You Gotta Be In It To Win It

I was eager when I got there. There were rumors that we were either going to the burn trailer or to Sugar Ridge to practice vehicle extrication, and whichever way it went for A Shift was fine with me because I'd finally be responsible for doing real firefighter duties.

We sat around the classroom joking while the Chief and Mike were in the back planning what we'd be doing. I was trying to visualize how I'd use the spreaders to pop a door, trying to remember how heavy that tool was when Rob took me out on 44 that day in the winter, trying to guess which other tools we might use. I was psyching myself into a cracked-out-ferret level of anxiety when finally Mike called my name, the names of the two other rookies, and Shawn's name, and told us all to go gear up. He sent a few more out and we loaded onto 44, the four of us riding in the back together. I was sitting next to Shawn and I noticed that he kept looking at my gear. He yanked on the nomex hood that I had tucked under the collar of my turn-out coat as if to make sure it was really my hood, and then leaned forward to address the other rookies.

"Rookies, gear up all the way. Neither of you two have your hoods on. When we go out on drills, we wear all our gear." One of them was still trying to get his coat on. The guy next to me asked how to put the hood on, how to wear it. That I had done it right and that they had to ask me for help was the ego stroke I needed to go into the evening's exercises and from the corner of the eye I could tell that I had climbed up a peg in Shawn's estimation.

We arrived and climbed out of the truck. Carlisle Twp. was at the junk yard doing the same drills we were going to be doing, there were probably 15 of them. You don't wear your helmet on the truck, so when I climbed out my head was uncovered and it's pretty obvious that I'm a girl when I don't have anything covering my head. I could see the Carlisle guys looking at me, and though I don't know for sure what they were thinking the general impression I got was "what's that girl gonna do?" Maybe I am just really aggro and always assume the worst, I don't know. I puffed up pretty good and donned my best 50 foot tall routine. Shawn told me to grab the halligan and flat head axe, and by the time I was back around the other side of the truck with the tools, he had the jaws set up.

The first exercise he had us do was bust the windows out. To do that one person had to hold the pointy side of the halligan against the window, and the other person takes the flat side of the axe and hits the halligan so that the halligan is the tool that actually breaks the glass. This way you don't have an axe crashing through the window and striking a patient. Mark and Kevin (the two other rookies) went first, with Mark using the axe. It took him three tries to do it because Mark wasn't bracing the halligan tight enough and it kept slipping. Shawn told him he was swinging like a girl to which I of course began yelling every manner of obscenity and asking for my turn. Before I got it they switched positions on the next window and Mark put the axe right through the glass. It was finally my turn. Kevin held the halligan tight against the window, I took a breath in, swung the axe back, swung it forward, hit the halligan right in the sweet spot and watched the window shatter. I thanked my mom and dad for all the years of softball as Shawn let out a "perfect," to my right. Shawn didn't say anymore jokes about doing things like a girl for the rest of the night.

We went around the van learning techniques and the proper way to do things and I tried to soak up as much as I could. The three of us took turns using the jaws on the doors, and by the time we got done with the passenger side we were really functioning as a team. We used the cutters to sever the A and B posts. We used the reciprocating saw to make relief cuts. Shawn wanted us to roll the roof back and I got under it and heaved with all I had and watched it peel back like a tuna can. We rolled it as high as it would go and Shawn got on my side to see if it would budge anymore and he couldn't move it. He got up into the driver's seat and put his back into and it still wouldn't budge. He looked at me and said, "Well Emily, since you're using your man muscles tonight, grab that axe and give me a dent." I made him the dent he wanted and he peeled the rough back a few more inches. I was keeping up my end of the physical just as well as the guys, and Kevin kept patting me on the back and saying, "You're doing awesome!"

