"Mabel"

Aid 42 was dispatched to a tidy brick Tudor, in the north end of the City, for a Lifeline alert, 85 year old female, assist up. We are searching, in the dark, for a hidden set of house keys. On arriving, we had received supplemental information, via the data terminal in the aid car, instructing us to retrieve the keys from under a loose brick in the "fire pit". A survey of the brick fireplace, positioned at the corner of a slimy cedar deck, revealed nothing but secure, well-mortared masonry. A chain-link fence crowds the brick structure on two sides, and I wedge my bulk into the gap, fingering the few broken bricks on the ground, finding nothing but spiders underneath.

A call for an Assist Up is not an emergency, but if we can't find the keys, we will have to force our way inside the house. Prying a door open with the Halligan bar causes certain damage to the framing, costs the homeowner money, and, most importantly, if the keys are here, makes me look foolish. This is taking too long.

I stand up, "Here, take the flashlight. Try looking inside the fireplace." A pair of door mats are draped over the front of the outdoor fireplace, and Eric flips them out of the way.

"Got 'em." I'm still wriggling out from behind the brickwork, but I hear them jingle in the quiet night.

The backdoor unlocks easily enough, but the entry to the kitchen is barred by another locked door. The keys are corroded and all three, tried in turn, resist sliding into the keyhole.

"Dang it. Let's try the front."

Eric fumbles with the keys again, and, when he runs through the whole set a fourth time, I am tempted to snatch them out of his hands in frustration. The door, however, finally swings open with a creak. Secretly, I suspect that we could have gone through the back door.


There are some interesting, parenthetical aspects of this career. Aside from meeting people, (occasionally lucid) in various states of undress, or finding yourself, unknowingly, in a conversation with the deranged, we are invited to enter people's homes, suddenly, and without advance warning. When Grandpa has the crushing chest pain, Grandma probably isn't going to take time to tidy up. We might find a terrified mother, holding her post-ictal child, surrounded by diapers, toys, and laundry, the whirlwind chaos of her family's life. It's tempting to judge people by their housekeeping, but there are days when I know I could not suffer such scrutiny gracefully.

Hygiene, however, is fair game. I've been in homes (plural), where wheeling a sick person out the door on the gurney required a forward spotter, directing your steps around the numerous piles of dog shit on the carpet. Then there's the recent legend concerning a mad woman, living on her own, in a ramshackle house. Someone called 911 on her behalf, and the responding fire engine crew discovered a complete dog's skeleton on the floor, behind the couch. Decomposed, over time, in situ. Yurph.

Another frequent facet of this job is repeated visits to the same address. Often, this is the hallmark of a system abuser, exploiting the fire department's mission, in a quest for pain killers, "free" rides to the hospital, or maybe, simply, some attention. The Department continues to refine its policies for dealing with this problem, but one abuser is eventually replaced by another. Sometimes, though, a repeat visit is the eventual product of probability, or just plain, dumb, bad luck.

A few weeks ago, working on Engine 41, we were dispatched to a fall: possible leg, hip fracture. We found our patient, flat on her back, on an icy deck behind the house, shivering beneath a heavy overcoat and assorted blankets. When she told us her name, the same as someone else I know, I remembered seeing her a year ago when she broke her ankle. This time she had slipped, and, evidently, broken her femur in the fall. Normally, the femur is a tremendously strong bone, and typically breaks during incidents involving a tremendous transfer of energy, like an MVC, a motor vehicle collision. This lady, however, possessed both tremendous bulk and an unfortunate osteoporosis. Given the realities of pulling traction on her leg, on a frictionless surface, and hefting her, first onto a gurney, and then into the back of a medic unit, I can't say it was great to see her again. Both falls occurred outside her house, on the same deck, and the quality of her domestic management remains a mystery.

Now, with Eric, I find myself standing in another home to which I have been previously dispatched. I vaguely remember a warm conversation between my captain of that day, Uncle Ronnie, and a woman, his classmate from high school. I can't recall the reason we had gone there, but the house had been tidy, comfortable. We step into a scene entirely different from that hazy memory.

To our right, in a commandeered dining room, is a double bed. The furniture elsewhere seems to have spawned a crazy, peripheral clutter, in an effort to colonize the open space in middle of the room. On the floor, between a walker and a wheelchair, lies an elderly woman, like a placid turtle, on her back. We bend over her, like vultures over carrion. She is surrounded by scattered envelopes and papers. I speak slowly, loudly, "Are? You? Alright?" She nods happily. "What's your name?"
Her name is Mabel, and in a heartbeat, she is in our hands and hoisted to her feet. Her Lifeline pendant, a sleek medallion, dangles around her neck. Touching the button alerts a dispatch center which responds by calling back to the home through a (loud) speakerphone. Lifeline undoubtedly handles most of their false alerts, but when they can't determine the problem or contact the subscriber, they call us. and we half-expect to find nothing seriously wrong when we arrive. This is looking to be just another Assist Up, but when she reaches, teetering, for the walker's handles, arthritic hands shaking, clawing, my concern increases.

"Are you sure that you're okay?" Her spine is bowed almost horizontal at her neck, and I'm on one knee, at eye level with her. "What happened?"

"Oh, yes. I just fell while I was... I was maneuvering." She smiles a broad smile, and I'm reminded of a jolly Jack-O-Lantern, her missing teeth outnumbering the remaining ones.

I ask her to squeeze my fingers. Her grip is weak, but symmetrical. "Are you normally...", more delicately, "Do you..." Screw it. "Is this normal for you?"

"Yes, but I'm fine." That smile again. I'm concerned about a possible stroke, but every stroke victim I have ever met was terrified by some sudden affectation: a headache, an inability to move or communicate, even voices in their head. She watches me patiently.

