Walking Off Heaven's Shore

The Fire Inside

Vernon Parks clipped his pager on his belt for the first time as a probationary volunteer firefighter, Hammett County Volunteer Fire Department.

He stood straighter, tucked his shirttail, and brushed his sandy hair from his forehead. He stowed his turn-out gear in the back of his Blazer.

He still couldn't believe that the fire department had gear large enough to fit him.

They even gave him a license tag for the front of his truck, so everyone would know he was a member.

One day he'd be an officer and carry a walkie-talkie. He just needed to pass the six months' probation.

At nineteen, Johnny had already served two years and had made lieutenant.

Vernon couldn't drive the fire trucks until he passed the training, but at least he was a firefighter with privileges.

He admired the new tag on his Blazer. Someday he planned to attach a strobe light bar across the cab and maybe a winch on the front, ready for anything.

Vernon stepped up into the cab and cruised to the firehouse to hang out with the guys before class.

As he drove, he fantasized about rushing into a blazing building, snatching a child, an old lady or even a dog and dragging them to safety just before it collapsed.

Not that many fires happened in Hammett County. There'd been a grass fire last week from some kids shooting fireworks. Nothing to it.

Then, of course, there was Dad's body shop. Vernon remembered that day two months ago.

The fire trucks had screamed down the street.

Men dressed in canvas turnouts dashed in front of him, shouting out orders to one another.

They connected the hoses and drenched the building, putting the fire out in minutes.

They'd saved his dad's business, maybe even his life Even though Dad thanked the firefighters that day, but after they left, he said, "Those guys are crazy. You just get dirty, risk your life, and not even get paid for it!"

Still daydreaming, Vernon nearly drove past the firehouse. He slammed on his brakes and slid into the gravel parking lot. He waited for the dust to settle before he went into the firehouse, a gray cinderblock building with a meeting room and three fire truck bays.

The interior was rough- finished concrete and cinderblock, a bump-out closet for a bathroom with cabinets probably donated from some old store. Johnny was sprawled across a ragged sofa watching the TV on the counter at the end of the room.

His t-shirt asked, "Can you remember when fighting fire was dangerous and s*x was safe?"

Marvin, the day officer, sat in the rolling chair at the desk, with a phone book in hand.

Vernon sat at one of folding chairs at the long tables that divided the center of the room. He felt at home in this refuge, furnished in home-mades and throw-aways.

"Morning, Vernon. No class today?" Johnny said.

"Not till one o'clock."

"You better not cut school or I'll kick your butt!" Johnny grinned. He'd taken the GED last year after dropping out.

"Get him to check your papers for you, Vern," Marvin said. "Just show him which is right side up."

Johnny crumpled a drink can and tossed it at Marvin, high and wide. Marvin ducked, then threw his arms up. "Oh, help me, help me," he said in falsetto.

Vernon laughed. "What are you studying, Marvin?"

Motion detector alarms. You wear them inside a structure fire, and if you don't move for 30 seconds or so, it lets out a shriek to let somebody know to come get you."

"Thirty seconds?"

"If you're passed out in the smoke, nobody can see you. Thirty seconds is a long time with no air."

You'd be moving unless something was wrong," Johnny said. "You don't just stand still."

"I guess not," Vernon said, feeling stupid. He watched the fire truck clock made from a piece of plywood and held his breath for thirty seconds watching the sweep hand tick off each one from top to bottom. It was a very long time.

"How's your dad?" Johnny said. "Got the shop all fixed up again?"

"Yeah, he's patched it up." Vernon moved to a dilapidated chair, its cushion springs gone. He didn't want to know what they thought of Dad.

"The county doesn't enforce building codes out there," Marvin said. "A man can do his own construction, best he knows how."

Johnny nodded. "Everybody does the best they know."

"Yeah," Vernon said. He stared at a movie they'd all watched last week. Marvin was the same age as his dad, but he got out there and hustled just as hard as the younger guys.

Johnny dozed off, a hazard of working third shift. Vernon's attention wavered from the movie in the morning quiet.

"Beeeeeeeeeeep!"

Vernon's eyes flew open. It took a moment to realize where he was.

"Station 400, stand by for traffic." The firehouse radio split the silence as the three beepers went off.

Vernon's heart started thumping. The dispatcher came back on, her voice sweet, but all business.

"Station 400, Hammett Fire Department, you have a 10-70 structure in the blending room at the Storey Brothers Mill. Repeat. You have a structure fire at Storey Brothers Mill blending room. Enter by the rear gate."

