Pyro (7 page)

14. SOMETHING VERY WICKED INDEED

Cynthia Rideout

D
ECEMBER 8,
S
UNDAY, 1345 HOURS

         
News of Patricia Pennington’s rescue was in
The New York Times
and
The Washington Post.
Everybody got it wrong, including the local televised news, who interviewed Zeke on camera and made it sound as if he made the save. We saw one of those reports before we left the station Friday morning, and boy did that give everybody a hoot. Zeke was embarrassed, but you could tell he liked it too.

I met Towbridge today. He’s a tall black guy around thirty; drop-dead handsome. He carries himself with a princely bearing, lifts weights at a gym five times a week, plays basketball at almost a professional level on about three different teams, and doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him. I’ve actually seen black women around here whistle at him.

For that matter, our driver, Jeff Dolan, is pretty cute too. He’s the oldest on the crew—in his late forties. He’s got streaks of gray in his hair and spends all summer working on his tan. He’s not as tall as the others, but he’s still taller than me. They’re all taller than me. Pickett has dark eyes and dark hair, a mustache to match.

The whole crew could be on a firefighter calendar, all except Wollf, not unless he was half naked. He’s got a great body. Although he’s not handsome, there is something interesting about the way he looks, sort of like a boy who knows he’s about to get away with something very wicked. Something very wicked indeed.

He doesn’t talk much, but I find myself watching him for his subtle reactions to the things people say.

Ordinarily there are four people working on Ladder 3, but because I’ve been sent here to do my ladder drills, each shift one of the regular people here has to take a detail to another station. The officer never gets detailed out and neither does the driver, so the traveling falls on Towbridge and Pickett. One of them works here one shift, then packs up all his gear and works the next shift at another station. Today Pickett is gone and Towbridge is here.

Towbridge speaks in a kind of an inner-city patois that is hard to understand. His first name is Harlan, but everybody calls him Tow. Or Bridge. As a sign of affection, Gliniewicz and Dolan, the drivers respectively of the engine and Ladder 3, call him Slowbridge.

This morning Towbridge took me aside and said, “The lieutenant’s going to take you out there, have you put on full bunkers and a bottle. Then he’s going to have you put up every ladder we got from smallest to biggest. Flat raise. Beam raise. Everything you can imagine. We’ll work with you on the larger ladders, of course. He’s trying to see how strong you are and if you have any endurance. If you want to keep from bruising your shoulder from having those ladders on it for two hours, pin a sock inside the shoulder of your bunking coat. Trust me. I worked with Wollf up at Ladder Eleven when he was drilling that gal they ended up firing.” Towbridge let out a carefree laugh at the look on my face. “Don’t worry. She deserved it. I don’t even know how she got through drill school. You’ll do fine.”

Ladder 3 carries a fifty-five-foot ladder that weighs 250 pounds and takes four people to handle. The drill I’m most worried about is putting that up and then climbing it with a roof ladder slung over my shoulder. Roof ladders can get heavy, and if you take one all the way to the top of the fifty-five, you’re four stories high and all by yourself. Then you raise it hand over hand and lay it on the roof. It was the worst thing in drill school, not counting the smoke.

At ten o’clock we went out and did the ladder drills almost exactly the way Towbridge described them. Afterward Wollf said I’d done a good job and then showed me what he wrote on my Form 50 for the last shift. His report never even mentioned the fan shutting down. He also said I assisted him with the rescue. It was a
good
report. Yaaaay!

15. THE INCIDENT AT THE RED APPLE

Cynthia Rideout

D
ECEMBER 8
, S
UNDAY, 1645 HOURS

         
We just got back from an aid call to an older gentleman with stomach pain; we sent him to the hospital in an ambulance. Earlier we’d gone to the store to get dinner. Also, I bought ice cream. When you’re a recruit, they want you to buy ice cream for every little thing, which is probably why Gliniewicz looks like an overstuffed toy pig. He’s not in very good shape for a firefighter. This morning I saw him and Katie Fryer outside the apparatus doors smoking cigars.