Then we moved over to the driver's side. Shawn looked at the three of us and asked, what's the first thing we need to do? "Check and see if the doors are unlocked," I shot back. They were locked. "Now what?" he asked. I picked up the halligan and said, "we make a purchase point." The purchase point is a hole you pry into the door with the halligan so that the jaws operator can fit the tip of the jaws in between to door and the post. I wedged the halligan in, pryed up and down and up again, and pulled the halligan out, happy with the hole I had made. Shawn looked at the hole and looked at me. "Do you think that's a good purchase point?" he asked me. "Yeah," I said back with confidence, "you could definitely start from there." He looked at Kevin, who would be operating the jaws. "Do you think that's something you can work with?" Kevin just looked at him. Shawn looked back at me. "All right Emily, if you're so sure of your purchase point, get the jaws in there."

I picked up the jaws, wedged them into the opening, and started prying. The door started to give. It opened wide enough so that I could see the latch. I closed the jaws up, pulled them out, and repositioned them so that they were right under the latch. I started opening the jaws back up and within a minute I had the door open. Without skipping a beat I stepped forward and found a good point to start at the hinge side. I wanted to take the door completely off, and I didn't want anyone else to have a hand in it. I popped the top hinge and moved the jaws down to the bottom hinge. I could feel that I had the right spot. I started opening the jaws and called out a "watch out!" two seconds before the door came completely off the car. I stepped back, put the jaws down, and thought to myself "and that's how you do that."

The best part was that not only was my shift LT watching the whole thing, but the heavy rescue instructor/full-time LT was watching too. We finished tearing up the van and the drill was over, time to clean up. "Grab some brooms and shovels rookies!" Mark and Kevin asked him where to get them and I told them to follow me. We reappeared within a minute with all the clean up tools and I heard Shawn say to the full-time LT, "now see? You don’t have to tell her twice." We cleaned up everything, went back to the truck and finally were able to take off our goggles and helmets and unbutton our coats. I could see steam eminating from every open spot on my gear, and I looked around at the guys and saw the same thing happening to them. We were walking steam vents. Everyone was dripping sweat but we all had huge smiles on our faces. Shawn assembled all of us into a semi circle and asked us what we learned. No one said anything so I chimed in.

"We learned to check door handles first. Where, why, and how to make relief cuts. The proper way to open a window. How to make a purchase point that the jaws can really get into. Not to skin the door and why. Scene safety."

"Well ok," Shawn uttered slowly with his hillbilly drawl. "All I learned on my first day of extrication was that I was going to get a huge bruise the size of my entire thigh!"

Pat, one of the guys who’s been on for a little over a year, looked at me while talking to Shawn and said, "She’s smart as hell! She’s constantly rattling off shit that’s right."

I rode back with the biggest grin on my face, feeling pride in all 50 feet of me. And that grin was still on my face this morning when I woke, and got even bigger when I checked my thighs and saw no bruises to speak of.

Hollow As Bone

It can't really be like this. Can't last.

When he comes over there's a tornado that blows through, rips my flesh down to the bone and cuts my spirit. When he leaves I am tear stained, angry, but still think somewhere down in that deep dark that there is something more I could have done to help him. Soft spot that I try to bulldoze over, this is definitely damaging my ability to be in love with myself.

Things will get better. I wish I could just catapult my head out of this. I am not a bad person and my dreams don't fall short of anything. Also, I am a decent shot. So.... yeah. Don't come around here no more.

Don't You Forget.

Cool evening air passing through the open aerial tower window grazed my face and played with the hairs on my neck. I was sitting directly across from Eric as we rode through town to the training drill. We were both silent, the churning effort of the diesel engine curtailing any chance at conversation before it could even start, and I wondered if he was maybe as full of apprehension as I was. We passed some of the high school kids and they spotted me in the window, their feverish waving was the jolt I needed to swallow down the fear I felt rising up in my chest. "We're going to go up on the tower." I remembered the snowy day in December and climbing up that 100 foot ladder. My heart beat faster but I thought about Orion and all the effort that's gotten me here, I thought about Anne and let her strength fill me.

We pulled onto Artino Street and everything started happening so quickly. The Lt. in charge of the drill started barking out assignments, people were jumping off the truck and springing into action and I was doing my best to not be in the way and not look totally insecure about what I was doing there. "Why did Mike ask me to come to this," I wondered to myself. "I have no idea how to do any of this stuff." As soon as I felt the fear start to creep back up I heard Mike's voice barreling in my direction.