"Have you ever had a stroke?" A history of prior stroke increases the likelihood of future strokes, but might also explain some of the deficits we are seeing. The signs and symptoms of stroke are fresh in my head, having just delivered a stroke training module to dozens of my brothers, over the last week.

"Oh, yes. Oh-one, July. Horrible." And yet she's smiling. "My left leg don't work so good now. That's why I moved in with my daughter. She's at work til two." I look over at Eric, but he's already unpacking the tools to measure blood pressure, oxygen saturation, blood sugar. Simple assists up don't normally require the completion of paperwork, but if we take vital signs, I will need to write a report.

Do you want to go to the hospital?" The six hundred dollar question.

Oh, no. I'm fine." I want to believe her, but the circumstances smell a little fishy. A trip to the emergency room can be expensive, a trivial concern in a genuine emergency. However, lying on a hospital bed for hours, unnecessarily, waiting for attention, waiting for a ride home, these things worry me.

"Can we call your daughter?" I can't leave this woman at home if I have any doubts as to her health, and I have a few doubts. I motion to Eric to hold the wheelchair, and we move her to a seated position. Stethoscope in his ears, he inflates the blood pressure cuff with the rubber bulb in his hand.

"Well... Penny works til two. You can't call her at work. Sandra - she lives five blocks away." Her words come slowly, deliberately. (Eric announces her BP and blood sugar: both unremarkable.)

"Sandra? Can we call Sandra? Do you know her phone number?" She rattles off the number before I am ready, stressing the last two digits with a rising inflection: "Two. Niiiiiine." She repeats the number for me, and Eric jots it down on the back of his nitrile glove, smiling when she sings the last two digits again, pitch-perfect. Eric dials and gets an answering machine, but leaves no message.

I explain my concerns, and that we couldn't reach Sandra on the telephone. Mabel admits that her daughter usually goes to bed early. "How well do you know your neighbors?" I envision knocking on someone's door, trying to explain the situation, on the porch, in my uniform, but she reels off another phone number, rapid-fire, before I am ready.

"That's Annette. She lives... right next door." She repeats the number, and it's like listening to a tape recording, again delivered in the same tone and rhythm. Her memory, at least, seems to be intact.

Eric dials and someone answers. "Is this Annette? Hi. This is Eric with the fire department. Do you know Mabel?" He explains the situation carefully, stressing that we don't think this is an emergency, but we need some outside confirmation. A few minutes later, the neighbor is in the room with us, wearing a green wool jacket with brass buttons, like she just got home from church or a dinner party. She's chats with Mabel, leaning down. I watch the conversation closely, looking for signs that Annette is distressed by our patient's condition, but they shoot the breeze casually, if a little slowly, discussing daughters, weather, and the handsome firefighters in Mabel's living room. I'm filling in the blanks on my report, fleshing out the narrative. Eric packs up the kits.

Annette turns to me, "I think she's fine. This is completely normal."

We set to tidying up the mess created in the fall. Mabel has a system for keeping medications, bills, letters close at hand, much of it piled on top of a footstool, overturned when she went down. She is very particular, directing Eric to place her medications, just-so, by the phone. She keeps a glass of water, half-full, by the pills, and another in the basket on her walker.

"Seems a little precarious to me." The footstool is designed to rock and I wobble it experimentally.

"I..." She's scooting the wheelchair with her right foot, "Maneuver."

I explain the required signatures on my report, and Mabel, pen in her gnarled hand, signs with a flawless script, the kind I could never master. Annette thanks us for calling her, and after signing as a witness, offers to help get Mabel ready for bed. We say goodnight, and we're out the door.

Eric takes the kits to the aid car. I return the keys to their hiding place behind the house, in the dark, and Aid 42 is in service.

Unless You're A Fireman (fiction)

Many years ago, a young man was driving around the city where I work, late at night, looking for a place to stay. His grandmother had died just two days before, and the funeral was to be held in a couple of days. He was only one day into a three-day cross-country trip, and already he was exhausted.

Neon taunted him from the signs outside every Motel: "NO VACANCY". In order to make the funeral, he would have to get up and be on the road by five in the morning. It was getting late.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Suddenly his car began pulling to the right, and the man suspected he had a flat tire, and so, pulled over. Even in the dark, his tire was obviously ruined. With a sigh, he grabbed his hat, buttoned his coat, and prepared to change the wheel in the rain.

Methodically, he removed his luggage from the trunk, putting it in the rear seat of his sedan to keep it dry. He pulled out the tire iron and jack, setting them on the ground, by the bad wheel. Upon hefting the spare wheel out of the trunk, he realized that the tire had gone flat over time, in the years it had lain there.

"Oh, that's just..." He clasped his head, crushing the sopping, felt fedora, "...great!"

Leaning against the car, he looked around the gloom. Several tidy houses were nearby, but no lights were on. The few businesses in the neighborhood had been closed for hours. Across the street, however, was a fire station. Lights burned in the windows, and shadowy shapes could be seen moving, behind the blinds.

At the front door, he rang a doorbell, and moments later, a young firefighter opened the door and ushered him in, out of the weather. Dripping in the foyer, the man related the problem with his spare tire. Just then, an older firefighter, wearing a white shirt, poked his head around the corner.

"Everything alright out here?"

"No, sir. This gentleman needs a tow truck. His spare tire is flat."

"Nonsense. It just needs air." The chief stepped into the entrance, and the young man noticed that he was wearing slippers. "Probie, fill this man's tire."

The young firefighter dashed out into the storm, and the chief shook hands with the man. "Come in, come in. Have you eaten?"

When the man admitted that he hadn't, the officer ushered him into the kitchen. A delicious aroma lingered in the air, and several firefighters were sitting around the table, talking over hot chocolate. They quieted when the pair entered.

"This fellow needs a hot meal!" He barked the words, but he winked sideways at the young man. The firefighters jumped up and scurried: one to the refrigerator, one to the pantry, and one to the cupboard. By the time the man had removed his soaking wet coat and hat, a plate of hot food and a mug of cocoa were placed before him.

