as he approached.
“Chief Elliott!” Rogers said, putting down the frying pan to shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure to see you. Please excuse the, uhh…”
“No apologies needed,” Elliott said in a deep, authoritative voice. “Nothing wrong with some drinks after a shift. Would you mind if I borrowed Pederson?”
Dominguez made an “Ooo” sound like I was getting sent to the pricipal’s office. Rogers glared at him and said, “Not at all.”
I followed Elliott across the station in a daze. He went into the Lieutenant’s office and shut the door, then invited me to sit across the desk from him. The man oozed command; the moment he sat behind the desk, it was his. I tried to appear sober. It wasn’t hard while staring at the Miami Fire Chief.
Am I in trouble?
“Thank you for your time,” Elliott said. He procured a yellow folder I hadn’t noticed and opened it on the table. “You graduated second in your class at the Emmitsburg academy. Your probationary period went smoothly, and since becoming a full-time firefighter you’ve received exemplary performance reviews.”
He paused to wait for me to say something. “Thank you, sir.” I felt incredibly confused. Was he building me up before tearing me down? I kept waiting for the but in his speech. It felt like there was a but coming.
Another thought came to me: what if I’m getting promoted? Lieutenant Rogers might be moving up, leaving his position vacant. Oh man! I’d never expected that to happen so quickly. I was the kind of person who put her head down and worked hard, and let the chips fall where they may.
Shit. Vazquez and Dominguez and the others would never ease up on me if I became their boss. That would be a tough transition to make, but I thought I could do it.
Chief Elliott said something completely different.
“You applied for the new peak hours station.”
“Uhh, sir?”
“The new station in Hialeah. It’s designed to run only at peak hours, in 12 hour shifts. You applied.” He gestured with a form that looked like it had my signature scrawled at the bottom.
Ohh. I remember now.
It was two years ago when I’d first graduated from the Fire Academy. All firefighters started on a 6-12 month probationary period before being sent to permanent stations. I applied to that new station because it was closer to my apartment at the time. It couldn’t hurt since there was zero chance of me getting in, right? That was before I knew what I was doing.
Before I’d made this station my home.
“Bureaucracy moves at a glacial pace,” Elliott said bluntly. “The station is finally complete and you’ve been chosen to be part of the first four-person shift. Congratulations.”
He rose and extended his hand. After a moment, I shook it.
“Sir, I think there’s been a mistake.”
He paused while closing the folder. “Oh? Are you not the best firefighter at this station?”
I was. I knew it, the rest of my unit knew it, and everyone else in the damn station knew it. I was the alpha dog. While others were spending their off days playing videogames or relaxing, I picked up the extra chores around the station, or exercised until my arms and legs felt like lead. I busted my ass.
“I try to be the best,” I said, hoping I sounded humble. “But the problem is…”
“Problem?” The man who was four or five spots above me in the Miami Fire Department hierarchy fixed me with a hard stare. “Being selected for this program is a great honor, Pederson. I was personally involved in the selection process, which was thorough and exhaustive. It would be embarrassing for us—and the new peak hours program itself—to have to go back and select someone else. Declining this offer would be what I call a CLM: Career Limiting Move. So I ask you again: is there a problem?”
This was happening very fast. He was informing me as if it were already done, rather than a choice I had in the matter. I didn’t want to leave the station. I didn’t want to make a decision right now.
But how could I say no?
“No problem at all,” I managed to get out. “I’m honored.”
“Fantastic. I’ll have my assistant forward the new assignment to your Lieutenant.”
He left the office and then the station without another word. I walked back
to the others feeling like I’d been punched in the gut.
“Well?” Vazquez asked.
I sat down and chugged the rest of my beer.
“Shit. Looks like she did get fired.”
“Worse,” I said, slamming the bottle back down. “I got promoted.”
