Controlled Burns

In late April of this year, I wrote an article for Veterans Life Magazine in which I explored volunteerism as a means of recreation amongst military veterans. Over the course of a week, I completed four separate interviews on the subject and, after tediously transcribing the recordings, sat in my office for hours amongst the anecdotes that I’d been gifted and ruminated on what it was that I was trying to say in the piece. What was my angle, and why would anyone care? Was the article to be about volunteering as an end in itself, or would it be better suited as an examination of altruism in general?

But as the story began to unfold upon the once empty page, the heart of the telling naturally grew to speak more to the people within it than any encompassing concept or ideal. In a way, it seems, to always come back to people, doesn’t it? The same could be said regarding the stories of our own lives. The specific engagements, pursuits, and fascinations that we lose ourselves in are often coated in the draping cloths and pigments of the people with which we choose to share our time and leisure.

People. That’s what it always comes back to. Storytelling machines telling stories through the melodrama that is our lives.

But let’s pull back a bit from the edge of ambiguity. What I’m getting at is this: No matter how complex a situation, project, or story might be, it always boils down to the people within such constructs. And thus, I would like to provide an example to personify and thoroughly complicate matters. Exhibit One: My time spent masquerading amongst the Phoenix firefighting community in my later teenage years. 

I didn’t know it then— if you have read any of my previous musings, you can safely take this phrase to be axiomatic at this point. I’d let the assumption linger unspoken, but it feels somehow redeeming to type the words out in such a way, and so I think I’ll continue to do so— but my years playing firefighter where formative in ways that I couldn’t have possibly foreseen. And although it’s telling is as funny as it is melancholy, it’s heart too revolves around the people, and identities, that lie within it.

In my senior year in high school, I considered translating a youth of team sports, and its associated skills and values, into a career of a similar design. That’s to say, I was relatively athletic, enjoyed working as a team, and appreciated a damn sexy uniform. Firefighting just seemed to make sense.

And so, without too much thought, I dove headfirst into the endeavor of making the trade my own. I got my EMT certification, became a Phoenix Fire Department “Cadet”—  https://www.phoenix.gov/administration/departments/fire/fire-volunteer/fire-department-cadets.html — and cold-called fire stations to tag along on 24 hour ride-alongs to get a feel for the job and expand my network within the close-knit community.

I recall with clarity the first ride-along that I went on.

It was a crisp Saturday morning in the Phoenix Autumn as I pulled into the station’s parking lot some minutes before 7am. The change of shift rapidly approached, and therefore, the lot was bustling with oncoming vehicles languidly pulling into spots while others eagerly departed and headed home.

I stepped out of my red S-10 pickup, relieved to have recently exchanged my Chevy Metro for the truck, for nothing but the same littered the lot. A meager sedan would have sorely stood out, and my cup was already eager to runneth over with anxiety. Here cometh thy imposter, it might have bellowed if I had arrived in a compact.

A well-built man in cowboy boots, worn denim, and a polo leaned into the driver-side window of a Ford Bronco that idled nearby. He seemed to be whispering sweet nothings to whoever sat inside to hear his words as I walked past and approached the rolled-open doors of the station’s bay.

Inside the cavernous garage, two Scarlett fire engines and, by comparison, a single small ambulance glistened in sharp color and chrome. A pool of soapy water milled about the drain centered sump nearby, and the piercing scent of polish wafted over me.

It was a terrible scene for a fresh Cadet to behold. If the engine had already been washed, my thoroughly rehearsed introduction to the crew had been unrepentantly foiled. I had rehearsed the scene before my closed eyelids a thousand times: as each of the oncoming crew would emerge into the garage to inspect their equipment that morning, there I’d be, frivolously waxing the trucks iconic red and silver flashpoints. Well look at that young man showing due respect to the symbols of the trade, they’d muse stoically from afar before introducing themselves in mutually respective handshakes that unfolded naturally into conversations of the—

“Hey kid!” a gruff voice called from reality and over my shoulder. I turned to see that the voice belonged to the man that had been leaning into the Bronco moments before. The parking spot that had previously held the vehicle was now vacant and the man now walked toward me carrying a large burlap bag in one hand and a tall coffee mug in the other. Aviators obscured his eyes above a thick black mustache that possessed not a hint of salt amongst its pepper. He was young, maybe twenty-five, and the sharp smell of evaporated whiskey lingered with the tobacco that produced a bump beneath his lip.

“What’re you doin?” he asked curtly.

“I’m with a Cadets,” I murmured. “Here for a ride along.”

He lingered for a long moment as his chin rose to the blue sky above and not even his jet-black sunglasses could hide the groan that crept across his face. He walked past me and into the station without a word further.

The remainder of my introductions were unceremonious and underwhelming. Most of the men admittedly displayed a degree more enthusiasm than that of my initial interaction, however none were even remotely as impressed with my presence as their doppelgangers had been in my imagination. The captain of the crew possessed a relentlessly serious demeaner aptly reflected in the neat haircut upon his head. The engineer was a portly man so locked into his telling of an endless stream of inside jokes that he hardly came to notice my presence, which altogether, wasn’t a bad thing. Only the most novice of the firefighters, a middle aged and sincere man with a clean-shaven face spoke openly and candidly with me in the quiet hours of the morning. I began to suspect that it was a relief for him to have someone more junior than him amongst the closely closed ranks of the crew.

