Chapter 3

Marco: Not the Gardener

My stomach fell as soon as I heard the address of the call. It was the richest street in the richest neighborhood in my station's district. Great. In addition to being a second-class citizen in my own workplace, thanks to my orange probie helmet, I could look forward to the disdain of some rich fake-blonde Anglo lady who thought firemen should all be pale Irishmen, and that Mexicans should be wearing sombreros and working in the garden.

Just like my nemesis at the station did.

Most of the guys were okay towards me. I mean, everyone was in on some of the practical jokes and such, but that was the sort of thing I expected as a probie. It was all in good fun—good-natured teasing and harmless pranks. But Grady (nice Irish boy, right?) always took things just a little further. Not enough to get him in trouble, but just enough that I could tell there was some malice behind his actions. The worst thing he did, by far, was to purposely tell me the wrong way to do things. Again, nothing dangerous, but things that would just make me look stupid. In the six months since I started my probie year, I'd figured out most of his tricks, but since he was the lieutenant in charge of our truck company, he got to tell me what to do when I had the bad luck to be assigned to the ladder truck instead of the engine.

We arrived at the house. Smoke was pushing from several first-floor windows. The neighbor who called us said she thought the lady was out shopping, because her car wasn't in the garage. She didn't think anyone was home, because the maid's car was usually parked on the street, and it wasn't there either. We could all hear the vigorous barking and yapping that suggested that there were probably several frenzied dogs inside.

The engine's crew established a water supply and started zig-zagging a hand-line to the front door, while our crew laddered some windows and started our most careful forcible entry techniques.

I finished my ladder assignments, and returned to Grady for a new assignment.

"Probie! You get dog duty."

That sounded like a shitty job. I almost cracked myself up thinking that, but I held it in because I knew it would piss Grady off. "Um … okay. What does that mean, exactly?"

"You're in charge of making sure that the dogs get out, but don't run away."

Great. I hated dogs, and they hated me. I could hear the barking coming from inside the house, and it sure sounded like a lot of dogs. I didn't really get what he wanted me to do, and "dog duty" was not exactly something that was covered in the academy.

"Well? Go on! Get a safety belt, and some rope, and get to it!"

I didn't really have a choice but to follow his orders, though I had no idea how a safety belt could possibly come into play. It was probably another one of those things he said just to try to make me look like an idiot. But, I did what he said, and put on a safety belt and some rope, and stood by the door just as the forcible entry team popped the lock and entered the house. It took a while longer that way, but there didn't seem to be flames, and there wasn't anyone in the house, and it was a huge ornate wooden door that the owners probably would've been really pissed if we broke.

As soon as the door opened, two poodles—the big kind with the ridiculous looking puffballs on their legs and tails—trotted out. I grabbed the first one by its collar, and looped my rope through a ring on its collar that was probably where a leash would go. Its companion tried to get past me, but I was quicker than he?—she?—it was. I put the rope through that one's collar ring too.

That took care of the barking dogs. But what about the yapping ones?

I could hear from the chatter on the HTs that the attack line crew had found nothing but a smoldering pile of something or other in the oven. But the smoke smelled toxic—it was thick, and black, and nasty. So there was nothing for it—I'd have to go in after the yappers. I tied the rope with the two big poodles attached to it to a section of the wrought-iron fence. I went back to the truck, packed up, and marched inside, in search of the yapping.

If dogs don't like me in general, they really don't like me in full turnout gear and SCBA. I found the first yapper on the couch in the living room. It was a lap-sized version of the monstrosities I'd left outside. I grabbed it under one arm, and carried it, snarling furiously, out to the truck. I should clear that up—it was the dog that was snarling furiously, but I was well on my way. I left the dog with its larger friends, on a short length of rope, and headed back inside in search of one more cute little puppy dog that I knew was still in there.

I held my breath for a few seconds, because I found that if I was breathing at all, the noise from the regulator masked the frantic high-pitched yipping, on every breath, and I needed to find that one last canine and get it the hell out of the house. I searched the living room first, because that was where the sound seemed to be coming from.

Nothing.

