by Robyn Carr
He started back the way he had come, toward the rear stairwell, but upon passing a bedroom door that was ajar, he looked in. There he saw what it was about. The room was filled with tables, glassware, sacks, tanks, tubing. A drug lab.
He grabbed the doorknob with the hand under Jim’s knees and pulled it closed. And then he got the hell out of there.
He exited the building from the back door and carried Jim around the house to the front, where the equipment was parked. The chief met them. Mike couldn’t talk until he laid Jim gently on the ground and pulled away his mask.
“Got a drug lab on the second floor, front bedroom. Maybe propane gas tanks in there. Do we have a code 2? They on their way?”
“Yep. I’ll tell ’em when they get here. And a second alarm. How’s Eble?”
“Jim?” Mike said to his friend.
“Goddamn trunk,” he groaned. “Came flying at me, hit me in the back of the knees.” He coughed. “Crunch,” he said, tears pouring down his cheeks.
Mike heard the chief telling the police to empty out the neighborhood for a half-mile circumference, and the ambulances started arriving. There were three firefighters down, but Jim had the worst injury. His leg was almost certainly broken, his head was cut and scraped and his jaw was already starting to swell. He had arm and shoulder pain as well, maybe a dislocation of the shoulder. The paramedics began cutting off his turnouts, trying to start an IV, applying bandages to his face.
Mike stayed nearby for a few minutes, looking on. He thought briefly about what Mattie and Big Mike were hearing on the scanner. On-site explosion. Code 2. Firefighters down, ambulances dispatched. Injuries. Second alarm. Arson-investigation team called in. Additional police backup. Evacuation of neighborhood.
Mike guessed what had happened. A home drug lab, doing a big business in the area, especially for kids, and somebody got ticked off—maybe wanting a bigger piece of the action, or maybe unhappy they weren’t being extended any credit. Someone had decided to set a little fire, burn them out. The do-it-yourself chemists were using propane gas and had extra tanks stored in the garage.
If the firefighters couldn’t contain the blaze in the garage, keep it on the lower level, it might reach the lab. It could turn this area into a gas chamber. Hydrogen cyanide, probably.
The Firebird—hazardous-materials men—came around the drive.
When the paramedics moved away from Jim for a few moments, Mike crouched beside him and asked, “You okay?”
“Damn. No. Got an aspirin?”
Mike smiled in spite of himself. “I gotta get back into the fire.”
“Yeah,” Jim panted. “Get the SOB. Please.”
“You bet, bud.”
Not a good fire. Oh, it would have been okay if there hadn’t been chemicals that might blow, or injuries. Mike had tackled fires in old Victorians like this one, with hallways and rooms like mazes, twisting and turning and ending up blocked. Once inside you didn’t know how you’d gotten in or where you might get out. It was a challenge. But this one was no good and it had to be stabilized before the heat got to the lab. Otherwise…
They managed to get the hose in the front door, over the debris, and hit the garage from all sides, while above, the men opened up the roof with pike poles to let the smoke and steam escape.
Mike fought it like fighting time. With vengeance and anger. The Hazmat squad in their rubber splash suits wandered through the upstairs, isolating the bad stuff, moving some of it out. Mike rallied to the race. It was a race to beat the fire before the fire beat them. And he wouldn’t take a break, wouldn’t call for relief.
He had not felt this good, or this bad, in a long time.
Dawn was dirty. The truck company would be left along with the Drug Enforcement Administration when engine 56 roared out. They smelled pretty bad. The structure was mostly intact; a lot of damage to the ground level, but the flames had never licked up against all those chemicals and gases. The DEA pulled orange tape across the site. A couple of lanky teenage boys were being cuffed and put in the back of a squad car. Arrests. For arson? Or for home chemistry? Mike hated to see anybody get away with either one. Especially since it had hurt a firefighter.
