Through the Fire Read online

  “Is he breathing?” someone said.

  “Get his bottle off his back.”

  “Forget it. Just get him on the board.”

  We logrolled him onto a backboard.

  “Let’s four point him.”

  I stumbled backward.

  “Aidan, you all right?”

  I waved my hand. “I’m fine. Go, go.” I moved to his feet.

  Someone at the head counted off, “Ready, one, two, three.”

  I grabbed onto the board, and we lifted and shuffled, bearing increased temperatures just a few feet off the floor. Hartman lay unconscious, and I had the surreal feeling that, as we marched for the door while he still faced the rubble, we were somehow moving his body from his spirit. As though the farther we fled from the spot he went down, the emptier his shell of a body became.

  I saw it, with the backs of four turnout coats before me. At his feet I was witness.

  Hot wetness soaked through my glove as I clenched the board.

  And I knew . . .

  His blood was on my hands.

  The medics loaded the gurney into the back of the ambulance, crimson draping the western sky. The paramedic at the head squeezed a purple bag attached to a tube sticking out of Hartman’s mouth. His chest rose and relaxed, lifting and ebbing like an ocean swell.

  I watched, helmet in hand, as two firemen climbed in the back, as the doors closed, as the box lit up in a fury, wailing down the road with a police escort. A corkscrew twisted in my gut.

  Voices spoke in low tones behind me. “All that weight on his chest . . .”

  “He’s hypoxic.”

  “Strong pulse though.”

  “They taking him to County, like the woman?”

  “Yeah.”

  I turned and brushed shoulders between them. Butcher caught my eye and strode toward me. The acrid odor of smoke and fire wafted from my turnouts.

  “You mind telling me exactly what that was, Aidan?”

  I ignored him and walked toward the engine.

  “Don’t you walk away. Hold up. That’s an order, Firefighter O’Neill. Hold up.”

  I stopped and stared at the pavement.

  Butcher angled himself in front of me. He spoke in quiet, controlled tones. “You listen to me. Your father was the best fireman I ever knew. And I put up with your reckless and arrogant attitude out of respect for him. I see a lot of him in you . . . but you know what I don’t see, Aidan?”

  I brought my eyes up to his and set my chin.

  “Respect. Your father came from a time when men understood the chain of command. They treated those who came before them with the respect they were due. You know what I see when I look at you?”

  I looked away toward the road.

  “I see contempt,” he said. “And now we got a one-week-old fireman riding unconscious in the back of the bus, intubated and all.” He pressed his lips together, his whiskers taut and trembling. He looked at the ground. Then, right to my face, he shouted, “I trusted you with him!”

  It reverberated through my chest. Yellow helmets turned, stared, looked away.

  Butcher brought his hand up between us, as if to dam up any further flow of indignation. His voice leveled. “Pack up your stuff.”

  I did a double take between him and the building still spouting gray smoke. “There’s still fire—”

  “I said pack it up.”

  “What, are we being released? What about the kid? Are they still doing a search?”

  “Aidan”—he pointed behind me—“the kid is sitting in the back of the battalion chief’s rig.”

  Cuffed blue jeans covered dangling legs with Velcro-strapped tennis shoes in the open backseat of Chief Mauvain’s SUV.

  My mouth hung open, searching for words. “But you said—”

  “Things change in fires. We don’t always get the best information straight out. You know that. That’s why we follow the chain of command. And that’s why we are not packing up our stuff— you are.”

  I creased my eyebrows and stared at him.

  He filled his chest with air. “Pack it up. Everyone else made it out in time. Even the truck guys were off the roof when they were supposed to be. Only you stayed and went deeper in against orders. Hartman shouldn’t be in an ambulance right now. He has a wife and a new baby, Aidan.” He ran the back of his hand under his nose and glanced at the pavement. “You’re on leave without pay. This is straight from Mauvain, not just me. Expect a minimum of two weeks.”

  I held his gaze in disbelief.

