Ladder Company

A group of firefighters, officers, and engineers who staff a ladder truck.

 

“Fuck,” I murmur to myself, dragging my palms over my face, frustrated sleep isn’t happening for me.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, I notice it’s a little after three in the morning. It’s officially Christmas Eve.

I hate it when I can’t sleep. Mostly because any rest I get is needed.

Still, I lie awake at night. Hazard of the job?

Maybe. I’m a firefighter, and we have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

For close to an hour, I lie here listening to the sounds of the fourteen guys around me, some snoring, some talking in their sleep and one making a noise I don’t want to know the meaning of.

Then there’s our probie, Finn. Little shit is on his cell phone, white screen lighting up the dark room. It’s like a goddamn spotlight on the ceiling and only pisses me off more than I usually am.

Turning over, I tuck my hands under my chin and stare at him. “Turn that motherfucker off before I break it. I can’t sleep.” He’s not the reason for me not sleeping, but I blame him anyway. He turns to look at me and shakes his head but sure as hell, he turns off his phone. He knows his place.

He’s a probationary firefighter. It’s our job to give him crap and test his abilities. If you can’t take being treated like a grunt for a year, there’s no way in hell I want you beside me in the fire.

Why?

It’s a proven theory if you can’t stand your ground in a firehouse, you can’t take the heat of a fire.

Just as I’m beginning to fall asleep, a tone sounds through the fire house, a bell so loud you can be out to the world and still hear it.

It’s followed with our truck assignments. “1346 hours, aide response cross of Denny Way and Olive. Ladder 1o, engine 25, aide 25 . . . MVA.”

Here we go.

I dread the motor vehicle accidents the most because you never know what you’re going to be met with when you show up on scene. If you’re called to a fire, you have a general idea of what you’re getting into. Car accidents are something else entirely. I might be picking up body parts off the freeway or trying to pry a dead three-year-old from his mother’s arms because she thought it’d be okay to hold him in the front seat because he was crying.

Without hesitation, me and the other guys of ladder 10 and engine 25 move through the bunk room and into the apparatus bay. We have our gear on in under a minute and stepping onto the already rumbling truck.

“Shit, I have to pee so bad,” I mumble, knowing I don’t have time.

I hear a laugh next to me, and even though I know who it is, I turn to see Owen, my best friend, laughing, always in the same seat right next to me like he’s been for the last four years.

Asshole’s only laughing because this happened to him last week when we were battling a fire up in SoDo. He spent an hour with that unbearable pain of having to pee until he stumbled into what looked to have been a bathroom, or used to be. Only problem is when he started to take a piss, he didn’t realize the wall was gone, and when the smoke cleared, Owen was showing about a half a dozen bystanders his junk.

“At least I can hold it,” I tease. “Unlike you.”

Owen doesn’t say much, sits and smiles as the guys rouse him about it. There are just some things you can never live down with guys like us.

Aluminum overhead doors lift clear of the bays while our engineer hits the lights and sirens and punches the gas rolling onto Pine St.

Within three minutes from the time the dispatch was given, we’re on scene and most of us are shaking our heads at the situation before us.

“At least this joker’s in one piece this time,” Jay, another firefighter on ladder 10 with us, notes. “I don’t think I can stomach another dismembered body this week.”

I’m with Jay. At least he’s in one piece. Four days ago we went to a call where a man had been cut in half. Torso in the back seat, cell phone still in his hand and his legs in the front. All I’m going to say is if you see a flatbed hauler on the freeway stopping, my advice would be to put your cell phone down, and drive your goddamn car. Or here’s a useful recommendation too. Use your brakes.

People dial 911 for ridiculous reasons. Ask any firefighter around, and he’ll nod with a grin remembering the ones he’d like to forget but can’t.

You’d never believe some of the calls we get. Anywhere from sunburns to teenagers experiencing menstrual cramps for the first time. Hell, even homosexuals with bleeding rectums. It was a bad day for that guy. But you know, two weeks before that he stuck a shower head up there, so we weren’t exactly surprised on that one. His name is Justin. Real nice guy but he’s bat-shit crazy if you ask me.