A surge of emotion, memories came over the man, and he realized two things: he was ravenous, and never before had he smelled anything so tantalizing. In between bites, he told the chief about his grandmother, about the motels, about his desperation. As he ate, he began to believe that everything was going to be okay, and a great peace befell him, a contentment he'd never before felt.

"Well, don't you worry about finding a room. You can stay here tonight ...If you don't mind the occasional fire alarm." When the young man started to slowly shake his head, "Nope. I insist. You'll be my guest. We have a couple of spare beds, upstairs, in the ward... don't take the one next to Hicks, though - he snores!" chuckling.

The man had to know, "What did I just eat? That was the most amazing thing I have ever tasted, but I have no idea what it was."

"I can't tell you. Want some ice cream?"

"You can't? Well, who can?"

"Well... nobody can, sir. -unless you're a fireman. It's a secret." The chief smiled. "About that ice cream?"

At that moment, the firefighter who had answered the door entered the kitchen. "Tire's all fixed, sir. I put it on for you, and it should be fine, for a few days, at least."

The chief explained that the traveler would be sleeping in the ward, and sent the probie to help the man fetch his luggage. Outside, the man asked the probie about the dinner.

"Can't tell you unless you're a fireman." At the car, smiling against the cold rain, he took both suitcases from the man. "Sure is good, though, isn't it?"

"Sure is. Say, what's it take to become a fireman?"

The firefighter set down the luggage, and looked directly at the man for a moment, the rain soaking his hair, his uniform.

"Sir, I'll tell you, it's the best thing I have ever done. You'll need to take tests, written tests, and physical ability tests, some grueling. You'll also need to pass oral examinations, attend interviews, get a medical evaluation... If you're hired, you'll spend a year or more, on probation, at the bottom of the heap, doing the housework, all the dirty jobs. You'll see astounding things, horrible things. In that time, you have to win the respect, love, and trust of all your brothers. When that happens, you're a fireman." He picked the suitcase up again, and headed across the street, back to the station, in the downpour.

That night, the man had difficulty falling asleep. The flavors and texture, the smell and colors of his meal, the kindness of these men, filled his thoughts. The next thing he realized, the probie was gently shaking him awake.

"The shower's running. I'll have breakfast waiting when you come down. How do you take your coffee?"

All that day, and the next, on the road the young man could only think about becoming a firefighter. At the funeral, his family asked him about his life, his job. He told them he had decided that he was going to become a firefighter. When he got home, he began visiting fire departments, asking around about fire service tests. He began to study fire science and emergency medicine. He worked for an ambulance company. And he continued to take tests. Finally, he was invited in for an oral board, and ranked on a hiring list. He waited for the call, but it never came, and so he continued to take tests. More oral boards, more interviews, still taking every fire department test he heard about.

One day, three years after his flat tire, he got the call he had been waiting for. He was offered a provisional position, as firefighter, pending a medical evaluation and background check. He passed with flying colors, and became the newest firefighter, a probie, in his department.

He worked very hard, always trying to save others time and effort. When there was work to be done, he was the first to start, that last to finish, whistling, a smile on his face. He cleaned toilets, dishes, fire engines, equipment, and worked tirelessly in the kitchen to feed his crew.

At last the day came, when his chief called him into his office, handed him the recipe, and patiently explained the finer points. On that day, the secret of the food that he had tasted years before was entrusted to him: the ingredients, the preparation, the seasoning, even the proper cookware...

But I can't tell you unless you're a fireman.

History III

Whenever the subject of the contest came up, the mispronunciation peppered my speech like cayenne in a cookie.

"I'm going to win duriation aloft."

"The world record for duriation is eighteen seconds."

"These flaps, right here, they give you a longer flight duriation."

Between recess and lunch, we had writing, which was actually mostly spelling. The week before, everyone scored a hundred on the test, and, as a reward, Mister Wayerski announced that our class would have a paper airplane contest. He produced a huge paperback book, entitled The Great International Paper Airplane Book, about a famous contest held by a magazine called Scientific American, way back in the late sixties.

He passed the book around the classroom and explained the four events: duration aloft, distance flown, aerobatics and origami. We would learn to spell aeronautical terms, and write about our airplanes. At this, a collective groan rose from the class, but I was distracted, leafing through the magnificent book, turning the giant pages, examining the winning designs. I know I tried to pay attention, but that must have been when I confused the pronunciation of the word meaning "length of time".

After that, every recess and lunch, I stayed inside the classroom, poring over the book, mulling which tournaments to enter. I dismissed the origami competition, as being meaningless, beneath my dignity - these planes didn't even need to fly. Aerobatic entries would be judged by a panel of students, scored on the intricacy of their flight, and variety of maneuvers performed.

True, honest, objective data would determine the winners of distance and duration. I suspected distance flown would boil down to the thrower's skill and strength. Me, I could barely throw a baseball. If I wanted to win (and I truly did, with all my heart), I would have to focus on the duriation aloft event. The instructions for folding the original winning design were included in the book, and I studied, practiced, and made it my own. I invented a clever, and, apparently novel, trick for forming the difficult initial folds required by the plans.

The day before the competition, after the morning recess, Mister Wayerski pulled me aside. My fifth grade teacher, with his mutton chops, reminded me of Burt Reynolds, and I knew he tried really hard to be the fun teacher at Happy Valley. I had heard that he used to be a P.E. teacher, a rumor supported by the games he taught us to play, on the grass right outside our classroom door.

He laid a hairy hand on my shoulder and leaned in, whispering, "What's your best..." He paused, looking around, conspiratorially, "...duration, so far?" He drew the word out into three long syllables. Oh... I get it.