Different kinds of fires led to different kinds of feelings, especially about injuries. When you had a man injured saving a life in a legitimate, accidental fire, that was one thing. You felt proud, somehow, that one of you could be there, doing that. But when a good firefighter was downed in a torch job, or something like this, a vendetta among underworld slime that poisoned society with their drugs, it was like there was no justice. Putting out the fire just wasn’t enough.
Mike noticed that Stu, dragging along in his filthy turnouts on his way to the engine, paused at the squad car. He took off his helmet and his gloves and stared into the backseat of the police car. He spit on the ground, then moved on.
It took a while for the talk to start after a bad fire. At first it seemed there was nothing to say. Then there was so much to say, you couldn’t shut anybody up. But it was shift change. Not very many men would shower at the station; most of them wanted to get home, get out of there, before the next shift had time to think of a lot of questions.
There was one question, though, that no one would leave before having answered. And so Mike reported.
“Jim’s got scrapes, a broken collarbone, broken femur,” he said, tapping his thigh. “But he’s all straightened out, no surgery, casted up, and higher than a kite on morphine. He’ll be in a while, and it’s too soon to know if there’s any disability, but the doctor doesn’t think so. Nice clean break.”
Then he told everyone what a good job they had done. Then he thanked God for that little bit of luck that had Jim Eble all the way upstairs instead of on the steps when that propane blew. Five seconds, either way, would have cost them all dearly.
Chapter 13
Mike went to the hospital when his shift was relieved. It could have been much worse than it was, but he was not surprised that Jim’s wife, Alice, fell against him, releasing some of those pent-up tears. Hearing your husband was down in a fire was the dreaded news. Finding out he was alive was a huge relief, but temporary, because next you had to know how alive he was.
“It’s only a couple of broken bones,” Mike said. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s doing great,” she said, sniffing, “but I thought I would have a breakdown. Thank God he’s all right.”
The newspapers sometimes ran stories about downed firefighters—basically they covered the fire, part of which was a firefighter hurt and hospitalized—but they didn’t often follow up with stories about the ex–firefighter locksmith or shoe salesman. The stuff they didn’t print was the terrifying stuff. Like the early-retirement injuries. Firefighters paralyzed by a fall. There were sprains, breaks and smoke inhalation—and then there were horrific injuries that made you wonder if life was the best deal for the poor guy. Like the firefighter, some years back, who had been rendered brain damaged by carbon monoxide gas from a leaking air pack. Freak things.
Then there were the heart attacks. It wasn’t only from breathing smoke or straining the muscles; it was from the alarms. The stress, not from the fire—but from the constant shots of adrenaline that presented the flight-or-fight conflict to the body. Like getting an electric shock on a regular basis. Young men, sometimes, fell because of this.
“You doing okay?” Mike asked Jim.
“No, I’m not doing okay,” he said, trying to smile but giving a lopsided grimace through bandages that covered his right eye and chin. His arm cast was elevated, his casted leg hefted off the bed by weights and pulleys. “This had to happen right before my time off. Some luck, huh?”
“You’re not going to be in here over Christmas, are you?”
“Hell, no. I refuse to be. Everybody else okay?”
“Yeah. You left early, so you don’t know. They’re still out there, but it’s down to cleanup now. You were the big injury of the night.”
“What som
e people won’t do for attention.”
“For once you didn’t puke.”
“Didn’t have time. Never saw it coming, in fact. Boy, that sucker blew, huh?”
“Not a good fire. There were arrests before the sun came up, though. Nobody’s getting away with anything.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
The response was cynical. They both knew that the little guys with the lab might get arrested, but the big guys who financed or set up or sold the stuff would probably never be discovered. Street drugs. Chemicals. Ether. Et cetera. Who would have believed they’d come up with something more volatile, more unpredictable, than a paint-store fire? Home drug labs.
“I owe you, bud,” Jim said.
“You owe me nothing.”
“I owe you big-time. In fact, you oughta get a medal.”
