First Day

Ben

Monday was my first day at the Station. I had waited for this day for years, and I was as ready as I would ever be. I had all my tests and refresher courses, and thanks to a fitness regime back in New York to get my mind off the stress of work, I was in perfect shape too. Captain Kelly couldn’t do anything but hire me to work with the men.

When I arrived at the Station, Mike Kelly met me with a grin.

“You’ve worked hard for this. Congratulations.”

I shook his hand. “Thanks.”

“Come with me. I’ll introduce you to the guys, and they’ll do the rest.”

We walked up the stairs that led to the living area above the fire station. The smell of something burning greeted us.

“It smells like Sam is trying to cook again,” Mike said, pushing the door open with a sour face. Three men sat around a Formica kitchen table. One man stood before the stove, and it was smoking like it was nobody’s business.

“If you carry on like this, we’ll have to ring the bell and dispatch the truck to put out our own fires,” Mike joked, and all the men stood up. The one cooking, Sam, turned around with red eyes from the smoke.

“This is Ben Atwood. He’s joining the team. The cook is Sam Vaughan.”

“You mean the arsonist,” one of the men piped up.

“Next time, you cook,” Sam said.

“Please, I’d love to.”

I laughed.

“The mouthy one is Tyler Medina.”

I nodded. “I know him. We were in school together.”

“What’s up, man. Long time,” Tyler said. We had a lot of classes together. We had never been friends but that could change.

“The one with the ugly mug is Jay Fleming.”

“Ugly as sin but a heart of gold, my mama always says,” Jay said.

“Your mama is just being nice,” Tyler quipped. “You’re as filthy on the inside as you’re ugly on the outside.”

Jay punched Tyler on the shoulder a lot harder than I would have thought was playful, but Tyler laughed, rubbing his shoulder.

“And this over here is Lieutenant Ted Stephens.”

“Lieutenant,” I said.

“Just call me Ted,” he said. “We don’t do labels and shit here. When it comes to saving lives, we’re all in it for the same reason.”

I nodded. I knew right away I was going to get along with these guys.

Mike left us, and Sam carried on with his cooking. After he produced pancakes that tasted more like smoke than anything else, we headed down to clean the firefighting equipment.

“This is the cheapest therapy you’ll ever find,” he said, walking with me to the extinguishers to perform routine checks. “Everyone else complains, but I like doing the mundane jobs, you know? Keeps my mind off the shitty images that get stuck in there sometimes.” He tapped the side of his head.

“Does it get bad?” I asked.

Tyler shrugged. “Depends on what you see, I guess. I had a bad run last year. A building collapsed with us still in it. We found the woman we went in to save but there wasn’t much of her left to identify. Stuff like that stays with me.”

“Sounds awful.”

“It is, sometimes. But usually, we get them all out. Nothing better than knowing we saved the day.”

We got the equipment all checked, running through a process that ensured we didn’t miss anything.

“So, rumor has it you came back from the big city,” Tyler said.

“Where did you hear that?” I asked.

Tyler shrugged. “My sister is friends with Rachel.”

“Oh,” I said flatly.

“Yeah, I know all about the shit that went down between the two of you. How you dumped her because you found something better in the city.”

“She said that?” I asked. I was so surprised, I wasn’t angry. Not yet.

“Yeah.” Tyler laughed. “But don’t worry, she’s a bitch. Besides, Brittany says she was the one who fucked around. Brittany knows everything, of course. My sister doesn’t make shit up.”

I shook my head. “Dating Rachel was nothing but bad news, man. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”

“I’ve had relationships like that,” Tyler said. “But I’m happy with Caroline now.”

“Dating?”

“Married. Three years.”

“Oh, wow,” I said. “That’s a big step.”

“Yeah, man. Crazy to think we used to be at school together. Where has the time gone?”

It was crazy. When we were in school, Tyler was scrawny and pimple-faced, the butt of a lot of jokes and never really the type of guy who would be labeled as “cool.” Now, he was muscular and confident and apparently married.

“What about you? Got a girl?”

 I shook my head. “A lot of flings but nothing serious.”

“Even with all the cash they’re saying you have?”

I chuckled. “Because of all the cash. They all just want one thing from me. So, I turned the table on them and only wanted one thing from them instead.”

Tyler hooted. “That’s the life.”

I laughed. It had been for a while. Fucking around had been fun. I had liked it when I’d walked into a place and everyone had known who I was. For a while. But it had become boring. I’d wanted companionship when all I’d gotten was women who wanted my money or the status that would come with dating me. I had still taken the sex from them—what sane man wouldn’t? But I hadn’t hoped for something more.

“If I were you, I would have stayed in New York, surrounded by money and supermodels,” Tyler said.

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” I said. “Besides, I wanted to do something good for humanity, you know? You can only fuck so many women before you stop feeling like something special.”