CHAPTER FIVE - CASEY
I walked into the fire station with my mind still reeling from my conversation with my mother. Normally, I left a conversation with her feeling just a little cheerier, maybe even amused by the anecdotes she presented to me like they were major government secrets or something. But hearing her even mention my father was unpleasant for me. And the little bit of guilt-tripping about how long it had been since I last spoke to my father… well, I could definitely do without all that. Part of me was indignant about it: whether or not I chatted with my dad frequently enough was not exactly anyone’s business but mine. After all, my parents were divorced and had been for over a decade. It wasn’t up to Ma to decide what kind of relationship I had with my father anymore.
On top of that, I was twenty-eight years old. I was an adult. I didn’t need to have a close, warm and fuzzy relationship with my dad if I didn’t want to. Besides, he was a grown-up, too. If he wanted me in his life, he would have put me there himself. I was not about to waste my precious time and energy on trying to chase him down. He would come to me when he was good and ready to, and I was not going to force it.
Today, I just wanted to put all of that aside and throw myself one hundred percent into my work, as usual. I was looking forward to spending the day cleaning, working out, answering calls if they came, and in general just being useful and productive. And distracted. I definitely wanted to be distracted. As soon as I stepped into the gaping garage I saw a few of my colleagues poke their heads out from around the shiny fire truck.
“Hey, Casey!” said Chuck and Jasper at the same time.
“Good morning,” grunted Greg. He looked dead tired with purplish bags under his eyes. My heart went out to him instantly. He and his wife were dealing with the terrible twos, as their toddler, Maya, had recently decided that sleeping through the night was a thing of the past. Greg had a thick layer of stubble on his face, and his hair was swept back and unwashed.
“You get hit by a truck or something?” I said to him, half-joking and half-concerned. He gave me a characteristic stoic shrug as I walked up to the guys with my hands in my pockets. It was chilly out, the late autumn air surprisingly brisk for this part of the desert.
“Just Hurricane Maya, as usual. You know, last night she pulled the cruelest move ever on my wife and I,” he replied, yawning.
We all gave him a bemused smile. “What did she do now?” I asked.
“Well, you know how we’ve been having trouble getting her to sleep alone all night?” he said.
I nodded.
“Yeah. What happened?” Jasper urged him. Greg sighed.
“Okay. So, it was about nine-thirty in the evening, we had read her seven different books already, and she finally started yawning and getting all sleepy-eyed. So, we put her to bed and just hoped for the best. She fell asleep. Hard. So, me and my wife, we’re celebrating, you know? Quietly, of course, but we were so excited. Finally, we were going to go to bed at a reasonable hour. We had some wine, got in bed, turned on the TV and started relaxing. Well, about fifteen minutes later, right as we were both about to drift off, we hear this ear-piercing shriek from down the hall,” he said, pausing to take a deep breath.
“Oh shit. What did she do?” Chuck asked.
Greg raked his fingers back through his hair, rolling his eyes. “This little girl, my wonderful daughter that I love so much, had climbed out of her crib, shimmied down to the floor, and somehow crawled into her wooden toy box. You know, the one you made for us last Christmas, Casey?”
I gasped. “Oh, Jesus. She got inside of it?”
Greg nodded slowly, a world-weary look on his face. “Yep. She ‘wanted to be a Barbie’ so she put herself away like a toy. Only, then the lid fell shut, and she got scared in there all alone in the dark. So, she started screaming.”
“Holy fuck, dude,” Jasper said, clapping a hand over his mouth and trying desperately to stifle a laugh. A flicker of a smile crossed Greg’s face.
“It’s okay, man. You can laugh. If we hadn’t been so sleep-deprived and freaked out we probably would’ve laughed, too,” Greg replied. “Anyway. We got her out of the toy box and calmed her down, but by that point it was getting close to midnight and she was wide awake again. So, long story short, my wife and I ended up staying up all night to watch Barney reruns with Maya. She fell asleep around four in the morning. You know, an hour before my alarm went off to get ready for work.”
“Damn, dude. That blows,” Jasper said, shaking his head. He was a younger guy than the rest of us, a new recruit straight out of high school like I had been when I started working here.
Greg shrugged again and took a long sip from his coffee thermos. “Eh. Just another fun quirk of being a parent. Sometimes, you don’t sleep. No big deal.”
