WARNING: This chapter deals with the death of a child. It's not graphic, but this topic warrants a warning for emotional content.

Chapter 2.

Hank Stanley: The First Worst Call

Nobody was saying a damned thing. Usually there was some chatter in the cab, even on the way back from the toughest fires, the ones that take what seems like forever to get even remotely under control, and then have us overhauling the wreckage till we're dead on our feet. Griping about idiots, or gallows humor, perhaps—but at least something to cut the silence.

But tonight? Nothing.

I was doing my best not to cry, and it was pretty god-damned hard. I could tell Parsons, kitty-corners across from me in the cab, had lost that battle. I was pretty sure I'd lose it soon myself.

I felt worst for Calhoun, our engineer. He had to keep it together enough to drive us all back to the station. The rest of us could lose it whenever we wanted, but not him.

I could see Captain Jefferson in the officer's seat, next to Calhoun. He had his head buried in his hands. Even Caps are allowed to break down for something like this. I'm pretty sure we all are.

Calhoun backed the ladder truck into the bay, and we all got out slowly.

"Take ten, boys," Jefferson said. "Then we'll hang hoses and get our truck back in service."

I knew then that I was being given permission to lose it. I went out to the parking lot, and yanked open the heavy door of my Plymouth sedan, sat down in the driver's seat, and slammed the door shut. My sobs were deafening in the silence of the car.

I ran through the whole thing in my head, over and over and over. He was under the bed—just where we're taught to look for children. I couldn't see a thing, of course, but as soon as I felt there was a bed next to the wall I was following with my hand, I knew I'd find the missing child under that bed. I just knew, somehow, that Parsons and I were searching the right room.

I dragged the limp form out from under the bed, and kept him on the floor all the way to the window where we'd come in. All the while, I was yelling as loudly as I could to Parsons. "I got him, I got him! Let's get out!"

Parsons must've heard, because he was at the window, swinging himself out onto the ladder and ready to take the child down to the ground. I handed the boy to him, and stayed low under the window until Parsons was off the top fly of the ladder and I could safely begin to descend.

By the time we were both on the ground, I still hadn't gotten a look at the child. But I could see his limbs flopping bonelessly as Parsons rushed him to the safe area next to the truck. I pulled the oxygen cylinder out of the compartment above us, turned on the flow of the precious gas, and slipped the tubing between Parson's lips and the boy's face, so the boy would be getting more than just the hand-me-down oxygen left in Parson's exhalations.

I got my first look at the boy when I approached with the oxygen. He wasn't burned—not at all. But his lips were blue, and his skin was gray.

At first I tried to convince myself that it was just soot—it would wash off, and his lips would pink up as soon as he got some good air.

His lips never got pink. And it wasn't just soot. It was death. It wouldn't ever wash off.

And that gray little face was burned into my consciousness, forever.

I sat behind the wheel of my Plymouth and bawled. I pounded the dashboard so hard I probably broke something, but I didn't care. I was furious at the world, enraged at the drunk downstairs who fell asleep smoking a cigarette—he got out fine, of course. I raged, and stormed, and kicked, and screamed, until nothing was left except tears, and an indelible image of a gray little boy.

I turned the whole incident over in my head, again and again. Next time, I'd be faster up the ladder—faster to do the primary search of the other bedrooms. Faster to find the child hiding under the bed, where he thought the smoke couldn't get him. Maybe, if I'd been better, faster—not a dumb probie, but a seasoned veteran—I would've gotten to him in time. I'm sure Captain Jefferson would have sent the more experienced pair in as a search team if they hadn't gotten bogged down by the piles and piles of junk the guy in the downstairs apartment had stacked in every room.

My handkerchief was a sodden mess by the time I realized I'd been outside for far more than the ten minutes Cap had granted us. I swiped it over my face one more time, though, and blew my nose. I was still crying, but it was just tears and snot—the screams and sobs had gotten tired and worn out, and needed to rest. I laid my forehead on the steering wheel, and tried to steel myself to return to the job.