Vernon felt a lump of fear rise up in his throat. Uncle Walt and a couple of his cousins worked there.

The fire horn bellowed as Vernon dashed to the parking lot, knocking a can of cola off the table and nearly tripping over a chair.

He jerked the Blazer's rear hatch open and quickly gathered his gear, kicking off his shoes and pulling on the turnouts with boots.

He carried his coat and helmet to the open bay where he saw Johnny and Marvin climbing onto truck 406.

Vernon grabbed the railing over the running board and swung up to the seat behind the cab.

"County, 406 is 10-17," Marvin said into his walkie.

Vernon had memorized the 10-codes: 10-17 meant "enroute to the scene". In a few minutes they would be 10-23, "arrived on scene". Just once he wanted to say 10-4, "message understood, OK."

Marvin pulled the cord to the air horn, warning traffic ahead. Then, he pulled it again because he liked the sound. Marvin grinned at Vernon.

Truck 402 went 10-17 a second later.

Adrenaline flowed through Vernon as the siren screamed.

His vision sharpened, his muscles tightened, and his ears picked up every whisper.

They parked by a gate in the chain link fence. Billy, Zeke and Shane's cars were parked along the fence, and they were heading towards the gate already in their turnout gear.

A loading dock billowed smoke. Truck 402 shrieked past, stopping at the next gate. All the smoke came from the loading dock. The original windows were bricked up years before. Without power inside the mill, it'd be dark as hell.

Zeke and Billy ran to the back of 402 to pull the hose off, then snake it inside.

Vernon helped Johnny pull the hose.

"Vernon," Martin said, "I'm going to send you in with an airpack."

He showed Vernon how to get the airpack on as it swung out from the compartments built on the side of the truck.

Marvin hooked up the air bottle over Vernon's coat and explained how to use it. Then he swung down Vernon's visor, telling him, "Follow Johnny, back him up, and be careful." He swatted Vernon's shoulder and turned back to operate the pump.

Vernon took a deep breath. The air tasted a little weird, but it was okay. He grabbed the line and followed Johnny, feeling like a kid in a spaceman suit.

A little voice spoke from inside his head, "This could get you killed." With that, he sucked in the weird tasting air and went in.

Through the smoke, big bales of cotton and machinery loomed, and flames leaped from a horizontal chute that ran the length of the mill.

Johnny spoke to his walkie and water charged through the hose, making it stiff, resistant, like a huge fire-eating snake.

Johnny sprayed the burning cotton as three firefighters raked it out of the chute. As one stuck the long hook in and dragged, the others scooped out the smoking fibers.

As they put their gloves in the fire, they stood face-to-face with it.

Another team worked the other end of the chute. Cotton covered conveyor belts and spilled all over the floor.

Vernon's heart pounded faster, growing with fear for their safety. He held onto the hose for dear life.

Johnny turned, shouting in his ear. "You work the hose. Just wet it down when they get it out. Leave the nozzle on fog. Okay? I'm going to help the other guys."

"Sure," Vernon said, "Go ahead." His voice didn't shake when he shouted, but he was scared. He was the man with the water, spraying the glowing lumps of fiber into charred mush.

Vernon watched the guys stick their arms into a black hole, bringing out armloads of burning fluff. Did he have the courage to do that?

He fought the hose's urge to spray everywhere except where he held it, protecting his friends.

A whistling sound alarmed Vernon, making him think another fire alarm in the mill had been set off.

He feared that the fire was getting worse, breaking out in other areas of the building.

Feeling trapped and claustrophobic, he started wheezing, trying to breathe deeply, trying to stay calm, but it was no use.

The air wouldn't come.

He sucked in again, nearly choking.

Someone working on the chute turned to him and grabbed the hose away, as another took him by the arm and dragged him outside. Some hero he turned out to be, he thought still trying to breathe.

He choked on the smoke, coughing. They'd throw him off the department for sure. He felt his heart ache. He hadn't lasted even one day.

Zeke, one of the older firefighters, pulled off Vernon's face mask once outside.

Vernon gasped, breathing in the sweet, cool air.

"You're out of air, kid," he said. "The airpack whistles, when it gets low. Didn't you know?" He then helped Vernon to the truck, where Vernon sat on the bumper.

Vernon shook his head, relieved, yet feeling stupid again. Of course there was a warning when the air was low. He should have asked, or at least known to ask.

"But they've been in there longer than me," he said, "Don't they need air?"