"Emily, get the plate down on the back and get up on the platform, get ready to take it up with Rob."

I had no idea what the plate was. This is 95% of what my training has been so far: looking around and seeing what everyone else is doing, playing a little monkey see monkey do, and praying that no one sees through the cracks of your cool exterior. It worked and before I knew it I was standing on the lowered platform with Rob. "Well, at least I didn't have to climb this time." Within the next few moments we were 100 feet up in the air and it was taking my best effort to not stand there mouth-breathing, in awe of how the hell any of them could have learned and retained all of this. We started flowing water and the mist against the woods and setting sun made a beautiful moment that I etched into memory. I looked to the South and saw a dozen golden sun beams streaming through some far-off clouds, and it felt like we were level with them. Just as I started to feel like I might be able to get the hang of all this I heard something come over the radio that stopped me in my tracks.

"Emily, how do you feel about coming down? Eric needs to get up there and see what to do."

I looked at Rob. I looked down the 100 feet of extension. I looked at Rob. Without keying my mic, I said, "uhhhhh....." Rob, without breaking eye contact, keyed his mic and said, "she's good to go. She'll be down in a minute." I laughed. There is no reason to be afraid of something that you know with certainty you have to do. You just resign yourself to the fact and get on with it. I unfastened my harness, took off my headset. Readjusted my helmet. Put my glove strap in my pocket. Rob looked at me sheepishly. "You ok with this?"

"Cmonnnnn," I said smiling out of the side of my mouth, doing my best billy bad a$$ act. "I'm fine. I'll be down in a sec."

Rob knows me too well and he didn't buy it, but he played along. "Go as slow as you need to. You'll never need to rush on this thing. Keep three points of contact and if you have any problems at all, just look up at me and I'll be down in a second." I was already starting the descent as he finished the last sentence. The hardest part about climbing down the aerial is the first step. By far. You're 100 feet into the sky, and that first step requires you to step backward over an opening that's about 9 inches. Straight down. Not nearly big enough to let a firefighter in turnouts slip through, but more than big enough to scare the hell out of you. The second scariest part is how unbelievably narrow it is at the top. The facemask in my side pocket kept catching on the sides. My coat kept catching on the sides! After the fifth time freeing myself being on the aerial that high was a piece of cake. I made it down and Joe slapped me on the back, handed me the headset to the turntable, and from then on I was at the helm at the bottom of the tower.

It was absolutely trial by fire. The rest of the night was like that; being told to do things that you really have no idea how to do and faking it like you are in the swing of things. Honestly, this was my worst fear for how the learning would be, but also kind of what I had expected. I'm glad that I'm a fast learner. I don't know how half of these people are still on the department. It gets so intimidating.

After the end of the second drill we started disconnecting the 5 inch supply line and Joe asked me to drag a section uphill so that it could drain properly. I hoisted it up over my shoulder and moved it like any one of the guys. I felt pretty good about my abilities for the first time of the night, and it was further vindicated by Shawn later telling me that he would never again question my physical ability. It was dark, 9:30 in the evening, and I was rolling 5 inch supply line down Artino Street, on my knees. Despite all of the blows to my ego of the evening, in that moment in the water watching my bunker pants get dirtier and dirtier and seeing the guys up ahead me all completing their assigned tasks, I really felt like a firefighter. Like eventually I'll actually be responsible for more than just showing up.

I rode back in the open compartment of 42, cool evening air drying the sweat on my face and neck. I heard the guys joking in the cab through the headset on my ears, but I was in a different world. I was taking that first nine inch step over and over again, in every situation of my life that has a gaping hole straight down like that. You just take a deep breath in, keep your hands on the rungs, and start moving. You don't stop and you don't go back. What I need to learn is patience. To not get down on myself for not knowing things that I haven't learned yet.

So do you have a boyfriend or something?

