Burning for Her

Sunlight flooded the room. I could see it through my eyelids, and that was it. I was awake. I forced my eyes to open a sliver and turned my neck to see if there was someone else in my bed. The mass of midnight waves covering my pillow told me that I wasn’t alone. I lifted my head to try and get a better look, but she was laying on her side, facing away from me. I put my head back down and reached for my phone on the night stand to check the time. Seven-thirty. 

Shit. I was gonna be late for work. The firehouse operates on a ‘if you’re not early, you’re late’ policy. That’s why I’d gotten an apartment only four miles from my station, which was in Jamaica, Queens. Even though my tour didn’t start until nine, I was expected to be there by eight, at the latest. And with breakfast.

I flipped onto my side and brushed the chick’s hair away from her face. She was still sound asleep. I thought if I could see her face, I’d remember her name, but no such luck. Although, I did remember she had a bangin’ body. 

I rolled away from her and flipped the sheet off myself, finding that I hadn’t bothered to put anything on to sleep in. Stumbling over the pile of clothes on the floor–mine and hers–I made my way into the bathroom to take a piss and brush my teeth. The night before had been fun. I’d gone with some of my boys to our local sports bar by my one-bedroom bachelor pad. There was no shortage of trendy spots in Forest Hills, but Corner Pub was our spot. Cold beer, pool tables, dart boards, and an all access pass to ESPN was all we needed. 

Well, almost. The place was also always crawling with badge bunnies. It was an unwritten rule among us guys that you didn’t go to Corner Pub without wearing an FDNY shirt–they were badge bunny bait. And that’s how I came to have the mysterious brunette in my bed. Sandra, maybe? Or was it Cassandra? Didn’t really matter. I wasn’t keeping her around. 

 After wrapping a towel around my waist, I went back to my bedroom and found her tugging her jeans up. Her tits were spilling out of her bra, and my cock twitched at the memory of being wedged between them the night before. 

 “Morning,” I said, as my eyes feasted on the view.

 Her cheeks turned pink. “Hi.” It was cute when they acted all shy the next morning.

“Sleep okay?” I asked, as I brushed my shaggy blonde hair off my forehead.

“Yup.” She buttoned up her blouse.

I nodded. “Good.”

I went to my dresser and grabbed the Ladder 139 t-shirt and navy canvas shorts I was expected to wear to work, along with a pair of boxer briefs. Yes, I wore shorts even though it was December. It got hot with our bunker pants on. After dropping my clothes onto my bed, I let my towel fall. Glancing up, I noticed a pair of wide brown eyes staring at me before she abruptly averted them.

“Umm, sorry. I, uh–”

I suppressed a laugh as I put on my boxer briefs. “Hun, you have no reason to be sorry. More than one part of you was wrapped him last night.” I winked and whispered, “That means you’re allowed to look.”

The flush of her skin matched her burgundy shirt and I chuckled. I couldn’t help myself. By the time I’d finished getting dressed, she was on her way out, so I met her at the door.

“Well, bye,” she said, with her neck angled back to look at me.

At six-foot-six, I towered over all women, and this chick had been no exception. I bent down and gripped her face in my hands, pulling her mouth toward mine. I planted a parting kiss on her lips that would have her forever remembering her night with Ryan Hogan. 

I pulled back, keeping her face in my hands. “Thanks for last night,” I said as I flashed her my signature smile. 

She simply nodded with her mouth agape; her pink-tinged face still cradled in my palms.

I let my hands fall and reached for the knob, pulling the door open for her. She left without another word. 

I darted into the station two minutes past eight, with a box of pastries from the bakery down the block in hand. I went straight for the kitchen and found the crew fanned out in the attached lounge.

“Yo, Pretty Boy. Nice of you to join us,” one of the old timers, Joe DelMonico called out over his newspaper.

“Yeah, yeah, Fat Ass, I brought those cinnamon rolls you like so much.” He wasn’t exactly fat, but he was sporting a dad bod.

He bounced up from the recliner and came into the kitchen to snag one out of the bakery box that I’d put on the counter. When he took a bite, the cream cheese icing coated his mostly gray mustache. “You’re forgiven,” he muttered while chewing.