"Air packs usually last thirty minutes, but if you get excited, you use up the air quicker. Calm down," Zeke said, changing the air bottle. "Now go back and relieve them." He stayed behind to get another bottle for himself.

Vernon hurried back to the dock, but couldn't step into the smoke. He didn't know where to go because he didn't pay attention when they were going in.

He just followed where the others led.

His chest tightened again, but knowing they were depending on him, he said out loud, "Just follow the hose, one step at a time." Then he took a step and went back in.

 With each step he took in the building, the smoke grew thicker around him. He tried searching through the heat and black smoke for anyone running out of air.

Looking and listening for the wheezing, hearing the blowing of whistle behind their ear. Vernon reached for the hose, when he felt another hand grab his arm.

"Here," a voice said, pushing him to the chute. "Take over."

It was Vernon's turn to rake the chute.

The gloves protected his hands from the searing fibers. He reached and scraped, reached and scraped, through the hot, wet muck, waiting for the fire to sink its hot fangs into him.

He took shallow breaths trying to conserve air and refused to let himself think about what his arms and hands were doing. First one then another guys left to get more air.

What if they had already stayed a long time, too long? Someone might have been hurt while he scrounged up his courage. He reached in again and scraped. Finally, the chute was clear, all the way through.

The fire was out.

The power came back on, creating a hum of fans to clear the air. The hose stopped spraying. The firefighters raised the shields on their helmets.

Marvin brought in a couple of large fans to clear the smoke. He called the county to report that the fire was out.

In a few minutes, the mill hands came in to clean up.

Vernon's cousin Kyle, scared, pale, and sweating, didn't even recognize Vernon in his gear.

Kyle shook his head when he looked at them, saying, "I wouldn't have done that for the world. You guys are crazy."

Kyle helped another hand pull a big disk wrapped with rags through the chute to clean out the ashes and soot.

The clean-up crew swept the water and debris towards the docks, a soggy, gray mess like black and white vomit.

Vernon's stomach churned in response. He was happy to get outside again to breathe fresh air.

Vernon shrugged out of the air pack and stowed it. He peeled off his coat, drenched with sweat. He felt lightheaded, his hands still shaking. As other men gathered loaded hoses back on the trucks, Vernon had to rest a minute and catch his breath.

Marvin came over from behind the truck with a big paper cup of water. "We've got some Gatorade back at the station, but this'll do for now."

Vernon drank it down, not cold, but clean and good. Even after the fire, someone had to take care of him. Gritting his teeth, he made himself help lift a hundred feet of wet hose above his head into the truck.

He slumped in the seat of the fire truck to ride back to the firehouse, probably for the last time.

"Man, it was hot!" Johnny said, when they all poured into the meeting room. He laughed, his face sweaty and smeared with soot, "That chute was blazing." He chugged a big cup of Gatorade.

"They said a woman fell out with smoke. They carried her to the infirmary." Zeke said. "Anybody know if she's all right?"

I heard it was Crystal Harper," Johnny said. "My cousin said she was ok, but they sent her to the ER anyway. Got to get the forms filled out right."

"Got that right," Marvin said, finishing up his second clipboard, and marking all the firefighters who were present on a large poster board grid.

After a cold drink and a little rest, they got busy. Shane helped Johnny stretch the hoses out to dry while Zeke filled the trucks with water.

Marvin cranked the air compressor to fill air packs for the next fire. Nobody said very much. They were tired and adrenalin drained.

Vernon could hardly move. He dragged a couple of air bottles over to the compressor from Truck 406.

"Thanks, Vernon," Marvin said, hooking another bottle to the compressor. "I need to talk to you."

Vernon determined to take the bad news like a man.

"You hit the parking lot pretty hard today." Marvin said. "Don't get so enthusiastic that you crash the dayroom."

"I'm sorry."

"You'll learn. It's better if you get to the fire in one piece!" Marvin chuckled and shook his head. Then his grin faded to serious.

Vernon swallowed.

"I hated to send you in like that, with no training, but we were really short-handed," Marvin said. "I thought you could handle it. You did good for your first time in. And I forgot to tell you about the whistle. I'm sorry."

For a second, Vernon said nothing. He hadn't been kicked out. "It's, uh… okay. Zeke helped me out."

"We all look out for each other," Marvin said. "That's our job." Marvin pulled at his chin and frowned. "But for now, you have a new name. 'Air'." He laughed.

The guys had gathered around. "Need some air there, Air?"

"All you got to do is whistle! Pucker up and blow!" Johnny blew in his ear.

Vernon grinned too. He knew he was going to like being crazy.