A searing pain in my shoulder blew me awake. “Ow. Damn.” “Wake up-fast.” Buster punched me again, hard. “Cut it out, goddamn it.”
“Siren’s blowing-we got a fire.” He was already out the door and heading for the stairs.
As I stumbled out of bed, groping for my clothes, I could hear the eerie funereal wail of the firehouse siren, rising and falling, a persistent, nagging, penetrating noise that made my hair stand up on end.
Slipping my shoes on unlaced, holding my coat under one arm, I stumbled downstairs to the front door. As I kicked it open, Gannet’s siren enveloped me, making the air vibrate. Buster’s pickup was already rolling down the driveway, the passenger door open. Come on. Move it.”
I half-ran, half-jumped onto the seat next to him. The sudden acceleration slammed the door for me and threw me back against the seat as we squealed down the street. “There,” he shouted, pointing down South Street as we drew abreast. “Looks like that house we were in earlier.” We came to a skidding stop next to the firehouse just as the siren blew its last mournful note. The firehouse doors were already open and I could hear the roaring of both truck engines being fired up.
Pickup trucks and cars appeared out of nowhere, parking helter-skelter up and down the road, as half-dressed men ran toward the fire trucks, even as they eased out of their tight berths. Buster and I clambered aboard the 55, next to a young man wearing glasses and a mustache. “Hi, Chief.” “Hey, Paul. Hand me that helmet.” Paul cracked my knee with the stick shift as we pulled into the road. It was a two-man cab, and I was the third man in the middle.
Buster shouted out the window at one of the other firemen, “Call East Haven and East Burke, we’re going to need backup on this.” The driver hit the toggles for the red lights and siren, which, considering the size of the town and the short distance we had to travel, seemed a little excessive to me. It also made it hard to hear myself think. I could see Buster’s lips moving, but I couldn’t tell if he was muttering or shouting.
As Buster had suspected, it was the same house Bruce Wingate had been thrown out of earlier, several of its windows now glowing orange or actually leaking flames. The smoke above the building reflected the hellish pink glimmer. As we pulled up, I saw where someone, presumably Fox, had nailed a piece of plywood over the broken window.
Everyone piled out of both trucks and began grabbing equipment: hatchets, boots, bunker coats, hose, axes, Halligan tools. Two men each grabbed the two new portable pumps Rennie had showed me earlier and ran for the bank of the Passumpsic River to set up a continuous water supply for the truck pumps.
I had been to fire scenes before, both here as a kid and as an adult n Brattleboro, but what I’d forgotten was the lack of radio equipment n most truly remote, rural fire departments. Instead of the usual cracking of electronic voices and the sight of white-coated officers walking round with portable radios, the people here ran flat out, some with megaphones, shouting out orders like barkers at a carnival.
“Put this on,” Buster said as he shoved a coat and helmet into my arms. “And get some boots-rear compartment.” I did as I was told, jostling with others at the back of the truck, trying to stand on one foot while shoving the other into a heavy, folded-over rubber boot. One of my shoes fell on the ground and was instantly kicked under the truck by someone grabbing for a pair of leather gloves.
I pulled back finally, with boots too big and a coat too tight across the shoulders. I slapped the helmet on and felt it dig into my forehead. At least the gloves fit and I had a working flashlight.
Rennie jogged by, carrying one of the Scott-Paks in his arms. ‘Joey, come with me.” Paul, my erstwhile driver, was holding the other coat.
Only then, hearing Rennie’s voice, did I remember that we had one this before, Rennie and I, as a team. For once, here was a memory hat was holding true, and I gave in to it happily, the observer no longer.
We half-ran toward the burning house and stopped near the front door. Another crew was laying a one-and-a-half-inch attack line on the round for use inside the building.
Rennie thrust his Scott-Pak at me and turned his back. “Help me put this damn thing on.” I held it up so he could lace his arms through the shoulder harness and supported it while he tightened the buckles.
Paul, both thinner and much younger, was doing the same on his own beside me. But in the flickering red lights from both the trucks and the fire, I saw his face looked wan and fearful. His hands were shaking badly as he fumbled with the straps. Rennie took his helmet off and was about to slip on the face mask when there was an explosion above us.
“Look out.” We all three ducked and felt a shower of glass and wood splinters pelt our backs. Rennie was the first to straighten up.
“Flashover.” Paul, standing still, was shaking his head, his Scott dangling from one shoulder. “No way, man. No fucking way. Rennie looked at him.
“What’re you talking about? Scott up, goddamn it.” Paul dumped the air cylinder onto the ground. “Not me, man. The whole fucking place is going. You’re going to die in there.” Rennie shook him by the coat.
“Paul, come on, don’t do this.
There’re people in there. Once we ventilate the windows, the heat’ll escape. That’s all that was. Come on.
A firefighter pounded Rennie on the shoulder. “All set, line’s charged.” I looked down and saw the hose was now fat with water. “I’m not going to die for a bunch of granola heads.” Rennie stared at him, his mouth open in astonishment, momentarily bewildered by an attitude as foreign to him as ancient Greek. As prejudiced as he could be under normal circumstances, once that fire coat went on his back, I’d never seen him hesitate to stick his neck out for others. It was a form of unspoken oath with him: To differentiate between victims out of pure prejudice would have been to spit on his own beliefs. I yielded to impulse, Rennie and I fighting fires again. I began grabbing Paul’s equipment. “Give it to me. I’ll go in.” Rennie gave me a shit-kicking grin, the years, for just a moment, gone from his face. “Just like old times.” “Up to our knees in shit,” I whispered under the noise, and began to load up.
I tightened the air bottle’s straps over my shoulders, slipped the face mask over my head, and triggered the positive-pressure lever on the regulator harnessed to my chest. Scott-Paks are designed to operate in two ways: Demand-pressure allows the air to reach the face mask only with each inhalation of the firefighter. It’s the best way to guarantee that the air released from the tank goes into the lungs of the wearer, with no waste. The other way, positive-pressure, allows a little air to leak through the regulator and into the mask at all times so that the pressure inside the mask is slightly greater than the pressure without: It’s an extra safety device to keep posioned air from getting in around the edges of the mask. Considering he size of the fire we were facing, I opted to waste the small amount f extra air generated by the latter method.
Not that the mere flip of a lever took care of all my worries. The face mask is similar to what scuba divers use, with rubber borders and a curved plastic lens. Putting one on made me feel claustrophobic; not only was my peripheral vision blocked on, but the sound of the air rushing into the mask at each breath reminded me that in twenty minutes, at the very most, my bottle would be empty faster if I breathed harder.