Probie III

Mitch at the wheel.  Captain Lexin in the officer’s seat.  Justin and me in back, gearing up on the move, listening to radio traffic as we make our glove choice – extrication or fire?.  Tuesday morning and the normies are at work or dropping off the kids at school.  So were we two minutes ago, before our pagers went off.   Now we’re a lights and sirens foursome as Engine 31 hustles down Main Street, heading to a crash on the rain-slicked Interstate.  Showtime. 

Until it’s not.  Before we make the turn onto the highway connecting to the Interstate, there’s a cancellation page.  Disappointment comes in all sizes and shapes and this one is somewhere between broccoli and Debbie not being all that keen on attending prom.  Well, at least not with me.  

The Captain professionally acknowledges the cancellation and Mitch switches off the loud and flashy buttons.  There’s a bit of grumbling in the rig, which is the nature of adrenaline dissipating.  You are in whatever your Clark Kent outfit is, doing whatever your Clark Kent persona does.  Then the pager and iPhone goes off.  Some quick disengagement with whoever you’re with and off to the station.  Run inside while disrobing and leave seconds later as Superman.  Or Wonderwoman.  Or Awesomenonbinary.  Doesn’t matter.  The fire don’t care about gender. 

The lights flash.  The siren wails.  The radio traffic crackles and the rig groans and bounces as it speeds towards danger.  The good mornings / good evenings / good to gos!!! get shouted in the rig as we head out and start to formulate a plan.  The crew changes with whichever superheroes were closest when the pagers toned, and we make adjustments as necessary.  The cancellation grumbling happens because you don’t really want to go back to being some random collection of schmos until you’ve done some super stuff together.

Took me the standard issue embarrassing length of time to figure this out, but firefighter is a compound word.  The “fire” part is both literal and metaphoric.  The fire can be the real deal heat / smoke death monster or it can be a metaphor for whatever bad thing is happening.  The “fire” part of firefighter is important, but the ”fighter” part is the heart of it.  Something bad is happening to someone who needs help, and that bad thing is not going away without a fight.  So, here we come, ready to fight.  Ex-military, often times.  Linebackers, catchers, defensemen, point guards, spikers, martial artists and other sporting folks, almost universally.  The occasional barroom brawler.  Anyone comfortable in a fight.

More than comfortable, to be honest.  People who are happy in a fight.  The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.  Because, if you talked about how much fun Fight Club is, the fire truck might get crowded.    

Back at the station, changing into our Clark Kent costumes, the pagers tone again.  The rain-slicked Interstate is not giving up. 

Neither are we.  Another rule of Fight Club is the fight goes on … as long as it has to.