Pyro Read Free Page A

my bunk against the wall. I can hear the wind in the bushes outside my window. It’s a cozy little walk-in cubicle about the size of a jail cell. I never would have thought a shift with no fires and only two alarms could wear me out, but being a probie is no picnic.
    This morning when I got here at a quarter to seven, I ran into Katie Fryer in the beanery. I knew there were women working in the station, but I didn’t expect a giant. She’s six-three or -four, and I hate to think how much she weighs. After she left this morning, I heard a couple of men on our shift making jokes about her breasts. My guess is they’ve been making those same jokes the entire eight years she’s been here.
    Katie has this affected way of speaking that almost makes her seem retarded. It’s tricky to describe. She reminds me of someone who’s been raised by very old grandparents and has adopted their speech patterns.
    “Listen,” she whispered. “We’ve got fifteen minutes before the night watch opens that door, so I’m going to fill you in. This is a man’s world, but you can fit in if you take into account a few basics. The first thing you have to remember is you’re not a man. I know that sounds moronic, but we’ve had women here who thought they had to undress in front of men. Thought they had to curse like the men. Always keep your dignity. The second thing—they sent you down here to fire you.”
    Her last statement shocked me. My first monthly report at the end of November hadn’t exactly been glowing, but nobody’d mentioned termination.
    Now that I’ve been moved to Six’s, the December report is going to be written by Lieutenant Wollf, and I figured things would get better.
    I stared into Katie Fryer’s eyes and said, “
Every
body in my class is doing three months on a truck company.”
    “Listen, honey. Wollf never worked here before you showed up. They brought him in to terminate your sweet ass. That’s what he does. Wollf fired a woman recruit last year. They sent you here so he could fire you too.”
    “But the union. The civil service regulations. They have to be fair.”
    “That’s right. There are rules, and trust me when I tell you they know them a hell of a lot better than you do. You got a bad report from Galbraithe, right?”
    “Those reports were supposed to be confidential.”
    “Nothing’s confidential in the fire department. Last year one of the deputy chiefs went to bed with a secretary in the FMO. Wanna know what they had for breakfast? Honey, this is a fire department. It’s a gossip factory. I haven’t even come to Wollf yet. Paul Wollf is a bad-ass right out of . . . who was that bozo who wrote
The Three Musketeers
?”
    “Alexandre Dumas.”
    “Right. He’s right out of one of those comic books. You never met anybody like him. His father burned up in a house fire right here in our district. When Paul Wollf was a boot out at Thirteen’s, he saved three lives in a furniture warehouse factory. About the biggest hero we ever had. He beat up a chief last summer and got away scot-free. All you need to know is Wollf eats recruits raw and spits ’em out before breakfast. Hey, listen. I’m not telling you this to scare you. What you have to do here is go out and do the best job you’re capable of. That’s what’ll get you through. And remember. Don’t make excuses when you screw up. Somebody asks you to do something, do it. Pitch in whenever there’s
any
work to be done. Be aggressive at fires. Push people out of the way if you have to. I mean that. This is one place where polite’ll get you fired. They’re looking for aggression. People who can prove they’re not afraid of anything. Elbows and assholes.”
    “But if this guy’s here to fire me, what chance do I have?”
    “Like I said. The two things they’re worried about with women is strength and fear. Pretend you’re fearless even when you’re staring the Antichrist in the eye. Hey. That’s not bad. I think I’ll write