3
Amy
By the time we ate and commiserated over my new assignment—which Rogers agreed I couldn’t turn down—I was too drunk to drive home. Normally I would have stayed in my bunk at the station but I was feeling too depressed to be around everyone else. I needed some alone time. One of the guys from the other engine units was leaving and gave me a ride. Firefighters took care of each other like that.
I was rarely at home. I usually came back to my apartment once a week just to make it feel like I still had another home, but we had bunks and dressers and all other amenities we needed at the station. As I walked into my apartment, it felt like a display unit for potential tenants rather than a space presently lived-in. It was too clean, smelled too nice.
I collapsed into bed without taking my clothes off. Even though I was drunk, I couldn’t fall asleep.
The full range of emotions hit me while I stared at the ceiling. Despair at leaving my brothers and the station that felt like home. I was angry at myself for applying for that new position, and even angrier that I had forgotten about it. Maybe I could convince Rogers to keep me on, to call the Chief and insist he couldn’t run his station without me.
I could just turn the position down myself, too. Who gave a shit if I was limiting my career opportunities?
But I knew I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to hamstring myself or my career, not after working so hard. I did have career ambitions. They just involved my current station.
I didn’t cry, but I wanted to.
Eventually I slept and woke up feeling marginally better. Maybe it was because I’d exhausted all the negative thoughts.
Fire stations around the country used different systems of shifts, but most (including ours) utilized 24 hour shifts a few times per week, rotating different units in and out. I’d gotten used to it, but the chaotic hours made keeping a normal life difficult. Not to mention, you know, being sleep-deprived a lot of the time.
12 hour shifts were relatively new. They were catching on at stations around the country, especially in conjunction with what this new station was designed to be: a peak hours station. The vast majority of fires occurred between 8:00am and 8:00pm, which meant firefighters on the normal 24 hour shifts were sitting around doing nothing most of the time.
The new station in Hialeah would operate only during those peak hours. It was also located in a central area where it overlapped with four other station regions, allowing it to assist rather than cover an area by itself. During the peak hours it would operate and help offload the work of the other stations, and during the non-peak hours it wouldn’t be needed.
As I showered and ate a breakfast of oatmeal (the only thing in my apartment) I almost started to feel excited about the new station. It would be like the first day at a new school, scary at first but fine once you got used to it. Plus, I wasn’t the only new person: everyone at this station would be new since it had just finished construction. We would all be starting from scratch.
It would suck leaving my friends, but I would develop new friendships and bonds. That’s what life was all about, right?
I grabbed a duffel bag and took an Uber back to my station to pack. It was quiet at this time of morning while only one shift was up, so I tip-toed to the bunk I shared with the others.
Technically they had a bunk room just for women, but I was the only dickless individual at the station and hated sleeping in the big room by myself. I’d moved in with Vazquez and Dominguez two months after coming here. I cracked the door open and peered inside: only one bed was full.
“Good morning Vietnam!” I announced, flipping the lights on. Vazquez made a sound like a dying animal.
“What time is it?”
“6:10. Way too late to still be sleeping.” I dropped my bag in front of the dresser and started moving clothes while Vazquez swung his legs out from his bunk and held his head in his hands.
“You’re really leaving?”
I paused with a handful of socks. “Yeah.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Gunna feel different without you,” he said.
“You getting sappy on me?”
“Actually, yeah I am,” he admitted. “Our unit’s been together a long time.”
“You’ll get someone new to replace me,” I said. “Probably better than me, if you’re lucky.”
“We don’t want someone better,” Vazquez said. “We want you.”
“I know,” I said.
“Who’s gunna make the unit pancakes on Saturdays?”
I laughed and said, “Pancakes are about the easiest thing in the world to make. Mix batter. Pour batter. Flip once. Boom, pancakes.”
“Still, though.”
I zipped up my bag and turned. “I’ll come back and visit. Shit, I’m only gunna be seven miles away. We can get a beer sometimes.”
“Yeah, a beer sometime,” he echoed, but it felt like a lie we were telling each other. Our bond was that of two coworkers who worked together seamlessly. Meeting outside of work would feel weird. Unnatural.