“You’re a stronger man than I am,” Chuck said. “If I don’t get my eight hours of sleep I turn into a gigantic, useless sack of shit.”
“Chuck, you’re a useless sack of shit, regardless,” Jasper joked. Chuck laughed and took a mock swing at him, the younger man quickly dodging the hit.
“Well, I better go clock in before I miss anything exciting,” I said, clapping the guys on their shoulders as I passed through on my way up the stairs into the main building.
“Hey, you got any fun baking ideas in mind for the day?” yelled Jasper after me.
I grinned at him over my shoulder and replied, “Maybe if you all behave yourselves.”
“No can do, boss,” Chuck said jokingly.
I chuckled as I made my way to the locker room. I wanted to get in a quick workout before starting on the real work for the day, but of course, I needed to clock in first. However, I had not made it even ten feet into the main space when another of the senior crew members, a no-nonsense guy with a shaved head called Hector, stopped me.
“Hey, man,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“Hey. What’s up?” I asked, frowning.
He lowered his voice. “Chief Reyes wants to see you. He told me to catch you as you came in this morning.”
I cocked my head to one side, confused. “Wait. Why? Is everything alright?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. It’s cool. Just head up there before you clock in.”
“Okay,” I said suspiciously. Hector patted me on the back and walked off, leaving me feeling a little tense.
Chief Reyes and I went way back, and it was unusual for him to be so mysterious. Chief was a jokester most of the time, the kind of guy who made everyone in the room feel instantly more relaxed just by being there. Even though we firefighters were one hell of a tough group, we all deferred to him and regarded Chief Reyes as a sort of father figure. He mentored the younger guys as they joined the crew, teaching them patience and responsibility. That was how he treated me when he first recruited me for the crew at age eighteen. Chief had been a close buddy of my father’s for decades, since long before I was even born. The two of them had been friends ever since my dad, who now ran a local mechanic’s garage, had helped do repairs on the old fire engine back in the seventies. They became drinking buddies, meeting up at the bar after long, back-breaking shifts at their respective jobs. My dad, eternally splotchy with motor oil and grease, and Chief Reyes, who was constantly singeing his beard and getting smoke stains on his clothes. They were a messy pair, and they had totally opposite personalities, but that only seemed to make them get along better.
Some of my earliest memories involve Chief Reyes coming over to our house for Christmas or Thanksgiving. He used to bring me the coolest gifts, since he was a single guy without much else to spend his paychecks on. He never wanted his own family, but he doted on me as a kid, content with his role as a sort of a cool uncle. My mom used to cook him lunches and dinners all the time, since she was always worrying that he would starve without a wife or girlfriend to cook for him.
Nowadays, he had a wife, a sweet and gentle woman named Maggie. He had lost a lot of his pudge and cleaned up his look since marrying her, which we crew members teased him about incessantly. But he took it all in stride, just like everything else. He had a seemingly endless storage of patience, which I found pretty inspiring, considering how impatient I was. I supposed that was just another thing I unfortunately inherited from my dad.
I headed upstairs to Chief’s office, wondering what the hell the deal was. I wracked my brain, trying to think of what I could have done wrong. I knocked on his door and heard his gruff but jolly baritone voice answer, “Come on in.”
I pushed the door open and stepped inside, seeing him seated in his big leather swivel chair. He gestured toward the dingy sofa on the other side of his desk. “Hey there, Casey. Good morning! Go on, take a seat. There’s something we need to talk about,” he said, smiling.
I slowly sat down, still watching him with a frown on my face. “What’s going on, Chief? Am I in trouble or something?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Trouble? You? Of course not. When have you ever been in trouble with me, kiddo?” he said, leaning back in his chair. I could definitely see why all the little kids in the community were half-convinced he was Santa Claus with his red fireman’s shirt and grizzled white beard. The jolly laugh and grin definitely added to the overall picture, too.
“Alright. Why all the secrecy, then? What’s going on?” I pressed on.
“Jeez, you’re just as impatient as your father, you know that?” he said, raising an eyebrow bemusedly. “Okay. Here’s the thing, Casey… you’ve been working here for, how long now? Nine years?”
“Ten years,” I corrected him. He smiled.
“Yes. Ten long years. A whole decade you’ve given us,” he said.
“And I look forward to another few decades, at least,” I added quickly.