I appreciated this kindness, but my face went hot anyway. My glasses, the frames a regrettable tortoiseshell pattern, began to fog, especially the thicker lens on the right, the eye with the astigmatism. I blankly looked up at him, his toothy smile hazily framed by his thick sideburns. I didn't know any other adults with sideburns. His were like black carpet.

"Come on, you can tell me. I can keep a secret."

"Um... I don't know. I don't have a stopwatch."

"Hmmm. Well, we'll have to find out." He released my shoulder, straightening up. I took this as a signal to take my seat. When everyone was seated, he waited for us to quiet down.

"I know we're supposed to have a spelling test today..." He had our rapt attention.

Mister Wayerski explained that we would be having a flight trial, a practice run, for the actual contest the next day. We had thirty minutes in which to create our entries, starting with a standard sheet of notebook paper, after which, the whole class would march up to the gymnasium to test them out. I took my time, folding carefully, ironing the creases perfectly flat with the side of a number two pencil. Using blunted safety scissors, I carefully cut identically matched flaps into the rear edge of the wings, and holding the plane up at eye level, I confirmed an absolute symmetry from all directions. After a few test flights, steady glides between the rows of desks, I was ready.

I used the remaining time to spy on my chief rival, Rick Lenaburg. Rick was not someone you would peg as a strong student. No one, except, possibly, his fawning toady, Tod Cernitch, would have considered copying from any of his tests. However, on matters important, Rick was the undisputed authority. If you were waffling between the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle or the Six Million Dollar Man Action Figure, ask Rick. He dominated bombardment, our playground dodge-ball game, delivering stinging attacks, the thrumming, crimson ball jouncing off your head or back. If you needed a BB gun, he was your man. Rick was a fearless BMX pioneer, jumping a bicycle he had built from spare parts. He once broke his collarbone, leaping from the climber on the playground, using his coat as a makeshift hang-glider, in a sixty-knot wind. If anyone could make a winning paper airplane, Rick Lenaburg could.

Curiosity, edged with nervous awe, propelled me to his desk, where sat three paper planes, to my one. Proudly, he showed me a sleek dart, wings folded repeatedly to the thickness of a ruler, clearly intended to dominate the distance category. I knew I was eyeing a champion. The second airplane, he told me, was an accident.

"When I throw this one, it spirals and loops - crazy! And, I figured... 'What the heck'?" So, an aerobatic entry, too. Rick, grinning, was more excited by this classroom activity than I could ever remember.

The final paper dart on his desk appeared identical to mine. Indistinguishable. I spun my head to verify that my entry was still on my desk where I had left it. It was. Any confidence I had felt, just moments before, drained from me like air from a leaking balloon. My face was hot again, my shoulders sagged.

"Well, good luck, Rick."

"Yeah, you too."

I returned to my desk, and sat, staring at my plane, and, suddenly, it was time. We gathered up our airplanes. Our teacher quietly led us, single-file, out the classroom door, through the resource center, - for reasons unknown, that's what they called the library - and up the ramp, to the gym.

It went quickly, Mister Wayerski imposing an improvised order on the proceedings. The origami portion was omitted, to "preserve originality". Of course, we went in alphabetical order, by last names. I thought Rick's aerobatic performance was the best, but, because it crashed into the floor, most of the class voted for Rhonda Calvin . Lined up along one wall, between folded lunch tables, the distance competitors took turns hurling their planes across the gym. As expected, Rick won, beating the next-best effort by twenty feet, almost hitting the far wall.

Few students, vying for duration aloft, were able to exceed eight seconds of flight. From the center of the basketball court, planes were thrown straight up, some falling back, straight down, barely missing the thrower. Rick took his turn, crouching like a coiled spring, his plane brushing the linoleum. At the end of the countdown, he exploded upwards, sneakers off the floor, arms windmilling. His plane described a tight loop fifteen feet above his head. It looked like it might loop again, but, lacking airspeed, it stalled and settled into a slow, dipping glide that carried it under the basketball hoop. When it touched down, Mister Wayerski clicked the stopwatch with an exaggerated chop of his arm.

"Twelve-point-five seconds." Crap.

I tried to duplicate Rick Lenaburg's athletic, off-balance launch, but the stance was awkward. I relaxed into a more-natural pose and, at the signal, pitched my glider with a grunt. Our planes' common pedigree was evidenced by similar, looping flights. After a heart-stopping stall, my plane, too, nosed into gentle, undulating descent. I held my breath, fists clenched, contorting my body, bowler-like, as if some kind of tormented physical effort might prolong the flight.

The plane hit the wall, with a crisp snap, four feet above the rubber baseboard. For a I moment, I believed it might glance off, fantastically remaining aloft. We watched it skid down the wall, crashing, thud, as Mister Wayerski dropped his arm again. I exhaled slowly, cheeks puffing.

"Eleven seconds."

I retrieved my plane, crumpling it in between my palms. Second place was still losing, but I wrung some satisfaction from beating Tod Cernitch, who, surprisingly, scored a 10.5. I suspected he used a plane built by Rick, to their mutual benefit. I was sick of paper airplanes. Our teacher congratulated the winners as the bell for the first lunch period rang. We hurriedly collected our lunches from the classroom, reconvening in the gym, now arrayed with the folding tables.

When Bob, the bus driver, dropped me off, I ran home, my backpack bouncing on my shoulders. After gulping from a carton of cold milk in the fridge, I fished a stack of paper from the double drawer in mom's desk. Kneeling at a side table, a stylish shade of avocado, molded from sturdy plastic, I set to the task of producing a squadron of duplicate paper airplanes. I knew, intuitively, that the key to the design's success lay in the details of the flaps.

Mom was in the kitchen, making spaghetti, and I excitedly detailed the drama of the paper airplane contest. Patiently, I explained my experiment, the comparison of different aileron sizes, the little paper flaps that inexplicably affected both the glide ratio and initial altitude.

"Too much lift, and the plane will loop too much... Less lift and it will fly higher, but it won't stay in the air long enough." I was thinking out loud.

