It was nice to be appreciated. But … “I want to be a firefighter.”
Charlie still didn’t get this, but I didn’t mind. Years later, I’d still remember what Jeff said about him being a great boss, and I’d still wholeheartedly agree.
I left Charlie’s office glowing with pride. I hopped into the truck with crazy-driver-Walter, who unfortunately had the wheel. In a good mood, I decided what the heck, let him drive.
“So how’d you do?” he asked.
“I got four excellents!”
Walter’s smile faded. “No shit? Huh. Guess I would’ve gotten a better score if I had boobs.”
That comment stung like raw whiskey.
Walter steered the truck out of the complex; I sat deep in thought. He deserved a bad review. C’mon … two accidents with a government truck? Wasn’t that grounds for firing? Still, I replayed his nasty comment in my head all day. Wounded, I wondered if the others felt the same way about me.
At day’s end I didn’t even say goodbye to anyone before I left. A stack of empty boxes sat in my living room; I’d planned to leave Flagstaff in the morning. Screw it. In record time, I packed and hit the road by eight. Driving south on I-17, I played out the horrible day. So what if they blacklisted me? I don’t want to work on the Coconino again anyway. Jerks. I’d have to find someplace else to work—where men didn’t give me a hard time. For certain I wasn’t going to give up.
JOE AND I rented a cabin in Madera Canyon for the winter. I took on landscaping jobs to tide me over. My clients loved hiring a woman: I knew this because they told me so. It seemed that not too many guys showed up on time, or, in some cases, at all. I always arrived early and did meticulous work.
In early November, I opened a letter from my mom. Inside, she’d tucked a newspaper clipping. I read her letter first, until I got to, “Isn’t this Roy?” I unfolded the clipping and read it. Twice. The obituary was indeed Roy’s: suicide at the age of twenty-three. Everything in the room blurred—my knees buckled, and I sank to the floor, crying in heaving sobs. Noooooo …
“Roy died,” I said, my voice shaky, when Joe came home for lunch.
“Who?”
I reminded him. Joe didn’t say a word. Granted, maybe he didn’t know what to say—but I needed a shoulder to cry on; after all, I’d lost someone I’d been close to. But his body language told me that wasn’t an option. After lunch, thinking I needed to explain why Roy’s death had hit me so hard, I said, “I used to love Roy as much as I love you now.” He turned to glance at me and walked away.
On the couch, with knees drawn to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them and let the tears fall. Roy and I were really over now—not that I thought we weren’t—but I guess I always thought I’d see him again someday. What tore at my heart was why Roy hadn’t reached out to me if he was that depressed. Could I have done something to save him if he had?
RAW EMOTIONS EASED after a few days, although I never shared them with Joe again. Now I had an important decision to make: where should I apply for next summer? Should I try for BLM again, or stick with the Forest Service? Sick of the sexist comments and discrimination, I thought that BLM might be a better choice. Plus, the odds of getting picked up by BLM in Alaska were good: they offered more fire positions there than in any other state. In high school, I’d toyed with the idea of homesteading in Alaska, and then going there with Roy. While I’d since dropped the notion of living off the land, I still wanted to see Alaska. Therefore, just like last year, I applied to BLM and the Forest Service, and began the long wait.
IT WAS A lovely spring day, with cottonwoods budding a hint of bright green leaves to come. I’d already run the Nature Trail and would go to work soon.
“Breakfast is ready,” I called to Joe.
“Are you going up to see your parents?” I asked, setting a plate of eggs in front of him.
“Yeah, be back later.” He patted my rear.
Joe kissed me goodbye and started up his truck. From the window, I watched him pull away, only to stop, jump out, and run back in.
“What’d you forget?”
“My watch.”
That’s when I noticed his truck, moving on its own, heading right for a tree.
“Joe! Your truck!”
Too late; it bashed into the tree, denting the fender. He ran out, shut the engine off, and stormed back inside.
“Damn it, you stupid idiot,” he yelled, punching and swinging at the air.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! It’ll be okay, it’s not that bad,” I said, stepping close to give him a hug.