“I know you do, son. I know. But see, that’s kind of the problem,” Chief said. I could tell he was kind of dancing around the topic.
I tilted my head to one side. “How so?”
Chief sighed heavily. “Look, Casey. When was the last time you took some time off?”
I blinked at him, confused. “Uh… I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Never,” Chief said. “That’s the answer. Never.”
“I took time off for Christmas years ago, didn’t I?” I suggested, leaning forward.
“Only because you had the flu,” he chuckled. “And even then, I had to fight you tooth and nail to make you stay home for the day. You’re a hard worker, kid. But it comes to a point when you have to work a little less hard.”
“What are you getting at here?” I asked flat out.
Chief steepled his fingers and fixed me with a genuinely concerned expression. “Casey Harlowe, I have known you for a long time. Your whole life, basically. I know you. You’re a good man. A fantastic firefighter. But you have to slow down. You have to take some time off to… I don’t know, go see a movie or something. Go to a bar. Meet up with a friend, have brunch or whatever the kids are doing these days.”
“Brunch?” I repeated incredulously.
“Whatever you want to do. Just go have fun,” he said.
“All my friends are here,” I said flatly. “And I have fun on the clock.”
Chief smirked. “You find scrubbing urinals and lifting weights fun?”
I shrugged, feeling a little defensive. “Well, not fun, maybe. But rewarding.”
“Yes. I get that. But you have to be more than just a firefighter, Casey. You have to be a well-rounded human being with a life outside of this station. You have accrued so many personal days you could take one of those hot air balloon rides around the world if you wanted. But I’ll settle for two weeks off. Two weeks in which you relax, sleep in, eat something from a nice restaurant instead of whatever you can scrounge up in the crew kitchen. Do something fun for a change,” he explained.
“I don’t want to do any of that. Please. I would rather just work my shifts like I always have,” I protested. Chief shook his head.
“I’m not suggesting, Casey. This is an order. I am ordering you to take some time off,” he told me emphatically. I opened my mouth to say something, but he held up his hand to silence me as he continued, “No, this is not a punishment. Yes, your job will still be here waiting for you when you get back. And no, you cannot change my mind.”
“Where is this coming from?” I asked petulantly.
“Casey, it comes from watching you work yourself to the bone day in and day out. It comes from seeing the way you let work override your social life. When was the last time you spoke to someone who isn’t your coworker or your mother?” Chief asked, crossing his arms over his chest. I felt my cheeks burning.
I lowered my voice and replied, “Actually, I’ve been talking to a therapist for a few weeks. I’ve been to two appointments already to talk about… about the day I got this scar.”
Chief gave me a genuine smile. “Good. That’s good, Casey. I’m proud of you. I know you think if you just work hard enough, you can outrun all the stress and trauma haunting you, but you’ve got to face up to it at some point. Take these two weeks. Relax. Live like a normal person for once. Maybe hit up a bar and have a conversation with a nice guy.”
“Stop. No. We’re not discussing my love life,” I said abruptly.
“Or lack thereof,” Chief muttered. I glared at him, even though he was right.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay. Okay, fine. I’ll do it. But for the record, I am only doing this because you’re my boss and I have no choice.”
“That’s the spirit!” Chief Reyes exclaimed, slapping his knee and grinning. “Now get out of here and go enjoy yourself. I promise, the fire station won’t evaporate while you’re gone.”
“If you end up short-handed and need someone to take up a shift—”
“Nope. Not for two weeks. Get out of here,” Chief laughed.
“Fine,” I groaned.
I stood up and reluctantly walked out, my mind running in frantic circles. As I trudged out of the building and back to my car, I wondered what the hell I was supposed to do now. I dreaded free time. Even my days off I spent looking for any possible means of keeping myself busy. But two whole weeks? This was going to be pure torture.
I slowly drove home, trying to think of something to do. Finally, I decided that a “staycation” might be a good option. There was nothing of note to do here in my little suburban town, but Las Vegas was just a short drive away. I remembered that an old colleague of mine had left the crew years ago to be a bartender at a club in the city and thought maybe it might be a good idea to go visit him tonight. Drink some beers. Sit in the dimly lit club and pretend like people weren’t staring at my scar.
“Fuck,” I groaned. “This is going to be one hell of a long two weeks.”