Coffee was made and made again. Despite the trucks having already been cleaned, I wiped the chrome repeatedly with rags both wet and dry in the hopes of finding unnoticed streaks of dirt left behind. I asked relevant questions of the men that offered an earnest ear and did all that I could to stay out of the way and appear neither bored nor lazy. Mostly, though, I simply walked from one vacant space to another, ever hoping for a call to interrupt the slow burning hours of my Saturday.

The dragging hours at the station that morning were something that I had yet to fully appreciate of the firefighting trade until I stood awkwardly in the unseen corners of the building while the men read their papers, tended to their equipment, or lifted weights in the gym nearby. Much like war, where the soldier spends a hundred-thousand minutes before firing an angry shot, the firefighter lives unremarkable weeks to the minutes he spends pulling a wet line. Likely more.

After more than a few idle hours, my hopes were at last answered as flashing lights and an imposing tone called out upon the overhead speakers. The crew dashed from their cards and movies to fling themselves into the truck like measuring tape being pulled back into a tightly wound space. I made a point to mimic their intensity and not dally myself, as I knew that they’d have left me in the hallway if I gave them the temptation.

Despite the fervor of getting into the truck and pulling wildly out of the station, the men dawned neither “turnouts”—firefighting gear— or overtly serious demeaners as further details of the call filtered into the headphones that were worn by all. Sarcastic comments and laughter began fluttering about, as it quickly became clear to my outsider perspective that the “emergency” we were careening toward might not be as serious as the scene otherwise implied.

“Thank god the kid’s with us!” scoffed Jameson, his aviators still adorning his face. “Maybe he can make Johnny right.”

The engine pulled from the avenue onto a side street and then a parking lot decorated only in upturned shopping carts, graffiti, and a man patiently sitting near its center upon a white plastic chair, smoking a cigarette. His right leg rested squarely across his lap in expectation.

As the engine came to a stop, the crew collectively took a sigh and exited the cab.

“What’s going on, Johnny?” called the Captain, doing his best to at least appear professional in front of the Cadet in his presence.

“It’s terrible, Max. All over. Let me tell ya. Anyway, you got morphine?”

The captain looked down toward the cracked asphalt and appeared as if he wished to say something that he knew he couldn’t in my presence. Instead, he only pulled the radio from his chest and enunciated sharply into its receiver, “This is E7. False alarm. We’re heading to Albertsons.”

And so, we went shopping.

“What’s your story?” asked Héctor, the friendly junior firefighter that had given me his attention freely that morning. We walked patiently behind the captain who navigated the crew through the store’s aisles with his shopping list tightly in hand. Spaghetti was on the menu.

“What do you mean?” I asked, half surprised by the question and half buying time to think of a worthy answer.

“I mean what’s your story? Nobody just shows up some place.”

“I guess… I don’t know,” I said, stumbling upon my words. “I’m a soccer player? I’ve played most my life. I’ll be graduating from Boulder Creek next summer…” I felt as if there was surely more to whoever it was I was describing, but the words that leaked from my mouth weren’t supporting such an assumption. I wasn’t quite sure of what the answer might be, and I began to suspect, as all young people do at least once in their lives, that I was unacquainted with who I actually was. I had a vague and abstract blob of an idea, maybe an idea of who I wanted to be based on generalizations and examples set by role models, but the ambiguous shadow figure of self that I suddenly stared into the face of did little to satisfy Héctor’s still looming question.

“I’d work on that,” he said. “Departments like stories. They like life experience, too. And if you want to get hired by one someday, I’d suggest at least learning to tell a good story, even if it’s not true.”

And if stories were about people, I began to wonder, who was the protagonist of my own?

Not all of the calls on my first ride along were as anticlimactic as our rendezvous with Johnny in the parking lot. We attended to plenty of legitimate medical emergencies and even a dryer fire where I was granted the privilege of ripping apart some poor souls walls to ensure no lingering heat ate at the space between his sheetrock. (As a result, to this day, you’ll never catch me loading a dryer without first emptying its lint rack.)

But despite the many calls that seemed to be unrelenting once they began, as if promptly arriving in response to my prayers earlier that morning, spaghetti was made at the station that evening and all three crews managed to sit around a wide table and share in the meal all at once. The act involved quite a bit of ceremony. The most junior man present, myself, was the first to be served and to sit. The next junior then followed suit, and so on, until the Captain at last served himself a plate and sat to the meal that he himself had produced. When he at last sat, all began digging into the hearty dish before them. Lengthy retellings of stories apparently often told accompanied the meal, mostly told by the engineer with his breathy way of speaking.

But even long after the last of the food had been eaten, all sat about the table making idle banter. Eventually, after what felt like an hour sitting at the table, the captain rose from his seat, at which point all at the table abruptly rose and tended to the undirtying of the dishes and kitchen at large.