"Umm Hmm." She wasn't even paying attention. "Dinnertime. Wash your hands, find your sisters."

Spaghetti was a favorite, but I ate silently, flying paper dogfights in my head. Dad wasn't home yet, and the women in my family had no interest in scientific sport. After the dishwasher was loaded, I returned to the little green table, moving it, and my fleet, into the center of the living room.

I resumed by cutting paired slits in the trailing edges of the planes' wings, adding ailerons of differing dimensions: wide, narrow, short, and long. When finished, I methodically threw each plane several times, weighing the merits of each, stashing the rejected versions under the table, at my knees. My brute-force approach yielded a plane with long narrow flaps, one marginally wider than the other. When thrown hard, the flaps bent down, allowing the plane to climb, but as speed was lost, the inherent springiness in the paper returned the flaps to a normal, high-lift orientation. Additionally, a wider flap steered the plane in a gentle spiral, keeping it from hitting a wall.

I could toss the plane toward the fireplace, only to have it bank over the couch and return to my hand, boomerang-like. On my knees, in the living room, I flew missions over the furniture, past the picture window, again and again. I had mastered aerodynamics, physical laws were my playthings, this aircraft did my bidding.

Experimentally, I gave the missile a mighty heave, banking its wings into the throw. For a moment, I feared it would clip the textured shag, cartwheeling across the green carpet. Like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, I delighted in my new-found powers, as the plane climbed, up, up, wheeling toward my head. A warm glee smoldered in my smug soul, when, confidant that the paper airplane would complete two circuits around the room, I ducked my head.

WHAM.

Reeling, my hands went to my face, which had just collided with the stout and immovable little green plastic table. The room tilted crazily, my heavy, dorky glasses knocked askew. I adjusted the lenses and my fingers came away, bloody. The vision in my left eye, my good eye, clouded, my nose was warm, wet. I tasted iron. Carefully, head tilted back, I stood up, stumbled into the kitchen.

"MOM!"

At the sink, I discarded my glasses, dousing my face with water from the tap. Every splash on the stainless steel was tinged with red. I ripped a paper towel from the dispenser under the cabinet, and plastered it against my brow. Mom swung the saloon doors open.

"What on Earth... Oh, dear." I couldn't see her expression, couldn't gauge her anger. "Jesus H. Christ... Let me get a towel."

I examined my face in the bathroom mirror. My stupid glasses had slammed into the bridge of my nose, and the gaping cut gushed when I moved the washcloth aside, to dab at the drying blood on my cheek and mouth.

"I think you need stitches."

Dad still wasn't home. Mom rounded up my sisters and we all went to the emergency room in the Dasher wagon. It bears mention that our Volkswagen was a certain shade of green: avocado. Let the record also reflect that I had never, in my short life, tasted the creamy and nutritious flesh of that exotic fruit, nor, I believe, had either of my parents, but I was intimately familiar with the decorator tint.

Sewing my flesh back together, the doctor chuckled quietly when I detailed the circumstances of my visit to the emergency room. Four neat loops of silk closed the split, but my nose was so swollen that my glasses would not fit my face. Secretly, I hoped they never would.

The next day, I stood up in writing class, and related my trip to the emergency room. I held up my paper airplane, and pointed to the tiny smudge of blood on the left wing. Mister Wayerski called me his little scientist, and joked about dangerous laboratory experiments. Afterwards, Rick showed me the scar on his knee, from a bike wreck.

Shortly, once again, we marched to the gym.

History II

My official license for mayhem arrived in the seventh grade.

"You're going to play sports, play an instrument, or get a job!" On this subject, my parents marched in rare lockstep.

I found a job.

Each day, after school, Saturday and Sunday mornings, I delivered the Bellingham Herald. Fifty customers, scattered across four miles of incline, lined my pockets with a token filthy lucre, and, more importantly, liberated me from the petty dramas of my family and adolescence. I was suddenly immune from being grounded. It was brilliant.

Now, It is a solid scientific fact that a bicycle cannot survive the rigors of newspaper delivery, and, shortly, I found myself walking the five miles each day. It was the rare occasion when my mom would drive me, allowing me to ride in the VW bus with the sliding door open. My best friend, Eric, accompanied me most days, substituting for me when I went fishing with my dad or came down with the plague. He knew the route intimately and its customer's peculiarities, and he knew I had a good thing. Eric had a pellet gun, which he'd bring along sometimes, and we'd hunt squirrels, songbirds, and Nazis in the thick second-growth woods.

My paper route was absurdly plotted upon the terrain. My papers were waiting for me each day, in a plywood box, at the precise midpoint of my customers. This meant, on one hand, that I only had to carry half my papers at a time, but also that I had to backtrack both legs of the route each day. More importantly, I got to make a strategic business decision every day. From the dropoff point, I could first go up Viewcrest Drive, delivering to the nicer homes, or down into Chuckanut Village, a funky community of hippies and hardscrabble hangers-on. Each Christmas, the view homes, overlooking the water, with their tasteful woodwork, could be counted on for a tip. But, the people who lived in the Village, in shacks with add-ons, smelling of woodsmoke and clams, were friendly all year.

The Village was platted at the head of a squarish, shallow bay, protected by a mile-long stone causeway. The Great Northern railway constructed this ballast berm in the 1920's, replacing an open timber trestle, which now formed a protective breakwater. A wide gravel beach ringed the north half of the bay, with sandstone boulders and cliffs eroded into bizarre honeycombed shapes. The south side had marshy islets, through which snaked a creek at low water, full of spawning salmon in September. Between these shores, a perilous, waist-deep, fragrant and sucking mud stretched. Every day, the promise of certain adventure pulled on me, separating from responsibility like a magnetic claw, until my wristwatch nagged me back to diligence.