  He shook his head. “Just go home, Aidan. You’ve done enough for today.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  D o not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

  I actually caught a cab back to the station. I don’t remember the trip. It’s as if I woke from a stupor when I pulled out of Central’s parking lot in my ’83 Land Cruiser. Zeppelin strummed “That’s the Way” from the stereo speakers. Gold-tipped trails marked the paths of aspens following creeks down the Sierra’s eastern aspects. The day’s last silver-lit clouds hung on the horizon.

  I crossed Virginia Street just south of the Reno Arch and the narrow corridor of flashing neon and high-rise hotel-casinos. I spun the wheel and crossed the Truckee River at the kayak park. Leaf-blanketed streets led me into the old southwest, past pre–World War II brick homes, thick-trunked oaks, and ailing elms. Ghoulishly clad children trekked from door to door, flashlights in hand, candy bags bulging and swung over shoulders.

  My stomach twisted in a knot. I was hungry and wondered if my fiancée, Christine, was available for dinner. I reached into the front pants pocket that held my phone, the skin on my knuckles chafing against the denim. Her line rang seven times and switched to voice mail. I hung up.

  Christine worked part time at a coffee shop while finishing up her master’s in literature. And though I welcomed the diversion, I wasn’t sure I would have been up to a long discussion about Hemingway or Kierkegaard. She dug my love for reading and my understanding of most literary and biblical allusions—thanks to my mother, who had fed me books as if they were milk—but I’d found that her disparaging existentialism inevitably degenerated into musings on the meaninglessness of everything under the sun. That was exactly what I didn’t need right then.

  I tried to shake the vision of Hartman in my mind, lying in the ER, hooked to a ventilator, grim-faced white-coats standing over him. Part of me felt guilty for even wanting food.

  I parked in front of the house and paced up a dark front path. A rotund pumpkin sat in the corner of the porch. I jiggled my key in the lock—up, down, up, down, side to side—until, click.

  A flick of the front-hall switch spilled light onto honey-hued floorboards and a shadow-laden living room.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  A red light flashed on the kitchen answering machine.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  I sank into a chair by the breakfast table. One hundred and six hours straight. That’s how long I’d been at work.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  I pushed the answering machine button. Its computer voice announced, “You have two new messages. First new message.”

  Christine’s voice warbled, “Aidan, I’m in Denver. I’m flying out to New York to stay with my mom for a while. I don’t know how long or . . . It’s just . . . you have such a hard time saying no to work. I never see you. And when I do see you . . . I’m just fed up with waiting for you to grow up and figure out when you are going to get a real . . . You . . . you know what, just forget it. I don’t even know why I’m saying all of this. Don’t call me.”

  I leaned my head back and rubbed my hands over my eyes.

  Guess a dinner date is out of the question.

  Robert Louis Stevenson stared at me from a framed John Sargent print. Wine hues inhabited his room, his disinterested wife, clad in gold and ivory, reclining in a chair.

  The computer voice continued. “Next message.”


  The doorbell rang. I paused the machine.

  On my front porch stood a vampire, a clone trooper, and a black-costumed Spider-Man. “Trick or treat.”

  “Go away,” I heard myself say.

  The kids just stood there, cocking their heads like perplexed puppies.

  “Ha. Right. Just kidding, kids.” I looked back toward the kitchen. “Hold on a sec.”

  I opened the pantry.

  No candy.

  I came back with a box of Grape-Nuts, a box of crackers, and a bag of bagels.

  “Here you go. Now get out of here.”

  The three of them strolled back toward the street, staring into their bags. A harvest moon loomed ochre and oversized on the horizon.

  Back in the kitchen I hit the answering machine button.

  “Aidan, it’s Uncle Cormac. It's been too long. How are you doing? Hope everything is well. Hey, I’m calling because I’ve finally finished the remodel on the guesthouse down here in Baja and wanted to invite you to come stay for a bit—get away, you know? I’d love to have you, so just give me a call. Seriously, you’re welcome any time. Call me. Take care, bud.”

  Beep. “There are no more new messages.”

  I took a deep breath in and out.

  I’d almost killed my partner, my fiancée was leaving me, and I’d just been put on two-weeks’ leave without pay. Somehow an impromptu vacation to Mexico didn’t feel like the appropriate next step.