Katie Fryer tells me not to act like a man and then does something like that.

So we’re in the Red Apple, Dolan, me, Towbridge, and the lieutenant, all of us in the vegetable aisle, when who should show up but the caretaker for that movie star.

She’s maybe twenty-six. She’s blond, of course, and she’s wearing this tacky denim jeans jacket with fur on it. Somewhere in there you could see her bare stomach too, which was just a little stupid in this weather. Dolan had trouble taking his eyes off her. I think she has fat thighs, but guys see what they want.

She spots Wollf, lets out this yelp, skips over, and starts hanging all over him. Ignores me. Ignores Dolan. Ignores Towbridge.

None of the women around here ignore Towbridge.

She proceeds to flirt up a storm with Wollf. Hanging on him. Touching him. Following him around the store, walking backward in front of him, bumping into people, laughing.

He answered her questions, which she would ask every time it looked as if his interest was flagging—questions about the fire and how he’d found the old lady and who he thought started it and what were the chances of having another fire and on and on. Why is the gift of gab always squandered on half-wits?

I was the only one who noticed her slipping a piece of paper into the pocket of Wollf’s foul-weather jacket.

And this is the evil part, I’m ashamed to admit. After we got back to the station and the lieutenant was downstairs lifting weights, I went into his office and pretended to be cleaning. I looked in the lieutenant’s coat pockets, but the note was in the trash. Torn up.

When I pieced it together, it read: “Lt. Wolf [sic], I can’t stop thinking about you. Please come and see me. Call 323-3308. You won’t be sorry. xxxxooooo—J.”

Aren’t I terrible?

This is what else happened at the Red Apple.

We’re standing in line. The lines in that place are pretty long. Wollf is in front and about two people from the checker when I notice a middle-aged woman in front of Wollf. She’s diaphoretic. I mean really sweating. She’s got a hat with a veil and a purple dress and rumpled nylons and these low heels the size of sampans. My God, her feet are huge.

And the sweat’s running out of her black wig like somebody’s squeezing a sponge on her head. But more than that, she’s staring at Wollf. It’s almost as if Wollf is holding a gun on her. I’m not exaggerating. This woman is terrified.

There are four firefighters in line, but she’s fixated on Wollf.

When her turn comes, she pushes her six-pack of soda pop at the cashier and then doesn’t even buy it. She runs out of the store. I mean—runs.

“You know her?” Jeff Dolan asked Wollf.

“Hell, no.”

“You sure?”

“God, she was ugly,” Towbridge said, chuckling.

“An old girlfriend, right?” Dolan asked.

It wasn’t what he said, but the way he said it. We all burst into laughter.

We’ve been working together two shifts and already we’re a family.

About ten minutes after we got back to the station, Attack 6 went out on a single to a Dumpster fire behind the Red Apple. I can’t help but think it was that blonde who set it. In fact, I can’t help but think the blonde set those fires at the movie star’s house on Friday night too. I’m no detective, but you think about it, they were the only fires all night that were started
inside
a structure. And who else had access to the inside of those structures besides her?

16. A SLY SILLY BITCH

According to Earl Ward

         
If you want to be with a woman, you better know some of the tricks. That kind of tomfoolery is just what you don’t acquire in a godderned correctional facility—no sir—not a single one of those profoundly important tricks you need for impressing the feminine mystique.

You especially don’t learn about the bitch type.

And Jaclyn is definitely the bitch type.

Maybe that sounds rough, but hey, I’m trying to change my stripes here, and she ain’t helping any.

I’ve only got a couple of hours in this part of town while Mom screws around playing bingo with the blue-hairs, so I drive over here and spot her walking up the street.

Now I’m in the grocery store and I’m following her and she doesn’t even know. She looks right at me and doesn’t know.

That’s how good I am.

