Burning Down the House by Russell Wangersky Page A
Authors: Russell Wangersky
Tags: BIO000000
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detail of explaining why it was so darned important to me, and why that should have anything to do with us.
But that was only half of it. I was already aware that nobody else in the department ever seemed to have the need to talk about anything, to work through anything. I needed to explain how hard it all was without feeling foolishâthat I loved riding the truck through the town and along the back roads, but that when we reached a car accident I thought I was the only one who felt like a fraud. But there just didnât seem to be any way to tell that to anyone. I couldnât explain that I had all the training, knew exactly what to do, but still had a lingering fear that I was somehow just going through the motions, that someone else would do a far better job.
At twenty-two, I wasnât aware how many people spend a lot of their life feeling exactly that way, whether theyâre journalists or firefighters or cops. I didnât let on to anyone that I could be jarred enough by the sight of blood on my latex gloves that I could stand by the side of the pumper, waiting to head back to the station, and just stare at the scattered scarlet drops on my hands. I didnât explain that torn-up cars have a kind of ragged, savage newness that barely lasts overnight before the shiny, exposed metal begins to cloud over with fine rust.
I preferred the idea of a clean break from the fire department, getting away from all that before anyone figured out I was a fake. But it turned out that the break was full of jangly edges and unfinished business, full of a sense of loss that nagged at me at the oddest times.
Another firefighter, Peter Jadis, left the department at the same time I did, heading for a career in the RCMP, and our colleagues got us drunk and left us wandering on the fire chiefâs lawn. I saw the chief look out between his curtains, shake his head and pull them closed again. Laughing, we urinated on the mailbox post, while the firefighters who had brought us there climbed in their cars and drove away. The chief hadnât come to the party, too used to recruiting and training young firefighters only to have them move away after college.
Turning in my gear, initialling the list of equipment I was returning, and handing over my pager and the key to the fire station was brutally hard, especially for someone who hadnât yet experienced much of the change that life usually brings. I was barely out of school, my family was still living in the same Halifax house I had lived in almost all my life, and I wasnât familiar with the draining idea that there is a point at which scores of things suddenly exist only in your memory. It wasnât until my parents retired, sold the house and moved to Victoria, B.C., that I realized a home could just disappear, moving from the concrete to the intangible in a mere moment. Suddenly, everything that had been our family home became just scattered electrons zipping around my head as memories, and I couldnât even be sure I had the order right.
But I certainly felt a sense of loss the instant I left the fire department in Wolfville. It came with a sinking awareness that the situation couldnât be undone, that we already had airline tickets to Toronto and plans that wouldnât be changed. Handing in my key to the station, I felt that a thousand things were slipping away.
I realized that, while I would certainly never forget putting out a huge pile of burning car tires in the middle of a rural road on a freezing cold Halloween night, there wouldnât be anyone who would know exactly what I meant when I said the night was so dark that the smoke was invisible, showing itself only in the negative when thick curtains of it snuffed out the stars in a rising column of inked black.
That no one would understand the strange, light, feathery feeling I had in my chest as I walked back from the fire department and down a dirt road to the universityâs rugby
But that was only half of it. I was already aware that nobody else in the department ever seemed to have the need to talk about anything, to work through anything. I needed to explain how hard it all was without feeling foolishâthat I loved riding the truck through the town and along the back roads, but that when we reached a car accident I thought I was the only one who felt like a fraud. But there just didnât seem to be any way to tell that to anyone. I couldnât explain that I had all the training, knew exactly what to do, but still had a lingering fear that I was somehow just going through the motions, that someone else would do a far better job.
At twenty-two, I wasnât aware how many people spend a lot of their life feeling exactly that way, whether theyâre journalists or firefighters or cops. I didnât let on to anyone that I could be jarred enough by the sight of blood on my latex gloves that I could stand by the side of the pumper, waiting to head back to the station, and just stare at the scattered scarlet drops on my hands. I didnât explain that torn-up cars have a kind of ragged, savage newness that barely lasts overnight before the shiny, exposed metal begins to cloud over with fine rust.
I preferred the idea of a clean break from the fire department, getting away from all that before anyone figured out I was a fake. But it turned out that the break was full of jangly edges and unfinished business, full of a sense of loss that nagged at me at the oddest times.
Another firefighter, Peter Jadis, left the department at the same time I did, heading for a career in the RCMP, and our colleagues got us drunk and left us wandering on the fire chiefâs lawn. I saw the chief look out between his curtains, shake his head and pull them closed again. Laughing, we urinated on the mailbox post, while the firefighters who had brought us there climbed in their cars and drove away. The chief hadnât come to the party, too used to recruiting and training young firefighters only to have them move away after college.
Turning in my gear, initialling the list of equipment I was returning, and handing over my pager and the key to the fire station was brutally hard, especially for someone who hadnât yet experienced much of the change that life usually brings. I was barely out of school, my family was still living in the same Halifax house I had lived in almost all my life, and I wasnât familiar with the draining idea that there is a point at which scores of things suddenly exist only in your memory. It wasnât until my parents retired, sold the house and moved to Victoria, B.C., that I realized a home could just disappear, moving from the concrete to the intangible in a mere moment. Suddenly, everything that had been our family home became just scattered electrons zipping around my head as memories, and I couldnât even be sure I had the order right.
But I certainly felt a sense of loss the instant I left the fire department in Wolfville. It came with a sinking awareness that the situation couldnât be undone, that we already had airline tickets to Toronto and plans that wouldnât be changed. Handing in my key to the station, I felt that a thousand things were slipping away.
I realized that, while I would certainly never forget putting out a huge pile of burning car tires in the middle of a rural road on a freezing cold Halloween night, there wouldnât be anyone who would know exactly what I meant when I said the night was so dark that the smoke was invisible, showing itself only in the negative when thick curtains of it snuffed out the stars in a rising column of inked black.
That no one would understand the strange, light, feathery feeling I had in my chest as I walked back from the fire department and down a dirt road to the universityâs rugby
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