Free Pyro by Earl Emerson

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