“Don’t you dare. I hate those damn things. Medals are for cops. They eat that stuff up.”
“Go on,” Jim said. “Get out of here. I want the nurse.”
“What for?”
“Do I need a reason? She’s gorgeous, that’s what for.”
“I think he’s going to be fine,” Alice said with a sniff.
“Yeah, he’ll be all right. A minute, huh, Alice?” She nodded and stepped outside the room. Mike paused. He thought.
“Don’t,” Jim said.
Mike looked down. They were good at living dangerously, living on the edge of life and laying it all on the line. They were bad at being vulnerable, because in this they were unpracticed. You couldn’t admit vulnerability and act completely in control at the same time. Those gears did not mesh. This was why Mike was in trouble with Chris, and he suddenly knew it. He didn’t know what to do about it or why it had to be that way, but he knew what it was. It was one thing to tell her about weakness and pain that was ten years old; it was quite another to look her right in the eye and admit the fear and shame of the moment.
He looked at his best friend who had suffered severe bodily harm. He was about to try out emotion on him. Scary thing. What if you admitted your fallibility when you were most apt to be fallible? Could you run into the burning building then? That’s why they never talked about it. They were all afraid of the same thing—that if they thought about it too much, they’d come apart like a cheap watch.
“Don’t start,” Jim said.
“I have to. There are so many things I couldn’t have faced without you. You know that.”
“You face whatever you have to. You have before. You will again. Just don’t start this.”
“You’re my best friend,” he said, almost choking on the sentiment. He wanted to talk about the fear he had, a fear even worse than the fear that Jim had been killed. The fear of being all alone again. And the relief that he wasn’t.
“You need more friends,” Jim said.
“They can’t take me. You can.”
“Just take the thank-you and don’t get sloppy. I’m in pain. I don’t want to play with you now.”
“Okay, then. But you’re coming back.”
“Sure. Of course. It’s what I do. Anyway, lightning never strikes in the same place twice.”
“Yeah.” Mike laughed, remembering the old joke. “Because the place isn’t there anymore after the first time.”
“I’m here,” Jim said, solemn.
Mike touched the fingers that stuck out of the cast. He wanted to do more, maybe hug him. But he had done all that he could reasonably do. You’re here, old buddy. Thank God.
“See ya,” he said.
“Don’t bother me over Christmas. I’ll be busy.”
Mike knew what that meant. It meant that Jim didn’t want him to feel obligated in any way; he should feel free to pursue his holiday plans without feeling obligated to visit the injured firefighter, his best friend.
He stopped for coffee with Big Mike before going home. He felt grubby even though he had cleaned up. And tired, but too wired to want to sleep. And angry—about the fire, about near calamity, about the difficulty of life sometimes. And about Aunt Flo coming tomorrow…two days before Christmas. It had been building in him. He even wondered if his worry had been distracting him when they got to the fire. Otherwise, he might have been in the house and Jim might have visited him in the hospital. He was usually the first one in when there were people inside.
By the time Mike got to his house, it was nearly 11:00 a.m. Chris was pacing. She gave a gasp and ran to him, putting her arms around his neck and hugging him.
“Hey,” he said, laughing. “Hey.”
When she released him, there was fury in her eyes. “Why the hell didn’t you call me?”
“Call you? What for?”
“I was worried sick! I told you I can’t sleep through the sirens! You know I can’t.”
“Well, gee whiz, I was busy.”
“You weren’t too busy to call Mattie!”
“So? Did Mattie call you, tell you everything was okay?”
“Yes, but you could have called. Where have you been?”
“Look, Chris, don’t get like this on me, huh? I’m wiped out, I’m mad, and I don’t need this.”
She ran a hand down her neck. “Okay. Sorry. I was worried. I was scared.”
“Well, who knew you’d be worried? I figured you’d be polishing the goddamn silver.”