  Thanks anyway, Cormac.

  I had to see Matt. I grabbed a snack and hopped back in the Cruiser. Nightfall draped its chilled swath over the valley. The asphalt lay long and gray on the way to Washoe County Hospital. I parked in an ambulance spot outside the ER. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get inside to see him. I’d known the guy all of half a day and already I felt as if I were visiting a relative.

  I hadn’t taken the time to change. My navy blue department shirt clung to my shoulders and hung heavy with sweat, the scent of smoke trailing off me in a cloud as I entered the ER. I saw a red-haired woman in her twenties standing outside of the cardiac resus room, an infant in her arms. Tears brimmed in her eyes, cheeks flushed and moist as she stared through the door.

  Hartman’s wife.

  A wrecking ball hit me in the gut.

  God, I hope he’s okay.

  Behind the glass, a flurry of scrubs and hands moved about with instruments and wires. I felt frozen, as if my feet were affixed to the floor. I wanted to turn and bail.

  A security guard approached. “I’m sorry, sir, but all the firefighters have been asked to wait in the lobby.”

  Hartman’s wife pivoted and looked at me, eyes bloodshot, her baby reaching to touch her chin.

  “Sir?” The guard hung close, like a slab of beef in a commercial freezer.

  I turned to him. “He’s my . . . He’s my brother.”

  “Yes, sir. You’re the fifth one to tell me that, and I understand you are concerned for him. But right now the best way you can help him is by waiting in the lobby.” He grabbed my arm.

  I shrugged. “Get off me.”

  His expression soured.

  “Look,” I said. “He was my partner. I was with him when he went down. I was there, all right? He shouldn’t be here. It’s my . . .” I glanced at Hartman’s wife.

  Her focus fixed on me. Too much resided in that expression, too many thoughts and feelings and fears. Her bottom lip pushed up. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She shook her head, chin quivering.

  “It was my . . .”

  “Sir, I’m sorry, but . . .” He kept talking. His voice trailed off.

  Hartman’s wife kept staring. “Just leave,” she mouthed.

  The entire ER may as well have fallen silent. The air escaped from my lungs, the light from the corners of my eyes. All I saw and heard was this despairing woman holding her baby saying, “Just leave.” She looked to the ceiling, then back. “Please, please. Just leave. Just go.”

  The guard reached out for me. I stepped back and clipped my hip on an EKG cart. My throat tightened, I couldn’t swallow. The room spun.

  “Sir, are you okay?” The guard put his face in front of mine. “You look . . . Hold on. I’ll call a—”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.” I put a hand up. “I . . . I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t right.” I didn’t know what else to do. I turned and pushed though the ER doors, digging the keys from my pocket. I walked straight to the parking lot, unable to face the guys in the waiting room.

  The same dark empty house welcomed me back. I pulled off my shirt and walked down the hallway, stopping at the photo of my father. His affable grin hung frozen in two-dimensional bliss, Irish eyes smiling under a badge hat with a slight tilt, his crisp chalk-blue collar with silver bugles at the hems.

  “Five years tomorrow, Dad.” I ran my thumb over my palm. “How’s that for almost repeating history?”

  I got in the shower and let the heated rain wash over me. Steam wafted, pulling soot from my pores. Everything smelled like smoke and ash.

  Baja, Mexico . . . I nodded and shut off the water. All right, Cormac.

  I had no reason to stay and every reason to leave.

  CHAPTER

  4

  A fter the shower I threw what I needed for a couple weeks into the back of my car and started south. The Cruiser's hundred-and-seventy-five thousand miles were half-life, really, so what was another twelve hundred? The purposeful motion of the road, of having a set destination, freed my mind, helped me relax, and kept at bay the stinging guilt over Hartman and the hollow ache for Christine. The lights of Reno and Carson City soon fled, twinkling in my rearview mirror, swallowed into the vast expanse of the evening. I followed the towering jagged sentries of the eastern Sierra front and wove along the Carson and Walker rivers, amidst the still quiet of Mono Lake and native spirits rising from tule fog blankets.

