But work! You’re front-line! It’s not fine! Others will need to know. You have to call the Doc right now. - ring your boss - straight away.
I feel like a naughty schoolboy. Like I have done something wrong. Have I done something wrong? I have always done something wrong so I blame myself. A murderer in the making. People will die because of me.
The doctor rings back. “Have you any other symptoms? A temperature? Shortness of breath? “
Er, I’m not sure? I feel slightly cold.” I’m dressed in shorts and a T-Shirt and the sun hasn’t hit the open window that an easterly breeze is entering yet.
‘The Boy.’ I need to ring his Mum. She freaks. “I have to deliver food to the elderly.”
Christ! I’m a murderer. It’s geratricacide - I’m surprised to find that isn’t a word - people are going to die and it’s all my fault.
I blame myself even more. Always do. I’m riddled with anxiety normally so I write to look back at how silly my thinking can get. I am doing all the right things - by-the-book - why should I feel culpable for a disease that has spread through millions over the last five months?
I don’t know but I’m also responsible for the ‘Troubles’ because I’m English?, I decide.
Who will buy my vape-juice? Should I chance the shop now and stock up on the basics before I get confirmation? I think of the pregnant girl behind the counter. I’m committed to Covid protocols now. Do the right thing.
The Doc rings back - She says she’s referring me because I’m front-line. She tells me to isolate. “Wipe down all your counter tops.”
What’s the point? “That ship has sailed,” I think to myself but say nothing. I live on my own. How can I infect myself with my own counter tops if I’m already infected? I live on my own.
I live on my own, it finally dawns on me. How am I going to get food? How am I going to get vape-juice!
I’ve lots of tins in the press. Not so stupid for stocking up now was I? Not that I want to be living off rice-pudding for two weeks. Actually, that sounds nice.
My phone starts hopping. “All the best Ben.” “All the best Ben” “All the best Ben”. I’m not dying, am !? Am I?
A colleague offers to bring food. “and vape-juice.” I message back. It strikes me I’m not used to getting help. I have lived on my own for a long time. I’m self-reliant. Normally I would say “no” for fear of upsetting anybody but I need vape-juice.
I realise I’ve been wrong. People care? That’s unusual. It’s scary having no support, even outside of unusual times. Self-isolation shows me I’m not isolated.
The HSE call. “We have a test for you today, in Limerick,”
I have not left town in weeks. Social Isolation sees me driving further in one day than I have in all the days since early March.
COVID is an ironic disease.
I passed a checkpoint on the way and shouted my predicament to the Guard through my closed wind. He waves me on.
I drive up to the entrance of the school commandeered as a test-centre and get handed a mask by a security guard and told to wait in my car. It's the first time I've used a paper one. Our fire issue N95’s that we wear to every call these days are way better. These paper ones get hot quickly and I feel warm air seeping out the sides and into my eyes, which doesn’t seem very useful at all.
I’m not waiting long. Nurses covered in paper overalls and plastic face visors with goggles and masks underneath stick, er sticks, down my throat and up my nose. I can’t see any bare flesh but I find them weirdly sexy. Maybe I am weird?
It makes me gag so I reflexively suck in some air. If the virus is airborne in that room I've just taken a lungful…Then I cough. If I’m positive it’s all over the place now.
How do I know it's not crawling all over the nurse’s overalls after all the suspects before me coughed like I just did? I bet I just caught it in that room. Is it a trap? So much for doing the right thing.
I realize why they don't test everyone. It’s done now. A waiting game.
It started as a waiting game in early March. Something we are used to in the retained fire service. Some mornings - most mornings - I lie in bed smugly satisfied that I don’t have to get up to an alarm call. Unless it’s the pager, which can go off at any point in a 24 hour period, but never the same time each day.
I can’t lie there forever though. Nothing worse than getting caught short when the pager stops whatever I happen to be doing with its piercing shriek.
I play the percentages. The longer I put off the basics the more likely it is that I will suffer. I rise, make coffee and take a dump.
It’s a strange way to live really, never knowing when you have to spring into action. There is no discernible pattern to the calls. Three in one day, none for a fortnight, 3 am, jump out of bed, 8.15 am, “sorry kid, you’re gonna be late for school”.
I love the calls in the middle of the night. Sleep to wide awake in 2 seconds - shoes on - out the door. Within five minutes the brigade has rallied and we are on the road, psyched into whatever mission the fax-machine print out has ordained for us.
It’s
the WAGs I feel sorry for. I wonder if they fall back to sleep or lie
awake wondering what we’ve been called into? Luckily for
whoever, I’m single and will likely stay that way as long as I’m
tied to this job. It must be hard for partners, nights out are
strictly controlled by a time off book. Shopping trips to have to be
planned with the foresight that civilians use for booking a weekend
getaway. Spontaneity is out of the question. Any activity might be
cut short - I once rocked up to a call on a dose of Viagra.
Lockdown is nothing. Most of my life operates within five minutes or 1.5 miles of the fire-station anyway, killing time, waiting for calls. It’s why I began to write.
I don’t mind, I am inherently lazy, in this job that might be a character asset. Other lads have jobs, self-employment can work. I handed out my CV all over town but who wants to hire someone who has to drop everything in a heartbeat?
I do a few bits in a hotel when the tourist season starts, I go to the gym, sometimes meet friends, just generally potter around. It can be hard in summer when everyone else heads to the alluringly close beach leaving me scratching my balls waiting for disaster to strike.
