“One February Night.”

            I learned a great deal in my few years in the Louisville Fire Department. One of the first and best and hardest lessons was that, unlike my father, I was not cut out to be a firefighter. I was shy, reticent, and mostly unconscious about what I wanted out of life.  That’s quite common in young men of eighteen, I’m sure, but I was deeply unaware—of anything.

            The realities of graduating from high school came as a bit of a shock to me. I mean, I’d seen it coming, looked forward to it, yet I had no idea what waited on the other side of that walk down the aisle. My dad told me that I should apply for the fire department, which I did as just the next thing to do, like going to another year in school. Possessing no idea of a career, no money for college, and no desire to join the military, for me, was a supremely stupid way to live, as a cold night in February, 1973 brought home to me in a unique way.

            After excelling at Drill School, a sort of basic training camp for fledgling firefighters, I was assigned to Truck #3, a hook and ladder company.  The old Seagrave aerial ladder truck was stationed then at Preston and Marret Streets in old Louisville. My father had been an “engine” man in all his on-company days. They bring water to put out fires. Trucks are about ladders, ventilation, and rescue.  “Truck work?” my dad asked in a low voice. “That’s real dirty work, son, hard work.” Truck work includes cleaning up the burnt structure to ensure the fire did not start.

            Men on Truck companies carried axes instead of hoses. We brought rescue and first aid equipment, and shovels, lots of shovels. I was intrigued by all the different ladders, especially those that allow you to scale the outside of a building. I never used one outside of drill school. I did, however, use shovels, big ones to scoop out water, smaller ones to scoop out debris—for hours and hours.

            True, “Engine” men seem more like heroes, seeking out the fire to drown it.  Then, for the most part, they roll up their hoses and head back to the firehouse to shower etc. They have to be ready if another fire starts.  Its their job.  “Truck” men shovel out, then wash out the remains of the burned structure.  The best engine captains have at least their new boys help with the clean-up.  Some are just out of there, ready to hit the next fire—or go back to the firehouse for coffee and leftover chili.

            By February, 1973, I had seen enough of “truck work” to understand my father’s worries.  Truck #3 in old Louisville fought more than its share of “working fires,” those that kept Truck men shoveling for hours. One particular day of cold drizzle, Truck #3 had gone on five runs with fires. Two of them were “working” fires, where fire gets into and destroys a structure. They had been old, Victorian era houses, each over two stories.  We started soon after the eight o’clock morning roll call and shift change and did not finish until about nine that night.

            After cleaning the truck and our equipment—and myself–I tried to watch some tv on the apparatus floor.  My arms cramped so badly that they would draw up of their own accord, so I gave it up early and went upstairs to the icy bedroom of that hundred-year-old truck house. The frost froze on the inside of the windows.  The cold breezed through from one end to the other, along with old ghosts, so I went to bed in my skivvies, socks, and an LFD sweatshirt.  At my side were my “nighthawks,” insulated pants that were pushed down over a set of knee length boots.  If a run came in, the knockout—a blaring claxon—would sound, and I was supposed to step into my boots,  pull up the pants, and go.  The wake-up alarm was called the “Knockout” for obvious reasons. It roared to sudden life as every light in the world came on. It was impossible to stay in bed when it sounded. That night, between 2 and 3 in the morning, the knockout got me out of bed, right enough, but—and here’s the bad part—did not wake me.

            I had, from time to time, walked in my sleep as a child. One night, watching tv with my dad, I feel asleep with a pillow curled around my arm and tucked under my head.  When he woke me to go to bed, I tried to stuff the pillow into the breadbox in the kitchen, much to my father’s amused astonishment. No, I do not remember why, but I feel as if this might have been taken into consideration before I joined the LFD. It was not, and the consequences ensued.

            I rose from my cold bed, moving fast but still asleep, stepped around my nighthawks in my sock feet and headed for the nearest pole to slide to the apparatus floor below.  I was first at the pole but could not pull the chain that opened the trap door around the pole. My hands weren’t working.  I stood grabbing at it, missing every time.  Somebody else pulled it for me, and I wrapped my arms around the cold brass  and slid down, clutching the pole to my chest, still asleep. No, the friction of the brass pole on my naked legs did not wake me, nor did the drop to the pad at the bottom of the pole. And, though weaving on my feet, I reached the hook and ladder, shrugged into my fire coat, stepped into my regular boots which always stayed by the apparatus while I was on duty, stuck my black helmet on my head and stood in a daze, waiting to mount the jump seat. All the noises around me came from some distance—in the real world.  I stood weaving in my place in dream land, incapable of understanding the odd sounds around me, especially the voices coming at me.

            “What the hell is this?”

            “Nice legs, sweetheart,” followed by a wolf whistle.