With both hands, he gave me a powerful shove, sending me flying backward. I hit the floor, hard, and sat there, stunned. He continued railing, chastising himself for being stupid. With my heart pounding and body trembling, I stood up while his tirade continued. Frightened by the thought of what else he might do, I threw some clothes into a suitcase, snatched up Calley, and left. I didn’t think he even noticed, his rage was so blind.
Five miles down the road, I parked, sobbed, and trembled. Why did he do that? I’d only tried to hug him. Cried out, I wiped tears from my face and blew my nose. If I didn’t go back and deal with him, I’d have to move back home with my parents. If I left, it would be for good. Is that what I want? No, I love him. Maybe my leaving had taught him a lesson, made him realize that he could lose me. I didn’t believe he’d want that. After all, he loved me. I turned my car around.
When I lugged my suitcase into the house, he sat in the living room, his face still contorted with anger. He glared at me as I walked by. Reluctant to make a scene, I avoided him for the rest of the day. By evening, he acted like nothing had happened. My inner voice and I argued in an endless loop: You should leave. No one else has loved me so much. You shouldn’t have intervened when he was so angry. I’ll do better next time.
TWENTY-NINE
Summer of 1980: Wildwood Station, Kenai, Alaska
TWO JOB OFFERS came in the same week. How often does that happen?
Each time, I ripped open the envelope, thinking, Where to? Where to?
The first one was on the Coronado National Forest: tanker crew, at Columbine Work Center, in the Pinaleño Mountains, a glorious alpine forest one hundred miles northeast of Tucson. An unexpected, but tantalizing offer; only because I’d forgotten about this isolated gem. What made me pause? Tanker crew. Not my idea of the perfect fire suppression job. I wanted to be on the ground, digging line at the fire’s edge, not driving around depending on water and truck access to put out flames.
Then the really exciting one: Bureau of Land Management, tanker and Helitack crew combined, on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Same pay rate, but it included a ten-percent per diem increase on top of base salary. Again, a tanker crew, though. But we’re talking Alaska here. The Last Frontier.
I made a list of pros and cons for each job, including the plane ticket expense. But it was a total waste of time. I knew I what I wanted. I wanted to go to Alaska.
The letter said to call the head of Wildwood Station. My hands shook when I lifted the receiver to dial.
Gruff and curt, the man said, “You do realize that you have to pay your own way up here.”
“Of course.” Does he really think I’d assume BLM would pick up the tab?
“Kenai’s two hours by bus from Anchorage,” he said. “Best to use the local commuter plane. Takes only thirty minutes.”
After discussing a few more particulars and learning my report date, I hung up. My hand rested on the receiver. I’m going to Alaska! Who to call first? My parents weren’t home. I’d need to see if they would take Calley for the summer. My best friend Gail didn’t answer either. Joe would be home from Florida soon. I paced, checking the clock in anticipation of his coming through the door. Seven o’clock, I called the station. Maybe they had a fire.
Pete answered, drunk, with loud music and voices in the background. “Yeah, he’s here.”
Again, Joe had left me out of another impromptu party. Those were my frie
nds too, or so I thought. Maybe not anymore. Ever since I no longer worked at Florida—not by choice, which still hurt—no one who I’d considered a friend, or even the man I loved, ever asked me to join them. It was as though I ceased to exist. When Joe came home, late, we revisited that old argument.
“It never occurred to me to call you,” he said, shrugging.
That always stung. I’d gone from coworker to girlfriend to nobody important. Did he not want me there? I loved Joe, and thought he loved me, too, but I didn’t understand why he treated me this way. Well, I wanted to go explore a new place, get away from here. Maybe we weren’t right together. Maybe I wouldn’t live with him again when the summer was over. I began planning my trip.
WHAT TO PACK? For a cold and wet climate, I’d need my down vest, thermal underwear, and rain gear.Skip bringing shorts or sleeveless tops. And, time to face a reality I didn’t want to face: mosquitoes. Who hadn’t heard how huge, numerous, and voracious they were up there? My childhood was spent in mosquito-land Syracuse. The blood-suckers ate me alive. One friend insisted that vitamin B-12 kept them away, and another suggested garlic tablets. Willing to try anything, I bought both.