I console myself with my lowered carbon footprint, we should all learn to be content with less travel. Still, if any of you know any retained firemen without families, call in to them, I’m sure they’d appreciate it. They give up a lot to be there when you need them.
The initial training was designed to prepare us for the worst eventualities and when to say “no, we can’t go in.” Trust me, if there is a chance for you we are going in. I’m so grateful I got the opportunity at an age in life where boot camps seemed improbable.
I felt like I tried my best just to finish bottom of the class. I’m not used to that, my poor old ego took a hit but It was great craic once I got through the daily nervous breakdown. God probably thought I needed humility more than the merits. I think it must have changed me a little, getting us ready for whatever.
We had no idea what our role would be when this crisis started? Anything was possible, with everyone safely indoors, we might not have got any calls at all.
If the State apparatus was overwhelmed we could have been working round the clock.
Maybe the rumours would prove to be true and we would go full martial law.
Really no different as always for retained firefighters. If the alerter goes, if there is a job to be done, we will drop everything and go do it.
The pager beeps as I write. I wasn’t feeling well. I was wondering if I had the virus? I ran to the car, it didn’t start. “Balls!” two workers from Aldi were laughing at me as I sprinted up the hill towards the station. The adrenaline kicked in. Suddenly I felt perfect.
All the fear of anticipation has gone now. I could cope with whatever the call threw at me. “fire in commercial premises” the printout read. That means flash-hoods on.
We drove to the incident, two of us in the back of the lead vehicle. “Under air,” ordered our officer as we approached. Face-masks on - turn on air cylinder -flash-h-hoods over - helmet - gloves. We grabbed the hose reel and entered while other lads started the pump and hooked up hoses to the mains.
The lad I went in with is a joker, like me. 20 years in the Brigade. I’m glad it was him. This was my first time attacking an indoor fire in earnest.
We entered a smoke filled room and felt around. We had no idea where we were going. Everything becomes a maze when its smoke is filled. Chairs were stacked on every wall. We are trained not to let go of the walls.
No one who hasn’t trained in Self- Contained-Breathing Apparatus (BA) can imagine how quickly you can get lost. We feel around. We can’t move. It’s tight. I follow the hose back to the door and drag in more. Someone hands in a thermal imaging camera.
We feel our way into a room. Clambering over obstacles that we can’t see. Training tells me you can’t see a fire in a smoke filled room. We can’t get any further the way is blocked.
Is that a door? Some plywood? no - it’s a table, move it out the way. Be careful not to block the way out in case we need a way out.
It’s no good though there's a wall behind it. I bang the wall until I feel it shake. “There’s another door.” I shout “This way”. We can see the fire on the camera. We move towards it almost swimming through stacks of chairs manoeuvring our cylinder so as not to get stuck.
Two quick blasts with the hose, set to spray. Too much water turns to steam in a confined space and then it gets hot really quick. Besides, everything we do is with minimal damage in mind. We still can’t see but the camera tells us we’ve hit it and it’s cooling. We wait with it, blast, blast wait, blast, blast wait.
The flames have gone so the lads outside turn on a powerful fan to start clearing the smoke. We see we are in a laundry room filled with chairs, tables and decorations, dried flowers and linen. There were aerosol cans by the seat of the fire. That could have gone up in a flash. The fire doors did their job and kept out enough oxygen to prevent that.
We set to work emptying the room of fire-load, removing the ashes and doing our best to clean the sooty mess, making absolutely certain nothing can reignite.
Spirits are high, no one is hurt, this is a fun call. Lads arrive from another station but the work is done, we have a chat and a catch up while we clean up and then head back to the station where we wash our BA sets, put in fresh cylinders and make sure everything is operational for the next call. “See you in an hour.” we say as goodbye. I’m pumped up now. I hope that we do.
We don’t. So I get out of bed and type this, I’m stiff in places and bruised in others. I’m coughing my guts up now, is it the vapes, last nights smoke or…I ring up and arrange my test.
My test results come back. I get the all clear. I’m free to go back on call. I’d almost got used to the idea of two weeks on lock-down. You can’t be certain of anything these days.
Except for one thing, our fire-engines don’t have the virus. Following the bleach cleaning we gave them back at the station they probably won’t have any paint on them either in the morning.
We are nothing if not diligent. We sprayed each other down with a chemical concoction. Then we sprayed the bottles we sprayed each other down with. Then we sprayed the bottles that sprayed the bottles that we sprayed each other down with. One unlucky lad is going to be spraying bottles long after the virus has been consigned to ‘Reeling in the Years’.
Then it’s back home for more waiting and more writing drivel.
“FOOK MY LIFE!” It took me a second or two to realise it was the pager making that stupid noise.
It
was 2.57 am. I came to. I thought, for a split second, should I
pretend I didn’t hear it?
My heart make an extra large beat as it does when the call sounds and the adrenaline flooded my system. Someone needs help. Out the door - here we go again.
Car still wouldn’t start. I’d rather hoped the leprechauns might have magically fixed it while I wrote poems.
They didn’t. Run - bunker gear - fire engine - fire. This time in a shed. It took awhile for the smoke to die down. Was that? -“Ah jeez, man.” I recoiled for a split second. A spine, a neck, a head. In a macabre unveiling the victim slowly came into view.
“Poor dog”, I said to a colleague.
“It
would have been quick.” He replied.
“I’d
say so - it was a greyhound.” I said.
“That
was quick.” we laugh.
I couldn’t resist. It’s the middle of the night. I’m moody, sleep deprived and grossed out. How else can we do what we do?
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