            “Latest spring fashions in the LFD?” a clever one asked. I will spare the rest—for my own sake. Oh, sure.  I can see the humor in it—now, but…

            The next player in the drama I will mention by name: Michael J. Riley, my sergeant. At six feet six inches, two hundred and seventy odd pounds, he towered over all of us, though he took good care of me, always had my back.  He liked me for some reason, although I would bungle his orders six times out of ten. I was hopeless as a firefighter, having inherited nothing of my father’s ability. But Mike Riley accepted me like a long-lost son, though I was a foot shorter, at least.  He had seen me slide the pole without my nighthawks and had the presence of mind to scoop them up and come down the pole behind me.  True, he was probably laughing at me, too.  In truth, I sported a comical look: two thin, pale legs stuck into big black boots, showing beneath my wide black fire coat. Admittedly, I was worth a laugh, but no more so than Riley following me around, tapping my shoulder, trying to give me my nighthawks.

            “Mark, son, you are gonna need these. Buddy?”

            I remembered him saying it, and I remember thinking that all of this business had nothing to do with me. What I needed was sleep, and I was getting it, despite being out of bed with my eyes open, wandering around the hook and ladder.

            By the grace of the Lord Almighty, Truck #3 did not go on that run.  The Chemical Unit, housed beside Truck#3 and Engine #15, roared off into the cold night, the two men in its cab laughing and pointing at the ongoing pantomime of Riley following me with my nighthawks, trying with gentle taps on the shoulder to bring me back to full consciousness.

            Yes, I remember every word I said, every step I took after watching the Chemical Unit roar away: “Leave me alone,” I said in sleep slurred tones. “I’m gonna go back to bed.” Still dressed in fire coat, helmet, and boots, I wobbled up the long metal stairs, Riley at my heels. And for the life of me, I could not understand what everyone was laughing about, though there were a dozen men chuckling like giddy children down on the apparatus floor. In the firehouse, men contrived all kinds of ways to deride one another with laughter. They were good at it.  Some were mean, of course, but the men I left behind on the apparatus floor weren’t being mean, though.  They were convulsed in deep, joyous laughter over something genuinely funny—which I just did not understand. Thankfully, I cannot remember their specific comments.

            I got as far as my bed, took off my helmet and dropped it on the bed next to mine.  My dad always claimed that a hat on a bed caused bad luck.  Perhaps he learned it in the firehouse. I do remember Mike Riley’s booming voice of command ordering me back to the lights of the locker area outside the bedroom, which was dark and chill again. I desperately wanted to get back into bed, but I stumbled out to the locker room and mumbled, “What?—sir?”

            Mike had a hundred pounds on me.  His hands were immense. He gripped the front of my fire coat and lifted me off the floor, shaking me with each word: “You. Don’t. Have. On. Your. Pants!”

            When he put me back on my feet, complete awareness hit me, ninety gallons a minute, like the blast of a charged inch and a half line.  Nothing hit me but reality, waking up to what I had done and remembered in vivid detail. The reason for the laughter of the men down stairs was clear to me, as was every step I had taken, every move I had made from the second I left my bedside.  Horrible clarity had me.

            “Get your pants and shoes, please,” Mike said, in a softer voice, “and take your gear back downstairs to the hook and ladder.  I’m going back to bed.”

            He handed me my nighthawks, with me recalling how he had tried desperately to give them to me. Oh, how I wished that I could just stay in that locker room until role call the next morning.  My thoughts ran riot about ways to avoid seeing any of those men again, yet there was no escape open to me.  It was shame, silly, stupid shame that gripped me.  I had no way to explain this away. It was time to face my fate.  I crept back to the stairway door to see if anyone was still downstairs, though I knew that had to be the case.  They had not come back to bed, so they must still be there, waiting.  I cracked open the door—

            And set loose a wave of laughter from the apparatus floor. It was pee-your-pants laughter, loud, joyous, roaring, so hard that men doubled over and had to sit on the floor.  Twelve professional tough guys could not control themselves from just looking at the expression on my reddened face.  That sound followed me, echoing around the cavernous walls as I took my helmet, coat, and boots back to place them at my spot on the jump seat. I said nothing.  There was nothing to say in  answer to their myriad questions. One by one, they got themselves off the floor and went back to bed, as I did, though it was some time before I was free from the chuckles that would erupt as they thought about my wounded expression when I looked out at them.

            It would color the rest of my days as a fireman.  I even told my girlfriend about it the next day, and she laughed. Naturally, I told my Dad, and he simply said, “Oh.” I tried to explain myself, but there was nothing for it but to own up to having looked foolish in front of the whole firehouse.  They would never let me forget it.  Dad, at least, told me tales of other firemen who had done it, which helped some.  Several of those men had gone on to become really famous firefighters, leaders, captains, chiefs, even. I knew, though, that they were men with “firefighter” emblazoned on their souls. On my soul, in crayon, was the word “clown.”   

Sigh.

I stayed on company for two more years and never got much better as a firefighter, even walked in my sleep again when I was supposed to be tillering—driving the back wheels of the hook and ladder.  But that’s a story for another day. At least I can add this note to the event: as famous as he was, sliding the pole pant less was never something my farther managed to accomplish in his storied career. Luckily, I have learned to laugh at the event and even entertain people with its telling.  They will chuckle and shake their heads, knowing that they are lucky to have escaped that fate. At least moments of chilling embarrassment like this one prepared me some for other gaffs I would make, though this one, was—is—a doozy. Stories for another day, I suppose.