But seriously, some of the craziest stories start with someone calling 911. I’m sure the bleeding rectum guy would probably agree with me on this one.

Case in point. If you came upon the scenes we do, you’d understand.

Just ask this guy trapped in his car suspended in wires sixty feet off the ground. I bet you a hundred bucks how his car got up there is a good story.

I take that back. I don’t have a hundred bucks. I’m a firefighter. Our pay is shit.

“How in the fuck did he manage this is what I want to know?” Captain Gibson asks, scratching the side of his head under his helmet.

Looking up at the car, my eyes strain to make out if there are any passengers in the car with the driver.

“It’s impressive,” I mumble, stepping to the side and then eyeing the guy-wire. I bet he wasn’t paying attention, hit them and launched his car up in the air. Surprisingly, I’ve seen this kind of thing before, just not as high up as this guy managed to get.

“Holy shit.” Owen laughs, patting his pockets on his bunker gear searching for his cell phone. “This guy is my fuckin’ hero,” he says, just before taking a selfie with the car in the background.

Our job as firefighters is to stabilize the scene and this guy so the paramedics can tend to him if needed, but I’m thinking he’s not feeling a thing when we get up there. Extended in the air by an aerial ladder and he smiles at us like he’s just been awarded a prize. He has. Biggest Dumb-ass prize and by the smell of him, a free ticket to jail for drunk driving.

“Seattle fire department to the rescue.” Owen nods to the guy who’s staring at us with wide eyes. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Asher.”

“Well, Asher, I hope you’re not in a hurry, bud,” Owen says to him with a smile, tipping his head to the side and eyeing the car.

“Nah, I got time,” he mumbles, slurring his words. It’s then I notice he’s just a kid. Probably not even twenty-one.

When he opens his mouth, we know just how drunk he is. It’s so bad I feel I’m contact drunk, if that’s such a thing.

“Yeah, you do.” Owen chuckles, giving a nod to the Captain below. “Get the PUD down here.”

“Can I ask how exactly you did this?” I ask, still trying to understand how he got up here.

“Over corrected in the corner?” His reply comes out in the form of a question.

“So . . .” Owen’s voice is drawn out like he’s surprised by what he’s saying.

The kid sighs, as if he can’t believe he has to explain how this happened. “I hit a fence . . . then I guess the wire? Next thing I knew I was up here.”

Owen and I look at the street, both ways before saying, “What corner?”

The guy shrugs. Just shrugs.

Sure, we find entertainment in these calls, but this isn’t the sort of action we sign up for when we decide to become a firefighter. You don’t think as a kid, “Fuck, man, I can’t wait to go to a house, find a dead guy with a penis pump in hand, a box of porn and a fridge full of PBR.”

True story, I swear.

If you do . . . man, you’re in it for the wrong reasons, but more power to you.

The guys I know, we want fire calls. We crave those voracious flames, the untamable monster of incinerators, the infernos we hardly ever see but dream of. We’re adrenaline seekers, and there’s nothing better than running into a fire to save lives. I guess in a sense it’s the idea that in those moments upon entering a fire, I’m more alive than ever, confronted by the possibility of death, surrounded and vulnerable to it.

I love bashing in steel doors, smashing out windows, tearing holes in steep-pitched roofs with metal spears and iron hooks. I find comfort in ripping into ceilings and walls as I chase veins of fire hiding behind plaster.

And it all hits me when I step outside, gasping for fresh air through puddles of sooty water and ladders stretching up a hundred teetering feet. It’s that sensation, the sights, sounds, smells, as horrifying as it sounds to others, it’s exhilarating and nothing like anything else I’ve experienced in life. Or will ever as far as I’m concerned.

 

WALKING BACK TO the truck, I glance down at my phone to check any missed calls. Mom said she’d send me a text with what time to come over tomorrow for Christmas dinner but had yet to say when.

“She call you again?” Owen asks, walking beside me, the lights of the police car with the kid in the back for driving under the influence and being only sixteen, flashing like strobe lights.

He doesn’t have to say her name. I know the she he’s referring to. My ex-girlfriend.

I don’t want to be talking about my ex-girlfriend, but unfortunately, she’s the topic of conversation more often than not in the firehouse since we broke up.