In front of everyone he asked me a question that probably felt benign, but my answer cut short the joviality like a hammer strike, she said what?? He just looked at me. "How the hell old are you?" I love my lieutenant. Of all the questions he could have asked.

The jokes picked back up and later in the garage I found myself being ushered into one of the many one-on-ones with him of the evening. "So can ask what happened between you guys?" I went into it because, of all of them, he is the most like a brother to me. There are certain people you meet in this life that you just instantly trust, and know that they will always guide you in the right direction. I told him my not-too-short, not-too-long version, and he looked at me for a moment, as if trying to picture the person on the other side of the story.

"Men just ain't men anymore." He looked at me, shaking his head, eyes expressing both sympathy and understanding. And that was all he said about that.

The knowing, once you are a part of the brotherhood, that you will never be alone. The camaraderie that transcends any attempt at explanation. Amidst all of this stress and drama, I am so very thankful.

And in two Mondays I get to cut up cars and put water on fire :)

Late Monday.

I'm sick of you calling me out every single day. "Did you call the counselor back yet? I have to keep going until you decide because once I'm done, I'm done, and I can't go back."

Yeah, well, no. I haven't called her back yet. I don't really want to. I don't feel it's a priority item. Editing all of the photos from the jobs you abandoned is a priority because there are kids hounding me every day for their proofs. Paying the bills you left behind is a priority. Making it to calls and training. Squeezing in time to just frigging vedge by myself is a priority. Don't put that decision on me. I don't even want to see your face. So much blame. And on the phone you told me that you can't talk to me because I'm defensive, and because of the insecurity I carry. And I laughed. My problems are not your problems. Here is what you have, finally, run into:

If you are hard on yourself, life will be easy. If you are easy on yourself, life will be very hard.

Tired of making it easy for you, hard for me. Tired of so much, tired in my bones. After the late night with my brothers we headed to Rick's for a fast cold one, and we sat around debriefing. There were nine of us and it's 2:30 in the morning and I feel truly that these are my brothers, and I feel more accepted by them than I have by anyone in so long a time. After about thirty minutes Shawn was talking just to me, extolling the nuggets of wisdom he has picked up in his unique way that had me laughing so hard I was crying. And when we all left he followed me home to make sure I was ok since it was 3:00 in the morning by then and Chapman was out! To go from that to the phone call with all the duress in his voice, "when are you going to call I can't keep going unless you do when when when...."

You do not bend because to bend is to die slowly, horribly. To languish into something that eventually you won't recognize as yourself. So you snap. Break. And you grow stronger at the broken places. Or try to. There is no going back, not now.

Zero Love.

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks.

To be a great champion, you must believe you are the best. If you're not, pretend you are.

Please Believe Me.

All things to all people. It is 945 on a Tuesday and I wanted to write that in military time just to show that I could. Show who? Emily, where will you be when you read this? And who. Remember me when you read it, and remember exactly what it felt like right now, what you are about to endure. Have gone through. 945 and getting colder again outside, the only thing I want to do is go for a run. Beat my body. There is no good reason to feel the way that I do. That is the entire problem. Too logical, I have nearly forgotten what to do with emotions as they pertain to me, to my own situation. Too used to safeguarding somebody else's.

Fierce. You are faking it.

You think it's the only commodity that you have to offer. He said on the phone, "you have been trying to have a relationship with a 14 year old." You can get better from that. You can do something with the 14 year old. What do I do with it? You can become someone new, and I am the same Emily. The one who feels like an idiot for this thing she doesn't recognize as her life. Watch it fall, all around you. It pisses me off that you are calling the shots and my exposed emotions are forcing rash decisions.

To run, tonight. I am not myself. Soft little baby. I like to watch my arms in the mirrors at the weight room. I like to catch people looking at my arms. I have Trogdor arms, and they are freakish. When I move the 45s around, my shoulders ripple. I want them to be bigger. Stronger. Kat said, "that is commitment to a goal, you have changed your body forever." I want to change all the rest with it, down to the inability to concentrate on anything but my waning sense of self worth.

A fraud. "What must it be like," you watch the fish go by, "to swim so resolutely?" Not myself.