  All Hallows’ Eve.

  The one night it is said when the boundary between the quick and the dead lay unguarded, when souls walk unfettered to either side. How often had I tread that line? How many times had I run without worry on the fence, balancing over the demarcation of life and death? Maybe I was reckless. Maybe I was missing something my father always had.

  Maybe I wasn’t the best communicator. Things between Christine and me had been rocky at best over the past few months. I couldn’t put my finger on the real problem, but it seemed that everything I did had some ulterior motive in her eyes, and I found myself defending the simplest of things.

  My cell phone beeped. I was out of service range. I yawned and readjusted in my seat. My plan was to drive through the night, or at least until I was too tired, to try and make the bulk of the journey to Baja in one big chunk. I’d call Cormac in the morning. It was a bit of a risk, heading off without talking to him first. But knowing him, it wouldn’t be a problem. He had always been welcoming in the past. Though it had been almost five years since I last saw him in person. Since he left.

  I remember him saying how he just couldn’t see himself as part of the fire service anymore, too many things and places to remind him of his brother’s death. So he straight up retired and moved to his place down in Mexico.

  Too much had happened in such a short time. First his younger brother—my father—had died, and then his father, the department chief at the time, died five months later of heart failure, overwhelmed with grief from the passing of his son. I didn’t blame Cormac for needing to get away from it all, but part of me had always resented his decision a bit. As if he were the only one affected by it all. I was right there in the middle of it. It was my dad. My grandfather. My . . . fault.

  Hartman’s sunken and vacant eyes flashed across my view.

  A family of deer trotted across the highway, stealing glances into my lights. I slowed a bit.

  I’ll never shake the vision of my father lying pulseless and apneic in the back of the ambulance, the feeling of his ribs separating from his sternum as I performed chest compressions, his pupils
fixed and dilated, his mouth agape.

  Everything went bad on that fire. Large warehouse, unreinforced masonry construction. Rapid, rapid fire spread. The explosion and building collapse, the brick wall that broke his neck.

  The thing that still prevented any sense of closure was how the department left the official cause as “undetermined.” That never set right with me. The head investigator on the case had since retired and they just closed the book on it.

  Normal fires didn’t burn that hot, that fast, that destructive. My buddy Blake in the arson investigation office made a pact with me that he wouldn’t let it rest. Five years later and he still worked on it with me in his free time. Couple times a month Christine and I would make dinner for him. It was the least we could do.

  The double yellow line disappeared with the road into a perpetual black. It felt just like the smoke, driving into the dark. An all too common experience for me.

  All I could see was what was just in front of my headlights.

  CHAPTER

  5

  A round three in the morning I made it to a veritable ghost town outside of Bakersfield named Red Mountain and paid seventy five dollars to stay in a roadside motel. I woke around ten a.m. and got ahold of Cormac, to his surprised and cheerful response. He said he’d have dinner waiting and admonished me not to waste a second more in central California.

  Cormac also told me that his town of Lazaro Cardenas was just a little south of Ensenada. After hours of driving, I decided he was speaking of little in a global sense, because it took me a lot longer than I expected. I was a good quarter of the way down the Baja Peninsula and through my sixth toll checkpoint before I finally saw a sign that read Lazaro Cardenas 25 Kilómetros.

  The town itself, perhaps by virtue of its distance from other cities, retained a nineteenth-century pueblo charm. An adobe mission replete with tarnished bronze bell sat in time-worn grandeur in the city square. Cylindrical timber beams projected from building fronts. A fine coating of sand and dust blurred the street edges.

  Eucalyptus trees with painted white trunks shaded a park with a three-level concentric fountain. A dozen men and boys played soccer on a small field of patchy grass. Fading paint on building sides sported dated ads for Coca-Cola and Tecate beer. A couple shops were fronted by wooden carts full of yellow marigolds and what looked like ornamented human skulls and small dressed-up skeleton dolls. I found it quite a bit more intriguing than the standard American Halloween décor, even a bit disturbing.