In addition to delivering newspapers to the homes, I was charged with collecting the subscription payments. Shrewdly, I refused to perform this task while delivering papers, preferring instead, to make several expeditions dedicated to this chore each month. I favored weekends, and, especially, nights after dinner, for such skulking around.

On a cloudy Sunday afternoon, on the cusp of spring, a collection expedition found me walking the railroad tracks, on the causeway that hemmed in the bay. I had taken a circuitous path to arrive there, having no intention, none at all, of actually collecting subscriptions from any of my customers.

Decades before, a perfect magic was performed by the engineers and laborers that constructed the railroad. Trains demand the straightest possible path between two points, and toward that end, the berm had been constructed, boulder by boulder, spanning the mouth of this cove. The tide was left to breathe through a gap in the wall, bridged by timbers oozing creosote. The north end of the causeway butted against a ridge, the root of a peninsula, known locally as Clark's Point. And there the miracle occurs. Rather than take the serpentine path around the point, rather than going over the ridge, an army of muscle and dynamite had bored through the sandstone. The tunnel described a gentle arc inside the Earth, such that, in the middle third of the tunnel, you could see neither entrance directly, only trusting their existence by the dim reflection off the moisture that seeped from the concrete, coursed down the curved ceiling, in thin films, irrigating the mossy walls.

Blinking against the daylight, having, once again, stupidly, braved the dangerous shortcut through the train tunnel, several options confronted me. The causeway ahead offered a sterile predictability: tracks, rocks, a hundred feet of trestle, high tide. On my left, northeast, flat water filled the bay, beyond which lay the Village, paying customers, duty.

The green water on the southwest side of the railroad was deep, wide beds of kelp calmed the swell, and the point blocked any wind. A narrow gravel beach spanned the crotch formed by the railroad berm and the steep shore of Clark's Point. On this balmy, grey day, at this splendid intersection of landscape and engineering, a second miracle occurred. I looked down from the tracks and saw the boat, half-submerged, sitting on the bottom, a few feet from water's edge.

Teal above, and white below, I knew it was a Sportyak, a sort of hard-shelled polyethelene raft. I'd seen dozens of them, a cheap and ubiquitous dinghy, hanging on the transoms of small power boats in the marina and in the islands. They were supposed to be unsinkable, yet here was a Sportyak sunk. There was no registration number on the bow. No vessels bobbed at anchor or moved across the inlet. The nearest waterfront home was a mile or more away. Perhaps lost in a storm, perhaps abandoned, clearly it was salvage, and, clearly, it was all mine.

Wet sneakers were a small price to pay for such a prize, and I gleefully yarded it onto dry land after a mad scramble down the car-sized rocks. I half-expected to get, predictably, caught in the act, accused of theft. I rocked it experimentally, and gallons of brine sloshed between the hull and deck. A quick and minor surgery, effected with my Swiss Army knife, yielded a two-inch square inspection hole, as large as I dared, at the aft starboard (I was a Boat Owner!) corner of the deck.

The seawater inside was illuminated with by the warm glow of light through the plastic, a tiny speckling of sand visible in the corners. No rocks, no seaweed: a good sign. Heaving, I lifted the boat bow-up, straining against the mass of leakage, easing, relaxing finally, as the water gushed through the hole I'd carved, onto the beach. I spun the now-empty boat around, and tipped it toward me, the last few drops dripping reluctantly. I flipped it, upside-down, and inspected the bottom. Barnacles and stone had scored long scratches in the plastic, but none were deep enough to cause a leak. In the corner, directly under my inspection/drain port was a dent, caused by some great impact. I could find no breach in the hull, and convinced myself that water must have infiltrated the seam between the top and bottom.

Balancing the Sportyak over my head, it wasn't difficult to clamber up and over the railroad tracks, picking my path from boulder to boulder. I hoped to carry the boat to a safe spot in the woods, but tide had flooded the bay, and precious little beach was available. A faint rain began to fall, making perfect circles on the surface on the clear, flat water. I had my pick of driftwood paddles, and perched on my knees, I alternated strokes on each side, canoe-fashion.

As I skimmed across the glassy sea, sand dabs, tiny flounders, darted away from my shadow. A kingfisher chattered overhead, a great blue heron lifted from a floating log, flapping slowly, croaking, like a feathered pterodactyl, across the water, I was navigating Paradise. I was alone on this placid and untroubled body of water, and only the woodsmoke rising, straight up, from the chimneys of homes on the distant shore belied the truth of other people in the world.

Between strokes of my ersatz paddle, I could hear a burbling noise, like a wet flapping. At first, I assumed air bubbles were fluttering under the hull of my vessel, but at one point, I stopped to savor the delicious beauty of my situation, only to hear the burbling while motionless. I twisted around, awkward in the tiny boat, bent to the hole in the deck. A pin-sized jet of water dribbled through a crack in the dent I had found earlier. Dammit! Water, a couple of inches, had violated the division between boat and sea, so I turned for the sandy shore, a scant thirty feet away.

I tipped my vessel vertical again, easier this time, and a few gallons gushed forth. I looked at my watch and scanned the shore. Several cars were parked along the short, dead-end, dirt track that gave visitors access to the beach. No one was visible on the beach. I was hoping to stash my trophy in the marsh behind that road, but the presence of people - hostiles - ruled out any plan the might expose my treasure.

Long ago, before the railroad causeay, this bay had been exposed to fierce weather from the southwest. Wind and water had wrought the lacy erosion on the rocks, undermining tremendous blocks of stone that had tumbled onto the shore, bouncing, rolling across the beach to form small islands at high water. Directly above me, one such boulder was stacked upon two others, forming a sort of cave. I dragged my boat in between the rocks and wedged it on the crumbling hillside, well above sight from the shore. I emerged, stooping, from the cache and circled around the rock pile, confirming the security of my hiding place.