I held my breath again, and followed the sound around the corner, into a dining room that looked like something out of a medieval castle. There was a table that had to be thirty feet long, and right smack in the middle was an even smaller poodle. It was so small it looked like it could fit in my mother's teapot, so naturally, that kids' song about "I'm a little teapot" started going through my head.

The dog was terrified. Every time I came near it, it high-tailed it to the opposite end of the table. I chased it back and forth a few times, and realized I didn't have a snowball's chance in L.A. of catching the thing without some tricks.

The kitchen must have been through the swinging door. I could picture a butler with a silver tray making his way solemnly through the door, but what really happened was I went through it, and opened the fridge, looking for anything that might be dog-bait. Happily, there was a package of ham right in the front, so I unashamedly took a slice. Parker, from the engine company, had just finished hanging a negative pressure vent fan in a window, and looked at me oddly.

I ignored him, and reached up to a large rack hanging on the ceiling, and took down the biggest cooking pot I could find. I found its matching lid, and returned to the dining room. I put the ham on the end of the table, and waited.

He couldn't resist it. He darted down to my end of the table, growling pathetically at me and giving me the evil eye, but he just couldn't resist. When he reached the ham, I clanged the cooking pot over him, slid the pot to the edge of the table, and glided it out onto its lid. I slowly turned the pot right side up, and, being sure to hold the lid on tightly, took the pot outside.

As I prepared to extricate the dog from the pot, the song came to me again. "Tip me over and pour me out!"

"Probie!"

Great. I still had the pot in my hands, and it was reverberating with high-pitched barks.

"Quit being a yard-breather! And what the hell do you have that pot for?"

He was right—there was no excuse for breathing air out of your bottle once you were outside of the smoky environment, but I'd need one hand to shut off the flow from the regulator and detach it from my mask, and I needed both hands to manage the pot and its lid.

I set the pot on the ground, and put a boot on the lid while I went off air and took my mask off.

"Sorry. I've got the last dog, here."

To my dismay, there was a richly attired woman standing just outside the fence, watching our every move. Probably the homeowner. Terrific. This was probably a prize show dog, or something, and I had it in a cooking pot.

"In a pot?" Grady bellowed. "Jesus Christ. Never mind. Get it out, and go get the other dogs the hell out of the way. Everyone's tripping over the damned things."

"Yessir," I said. Great. Chewed out in front of the homeowner. Just what I needed. She'd probably sue me anyhow, for putting her expensive dog in her expensive pot.

"Well?" Grady shouted. "Don't just stand there! Get a move on!" He was putting on his best show of yelling at "the help" in front of the rich lady, no doubt about it.

I was glad for my heavy fire gloves and turnout coat as I lifted the lid off the pot and scooped the tiny poodle out. If he hadn't pissed in the pot, and hadn't immediately latched his teeth onto the thumb of my left glove, I might've even thought he was kinda cute. I put my last length of rope through the itsy bitsy collar, and carried him over to his, uh, housemates.

I pondered the puzzle of how to get all four dogs the hell out of everyone's way. I patted the pockets of my turnout gear, hoping that feeling what I had in each pocket would make me think of an idea. As I patted the pockets nearest my waist, I felt the safety belt, and a plan suddenly fell into place. I tied the tiniest dog's rope to the metal ring on one side of my belt. I untied the end of the middle-sized pup's rope from the fence, and added it to the ring as well. The two large dogs were on the same rope—the same really long rope—so I untied that rope, made it into a loop, and pulled most of the loop through the ring on the other side of the belt.

I looked and felt ridiculous, with four dogs leashed to my safety belt. I figured that "out of the way" was probably best interpreted as "outside the fence." So, much as I didn't want to approach the homeowner, who, as I suspected, was an obviously-fake blonde, with overdone makeup and nails, I went through the gate. Half the dogs were pulling me forwards, and the other half were pulling me backwards, as they tried to scrabble their way back into their house, too dumb to know they were safer out here with me.

As soon as we were through the gate, I nearly got knocked down by the force of all four dogs rushing towards their owner at once. There was nothing I wanted less than to have a discussion with this lady, but there was also nothing I could do about the fact that her dogs were taking me there. So I pretended that I was going that way anyhow.

"I, uh, have your dogs, ma'am." I winced inwardly. Of course I had her dogs. Any idiot could see that.

