Beneath the Flames

by Gregory Lee Renz

  “Hear that mother?” Ralph said to Kenny. “Fucked her up good splat­tering his brains against the wall. Goddamned coward. Life sucks and then you die. Have the balls to stick it out.”

  Coward. The word jolted Mitch. Was Ralph talking about him?

  Thinking back to 9/11 and how close he had come to killing himself terrified him. And more terrifying was the fear of hopelessness returning. What do you do when every day is filled with one excruciating thought after another? How could death be worse? The young man knew about that. Mitch knew about that. He also knew returning to the farm would bring it all back.

  “See the gray matter hanging from the roof of his mouth?” Kenny said to Ralph. “That’s how you speak your mind.” He turned to Mitch. “Hey, kid, you should have seen the guy who committed suicide by drinking furniture polish. It was a terrible end, but a beautiful finish.” Kenny laughed alone at the joke. “Or what about the guy who swallowed a bottle of Midol? Didn’t kill him but never got another cramp.”

  Mitch was relieved he kept it together this time. But a young man had taken his life. The crew’s reaction sickened him.

  Before they made it back to quarters, the dispatcher sent them to extin­guish a dumpster fire followed by another one and yet another. Someone was having a good time keeping them busy.

  They finally got back around 4 a.m. and trudged to the dormitory. Ralph and Crusher went into their duet as soon as their heads hit linen. Mitch couldn’t sleep. He lay in bed agonizing about that day on the farm and whether he could have gone through with it. This guy had. His mom had.

  Two gunshots rang out from the street below. The others never stirred. Mitch waited for the run that never came.

  Mitch got up early and was soaping himself in the shower when the curtain opened and a naked Kenny climbed in behind him.

  “We shower together around here to save on water,” Kenny said. “We’re real environmentalists.” Kenny rubbed a bar of soap across Mitch’s back.

  Mitch jumped out of the shower and fled toward his locker, slipping on the cold tile floor.

  Crusher and Ralph watched from the locker room bench.

  Kenny leapt from the shower, naked and dripping. He was not a well-built man with his chicken legs and knobby knees. He strutted over to Mitch with hands on hips. “Well, I’ve never been so humiliated. Time I teach you a lesson.”

  Kenny pulled a bullwhip from an open locker. A loud crack echoed through the locker room as he snapped it at Mitch.

  Mitch stepped back. “What the hell?”

  Kenny came at Mitch. Not knowing what else to do, Mitch ran through the locker room with Kenny in hot pursuit, snapping the whip. Crusher snorted with laughter. Kenny charged after Mitch like an old lion, his saggy balls flopping back and forth. After circling the locker room twice, Kenny tossed the whip and bent over in laughter. “Mitch, you gotta lighten up and have some fun around here. It’s not all blood and guts.”

  Mitch was now convinced there was something seriously wrong with all of them.

  Crusher pointed at Mitch’s bare arm. “What’s that?”

  “John Deere emblem.”

  “That’s a jumping deer?”

  Mitch pointed at the head. “Actually, it’s a buck. See the rack?”

  Ralph squinted at the tattoo. “Fuck that. Looks like Bambi to me.”

  Kenny and Crusher stepped back.

  Ralph rammed a finger into Mitch’s chest. “You weren’t worth a shit yesterday. You’re an embarrassment. Don’t come back.”

  Chapter 15

  t

  “Don’t come back,” resonated in Mitch’s head on the drive home. How was he going survive the next eight months of the probationary period? April 8th was an eternity away.

  By the time he reached the flat, he was drained and collapsed onto the couch. Visions of the young man’s serene dark face and Maggie’s soot-darkened face tormented his dreams. One wanted to die. One fought to live. One succeeded.

  Banging on the door startled him. “Hey, Mitch. I know you in there. C’mon, get your ass up. It’s after six.” Jamal stepped inside and waved for Mitch to follow him. “Momma wants us to eat supper with her.”

  The fog cleared. “I’ll be right down.”