Vazquez rose and wrapped me in a hug. “I’m gunna miss the hell out of you, Amy.”
“I’ll miss you too,” I said, a lump forming in my throat.
“You’re gunna crush it. You’re a rock star, Amy. Don’t forget it. Act like it. Alright?”
“I’ll try. Hey, is Rogers around?”
“Nah, he got up early to go for a run.”
Figures. Rogers was hangover-proof. “Tell him I said goodbye.”
“Tell him yourself at the ceremony tomorrow!”
I picked up my bag. “Ceremony?”
“We’ve got the new station opening ceremony tomorrow morning. Good thing, too, cause I want to scope out your new unit. Make sure they didn’t stick you with a bunch of pricks. If they don’t treat you like the badass you are, Dominguez and I will make sure they learn.” He punched his fist into his palm to show what he meant.
“I might take you up on that.”
The drive to the new station wasn’t far. The Chief’s email said to be there at 8:00. I was going to be very early. Better that than late, though. First impressions were one of those things in life you could never do over.
I cared deeply about what people thought of me. There were a lot of reasons. Women firefighters were rare, so I always wanted people to know I was working just as hard as everyone else, that I hadn’t been gifted my job to fill a quota. Vazquez wasn’t joking when he said I was stronger than him: I’d busted my ass in the gym until I was in the upper tier of squatters. Vanity aside, carrying someone out of a burning building required that functional strength.
It was important to me that people knew I could do it, that they trusted my ability. Someday I may have to carry a fellow firefighter out of a building. My comrades needed to trust that I could do it. That I had their back.
A first impression went a long way toward creating the foundation for that trust. So I didn’t mind being super early.
The station was built on the corner of two busy cross-streets, a medium sized building made of tan stone and pristine windows. Two glass engine doors gave glimpses of the pumpers inside. I parked, got out of my car, and spent a few minutes simply admiring the building.
Fire stations were precious. They were spaces that were supposed to be safe for everyone, no matter who you were.
Thankfully the door was unlocked. I was the first one here; everything was quiet and smelled brand new, like drywall and clean leather. The door opened straight into a room that was living room, dining room, and kitchen all in one. There were two leather sofas angled around a flat screen TV mounted on the wall. A breakfast table with four chairs was behind that, s
egueing into the open kitchen with butcher block counters and a matching island in the middle. All the appliances were stainless steel and new. Much better than the 1970s refrigerator at the old station, which was the color of baby puke and barely kept beer cold.
Two hallways branched off from the main room. The first led toward the sleeping quarters. Rather than shared rooms with two sets of bunk beds, this station had individual sleeping quarters with private bathrooms in each one. I’d heard of new stations going to that model, both to improve moral by giving firefighters their own private living quarters and to accommodate more female firefighters.
Some people liked to bitch about it and claim it hurt camaraderie, but most people like that were just looking for excuses to shit on female firefighters. Individual rooms made a lot of functional sense. It was especially useful at larger stations, where if an alarm came in they could individually wake the people needed rather than disrupting everyone at once.
All the rooms were the same, so I picked one at random and staked my claim by throwing my bag onto the bed.
The other hallway led to a community bathroom and the garage with the two fire engines. But there was another room branching off that wasn’t marked. At first I thought it was locked but the door handle was just stuck since it was so new.
A huge grin spread on my face as I stepped inside. A workout room!
I loved lifting weights. Squats, deadlifts, bench press—all the compound movements. Most women were afraid of getting too “bulky,” but that wasn’t really a thing. Muscle was incredibly hard to gain, especially as a woman.
I’d been afraid the new station would be too small for its own gym, but this place was stocked. There was a full squat rack in the corner with an olympic bar and at least 300 pounds of plates. Leaning against the wall was a hex bar for doing Romanian deadlifts. A rack of dumbbells lined one wall going all the way up to fat 100 pounders, and next to that were a bunch of kettle bells.