The passenger's-side door opened, and I felt the cushy suspension bounce as someone sat next to me on the wide bench seat. The door shut with a metallic click. I didn't have to look to know who was sitting next to me.

I sniffled, and tried to pull myself together in front of my captain.

He laid a hand on my shoulder, but didn't say anything for a while. I forced my tears down to a trickle, but still had a lump in my throat the size of a basketball.

"These are always the hardest ones, Hank."

"I wasn't fast enough," I blurted. "Someone else—Ernst, or Needham—could've gotten him out alive."

"No, Hank. They couldn't have. But even if they could have—they weren't there. You were. You did everything right. And that's one of the worst parts of the job—when we do everything right, and people die anyhow. The only thing that's worse is when we screw up and people die. But that's not what happened tonight. You understand?"

I swiped my wrist across my eyes. "Yes. No. I mean, how can anyone understand anything so senseless? He was just a kid, Cap—practically a baby!" I looked at my captain imploringly, as if he could somehow fix what I was feeling.

Cap shook his head. "It's not something we're meant to understand, is what I think. And the day I tell someone that this sort of thing gets easier every time—well, that's the day I know I need to hang up my helmet for good. Because it doesn't get easier, Hank. Not when there's kids involved."

I thought about what he'd said, and realized he was right. If something like this was ever easy, or if it even seemed possible to deal with, then it was time to quit. I laid my head on the steering wheel again, and closed my eyes.

The image of the gray face came to me as soon as my eyes were closed. And Cap could tell exactly what was happening in my head.

"He's gonna stick with you for the rest of your life, Hank. I don't know what exact picture you're seeing now, but you're gonna see it over, and over, and over, for the next few days. And then one day, you'll maybe notice at lunchtime that you hadn't seen the picture yet that day. And another day, you'll notice at supper time. Later on, you'll notice at bedtime that you hadn't thought about it all day, and then you'll be up that whole night."

"But someday, you'll get up in the morning, and realize that you didn't think about that kid for the whole previous day. And then you'll feel terrible, for starting to forget him. But there will come a day, Hank—and I promise you this—when you'll see the picture in your mind, and be able to put it away and move on. You'll still get the picture out sometimes—it's yours, forever and ever, whether you want it or not, because he was your first kid. But the picture will start to come out less and less, and finally, you'll only ever get it out on purpose, or when something specific happens to remind you of it. "

If it had been anyone else telling me that, I wouldn't have believed it. I didn't see how I could possibly get past what I'd seen tonight.

But he understood. So I believed him.

I felt a sense of calm wash over me, wrapping itself around the sorrow, the guilt, the pain, so they were still there, but somehow didn't hurt me as much. I took a deep breath, and let it out shakily.

"It's a rough road we drive on in this profession, Hank. And sometimes, the best we can do is just get back on the road, and carry on."

I wiped my eyes, and blew my nose one last time.

"Yeah. Okay," I said.

We got out of my car, and I joined Parsons and Needham at the hose tower. Nobody needled me, or even said anything at all about how I'd disappeared. We just quietly hoisted the wet hoses up to the top of the tower, and trooped back into the station when we were done.

For the entire rest of the shift, nobody called me "Probie." Just for one night, I had my own name back, like I was a real person to the rest of the crew. It was a little thing, but it reminded me that they'd all been there too. Hell, even Cap was a probie once, way back when.

As I lay awake in my bunk, I could hear the other men shifting and stirring as well. Nobody was going to sleep well for what little was left of our night. I thought about what Captain Jefferson had said. He'd been a fireman for over fifteen years—since I was just a little older than the boy who died tonight. I'd been at it for all of six months. So I just had to take his word for it—that sometimes the best we could do was just carry on.

I tried to put myself in Cap's shoes—maybe in a decade I'd have my turn to put some young probie back together again after something like this. I just hoped I'd do as good a job as him.

TBC