“Cut Hogan some slack,” Martinez, one of the guys I’d gone out with the night before, said in his thick Bronx accent, as he reached for a pastry. “You shoulda seen the bunny he caught last night. Fuck, I’d be late for work, too, if I had her in my bed.” He took a bite of the Danish and wiggled his eyebrows.

I sucked in my lower lip and bit down. “She was something sweet, all right.”

DelMonico ran a hand over his bald head and whistled. “Those were the good old days. Man, do I miss that.” He wagged his finger at us. “Never get married boys.” He’d been divorced. Twice.

I laughed. “Nah. I’m not the marrying type.”

Martinez slapped his hand down on the counter. “Ha! Pretty sure your brother Jesse said the same thing. Look how that turned out.”

At twenty-six, Eddie Martinez was a year younger than me, and he was one of my closest friends. He knew Jesse pretty well, too, because we all hung out a lot. Well, we used to. Now my brother was busy being a lieutenant and helping at his girlfriend’s brewery.

“Jesse and Lana only live together,” I said. “They’re not getting married. That’s Dylan and Autumn.” 

Dylan was one of my other brothers. He and Autumn were getting married that summer.

Martinez popped the last piece of his Danish into his mouth. “Yeah not yet. He just turned thirty, though. Guarantee he puts a ring on it within a year.”

I reached for the coffee pot and poured myself a cup. “We’ll see.” Lana’s awesome, so I wouldn’t mind having her in the family. Guess I’m just still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Jesse’s in an actual relationship.

“It’s gonna happen, bro. That’s why I’m sayin’ don’t rule it out for yourself.” Martinez reached for a mug and filled it with coffee.

I took a sip of my much-needed caffeine fix with milk and two sugars. 

“I mean, I ain’t gonna hold my breath on that one ‘cuz you a dog, but ya never know.” His dark brown eyes dared me to argue. But I couldn’t really refute it.

I threw my fist out and caught him in the arm. “Oh, and you think you’re much better, huh?”

“Fuck, no. I’m probably worse than you. But I ain’t got two brothers to give me the fever like you do.”

DelMonico wiped the icing off his face with the back of his hand. “I’ll be shocked if either of you settles down. But when I was your age, I said the same shit about myself. Look how that turned out. I’m forty-nine with five kids and I’m writing two different alimony checks every month.”

Fuck that. No way in hell was I going to give up what I had for one woman and the potential of that kind of mess. I loved my brothers’ women and I was glad that they’re all happy, but that wasn’t for me. I liked doing my own thing without having to be accountable to someone else.

Martinez scratched his scalp through his dark buzzed hair. “That ain’t gonna be me. That’s for damn sure. Being an uncle to my sister’s brats is enough.”

Lieutenant Baker poked his head around the corner and announced, “Truck checks and duty roster on the apparatus floor in three.”

I finished off my coffee and put the mug into the dishwasher before making my way to the truck house. Before every shift, the new crew had to go through the rig and make sure all was good to go, but first we had to get our assignments from the Officer in Charge (OIC). I liked working with Cory. Sorry, Lieutenant Baker. He was four years older than me and we had worked together in the Engine before he’d been promoted to the Ladder company lieutenant two years before. After a year, he had helped me move across the floor to the truck.

Being on the Engine was all right, but I loved being on the truck. Ladder 139 was a place I could see myself staying permanently. I didn’t have aspirations of climbing the ranks like Jesse and my oldest brother, Kyle, had. They were both lieutenants and I had no doubt they’d be captains before long. I wasn’t like them, though. Leadership wasn’t in my cards. 

An Engine company is responsible for getting water on the fire and putting it out. They also went on a shit ton of medical calls. Whereas the truck–or Ladder company–was tasked with locating the fire and victims, as well as ventilating and doing overhaul. We were way more badass. 

“By some miracle, we’ve actually got a full crew today,” Cory said.

City budget cuts hadn’t been kind to the FDNY. An ideal truck team had six guys, but most houses only got four, which made for some seriously dangerous situations. Luckily for us, we were the busiest house in Queens, so we usually had a five-man crew, and occasionally we got to run with six.

Cory continued with our duty roster. “DelMonico is our chauffeur and obviously I’ve got the thermal imaging camera. Martinez, you’re our can man. Brown, the irons. Hogan, you’re on the roof. That leaves Isaac as the OV.” That stands for Outside Vent, aka the person who breaks the windows.