You can’t keep your private life private when you spend twenty-four hours on duty with the same group of guys. There’s downtime, and when there’s downtime, they have an unprecedented way of getting information out of anyone.

Here’s some advice for you. Take it or leave it. Really doesn’t fucking matter to me, but don’t say I didn’t warn you on this one. If you’re dating a girl and she tells you she works nights at a job you can never stop by and visit her at, chances are she’s doing something you’re not going to agree with.

In my case, she told me she was a bartender for a private catering company.

Read between the lines. She’s a fucking stripper.

How’d I find out?

So I’m at a bachelor party for one of the guys at the station, and you can imagine my surprise when said girlfriend is hired to give the groom a lap dance.

I can list off all kinds of reasons why I had a huge problem with this, most of them having to do with finding out she’s given lap dances to just about every one of the guys at the station and fucked a few of them too.

In my defense, her story was believable, but when I think about it now, I suppose I should have known by her name. Gemma Rae.

Tucking my phone in my pocket, I stare off into the rising sun over the city as I say, “She calls constantly spouting off shit about how sorry she is and wants me back.”

Owen chuckles, replacing the SCBA tanks on the truck and then closing the storage compartment door. “It’s been like three months. Maybe you should call her for a booty call at least.”

Again with the knowing too much information about me. Owen, mostly because he lives with me too, knows I haven’t been laid since Gemma and I broke up. And believe me, I’ve thought of calling her just for sex, but Gemma’s not the type. She’s clingy, which is entertaining considering what she does for a living. You wouldn’t think she’d want to be attached to anyone. She claims she’s different when she’s at the club. She’s just doing a job. Bullshit. All of it.

As we’re climbing back on the truck, Owen notices Finn, the probie, staring at his phone again. “Dude, what’s with you and your phone lately?”

Jay’s the next to get on the truck and plops next to Finn. “He’s stalking this chick he met the other night.” And then he gives a nod to the phone. “I’m telling ya, kid. She’s a fuckin’ stripper.”

And then suddenly all eyes are on me. Like I’m the know it all when it comes to strippers. Fuckers.

I take the phone from Finn’s hand and examine a few photos.

Chick’s hot, I’ll give him that much, but when I see her legs wrapped around a pole on just about every picture, it’s a sign. A giant, neon blinking sign. If Gemma had Instagram when we were together, which I’m sure she does—I never bothered to look—it probably looked like this chick’s.

Lesson learned here? Stalk your hookups on social media. Especially Instagram.

Finn’s onto something here, but I have to deliver the bad news. “Yup. Stripper.” I hand the phone back to him.

Finn looks dejected, his smile fading. “Fuck, that sucks.” And then he stares at me for a moment before asking, “Why are all the hot one’s strippers?”

I shrug and stare at the city passing us by. “Fuck if I know.”

Once we’re back at the station, my ex, the stripper, calls again. I’m not sure why, but I answer it this time.

“What do you want?”

“You,” she purrs, yes, fucking purrs. She always does shit like this. “But I’ll settle on just meeting for dinner tonight.”

I laugh and lean into the side of the truck. Owen and Jay are watching me, smiling. I roll my eyes, shaking my head. “I’m not having dinner with you. I can’t even stand to be in the same room with you.”

“Caleb,” she sighs, mostly because she’s heard this before. I’m a big grudge holder. Lie to me and I’ll never forget it. Break my heart and I’ll destroy yours. It’s just how I am. “I’m trying to be nice here and I miss you.”

“You miss my dick, honey, not me. And you ain’t gettin’ it either tonight or any other night for that matter.” And then I hang up because I’m a jerk and fucking feel like hanging up on her.

I dated Gemma for a fucking year. Or I should say I fucked her for a year. I think I took her on like two dates in that time frame. You’d think somewhere along that year of “fucking” I would have figured it out since I’m a fairly intuitive kind of guy, but apparently not. My bad.

So now I’m living a new philosophy. Don’t ever believe anything women tell you. At least that’s my general assessment of women. It’s been three months since we broke up and you know, my thoughts still haven’t changed. Doubt they ever will again. They say once you’ve been burned, you’ll always remember that sting. It’s true. I should know. I have the scars to prove it.