  The aroma of roasting beef, bacon, and cinnamon drifting from Miss Bernie’s flat had Mitch salivating like he hadn’t eaten in a week. Jamal and Miss Bernie were waiting for him at a shiny gray Linoleum table with polished chrome legs. Black Jesus looked down on them from the light purple wall. White dish towels with purple embroidery hung from the towel rack.

  Miss Bernie pointed to the empty chair. “Mitch, honey, set yourself down.”

  The table brimmed with a platter of roast beef swimming in brown gravy along with potatoes, carrots and onions, a pan of cornbread, a pot of greens with bacon, and a deep-dish apple pie.

  Jamal reached for a carving knife. Miss Bernie slapped his hand and bowed her head. “Lord, bless this bounty we’re about to share.”

  Jamal and Mitch bowed along.

  “And thank you, Lord, for protecting these two young men as they seek to do good in your world, amen.”

  “Amen,” Jamal and Mitch said in unison.

  Jamal went to work carving the roast beef.

  Miss Bernie rattled ice cubes and grape Kool-Aid into tall glasses. “So, Mitch, how that first day go?”

  “Fine.”

  “Your mouth ain’t saying the same as your eyes.”

  “Best be straight,” Jamal said. “She’ll take you to church.”

  “Had a couple of bad runs.” Mitch took a long swallow of the sweet purple liquid. “A kid killed himself and nobody cared. They even joked about it.”

  “A black boy?” Miss Bernie asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Your people white?”

  Mitch nodded. “I don’t think they’re racist, though.”

  “Umm-hmm. They tell you who they are if you watch close. My daddy told me haters didn’t hide behind fake smiles down in Alabama. Think I prefer knowing.”

  “You grow up in Alabama, Miss Bernie?”

  “Nah. Daddy move here right after I was born. They was factories all over hiring and not much down south. These streets was full a families with young’uns. We’d run the streets ’til the crickets chirped. I had so many friends. Families celebrated every little thing together.” She closed her eyes. “Oh, Mitch, I wish you could of seen what it was like back then.”

  “What was your mom like?”

  “Never knew her.” Miss Bernie gazed out the window.

  Mitch waited for an explanation. None came. “Oh, hey, Jamal, the girl who broke into my truck showed up at the firehouse with her little sister. Man, did she rip into me about turning her in. And she has these spooky green eyes.”

  “Jasmine. Think her daddy was mixed. Anyways, won’t be long, she’ll be hooking up with the One-Niners. They like ’em young when they brains soft, so they can mold them into little hoes.”

  Miss Bernie slapped Jamal’s hand. “You keep talking foul language, boy, and I’ll lay a knot on that big old head of yours.”

  “It’s true, Momma.”

  “I don’t need to hear about that foulness in my home.”

  “Miss Bernie, I’m supposed to tutor those kids and I don’t have a clue,” Mitch said.

  Miss Bernie narrowed her eyes at Jamal. “You talking about the Rich­erson girl?”

  Jamal nodded.

  “Umm, umm, umm. That family sure know what the devil look like up close.”

  She turned to Mitch. “Why you wanna help those children?”

  “I want to show my captain I can do something right.”

  “Don’t care nothing about them children, just showing off to your boss?”

  “I don’t know. They sure don’t like me much.”

  Miss Bernie pointed her fork at Mitch. “You best decide what you wanna do, help those children, or show off to the boss.”

  They ate in silence while Mitch�
�s mind wandered back to the farm and how Maggie and the other neighbor kids flocked around him at social functions. When Mitch was around children, he was a kid again, full of fun and mischief.

  “Miss Bernie, how do I help them? I really don’t have a clue.”

  “Show them you care. Black kids no different than white.”

  After they finished eating, Miss Bernie sent them to the porch while she washed dishes.

  “Got any brothers or sisters?” Mitch asked Jamal.

  “A sister, Latonya. We called her Lettie. She run off over eight years ago. Her and Momma butt heads bad when she got to be a teenager. She smart and stubborn like Momma and look just like her, small and pretty. I take after my daddy, big and dumb.”

  “Dumb? Yeah, right. Look what you taught this dumb farm boy.”

  “True that.”

  “Whatever happened to your dad?”

  “Pains Momma that Lettie gone but not that he left. Hey, what was the other bad run?”