But she hadn't heard me. She was kneeling on the ground, cooing and talking to her dogs. She patted each one over and over, and they licked her face and slobbered all over her finery. Maybe she wasn't as stuck up as I'd assumed, since she didn't seem to mind. She sure did seem to love those dogs—she hadn't asked me a thing about her house—she was only paying attention to her dogs. Who were still tied to me.

After a minute or two, she stood up. She looked at the dogs, and said, in a firm tone, "Sit."

All at once, the four unruly beasts plopped their butts on the sidewalk, looking up at her adoringly, from varying heights.

"Did you get all four of my dogs out, all on your own?" she asked.

"Uh, yes ma'am. I'm, uh, sorry about putting the little one in the pot, but he was so scared, and I didn't want him to get hurt if I grabbed him, and—"

"Think nothing of it," she said. "I'm so grateful. Nothing in that house means a thing to me except my dogs, and nobody here but you seemed to care about them at all. So thank you, very much." I wasn't so good at accents, but hers sounded maybe a little Southern.

"You're welcome." I decided to ignore the fact that I wasn't really a dog person—they could probably smell my cats even through my turnout gear. I then remembered the awkward mess of rope still connecting the dogs to my belt. "Uh, would you like me to untie them?"

She laughed. "Oh, good heavens, no! Without their leashes, and with all this commotion going on, they'd be all over the place." She looked at the belt. "But I suppose that means you're stuck here, though—I'm sorry, you probably have important things to be doing, Mr., ah …"

"Lopez," I said. "It's all right—my boss said I should take care of the dogs, so I'm happy to help out until you can get back in your house."

"Lopez?" she said. "I thought I heard that rude fellow call you something else."

"Probie," I said. "That's the nickname for anyone who's new, like me—short for 'probationary.' That's what the orange helmet means."

"Well, never mind. Thank you very much, Mr. Lopez. I'm Eliza Gibson, by the way—that's my house. Well, I guess that's fairly obvious. Do you know what happened? Nobody's bothered to tell me anything other than 'Nothing to worry about, ma'am, we've got everything under control.'" She did a pretty good imitation of Grady's pompous way of talking, and I couldn't suppress a laugh.

"I think something was smoldering in the oven. It didn't seem like food—maybe something plastic, or rubber, from the smell of it."

She had a blank look on her face for a moment, and then smacked her palm to her forehead. "Holy shit. Pardon my French. The dog toys. Ohhh, how could I be so stupid?"

"Ma'am?"

"Unbelievable," she muttered to herself. "I know exactly what happened." She shook her head. "This is so embarrassing, I can't believe it. I washed the dogs' toys this morning, and some of them were just taking forever to dry, so I put them in the oven—just on low heat, you know—but, I guess I kind of … forgot."

As if to prove her right, Parker emerged from the house, carrying two oven racks with various melted and charred pieces of plastic and rubber fused to them. Pete Martin was right behind him, with what looked like the heating element from the oven and the piece of sheet metal that was beneath it.

Mrs. Gibson looked on in dismay. "Bob is going to kill me." She looked up at me again. "That's my husband. He tends to be very … particular about things."

"Well," I said, "the good news is it was just the oven—there wasn't any fire that spread. You'll probably have to get a cleaning service in that specializes in smoke damage, because a lot of things will have absorbed the odor. But you should be able to be back in the house any time now. There are two really big fans going, to blow the smoke out of the house, and fresh air is coming in through all the windows we opened."

"Fresh air?" she said. "We're in L.A., remember?"

"Okay, well, non-smoky air, then." I couldn't believe it—this lady was actually joking with me. It was … unexpected. Kind of made me feel bad about my assumptions. But in a good sort of way. Like, reaffirming the idea that maybe most people are actually all right.

I cut that thought short as I saw Grady come through the gate. I was sure I was about to get chewed out for something or another, just like always.

"Lopez! Quit bothering the lady, and find something to do. There's no time to stand around on a job like this!" He turned to the lady. "Ma'am, I'm Lieutenant Grady. Sorry if Lopez here is bothering you. He's new. I'll find him something useful to do."

She pulled herself up to her full height, which, with her heels, brought her nearly up to his shoulder. Her fierce glower added another inch or two to her height.