We’d no sooner got back to the station, topped off the tanker, refueled the trucks, charged batteries for the radio and another call came in.

Looks like the last couple of hours on shift are going to be busy ones.

 

“IS THAT cocaine?”

Jacey frowns, her nose turned up at me like I’ve offended her as she stands at the kitchen counter. Let’s face it, offending Jacey is pretty much impossible. “What in the hell would make you think it’s cocaine?”

Shrugging, I close the door and kick off my shoes. Owen’s a few steps ahead of me and does the same but doesn’t even make it to his bedroom before he passes out on the floor in the living room. He can literally lie down and be asleep in the next second. I’ve never understood how that’s possible, but it is for him.

Not me though. I can’t wait to get into my bed. I can already imagine the softness of the sheets and my head hitting the pillow. “It’s white . . . and you have it in a neatly cut line. We also live in Seattle so it’s a very real possibility it’s cocaine.”

“Seattle’s not known for cocaine use . . . meth sure, but cocaine, not really,” she points out, wiping her hands on a towel. I live in a three-bedroom apartment with Jacey, Owen, and my brother Gavin. I know what you’re thinking, three bedrooms? Who shares?

They all have their own rooms, and I sleep in the loft upstairs. At first I thought I was the lucky one. The loft has more space than the bedrooms, but I quickly learned it actually sucks sometimes. There’s no door. And the walls don’t go all the way up, so there’s really no privacy.

Another lesson learned the hard way.

I flop myself on the couch, the trek to my bed seeming to get further and further as the minutes pass. I’m so exhausted it’s totally possible I may not make it up there at this point. The odds are leaning toward me falling asleep right here. “What’s the point of this conversation?”

“Got me.” Jacey shrugs, reaching for the remote as she moves from the kitchen to beside me on the couch. “You’re the one who asked if it was cocaine.”

“What is it?”

She hands me a cookie I eye suspiciously. She once made pot brownies and then Owen and I had to work a tour after eating them. Worst three days of my life. Or should I say, worst three days of everyone else’s lives because Owen and I didn’t have a fucking care in the world.

“Powdered sugar. It’s Christmas Eve, thought it’d be good to make some cookies to take over to your parents’ tomorrow.”

Satisfied with her answer, I put the entire cookie in my mouth at once. It’s some kind of lemon cookie and reminds me of those lemon bars she makes at Easter. “Nice.”

I know what you’re thinking, I just finished telling you how basically all women are ruthless fucking whores and most are, but Jacey’s the exception. Don’t get me wrong, Jacey’s hot, and yes, we’ve hooked up before, but she’s one of my best friends. She’s never been and never will be just a hookup. I actually dated her for two years when we were younger, and then she ripped my heart out and lit the fucker on fire.

Why am I still friends with her?

You can’t stay mad at a girl like her. You can try, but she’s like an infection that won’t go away. As soon as the redness and swelling disappear, she comes back and reminds you she’s there, always.

She’s also madly in love with my oldest brother, Evan. Remember when I said she ripped my heart out and set it on fire? She slept with Evan.

Yep. Exactly.

“Any good calls today?” Jacey asks, her pale blue eyes on the television as we search for something to watch, and she ties her black hair up in a bun.

“Couple car accidents last night and one this morning where a guy ended up in telephone pole wires. We had to wait for the utility company before we could get him out.”

She laughs. “No shit?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he was high on more than powdered sugar last night.”

“Sounds like it.” Curling her legs up on the sofa, she faces me. “Hey, if I was trapped in a burning building, do you think Evan would rescue me without his shirt on?”

I quirk an eyebrow at her, not understanding her obsession with my oldest brother. “I’ll never understand why you chose him over me.”

“Well, if we want to get technical about this, I didn’t choose him. It just happened, and he took my heart the same day and kept it like a treasure that’s not his to have. I only occasionally sleep with him when he needs to forget life. Which if we want to get technical about it, that’s pretty fucking sad for me. And technically, you broke up with me.”

I stare at her in disbelief, kind of disgusted she doesn’t find the obvious as alarming as I do, or did. “Technically you fucked my brother when I was at baseball practice.”