  “It was sickening. An old lady was rotting in a back bedroom, covered in maggots.”

  “That some nasty shit. Nobody know she dead?”

  “She wasn’t dead.”

  Jamal’s mouth gaped open. “Damn.”

  “And there were people in the house who didn’t give a crap about her. One had gold teeth and a One-Niner’s tattoo on his neck.”

  “Over on Clarke, around 19th?” Jamal asked.

  “How’d you know?”

  “One-Niner’s crack house. They all suck the glass dick. Dude with the gold teeth is DeAndre. Used to call him DeeDee when we back in school. Momma took him in as a foster child when his momma went away. Dude’s mind is gone. Who else there?”

  “Two rough-looking guys and a young girl.”

  “She knocked up?”

  “Big as a house.”

  “Oh, man. That LaMont’s baby sister, Chirelle. She only fifteen.”

  “LaMont know?”

  “He know better than to say something.”

  “What about the cops?” Mitch asked.

  “People who talk end up a blood stain on the sidewalk.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Soon’s I get ahead, I’m getting Momma out.”

  * * *

  Mitch reported for duty before sunrise. The firehouse was dark. Two small round holes in one of the aluminum overhead doors caught his attention. The engine and crew were out, so he headed to the kitchen.

  While scouring a baking pan, he heard the rat-a-tat-tat-tat of the rig’s Jake brake as it slowed. Mitch trotted to the front and opened the overheads. The blue-shift crew rolled up in a battered fire engine that looked like it should be parked in a museum. They backed into quarters, the teedle—teedle— teedle of the backup warning system chiming. The crew jumped off, reeking of smoke, their faces streaked with sweaty soot.

  “We used ten sections,” the driver called back to the others.

  DeWayne, Nic, and a firefighter Mitch didn’t know went to work yanking sections of dirty, wet hose off the fire engine.

  Mitch climbed into the hose bed and Nic followed. They worked shoulder to shoulder arranging fresh hose into neat folds. He tried to give her room, but she kept rubbing against him and smiling to herself. Mitch knew what she was trying to do and it was working. He adjusted himself to hide his arousal.

  “What did you guys have?” Mitch asked, glancing at her clinging T-shirt.

  “Another squib vacant. Somebody ought to show these assholes how to start a real fire. We should have been first in, but Thirty’s ran by us before we could get to our masks.”

  “The masks?”

  “They’re in a side compartment on this old piece of shit. The other crews are masked up before we even get to ours. Sucks. Get anything last shift?”

  “Just dumpsters.”

  Nic pressed her warm, wet T-shirt against Mitch’s arm. She whispered, “Join me in the shower? You can wash my back.”

  Her hot breath in his ear turned his brain to mush.

  Nic leaned back and laughed. “Or would you rather get in the shower with Kenny?” She cupped Mitch’s ass.

  “Nice.” She climbed off the rig. Mitch had to wait for the embarrassing bulge to fade.

  Mitch stopped by the office to see if Lieutenant Laubner, the blue-shift officer, needed anything. His black hair was neatly combed, his face clean, no soot.

  “Anything you need me to do?” Mitch asked.

  “What the hell did you buffoons do to get the rig shot up?”

  “I don’t remember anybody shooting at us. I think I’d remember that.”

  “Don’t be a smartass. You didn’t see the holes in the overhead?”

  “Saw them when I came in.”

  “The rounds went through and hit the front of our rig. Now we got this old Mack while they fix ours, thanks to you idiots.”

  Lieutenant Laubner waved him off. “Get the hell out of my sight.”

  * * *

  Mitch’s crew filtered in. His stomach jumped when Ralph ambled over. “See you didn’t take my advice.”

  “Nope.”

  Ralph chewed on his cigar, squinting at him, challenging him. “Shame.”

  Mitch’s jangled nerves had him on edge, but he refused to respond.

  Ralph flicked cigar ashes on Mitch’s shoes and walked away. “Fucking cub.”

  The captain, Ralph, Crusher, and Kenny were scarfing down rolls when Mitch stopped by the kitchen to make coffee. Tobacco smoke hung over the crew. Department rules against smoking in the firehouse were ignored on the red shift.

