Amongst The Flames: A Contemporary Christian Romance (Embers and Ashes Book 1) (7 page)

A
rriving at the station at seven in the morning the next day, I found Ted mopping the bay floors. He was mumbling to himself incoherently as I walked the cement floors up behind him.

“Sherman!” I shouted, startling him. I laughed.

He leaped about a foot off the ground. Turning around, he pulled an ear bud out and said, “You know those politicians in Washington are trying to get all those illegal immigrants more rights?”

I wasn’t much for politics, but I respected Ted’s obsession for them. “I can hardly believe it,” I replied, shaking my head. I patted him on the shoulder and continued onward. He nodded as he popped his ear bud back into place, thus returning to his own little world. I laughed a little as he didn’t even seem to care or wonder what I was doing there.

Climbing the stairs to the second level of the fire station, I felt like I was climbing a ladder up to my old tree house in the backyard out in Suncrest. It was my home away from home. Cutting through the exercise room on the hunt for my co-workers, I came to the hallway that had Tom’s office attached to it. I tried to move quickly past the doorway, but I was stopped as he hollered out to me. “Taylor!” he said, grinding my pace to a halt. I bit my lip as I backed up to his doorway.

“What is it, Sir?” I asked.

“Chief told me you were coming by for the kid’s tour today. But that’s not until eight o’clock. Why are you here so early?”

“I wanted to chat with the guys. Haven’t seen much of them lately.”

He nodded. “Proceed.”

“Took a poop this morning too, want to hear about that?” I said under my breath as I proceeded into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. Leaning over to see into the dining hall through the connecting door, I spotted Micah at the table with his Bible lying open as he read. Man, that guy was dedicated, I thought to myself as I poured the coffee into my cup. I read my Bible occasionally, but nothing like Micah. He was a walking testimony for Christ.

“Good morning, Freeman,” I said as I walked into the dining hall with a smile.

He smiled back at me as he closed his Bible. “How are you doing Brother?”

Sitting in a chair across from him, I set my coffee down and rubbed the corner of my cup with my thumb. “I’m doing okay.”

“You can be real with me, Taylor. I know sitting in that big house of yours all by your lonesome has to be hard without your family being around.”

I nodded and sighed. “It has been hard, but I’m managing. I’m excited to see them here in a few days.”

He nodded. “Keep praying. What brings you by the fire station?”

“I talked to the Chief yesterday and he said I could come help with the tour for the kids.”

Micah nodded. “That should be good for you. Be sure not to hurt yourself.”

“I’m not stupid, I’m just injured…” Micah leaned back in his chair as I continued, “But I’ll be sure to be careful. I don’t want to be out of work any longer than I have to be.”

“Who’s the fresh meat?” an unfamiliar voice from behind me said. I turned and looked to see it was someone I didn’t know and he was with Kane.

“Who’s this?” I asked, looking over at Micah and then to Kane.

“Taylor’s the farthest thing from fresh meat, kid,” Kane scolded the guy. “Brian Gomer, meet Cole Taylor. Cole Taylor, meet the Rookie.”

I extended a hand to shake his. His grip was weak and skin was clammy. Instantly, I didn’t like this kid.

“I heard about you Taylor…” Brian said. “You got hurt rescuing a little girl. The way people talk about you around here, you’re like a legend. I didn’t know you still worked here. And what’s up with that kung-fu grip of yours?”

I smiled politely. “That’s called a real handshake. But yeah, I’m still here… just out on medical leave for a minute.”

Kane dug his fingers into the rookie’s shoulder, causing him to squirm a bit as he said into his ear, “I told you Taylor was out on medical leave. Don’t disrespect him! That makes me look bad!”

“I didn’t mean any disrespect, Sir,” Brian pleaded with a frightened tone.

Raising my hand up as I shook my head, I said, “You’re good. Don’t worry about it. And for crying out loud, Kane, let go of the poor kid’s shoulder!”

Kane released his grip and said, “Aside from being dumb, this Rookie here made a dish the other night that blew Micah’s Alfredo away. Even Sherwood was impressed!”

One of my eyebrows went up. “Oh really? What’d Vance say about the dish?”

“Vance was out of town doing some food competition with those wiener sausages from poker night.”

“I see… What’s the dish?” I asked.

“Burgers, but rookie calls them Widow Makers. It’s two patties, bacon and pepper jack cheese,” Kane said. Turning to Brian he continued, “And what do you do with the meat Gomer?”

“I marinate it in a special sauce overnight,” he replied looking at me. “It’s pretty delicious. It won first place in the Eastern Washington State Fair a couple summers ago.”

“Sounds good, you and Vance might wanna host the fireman ball this year. You guys can cater it,” I said smiling.

Brian didn’t get the joke, he only nodded.

Kane caught it though and slapped the kid on the shoulder. “It’s a joke, Gomer!”

“Seriously though, I look forward to trying one of them out,” I said.

Kane said, “I’m about to take the rookie out back to have him practice his ventilation cuts.”