At daybreak on April fourteenth, my plane circled west over the Tucson Mountains, their shadows stretching for miles across the desert floor. Circling back again, I glimpsed the Santa Rita Mountains and felt a heart tug. Last, we flew past the Santa Catalinas, where I’d first met the hotshots. With a touch of unexpected sadness, I thought, Goodbye, Arizona, see you later.
Not a seasoned traveler by any means, I worried about the forty-five minutes between flights in Seattle, and whether I’d make it to Anchorage in time to catch the connecting commuter service to Kenai. In Seattle, I silently urged my fellow passengers to hurry up and get off the plane. I tore through the terminal and reached my gate as the last person boarded. I couldn’t imagine how my luggage would have made it on the plane when I barely did, but there wasn’t a thing I could do about it now.
My luggage did make it to Anchorage, but how could I possibly carry a backpack, large suitcase, duffle bag, small carry-on, camera case, and my purse? A man in a uniform came to the rescue and loaded my bags onto a dolly. We walked and walked, through seemingly endless waiting areas filled with weary passengers and families with crying, whining children. The crowds thinned. Where the heck is he taking me? A news headline flashed through my mind: “Woman Abducted by Man Posing as Airport Employee.” When I saw the sign for the commuter service, I was relieved to be able to send him on his way. After unloading my bags at the ticket counter, he extended his hand, palm up. I stared at it, drawing a blank. What did he want? Oh! A tip.Oops.All I’d brought were traveler’s checks. He frowned and walked away. The man behind the counter seemed amused by the transaction. Not particularly amused myself, I asked him if the last plane had left for Kenai.
“Nope. That’ll be sixty dollars,” he said, containing a smirk.
Luggage stacked around me, I sat in a torturous orange plastic chair along with a half-dozen others, in the tiny, cold, drafty waiting room. I huddled in an effort to stay warm. It reminded me of the derelict Phoenix bus station, although much, much colder.
A half hour after the scheduled departure time, I wondered if I’d boarded the wrong plane: vinyl seats, cracked and peeled like a bad sunburn, windows fogged with scratches, threadbare carpet—more like a cargo plane than one for paying passengers. Plus, compared to the refrigerator waiting room, I now sat in a freezer. Oh my God, I can see light coming in from outside! Wide-eyed and apprehensive, I waited for a flight attendant’s reassurance. But no, there were just us passengers on this low-budget ride. As the plane taxied to the runway, the pilot spoke over the loudspeaker. “Fasten your seat belts. Life preservers are under your seat. Thank you for flying with us.”
Life preservers? Why in the world would we need those?I gripped the armrest. Propellers gathered speed, the plane rattling like loose fenders on an old pickup. A loud bang and thump under my feet startled me. What was that? I clung to the armrest, afraid to let go. Ten minutes later, I relaxed and decided we weren’t going to fall out of the sky. I struggled to peer out my teeny window, where the formidable steel-gray Cook Inlet spanned for miles. Now I understood the life preservers, but my inner voice told me there’d be no survivors if the plane crashed into that arctic water.
Relieved to have arrived in one piece with all of my belongings, I huddled outside at a payphone and called the station, then sat down on a bench to wait. Snow fell, people scurried by in down coats, wool hats, mittens, and practical knit scarves. A white BLM van pulled up to the curb, and a guy in red high-top Keds bounced out.
“Hey, you must be Linda,” he said, dancing a jig as though trying to stay warm. We shook hands and tossed my gear in back, snowflakes dusting my shoulders and hair.
Kenai’s main street, lined with strip malls, gas stations, and grocery stores, could have been anywhere USA—except it was only seventy-seven feet above sea level. Two frosty mountains rose above the Cook Inlet like white Egyptian pyramids.
“So you braved the commuter plane,” said my driver, Aaron, fingers tapping on the steering wheel.
Bravery was necessary?
Aaron laughed heartily. “Oh, man, locals don’t use those puddle jumpers unless they have to. They’re notorious for breaking down and getting in trouble with the FAA.”