  “Mitch, you hear any gunshots last shift?” The captain asked.

  “Yeah, it was early in the morning after our last run.”

  “Keep the overheads closed from now on. Cops think it was the One- Niners. They shook them down over that old lady.” The captain peered over his reading glasses at Ralph. “And loud-mouth over there had to jump in their shit.”

  Ralph chewed on his cigar like he didn’t hear, then mouthed, “Fucking assholes.”

  The captain raised his eyebrows. “What, Ralph?”

  “Nothing, boss.”

  “Good.”

  * * *

  Late in the morning, Mitch checked in with Kenny to help prepare the noon meal.

  “Hey, wanna see my dick?” Kenny asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  He handed Mitch a huge stainless steel butcher knife. “Read the inscription on the blade.”

  It read Dick Cutlery.

  Kenny chuckled. “Like the feel of my dick in your hand?”

  Mitch grinned.

  “Careful, it’s got an edge like a straight razor.” Kenny pointed to a long scar from his thumb to the middle finger. “Did that last year. Had to go in for stitches. When the doc asked what happened, I told him I laid my hand open with my dick. Should have seen the look on the nurse’s face. Almost as good as yours.” He handed Mitch a box of mushrooms. “Here, cut the jibas for the stroganoff.” He winked at Mitch. “Be careful with my dick.”

  Chapter 16

  Over the next two weeks, Mitch’s shift had two minor kitchen fires, one dryer fire, and two garage fires. Even these minor fires were challenging in the August heat. The heavy gear trapped body heat and quickly sapped energy. Crusher hosed them down with cool water when they emerged from the fires to keep them from passing out.

  Mitch got the pipe—the nozzle—at these smaller fires. Any serious fires would have Ralph on the pipe with the boss and Kenny backing him up. Mitch would be outside feeding hose.

  Mitch got comfortable with the long list of duties but was frustrated by Ralph’s constant nagging. Toilets and sinks were never clean enough, the fire engine never shiny enough, floors never swabbed properly, and grass never mowed right. On EMS runs, he bitched that Mitch was too slow with vitals or setting up the oxygen. When Mitch got the pipe at minor fires, he opened it too early or too late or too fast. The only way he was going to prove himself to the crew and the captai
n was at a good working fire.

  Another day passed without that fire and without kids to tutor.

  On the way home, he thought about giving Jennie another call. He’d been calling, hoping she had cooled off and was ready to talk but all she’d say is he knew where to find her, then hang up.

  * * *

  When Mitch returned from work in the morning, Miss Bernie met him on the porch with her arms clamped over her chest. “C’mon up here and set yourself down.”

  The porch swing creaked as Miss Bernie lowered herself onto it. Mitch sat across from her in the wicker loveseat padded with bright purple floral cushions.

  “Seem like you been steering clear of me.”

  What could he say? She was right.

  “You helping those kids or not?” The weathered swing squeaked while she rocked.

  “No, ma’am. They haven’t been back.”

  “Why not?

  “I don’t—”

  “You don’t what? Don’t care?”

  “No. It’s not. I don’t know.”

  “You giving up on those children?”

  “Well, maybe they gave up on me,” he said louder than intended.

  Miss Bernie heaved herself from the swing and wagged her finger. “Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Mitch. Think the only way to save people is pulling them out of burning buildings? These kids around here are dying just like if they in a fire. They just dying slower.” Miss Bernie stood over him and jammed her fists onto her hips. “Want to be a hero, figure how to help those young’uns. Might help put out what’s burning inside you. You think you hiding all that pain? It’s written all over your face. That’s all I got to say. Now go sleep on it. Then do something before it’s too late for them or you.”

  The screen door slammed behind her.

  * * *

  Miss Bernie was bent at the waist in the sweltering August heat, pull­ing weeds from her vegetable and flower garden when Mitch came down after catching a morning nap. Neat rows of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and acorn squash brightened the small plot with vibrant reds and greens. The edge of the garden blazed with blooming lavender bushes. The scent of lavender reminded Mitch of the smell of Jennie’s hair. He pictured her freckled face and warm eyes. God, how he missed her. Would they ever be together again?