The roof wasn’t my favorite job, but getting that assignment meant that the OIC trusted me. The roof was dangerous and you had to be alert at all times. It fell on the roof man to make the evac call if he noticed conditions changing, so that job was only given to someone with experience. I had five years total on the job, and just over one year on the truck, so I was still new to the roof position, but it meant a lot that Cory, I mean, Lt. Baker, trusted me with it. We broke from the circle and went to check over the rig.

Not even an hour into our tour, the tones went off for a confirmed fire in a taxpayer, which was a row of connected stores. Those jobs sucked because protecting the exposures was a bitch, and often lead to multiple businesses being involved. We piled into the rig and we were hauling ass out of the station thirty-six seconds after the alarm went over. We drilled on our speed and took pride in being the quickest crew in our borough.

“Woo! Start this day off strong, boys.” Trevor Brown hollered as he strapped his self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) to his back. He had ten years on the truck, and I respected the hell out of him. 

We were heading to a row of stores only five blocks from our station. I knew the address and several of those businesses would be opened already at nine-thirty on a Wednesday, which told us that the chance of us coming across victims would be high. I also knew that it was a one-story building with a flat roof, which would make my job a little easier. Working on peaked roofs got complicated because they involved hooking a ladder to the peak and operating the saw off of it. At least with a flat roof, I only had to deal with a ladder to get me on and off. That being said, I knew that getting the roof open would be crucial since it was only one story, and also because the only egress points were in the front and back of the building since it was connected to other stores. Getting a hole above the fire would be necessary for proper ventilation. It also meant I was about to eat some smoke.

 

We were first on scene, and I wasted no time doing my size-up. There was only one store involved, a nail salon, but it appeared that the adjacent insurance office could go up as well. There was a big display window in the front, which I knew would be broken to vent, and since getting roasted wasn’t on my agenda, I knew I had to get a ladder up in the back.

I swung a circular saw over my left shoulder, grabbed a hook from the back of the rig and pulled a fourteen-foot ladder out, perching it on my right shoulder, then hoofed it to the back of the building. I located the store and dropped my tools to the ground so I could raise the ladder. With the butt end of the ladder jammed up against the wall, I lifted the top and walked my way toward the building, allowing my hands to slide along the side rails, until the ladder was flush with the wall, then I pulled the bottom out to the right climbing angle. I swung the saw back over my shoulder and retrieved my hook, then climbed up to the roof. When I got to the top, I stepped off the ladder and dropped down over the parapet wall that lined the perimeter.

When we had pulled up, I’d noticed the flames in the front of the store, so I made my way forward in that direction. The vent hole needed to be directly above the fire for it to be most effective, and I was only allowed to cut one hole above that store. If more than one hole was cut, it would actually cause the fire to spread because it would sprawl out toward the various vents, so I had to choose my location wisely. 

Taxpayers often had cocklofts, which were small attic-type spaces that extended the length of the building. That’s one reason they’re so dangerous. If fire got into the cockloft it could easily spread through the building and our one-store fire could get out of control–fast. Venting the roof, would pull the fire in on itself, preventing that spread. I had to work quickly.

My radio squelched and Brown said, “Can’t get more than ten feet in from the front. Going around back.”

My observation had been correct, the fire was in the front. I leaned over the parapet and called over my radio, “Brown, I’m gonna cut twelve to sixteen feet in. Good?”

He looked up, seeing me, and gave me a thumbs up as he kept charging down the sidewalk.

I used my hook to measure twelve feet from the parapet wall in the front of the building, then I put my hook to the side and started up the saw. I needed to cut a four-foot box to start off with, but extend two of the legs of my cut to make it easier if I needed to make the hole bigger at some point. That way I’d only have to make one cut while flames lapped at my elbows instead of three.

Before cutting, I stomped around the space I planned to cut, to make sure the roof was secure. If I noticed it sagging at any time, I’d have to bail and call for an evacuation. Since I only had a ladder in the rear, which was about thirty feet from my position, I calculated that I’d need five seconds to get back to the ladder and over the parapet if the roof was going to give. Once I felt confident that the roof was stable enough, I put the saw blade to the tar and cut my first leg of the vent hole. 