"Mr. Grady," she said, purposely not using the title he flaunted to her, "Mr. Lopez here, new though he may be, took care of my dogs, which as far as I'm concerned is about the most useful thing anyone here has done. I asked him to please stay here and hold onto the dogs. And, considering that there are four men standing in the yard doing absolutely nothing, don't you think he could hang onto them for a few more minutes?"

Grady took a step backwards. "Uh, I suppose so, if he's not bothering you."

"No," she said, as if speaking to a three-year-old, "he's not bothering me. In fact, he's the only one who's bothered to tell me anything about what's going on in my house, other than what a fabulous job you're all doing of getting things under control."

"Uh, yes ma'am. You should be able to go back in soon—the fans are just—"

"Yes, I know. He explained to me. And another thing—you didn't have to shout at him. And don't think I didn't hear you take the Lord's name in vain, either."

Yes, definitely a Southern accent.

"Uh, yes ma'am, sorry ma'am." Grady cleared his throat. "I, uh, should get back to work. We'll have you back in your house in a jiffy."

She shot knives at him with her eyes. "Thank you," she said coldly.

Boy, I was gonna get it from Grady when we got back to the station. I knew I would. She knew it too.

"Is he in charge of your station?" Mrs. Gibson asked.

"No, ma'am. That would be Captain Ferguson. He's the one with the white stripe on his helmet. I don't see him right now—he must be inside."

"Ferguson. Right." She pulled a notebook from her bag, and wrote down his name. "And what's your station? Oh, Station 8, of course—it's all over your trucks. Can you give me the address of the station?"

"Sure." I gave her the address, with silent glee that perhaps Grady might get knocked down a notch or too. Not that it would save me from whatever he had planned for me later today.

"Thank you, Mr. Lopez. I'll be sure to speak with your captain before you all leave."

"Thank you, ma'am," I said, humbled by her kindness, and by my own poor assumptions about how a lady in her position would behave towards me.

As if he knew it was time for him to make his entrance, Cap came out of the house, trailed by two of the other guys from the engine, each carrying a negative pressure fan.

"That means they're done, right?" she asked.

"Probably. It will still smell bad," I warned, "but if Captain Ferguson lets you back in the house, it's safe."

"All right."

The dog from the pot barked as Cap approached.

"Quiet, Bruce!" Mrs. Gibson said.

Bruce? A pretty unlikely name for a poodle, but I wasn't going to say anything.

"Ma'am? I'm Captain Ferguson. It seems you had some plastic or rubber burning in your oven. Nothing else caught fire, luckily, but the oven's a loss for sure. You should have a talk with your maid, or whoever left those things in there."

"Well, it's myself I'll be having the talk with, actually," she said. My estimation of her character rose another few notches. "Entirely my fault. I feel like an idiot. But—thank you very much for taking care of everything. Your lieutenant didn't explain very well what was going on, but Mr. Lopez here filled me in nicely. And I truly appreciate that he was able to get all my dogs out safely. That couldn't have been easy—they're a real handful, especially young Bruce. Mr. Lopez was very clever to bring him out in a pot—I never would have thought of that."

Ferguson nodded to me. "Good work, Lopez. Can you help the lady get her dogs back to the house? Then we'll be on our way."

"Yessir, Cap."

I walked tiny Bruce and his companions back to the house. I wiped my feet on the doormat, and followed Mrs. Gibson into the grand foyer that I'd hardly noticed my first time in the house. She took four leashes off a peg by the door, and hooked them to each dog in turn. I untied the ropes from my belt, and the dogs from the ropes. While I was down on a knee untying the last dog, one of the big poodles gave me a sloppy dog kiss, right on the face.

I didn't mind all that much.

Mrs. Gibson extended her hand, and I took off my glove, and shook her hand.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Lopez."

"You're very welcome, Mrs. Gibson."

~!~!~!~

One week later, Cap called me into his office.

"We just got a letter from the dog lady from last week."

"Oh, Mrs. Gibson?" I asked. "That's nice."

"She made a donation to the Widows and Children's Fund, in your honor, to the tune of two grand."

My jaw dropped. I couldn't think of anything appropriate to say, so I just didn't say anything.

"Nice work, Lopez."

"Thanks, Cap."

TBC