“Here we go again.” She waves her hand around, smacking my temple in the process. “We’ve been over this. I was sixteen and not smart. He was seventeen. Totally took advantage of me.”

“Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to talk about this.” Running my hands over my face, I groan. “I’m going to bed.”

Sure, I eventually forgave Jacey and Evan for what they did. It was like ten years ago, but still, it’s not something I want to think about either.

Jacey grabs my hand before I can leave. “The fuck you are. I’m working tonight and it’s Christmas Eve. You’re coming out to keep me company. It’s the least you can do.”

The least I can do? She’s talking about cheating on me with my brother, and it’s the least I can do?

But then her smile fades and I understand why. She hates to be alone.

Jacey hates working holidays at the bar she bartends at, mostly because it’s full of drunken idiots and she insists me or one of my brothers keep her company. I have four brothers—Evan, Gavin, Kellan, and Taylor—all firefighters aside from Kellan, who’s a cop. Our dad’s a firefighter, his dad was a firefighter and his dad before that . . . a firefighter. And here Kellan goes and becomes a fucking cop. If we’re being honest, I think it’s just because he’s always been that one brother who likes to set himself apart from the rest of the Ryan boys. If we all agreed on pizza for dinner, he’d have a bowl of cereal. Never liked to go with the flow.

“After I take a nap.” Despite Jacey wanting me at the bar tonight, I know the real reason as to why she wants me to go out with her. We’ve been over this many times. “You realize when Evan’s girlfriend finds out he’s still messing around with you, shit’s gonna hit the fan.”

She stares at me blankly. “I’ve never understood that expression.”

“Why?”

“Have you ever thrown shit at a fan? I doubt with the heaviness of shit—it would actually do anything but flop on the ground.”

I scrub my hands over my face. “Can we talk about something else?”

“You’re the one who brought up shit.” She slaps my thigh. “Go take your nap so you can take me to work.”

“I just worked forty-eight hours straight. I don’t want to go out tonight,” I argue, hoping she understands how exhausting that is.

“I know, I know. You want your bed and pussy in it. So let’s go out tonight and find you some.”

See, that’s a bad idea. “I still don’t want to. Kellan’s off tonight. Ask him to take you out.”

Jacey frowns and swallows heavily, as though the idea of Kellan going with her is scary. “No way. Last time I went out with Kellan, he tried to get me to let him handcuff me and some other chick together.”

“Like he wanted—”

“Yep,” she says immediately before I can finish my statement. Kellan’s my younger brother. He also has an obsession with banging two chicks at once. Hence why he was trying to handcuff them together I suppose. Not sure.

“I’m tired,” I tell her again, but I still don’t get up from the couch. It requires too much energy to lift myself up. “I need a nap.”

“I’m amazed there’re five Ryan boys.”

“Why?”

“Heath works the same hours as you do. Or he did back before he was Battalion Chief. With as tired as you are all the time, when do you think he and your mom had time to make five of you?”

I gag at the thought of my parents making babies. “Stop talking about my parents like that. And besides, you’re never too tired to fuck.”

“So then why won’t you go out tonight?”

“Going out requires effort. It’d be a lot easier if one was in my bed already.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you asking?”

I toss a pillow at her head. “No, I’m not.”

Jacey groans. “Come on, Caleb. The holidays depress the shit out of me. Please come to the bar tonight.”

“Why do the holidays depress you?”

Her expression tells me I shouldn’t have asked that. Mostly because I know. “Hello?” Her eyes widen as she tosses her hands up and lets them fall to her lap. “Dead parents . . . no family?”

Though I feel for her, I’m always giving Jacey a hard time. “Oh please. They died when you were eight and you have us. Ever since then, you’ve spent every Thanksgiving and Christmas with us.” I stand up and step over Owen on my way to the stairs. “Don’t tell me you don’t have family.”

“Shush.” She throws a pillow at me. “Go take your nap and then take me to work. I’ll give you free drinks all night.”

That gets my attention. Free beer? Who wouldn’t take up that offer? “Okay, fine. But only one drink.”

Famous last words. Never say “only one” because those are the nights that usually end with you beside the toilet praying to the porcelain gods, or in handcuffs.