“Nice,” I replied. Looking at Brian, I said, “Let the tool do the work.”

“Okay,” he replied with a quick nod.

“How are you and the bakery gal doing?” I asked.

Kane nodded, “Good.” I wanted to ask about his mom, but I knew he wouldn’t like the public forum discussion about it and I wasn’t sure who was aware outside of Micah and me. “Let’s go, Rookie,” Kane said with a nod. They ventured over to the back door and left. I turned back to Micah at the table.

“He’s a good kid,” Micah said.

I took a sip of my coffee and asked, “Do you know him personally or something?”

“No, but Sherwood does. The kid is the son of one of the firefighters that retired from here.”

“Who? I don’t remember anyone by the last name of Gomer.”

“It was before you got here. It was before I even got here.”

“I see…” I replied scoffing.

“Hey, I know you aren’t a fan of Sherwood these days, but you know he’s a good guy. You said so yourself at your house.”

I nodded. “I know, just not a fan of his disdain he seems to have towards me. He came by yesterday and didn’t mention the rookie to me.”

Micah grinned. “He’s gotten under your skin, Taylor, hasn’t he?”

Shaking my head. “Nah… I just don’t like him.”

“Like who?” Tom asked as he came into the dining hall.

“Mullen, over at station 12,” I replied quickly with a lie. Chandler Mullen and Tom had an on-going feud between the two of them and I knew he wouldn’t be angry if I said that.

“He’s a jerk, but you shouldn’t be talking poorly of other firefighters,” Tom said as he dropped a packet of pamphlets in front of me on the table. “You can hand these out to the kids. Remember, don’t hurt yourself.”

“Alright,” I replied as I glanced down at them. Hearing ‘don’t hurt yourself’ was getting old real quick. It felt like people were treating me like I got a brain injury or the accident was some sort of fault of my own.

“Freeman, I want you to go ahead and tag along with gimpy today so you can do all the stuff he can’t.”

I met the group of children out at the bay doors at eight o’clock. I brought them inside and showed them the engine truck first. As I showed them the controls for the water, a little boy’s hand shot straight up.

“If the truck has water, why do you guys use fire hydrants?” he asked.

“Good question. This truck holds five hundred gallons of water. Which seems like a lot, but it only lasts about two and a half minutes. So we always need to hook up to a fire hydrant when we are fighting fires.”

Coming around the truck, we came to the other side where Micah was. “This is Micah Freeman. He’s one of the firefighters here and he’s going to show you how quick we get into our uniforms. We call them turnouts.”

“Hello kids, are you guys enjoying your field trip?” Micah asked.

They all nodded and a few shouted out ‘yes.’

“Good. When we get a call to go fight a fire, we go down that pole over there when we’re upstairs,” he said, pointing over in the corner where the fire pole was located. “It’s all about speed when that call comes in. A few moments of wasted time could mean someone’s life.”

“How fast can you get your stuff on?” a girl asked.

“Our turnouts take most of us about fifty to sixty seconds to get into. I’ll show you.” Micah stepped into his boots, pulled up his pants and suspenders, slid the Nomax hood over his head that protected his neck and head and then put on his jacket, gloves and helmet.

“That looks easy,” a boy said.

Micah smiled, taking his helmet off. “Do you want your teacher to try?” he asked. He looked over at the woman who stood near the back of the group of children. She shook her head, but the kids cheered her on to give it a try.

Micah took everything back off and she stepped up for the challenge. It took her quite a bit more time to get suited up. The kids were all in awe at the difference between their teacher and Micah’s time in suiting up in the turnouts.

“A few extra minutes like that could mean someone’s house burns all the way down or someone loses their life,” I added.

Micah showed our oxygen tanks next. “These are our SCBA’s, which stands for Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus. We have about thirty minutes of oxygen in one tank.”

As we were about to continue the tour, a call came in for a fire and all the guys came sliding down the pole. My heart raced as I could feel every muscle in my body want to leap into action.

“What’s going on?” I asked Tom as he suited up.

“Structural fire down on Sprague.” He climbed into the front passenger seat and woke the laptop out of sleep as everyone else loaded up. As the engine and ladder trucks pulled out of the bay and the sirens came on, I felt like I was being left behind. I walked out to the edge of the bay doors and watched as the lights and trucks vanished around the corner.

“What now?” the teacher asked from behind me with all the kids standing around her.

I had forgotten about the tour for a moment. “Let’s talk about some fire safety in your homes while we wait for them to return. Who here has a fire exit plan at their house?”

A few of the kids’ hands went up.

“Good. Where do you guys meet?” I pointed to one girl that had her hand raised.

“The mailbox, out at the end of the driveway,” she said confidently.

“That’s popular. Does anyone have a different place?”

A little boy raised his hand. “Mrs. Kingston, the neighbor next door.”

“Good. And for those of you who do not have a fire exit plan, be sure to tell your mommys and daddys tonight you need one, and tell them the fireman said so.” I went over and grabbed the pamphlets from the table. Each one of the children on the tour got a pamphlet on fire safety in the home.