In retrospect, the scene conjures memories of similar communal traditions from my time in the Marine Corps years later. Before bed in boot camp, we stood in long lines before our bunks in only our cotton briefs. When given the cue by the drill instructor, all 50 of us would slap our racks three times and climb into the sheets before calling out with gusto: Goodnight Chesty Puller, Wherever you are. But that’s a story for another time, even though it is, in a way, a result of the lessons learned from this one.

Later that night, I was woken from a terrible dream by the flashing lights and urgent tone of the station intercom once again. I had slept in my boots for fear of taking too long to get them back onto my feet and, as a result, potentially missing any midnight calls. Half-dreaming, I stumbled into the cab of the engine and was whisked away into the dark evening beyond. In contrast to our midday adventures, the roads were empty and our clamor to dissect the middle lane of Indian School Road was observed only by the raccoons looking on from their sewer gate lairs.

We arrived at the entrance of a dilapidated condo where a frantic woman in a night-dress waved at us from the top step, beckoning us in. Having already witnessed the sequence of unloading the engine many times, I had, by this point, found my niche of utility in the tightly orchestrated dance of arrival and, in each arm, carried into the condo two large pelican boxes that contained the miscellaneous medical supplies that the paramedics of the crew would use if necessary.  

I followed Héctor and placed the boxes beside the bed of a convulsing child, mid seizure. The firefighters swarmed about the girl, doing what they could, which, if you know anything about seizures, wasn’t all too much. Regardless, they prepared an array of interventions for when the girl’s nervous system would at last relinquished control of her muscles. The smell of what the body cannot help but emit in such circumstances hung heavily about the scene.

I swear that the smell lingered about my nostrils for weeks after that, often coming to my awareness at the strangest of times. Walking to class. Watering the lawn. Making lunch. And with smell comes other associations. What sights and thoughts haunted the day-to-day’s of these men?

The ride back to the station was quiet, dappled only by the soft dawn that hung about the sky above Camelback mountain in the East. Everyone, save for the navigating Engineer, starred listlessly out the window and thought of sleep and other things.

I think that was the moment I knew I didn’t want to be a firefighter. Deep down, at least, that’s when I knew. I wouldn’t consciously admit the fact to be truth until years later. And so, in blindness to what I knew to be true deeper within myself, I completed a community college Fire Academy, tagged along on several more ride-alongs, and even worked a season along the Colorado River as a seasonal firefighter for the BLM in Yuma. The latter was a sweltering adventure filled with chainsaws, lots of digging, overnight boat rides toward smoldering lightning strikes, and even a hay bale that spontaneously combusted. But it was also a relatively solitary experience where I, at last, began to come face to face with the reality of who I was, who I wanted to be, and what it would take for me to get there.

The Phoenix Fire Department was hiring again, after a long freeze, and I remember looking at the applicant list, which was public. Over twenty-five hundred people had applied for forty positions. And all the while, Héctor’s question continued to burn true in my ears, unanswered. What’s your story?

I was telling one of course, but I sensed that I was following a path that I had laid out for myself without being utterly satisfied with where it was going or why I was on it in the first place. I came to suspect that I was blindly walking along a path that was simply before me, and therefore I tread it.

Who knows. Maybe if I had stayed the path, kept putting miles under my boots, and trusted the process, I would have discovered a fulfilling and satisfying life as a firefighter somewhere down the line. Maybe, I would have become the engineer talking blue in the face of stories over-told. In a way, that’s not too far off to who I am now. But that’s not what came to pass. Instead, midway through my season working for the BLM, I enlisted in the Marine Corps to shock my future into an unknown trajectory. Maybe, it was an act of my subconscious knowing what I hadn’t yet come to acknowledged consciously: that I wasn’t doing what I wanted to be doing in life. That I was sleepwalking. On the other hand, maybe I was just impatient and took an easy out towards novelty.  

All I know for sure is that the story of my association with firefighting had a lot to do with my development of self; of who I came to interpret as me, and what I hold to be important in this comedy colloquially called life. Just like in any story, it turned out to be about people, but what took me over a decade to understand, was that this story was about me, a person that had yet to fully become as it was dutifully told.

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Thank you for reading my words. It means more to me than you likely know. If you find enjoyment in reading these blogs, consider subscribing (https://www.shrakewrites.com/blog) to be made aware of future posts and other projects of mine.

For example, did you know that I wrote a book? In A Vantage of Darkness, reality is as fragile as memory and time is a labyrinth with no exit. In this non-linear cosmic horror novel, Mae Barrett, the young daughter of a Vermont family that travels west to homestead in the dark and secluded Coconino Forest of 1889, is unwittingly cursed by the Hopi god of death, Masau’u, to suffer an eternity of immortality. Mae comes to fumble with the consequences of what horrors immortality may come to entail, and is driven into the arms of dark occultism, leading to a century-long and grisly ritual that entails the summoning of demons, meditative ascension, and terrible sacrifice of both herself and others. Blurring the supernatural with the philosophical, A Vantage of Darkness is a meditation on time, fate, and self-abandonment; a novel that explores the horror of memory, the fear of eternity, and the question of whether our realities are real, or merely stories that we tell ourselves.

A Vantage of Darkness is to be released this summer.