Okay, not a good first impression of my supervisor, who’d told me to take the commuter plane no local would use. Then I met the guy in person, and my impression worsened. He sported a wild beard, which connected to the bristly chest hair emerging from the open collar of his shirt. His bushy eyebrows didn’t quite hide the furrows between his eyes, formed by a permanent scowl. His thick down vest, worn over a plaid, quilted flannel shirt, added bulk to his already-stout frame. He looked like a black bear in clothes. And the first words out of his mouth?
“You’ll have to cut your hair. It’s a fire hazard.”
Uh … I stared at him, speechless. Could he make me do this? No damn way. In a voice braver than I felt, I said, “I always wear my hair braided and pinned up at work. My hair length has never been an issue anywhere else.”
He puffed out his chest. “Well, I take issue with it.”
Despite his intimidation attempt, I stood my ground. “I’m not cutting my hair.”
He huffed. “Aaron will take you to your quarters.”
Stand-off over. If I’d made a mistake coming here, there was no turning back now.
Aaron delivered me to one of the retired Air Force Base houses on the second block, identical to the ones on the first block. In fact, I worried about finding my place after I went out. The houses didn’t even have numbers. All the houses made of ticky-tacky, and they all looked just the same. At the plain, white house, void of landscaping, or even a curtain in the window, the flat, sodden grass, muddy brown spots and dingy patches of snow, depicted a thaw in process. It brought back memories of early spring in Syracuse, lacking my mom’s daffodils, tulips, and fragrant hyacinths, though. Snow flurries continued to spit like the dead of winter in New York. I was puzzled. Why hire fire crews now?
“So … when does it warm up around here?” I asked, following the bouncing Aaron up the sidewalk, toting half of my luggage.
Aaron turned, thoughtful. “Hmmm … July?”
July? I didn’t bring enough warm clothes.
Aaron unlocked the door. “Take any room you want, you’re the first one here.”
It had always served me well to be first.
In the foyer, I faced a closed door. Curious, I opened it. Steep steps led into a dark basement, smelling of damp concrete. Basements always gave me the creeps—a childhood thing. I shut the door and moved on. To my left, a bright kitchen with modern appliances connected to a small dining room. The living room was sparsely furnished with a teal couch and two plush armchairs upholstered in camel velveteen. A rickety coffee table held a few magazines. Up the staircase were the bedrooms, where, just a
s Goldilocks did, I picked the one that was “just right.” A steam radiator under the window filled the room with warm, moist air, which smelled suspiciously of wet dog.
Unpacking took all of fifteen minutes. What to do with the two hours before dinner? For the first time since I’d left, I was hungry. Where would I eat dinner? I considered exploring, but it was so bitterly cold out there.A woman’s voice floated up from below.
“Hello?”
I trotted downstairs.
A cherub-faced woman straightened after setting down a huge suitcase. She smiled and extended a pink, chubby hand. “I’m Teresa.”
We chatted, and I learned she’d work in administration. She struck me as a bit naïve, like someone fresh out of high school, which she was.
“We can get dinner at the cafeteria. Anyone tell you how it works?” she asked.
I’d planned on buying groceries, but let her explain.
“Just sign in before you eat, and they’ll deduct four dollars from your paycheck. It’s a pretty good deal. That being said, I’m cooking for myself.” She tugged at the waistline of her jeans. “I’m on a diet. I eat grapefruit all day except for dinner, when I can have anything I want!”
I nodded politely, but thought, Who’d want to eat grapefruit all day?
She went to unpack.
Bored, I decided to venture out into the deep-freeze and check out the grocery store. I strolled down the aisles and priced various foods. Sticker-shocked, I left without making a single purchase. Everything here cost triple what it cost in Tucson. I couldn’t afford to do that. Cafeteria food would have to do.
Wide awake before daylight, I stared at the ceiling, apprehensive. It’d been over a year since I fought fire. Could I still do this? What if my crew had more experience than me? Would I fit in? Would they like me? Oh, just get up and go to work.
After breakfast, I reported to the single story building, typical of city firehouses, with two extra-large garage doors to accommodate fire engines. These doors gaped wide open, so I walked into a bay, where I met a tall, slender man standing in front of a locker. Dark, curly hair extended below his wool cap, his face scruffy with week-old stubble.
Summers of Fire Page 19