Owing to the water level, I had to walk past the parked cars. There was still nobody on the beach, but I could hear voices in the marsh beyond. Probably birdwatchers. I made a beeline for home, hastily passing obviously occupied homes, people who owed me money. When I got home, I called Eric, and filled him in on my discovery.

I could hear the excitement in his voice. "This is so neat!"

In class, the next day, all I could think about was having my own private Sportyak. The day dragged, and when the dismissal bell rang, Eric was waiting for me on the grass field. We trotted straight to my house. He had already obtained the necessary permission, the night before, to join my on my paper route. We picked up the dorky poncho-bag I carried the papers in. We were off.

Of course, we delivered to the Village first, practically running, pausing to stuff newspapers into mailboxes and the few plastic Bellingham Herald tubes (which I sold to customers concerned about something called mailbox fraud) . We took opposite sides of the street, meeting in the middle of the road to hand off papers. We arrived at the bay, panting, damp in the March air.

A Subaru was parked by the water's edge, on the short gravel lane that connected the parallel paved roads. During the highest storm tides, water covered this part of the road, functionally part of the beach, with driftwood and a line of seaweed. On top of the car was a boat - my boat! A young man, obviously a college student, was standing on the bumper, knotting a rope securing the boat - his boat? - to a roof rack. My beautiful dreams, visions, plans for that boat began to unravel in my brain. I had to act.

"Hey! Where'd you get that boat?" I could hear my anguish bending my voice.

He paused, noticing us, and gestured across the water. "It was up on the rocks. Over there."

"That's... That's our boat." I squared my shoulders. "That's where we, uh, store it."

The claim sounded thin when spoken aloud, and I suspected this guy's salvage rights were better, twenty-four hours fresher, than mine. I believe I actually swooned, as the simultaneous thoughts and ideas crashed in my head: He doesn't know I found it just yesterday. This guy might just drive off with it. Two against one: Simple playground math. We could all share it. He's bigger AND older. Where would we keep it? He's going to take it. In his dorm? Don't cry, do not cry. It's not really mine. Not yet.

It was my time-tested understanding that bigger kids picked on, and took advantage of, smaller kids. I had experienced it first-hand when I changed schools, and I exercised this principle upon my younger sisters. Adults, generally, treated kids fairly. This person, laying claim to my Sportyak, might fall on either side of the line demarking adolescence from maturity. We stood there, beside his car. I tried to appear defiant, glared accusingly, and telepathically willed Eric to do the same.

In slow motion, this interloper reached for the rope laced over the dinghy. He's going to keep it.

Slowly, he pulled the rope, and it snaked through the bars and around the boat, piling at his feet.

"I'm sorry about that." The boat (my boat?) was in his hands. "I just thought someone had lost it. I was going to put a lost and found ad in the paper." Ouch. I am a thief.

"That's OK." I mopped my brow with my sleeve. "I'm glad we caught you. I'd hate to lose it. It's a great little boat." He opened the rear hatch, tossing the tangled line in the back.

"Yes, it is," He climbed into his car, waved. "Have fun!" Like we might not.

History I

When you entered the building, the first thing you noticed was the sharp smell of chlorine. The second thing you noticed was a fainter, slightly sweet, clean smell - fresh fish. I had experience, references, I signed the non-disclosure (Surimi was high-tech, proprietary), and so started my brief career making artificial crab.

One night, a nosebleed took me off the line. Accidental, fortunate, probably the product of the dry air, dehydration, and sleep deprivation, I was sent to the QA office to staunch the flow. Ernie, the Quality Engineer, in lab coat, safety glasses, poofy hairnet, was dissecting a package of "flake". He cut the vacuum-packed pouch open with a razor knife and methodically fingered the product until he found something.

"Look at this! What do you think that is?" I plucked it from his open palm, enjoying this demonstration of trust.

"A ball bearing?" The production equipment must have required thousands of bearings.

"No, a BB!"

"What’s the difference?" I feigned bovine ignorance.

"Oh, there’s a difference…" He snatched it back, dropping it, with a rattle, into a shallow stainless pan.

I watched him, blankly daubing at my nostril. Eventually I trudged, in my floppy rubber boots, back out to my spot on the packaging line.

Later, around three in the morning, Ernie appeared on the line. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He repeatedly ran a pair of pouches through the metal detector, the same route that all packaged product took. Each time a gate popped out, across the conveyor belt, and directed the packages into a separate plastic tote. I knew, with certainty, those packages also contained my BB’s.

Vanity

When I was kid, my mom had a kitchen stool, a handy tool for reaching things on shelves, a perch for friends to set and talk, or for kids to stir cookies and sneak bites of raw egg-laden dough. She loved that stool, and when it wore out, she replaced it with a sturdy, assemble-it-yourself, high-back version, in maple. She painted it a jaunty shade of orange, just the accent to avocado Formica and green shag rug. When the first stool came apart, literally falling to pieces under my weight, it was like stepping across a threshold when the new stool entered our house. The old stool had been my nemesis, an execution tool, like an electric chair. If I could see it out of the corner of my eye, my breath would catch, my voice would fall softer, respectful. It's not that I feared the chair, but what it represented: haircuts.

Somewhere, sometime, my dad received an illustrated How-To book on cutting hair. He already possessed a set of clippers, possibly cast-offs from a veterinary clinic, and after a little light reading decided that he could make me a presentable young man, and save some money at the same time. Cutting hair, even a simple pig shave, has a learning curve. To this day, I have a thick scar, from a gouging scissors wound, behind the top of my right ear which causes eyeglasses to cant to the left if I don't tweak the temple piece just so.

Hair is composed of lifeless keratin, a proteinaceous material also comprising finger and toe nails. Completely lacking nerves, hair is dead, a solid scientific fact that I disputed for years. The combination of dad's rusty tools and aggressive style molded me into a quaking, hand-shy dog-boy when the subject of haircuts came up. Like a setter fearful of baths, I would disappear, kicking and crying when discovered and subsequently hoisted into position on the stool. Although I never had a problem with dentists, I completely understand the aversion some people develop, even after modern painless dentistry. I'm here to tell you that cutting hair hurts.