Cutting through roofing material, wasn’t easy, and it took more time than one might expect it to. I cut four legs, intersecting them so that I had a four-foot box, then I cut a diagonal notch in one corner. After shutting down the saw and putting it off to the side, I grabbed the hook and used the butt end to punch the knock out corner in. 

Once that was done, I pushed the transmit button on my radio and said, “Venting the roof.” 

I shoved the pointed end of my hook into the knock out corner and tugged toward me, peeling back the top section of the roof, and discarding it to the side. Smoke immediately billowed from the hole, so I took a moment to mask up. There was nothing fun about standing over an active vent hole without a mask on.

I flipped my hook over and used the butt end to push the ceiling down into the store. As soon as I did, flames shot up at me, causing me to jump back. Success.

“Roof vented,” I announced over the radio.

“10-4, Hogan,” my lieutenant replied. 

I waited for the sound of rushing water as the flames disrespected the shit out of the tar roof. I needed to extend my hole. Operating close to active flames like that was a bitch, and I couldn’t see shit through the smoke, but it had to happen. I started the saw back up and went over to one side where I had extended the legs and I put the blade to the roof to connect my pre-cuts. When I was half-way through my cut, the roof suddenly felt like an air mattress beneath my feet.

“Fuck!” I killed my saw and reached for my radio as I leapt forward so I could pass my vent and get to the ladder. My finger hit the transmitter and I shouted, “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Evacuate! The roof is–” 

I never got to finish my transmission because the roof gave out. And I went with it. 

Holy shit. I’m alive, was the first thought that crossed my mind after I’d landed. A violent cough shook my body and my eyes flew open, but I couldn’t see a damn thing. The cloudy haze of building materials and smoke that I laid in made me disoriented. The fact that I’d just fallen twelve feet and landed on my back hadn’t helped any either. My hand went to my head, and I was surprised to find that my helmet had stayed on. I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t, and I didn’t know why. I coughed again and, all of a sudden, the pressure on my chest hit me like the force of a Mack truck. 

“What the fuck?” I muttered as I tried to gain some situational awareness.

My radio squelched and I heard Isaac’s panicked voice. “Hogan is not on the roof. I repeat. Hogan is not on the roof! Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. Firefighter down.”

Mayday. The word alone made my asshole pucker, forget the fact that they’d called one on my behalf. Isaac had the OV, so they must’ve sent him up to find me. I sure as shit wasn’t getting dragged out of there like a pussy. I was conscious, so I should’ve been able to get myself out. One leg at a time, I pulled my heels in toward me so I could get my feet flat on the floor, then I tried to curl my upper body toward my knees, but I wasn’t moving.

Panic started to set in. Please, God don’t let me be paralyzed. I tried again. My right shoulder lifted off the ground, but my left side wasn’t moving. My PASS alarm sounded– a loud, obnoxious noise built into my SCBA that went off when it detected no movement for more than thirty seconds. Its job was to help us find a downed firefighter in distress. 

“Get. Up,” I screamed at myself through gritted teeth. It was sweltering. I had been standing over the fire when the roof had given way, so if the collapse hadn’t extinguished it, then I was lying in a bed of flames that were over a thousand degrees. My gear was only rated to withstand direct contact with flames for twelve seconds. 

My heart rate skyrocketed and I was sucking through my air. I’d already wasted too much time. I had to move. 

Dad, please let me get up. Please. I prayed to my father, who had been an FDNY captain before he died when I was twelve. The heat was beyond anything I’d ever felt, and I knew I was in serious trouble. I tossed my body around, scrambling like I was on the losing end of a bar fight. After failing to sit up–again–I screamed, “Fuck!” No way in hell was I going out like that. 

A searing pain shot through my chest and my arm. I was on fire. Though I couldn’t see the flames, I was sure of it. My right hand flew across my chest to try and pat it out, but instead of my body, I connected with what felt like a beam, which explained why I hadn’t been able to get up. I was trapped under a smoldering beam and it was burning me alive.

“Here! He’s over here,” Martinez shouted from somewhere beside me. “Hogan? You–”

“Put it out! Put it out!” I was jerking my shoulders, trying to wiggle myself free, but the motherfucker was heavy. 

A blast of water cascaded over me from Martinez’s can and then hands were on my shoulders, tucked under the straps of my SCBA. A few tugs and then I was moving, being dragged across the floor.

And that was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.