He stared at her for a minute, then he turned to go through the kitchen and to the stairs. He wasn’t going to his room to sleep; he thought he’d better get out of sight. He was already sorry, but he wasn’t sure he could stop it. He should have known it would start oozing out of him sooner or later.
He passed a pair of chewed-up socks on the stairs and picked them up with a curse. He slammed his bedroom door. Oh, please, he thought, not now. Don’t let me do this. Not like this.
But there was a new comforter on his bed. He gritted his teeth. Pillow shams. He wanted to shoot the place up. He went to his closet to change his shoes. Hanging on a hanger was a new shirt with a sweater hanging over it. He touched it. There were new pants. A new set of clothes. To wear while they entertained the aunt over Christmas?
He opened the bedroom door and called her. Loud. Angry. “Chris!” Then he closed the door, waited and seethed.
Chris opened the bedroom door and stepped in. “What?”
“She didn’t really leave, did she. She just stepped behind her big ugly checkbook for a while, that’s all. She might have seemed to leave, but she really just left you a big pot of money as a reminder of where it’s at, huh?”
“She left me some money, but—”
“So you could decorate the place and make it good enough for royalty, is that it? You know, Chris, it’s getting on my nerves to come home and find new towels, new sheets, new dishes—like my stuff isn’t good enough for you. It’s starting to really burn me up! If you want to buy a few things for my place, why don’t you try asking me if I want any of this crap? Huh?”
“Look, I wasn’t trying to—”
“And don’t buy me clothes!” He was shouting now. He took the two hangers out of the closet and threw the things on the floor. “I’ll dress myself! I’m sure it won’t meet the standards of Her Majesty, Florence, but it meets my standards. If you want to buy me clothes, buy me some damn socks. I think the damn dog has eaten the last pair.”
“I didn’t buy you that because of Flo!” she shouted back. “I bought it because of me! I liked it. I wanted to do something nice. I’ll buy socks, okay? Two thousand pair!”
“Like I don’t have anything nice?”
“You have wonderful things! I don’t have any problem with your house, or the way you dress, or—Jeez, I just wanted to give you something!”
“Well, I don’t want anything from you, because anything you give me is coming out of Flo’s pocketbook. And I’ve had it up to here with her!”
“What has she done to you that you didn’t do right back to her?”
“Besides rub my nose in my middle-class existence? Besides outfitting you and the kids for
your next appearance at court? Besides laying all these little traps for you, like your lost money? Not a damn thing, really!”
“I’m not spending Flo’s money, you big dope. I’m—”
“Don’t you ever call me a dope! Don’t ever, ever—” He stopped. He knew without looking in a mirror that his face was red, his fists clenched. He took a deep breath.
“I didn’t mean you were a dope in general, you dope. I meant you’re acting stupid over this situation, which could be a good situation if you’d let it, but you’re too stubborn and bossy to bend a little.”
“Oh, man,” he said, letting a mean laugh erupt. “I was a dope to think you could ever fit into a regular kind of life.”
“Just because I came from a wealthy family doesn’t make me irregular. You didn’t even know my family; you only met Flo when she was feeling threatened. You don’t back a Palmer into a—”
“I didn’t back her into anything. I sat there and took her abuse. You sure didn’t stand up for me. I guess I know where you stand!”
“You, apparently, don’t know anything about me! Did you hear me standing up for Flo when you went after her? You two were the ones determined to do battle.”
“I don’t want to feel this way,” he said, his teeth clenched. “I don’t want to feel shoddy. I don’t want to care, but I do care that I’m a firefighter and she has a damn empire waiting for you. I don’t like the whole damn hoity-toity, highfalutin show we have to put on! Like I can’t take her to Ma and Big Mike’s because they’re not good enough!”
“But they are. They’re better than good enough!”
“I don’t want you to be able to buy and sell me ten times over. Even if you wouldn’t, I don’t want you to be able to!”
“You’re doing this to yourself! Nobody is doing this to you! You’re being a snob. It’s you. Not me. Not even Flo!”