A Heart on Fire

Welcome to Hell

“Stop hitting my mommy!” A little boy’s world at six-years-old — living in the chaos of two parents out of control, yelling accusations, weekly fights, and emotional abuse. No brothers. No sisters. And, finally, no father. A mother struggling to raise her boy as she fights her own demons of addiction, depression, and emotional instability.

But long before that frightening time, that boy had fallen in love with courage, strength, and honor from men he sought who he could not find at home.

Flying down the streets of wind-swept Oklahoma City of the 50’s came the knights guarding his dreams: the strong, wise men with their “rigs”-on their way to bring order from chaos. The men riding on the back steps of those great red engines: firefighters. And those men were his heroes and his friends. They would cool the flames of his private, frightening hell with their strength, plain comforting talk and love borne of strength. He saw those men in blue uniforms, with those golden badges proudly nestled on their chests smiling at him, welcoming this little boy walking tenuously into the firehouse to see them, wide-eyed as he takes it all in. He can finally breathe. He knows he’s safe for now. No more echoes in his ears of his parents’ screams. They have his fear under control with their calm, welcoming reassurance: the same way they control a fire.

A Safe Place

These kind, caring men made me feel safe in the middle of my deteriorating family. As I grew up, anything and everything about the fire department mesmerized me. I would study the department entrance exams before I was even old enough to know what words like “friction loss” and “inch and a half-line” meant. Fire scanner radios blared throughout my house day and night. I slept with my jeans rolled over my cowboy boots, mimicking firefighter “turn-outs.” I hung out at every firehouse in Oklahoma City. I talked to the men, the officers, and the chief.

Whenever I walked into a firehouse I would gawk at the apparatus as if I were looking up at the Empire State Building from its very base. I was in complete awe of that setting: the apparatus at rest- just waiting for the tones to fill the engine bays with the alarm. And if I was lucky enough to be there when the alarm came in, I was an audience of one watching a ballet of precision and movement. Down the brass pole from the bunkroom with an arm’s embrace, feet in boots as each man hit the deck and pulled on his “turnout” coat, leaped to the back step or into the “bucket” behind the cab where the engineer started the engine, and out the bay door they raced. Flying to the scene of a “worker,” sirens screaming, my eyes wide with wonder, my heart pounding as the firefighters went to work like artists perfecting their craft. And how I wanted to go with them! I wanted to be them.

Controlled Chaos

Seeing clouds of belching smoke and kerchiefs of flame dancing on the roof as the engines pulled up to the scene of a house fire, the “first-due officer,” analyzing the ground with the eye of a general on a battlefield, arraying his troops preparing the attack. Pulling the big supply line to attach to the hydrant and then flaking out the “attack line,” waiting to enter the building with the nozzle cracked with that slight hiss before the water flows with the pressure of a one-two punch to the gut when the nozzle opened up. Into that dark, hot house spewing orange and black to knock down the fire; always with strategy, precision and as a team of brothers. And when it was over, as they were rolling up the hose, I would talk to them with my constant barrage of questions. And they never tired of my asking. I just couldn’t get enough of it. I wanted to know everything about firefighting and those special characteristics that all firefighters display: courage, leadership, and care.

Courage Tames Doubt

It took me some time to achieve a dream heaped in doubt by the time I was eighteen. I remember the day my prep school advisor asked me where I was going to college. “I’m going to fire school.” “Our graduates go to the best colleges and universities in this country so they can make something of themselves.” “They aren’t firefighters.” Six years later with a master’s degree in Russian and a Phi Beta Kappa key I was hardly prepared to become a firefighter in the DC suburbs. A still-born dream buried in fear, lack of confidence and support. “How can you even think of a blue-collar job with all of your education?” “You know you’re not good at math and you need that to figure out how to operate those pumps.” You have no sense of direction so how you will ever drive the apparatus to the fire?” “You aren’t a technical type so how will you deal with all of the mechanics of the job?” And you are scared of heights?” Not to mention the fact that you are not necessarily in great physical shape.’ You know, aren’t necessarily the ‘brave’ type … more cerebral.’’ “And socially?” What could you possibly have in common with those people?’ “Do you really think they will accept you — a Jewish boy from Oklahoma?” These are the thoughts that plagued me from my “significant others,” and, certainly, from deep within myself. Achieving any kind of dream is always fraught with challenges, but at some point, each of us faces the fear of failure and, even success. For me, the dream had to be so compelling that I was willing to just give it a try. The fear was palpable, deep down in my guts. Then, when you do get the opportunity, can you go through with it? What are you going to do now?

Do It Wrong the First Time, But Do It

I heard somewhere that anything worth the effort means doing it wrong the first time. So, I did just that until I got it right. I climbed up the 100-foot aerial ladder a few feet at a time every day until I got used to it. Soon I became acclimated to working in high places, not looking down. When I studied for the written exam, I took apart every problem, trying to understand the philosophy behind each question. During each drill, I would try to fight each fear as I saw myself in that uniform: over and over until I got it right. Crawling on my belly, I fought the disorientation of working in an atmosphere filled with thick black smoke. Finally, that orange glow appears like a sneaky, deft intruder just waiting to pounce, until I squelch it out of existence with a strong shot from the nozzle.

Passion Defeats Fear

Years later, when I did become a firefighter and many years after that, Fire Commissioner, I never lost that child-like wonder with the fire department. I graduated first in my class of 100 in rookie school when I would have considered myself lucky just to have finished. I finally did overcome abject fear of the unknown each call could portend — whether a high-rise fire or the black atmosphere of a house fire in which you had to feel your way with your team to find that trapped victim, knowing you had 30 minutes of air in your bottle to get you in and out of the labyrinth of a multi-family dwelling-feeling your way over hose lines snarled like spaghetti. Sure, still scared, but able to keep going because I had the confidence of my training and my team. The attraction of that comforting care; the strength and knowledge that imbues the profession will always be the foundation of my gratitude for being just a small part of this noble calling and those men who comforted that little, frightened boy so long ago.

Originally Published for The Good Men Project and Medium