You’d be surprised what you learn in the joint. I can walk right up to her, look her in the eye, and she still won’t know. I’m that good. Period.

I’m so godderned invisible it’s almost laughable.

What’s really laughable is I can do all these things, yet I am still no closer to my goal. It’s hard to believe. You want to be with a woman, you can
want
it all day and all night, but that don’t mean it’s going to happen.

So I’m following J, and she don’t know it. I’m following her around when in they walk. The bastards in uniform. It’s the same jackasses from Thursday night. Jackie sees them and sneaks off and writes herself a note and then runs back to the produce area at the end of the store, where she’s all over the tall one.

I mean
all
over him. It was embarrassing.

I observe the bastard up close, and for the first time they all pass me and I think for a second I know him and then I
do
know him and it’s all of a sudden all I can do to keep from crapping my pants. I mean FILLING MY PANTIES, brother . . . I’m shivering. And sweating. Cold and hot at the same time. I’ve never felt anything like this before. All I can think about is that night years ago when I almost fell into the fire. I can feel the heat. I can feel the heat everywhere.

Even when they arrested me in Portland it wasn’t like this.

These minutes in the store are the spookiest since I’ve been outside.

Because this guy is the spitting image—the spitting image, I’m telling you—of the fireman they say I killed back in ’78.

Bigger maybe. Taller for sure. But other than that, he’s the guy. Period.

I thought somebody was playing a goddern joke on me. Here I was playing a joke on Jackie, and these idiot firemen with their fire bitch come in and all of a sudden the joke is on yours truly.

I recognize the name of course. Any retard can see the tag on his coat.

Wollf. W-O-L-L-F.

WOLLF!

Maybe it’s his son. Or his grandson. Man, I was in the slammer for a long time. I come out and people are driving these trucks where the bumpers come right up against the driver’s window of my mother’s car, and talking on little phones they carry around, talking in the grocery line, walking down the street, driving, it’s nuts—who are they talking to? And everybody’s got one, even the kids, and I think everything’s different, and then
he
shows up and now everything’s the same.

This guy’s jumped right out of my nightmares.

He’s bigger than the original. Same face but bigger. And meaner-looking. You been in prison awhile, you can figure out who the tough ones are just by looking. I never been more scared of a man in my life, not even in the joint when Nelson first told me how it was going to be. In fact, this guy had been inside with us in Salem, Nelson would have been
his
bitch.

And then J is walking over to him and flirting and touching him and he’s doing the aw shucks thing like he doesn’t need her, but that only makes her more determined, and now she won’t stop and she’s following him around the store, following all four of them actually, and I’m following them with a cart, but all I got in it is my drink, and J is making a fool of herself and it’s all I can do to keep from running over and slapping her silly.

She’s so tiny next to him.

And now
he’s
flirting. He’s flirting with my girl. Damn, I’m in hell. I’m going to punch him out. I’m going to knock him down and kick him senseless. I’m going to kick his eyeballs clean out of his head. God, how I hate him. I tell you, I’m in hell.

We were going to be actors together. Like Tom Cruise and what’s-her-face. We’re going to be famous together. Mrs. P is going to hook us up with some of her connections. Me and J were going to be rich.

’Course, I don’t have the looks. Okay, so I’ll be one of those character actors like Kevin what’s-his-name or John you-know-who. One of those guys who never gets the girl but has the chicks crawling all over him in real life. We’ll be on the covers of the best magazines in the world.
Star. Globe. National Enquirer.

He’s lucky I don’t go over and hit him in the head with a can of asparagus. That’s what Nelson would do. Cave in his skull.

Him bleeding all over. Me standing over him.

Instead, I get in line.

Quite by accident they get in line behind me, and now I am standing not two feet from the man with devil eyes.

He don’t know it, of course, how nervous I am. Nobody knows but me. That’s what you learn in the slammer. How to hide your feelings. Period.

I know it can’t be the same guy. Not unless there’s such a thing as time travel.