My family had moved to Bellingham, Washington from Billings, Montana, where boys were expected to look like boys, which, in the eyes of my parents, most of the male students and professors in Bellingham failed to achieve. Long hair was a hallmark of the Hippies, and for years my Montana relatives were fascinated by stories about men that looked like women. The other crucial element of my Big Sky origin was the Scando-Teutonic genotype that I inherited. Pale skin and blond hair, shorn to quarter-inch fuzz, guaranteed certain sunburn on my scalp, and I learned to sport a ball cap on my tender head. My unprotected ears, however, fried like eggs in the northern sun, and in the summer months the burnt skin flaked off like stale potato chips.

We moved when I was in fourth grade, and I was quickly greeted by Matt, a friendly, fearless boy, a year older, his hair shaped into what he called a "mop". Like the Monkees, he was cool, and my mom must have taken pity on me when I mentioned my envy for his long hair. Dad grudgingly attempted to learn a scissor cut, which still, inexplicably, hurt like hellfire. I no longer looked like a junior Marine, and I saw my social standing improve at my new school, Happy Valley Elementary, where no one wore a crew cut.

In fifth grade I rode a train by myself, back to Montana for the summer, to "work" on my grandparents' farm, with the fantastic goal of earning money for a ten-speed bike. They belonged to a small tight-knit "church", meeting in family member's homes twice a week, and I was soon led to understand that my shaggy hair was pure homemade sin. Grandpa sat me down, opened the bible, searching until he found the justification he needed to mandate the haircut:

Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a
covering. 1 Corinthians 11:14-15

After reading me the verse, he paraphrased: "Boys with long hair are a disgrace."

My uncle Ervin held me down, like a bawling lamb, and duplicated my dad's ineptitude with scissors. Lacking proper clippers, I received a compromise haircut, well above my ears, but longer than a crew cut. In the mirror, through tearful eyes, I saw the boy I would recognize years later, playing banjo in Deliverance. Somewhere, I found a floppy, leather hat, a souvenir from Mexico, and wore it constantly to protect my dignity and albinism, at 3500 feet of elevation, under the blazing Big Sky.

I experimented briefly with growing my hair out in my late twenties. I was managing a Birkenstock store in Seattle, and I was tired of the bowl cut, the Caesar style, as kinder persons called it. This gave me a reason to wear a bandana, a different one each day, to restrain the bangs that would otherwise obscure my vision. Slowly, painfully so, my hair grew out to the point where I could finally tuck the strands behind my ears in imitation of my über-cool friend, Jorn. At last, I could pull it all into a stunted ponytail which looks ridiculous in the sole surviving photograph. I settled for a part down the middle, and my thick, straight hair fell like two greasy curtains on each side of my head.

There was a character on the TV series, Northern Exposure, named Ed Chigliak, played by Darren E. Burrows. He defined undefinable cool on the show, and we had the same haircut, even the same middle initials. I longed for people to compare us, but, in reality, I looked more like the villainous teacher of the Dark Arts, Severus Snape, from Harry Potter. Eventually, I succumbed to the tiny voice hissing inside my head, "You look like a complete ass." I went to Supercuts and had the whole tangled wreck shaved off my head, back to square one. When I picked up my son, Alec, at his daycare later, he burst into tears because I looked like someone else.

Ten years later, I experimented with actually shaving my head, switching to an electric shaver when I lopped off, like a carrot top, a mole behind my left ear. My head is uncommonly round, and I worried that it might be mistaken for a bowling ball, my narrow eyes imperceptible on the broad expanse of pink flesh. I grew a goatee with a thin wispy moustache drooping around the sides of my mouth. The goatee suggested where my face was located, but with the shaved head, and my bulk, I looked like a stereotypical B-grade biker movie bad-ass. I scraped off the facial hair and joined a more respectable society when I began volunteering for the local fire department.

Eventually, I grew tired of shaving my head every few days (and the frightened look in children's eyes), and went back to the original buzz cut, which morphed into the more stylized, and military, high and tight. Also known as a jarhead, a crew cut on the top, the sides and back trimmed as short as tools and talent allow. Some say the name comes from how the ears stick out like a jar, but the true origin is lost in USMC lore. I like the low maintenance of the style, and it offers a professional appearance at 0300.

My hair is the perfect shrub to the stylist's topiary. It quickly (about an inch a month) grows straight out, like the Play-Doh Fuzzy Pumper Barber guy, and lays down only after attaining a length of several inches. Until that time, it forms a halo around my head that looks like a bizarre dandelion gone to seed. Interestingly, the shortest hairs grow faster, and two week after a cut, it's all the same length.

The tenacity of my fuzz tends to highlight any lapse of attention by the barber, and I remained loyal to the rare but transient souls that could meet my high standards. After some time, he or she would quit or get fired, and I would renew my search for competent barber. Too many times, I examined my pelt, after a new stylist's trim, only to find a myriad of stray hairs poking up like so many snags in the carpet. Clipping these bristles myself was as frustrating an exercise as writing my name backwards in the mirror, upside-down, and invariably resulted in snipping at precisely the wrong place and copious profanity.

But no more. I have found my follicular angel, in the guise of Joie, at Rudy's Barbershop. She cut my hair flawlessly for my Chief's interview, and continues to do so three years later. She knows my preference for guards (a razor finish on the sides and back, a 3.0 on top), and has the process down to a quick and easy art form. Rather than take the cafeteria offering of the first-available barber, I'll call ahead to get my name on her list. My schedule allows me to exploit the slower times of day and I seldom wait long.

It's my one vanity, perhaps a little OCD, perhaps the result of childhood trauma, but it's all mine.