Dragonslayer

James Brahney listened intently as the Captain lectured on the concept of rapid intervention teams, an idea long overdue in the fire service. The roll of the four man team's in protecting their brother firefighters at major incidents, the equipment the R.I.T. team would carry and the changes in run assignments when the new OSHA mandated policy was put into effect, were all covered in depth. Jim tried to memorize every word, no matter how trivial. In one week, He and his company would be filling this role when responding to many incidents.

As she drew her son's bath, Heather White could barely keep her eyes open. She looked forward to putting her son to bed so that she could get some sleep. Her son, David, at two years old, never seemed to run out of energy, especially on days like today, when he could not go outside. It had been cold and rainy all day. Now, as the temperature dropped, snow began to blanket the ground.

Jim started to collect up the empty coffee cups and pop cans from the lounge area, as other firefighters moved off to perform their housework. This trick had been busier than most, and everyone was tired. Everyone hoped for a quiet night, but no one would say the dreaded "Q word," as they bantered with each other. They laughed and joked as they swept, mopped, cleaned and polished.

Heather tiptoed out of David's bedroom, where he had finally quieted down. He lay still in his crib watching the mobile above his head. The Butterfly's slowly circling as the notes of "Brahm's Lullaby" filled the air. Heather left the door ajar as she exited, afraid to make any unnecessary noise, and went to start water for her own bath.

While the tub filled in the bathroom, Heather lit the two scented candles on her dresser. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back as the smell of lavender filled her senses. As her mind began to relax, the knots in her back became more evident. She walked slowly to the bathroom and slid silently into the bath. The hot water eased the tension in her muscles as fatigue overtook her and her head rolled down onto her chest.

Jim dialed his daughters cell phone number and paced as he waited for her to answer. "Hi Kryssy. How're you doing honey? Did you get your homework finished okay?"

"I'll be home tomorrow when you get home from school. We'll go out for dinner tomorrow night, okay?"

"I love you, honey. Let me talk to your brother."

"Hey, little man. How are you?"

"You being a good boy? I will see you tomorrow after school. I love you, Bud. Sleep well."

It was seven minutes past midnight when the window opened on the computer screen. The window title read "Smoke Detector," and was filled with account information. The young woman at the workstation picked up a phone and punched a speed dial button. "Good morning, Central station here. I have an automatic fire alarm at the White residence..."

A loud, unfamiliar sound tried to insinuate itself into Heather's sleep. She struggled to escape her slumber as the insistent buzz invaded her brain. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs. A haze hung in the room as smoke puffed from around the door, then suddenly the adrenaline poured into her blood. "Oh My God! The fire alarm!" she thought. Heather jumped up from the tub, grabbing her robe with one hand as the other reached for the hallway door. The doorknob seared her hand she grabbed it and her hand pulled back without conscious thought, as her panic began to rise.

A millisecond of time passed before Heather thought of the direct door to the bedroom. She passed through the door into the flame lit bedroom and the heat hit her like nothing she had ever experienced before. Her panic began to rise again as she tried to reach the hallway and her son beyond it. The heat pushed her back and her body failed her. She fell to the floor. The tears evaporated from her eyes before they reached her cheeks. She instinctively crawled toward the balcony doors and burst out into the cold fresh air. "Somebody! Anybody! Help me!"

"Please, God, let someone hear me!" she thought as she rolled over the railing and dropped five feet to the cold snow below.

"9-1-1 Center. What is your emergency?"

A slightly shaking female voice on the phone replies, " I hear a woman screaming for help. And I think I smell smoke."

The bright lights in the bunkroom came on at the same instant that the shrill radio beeps snapped Jim Brahney to full alert. Jim's blanket was gone and his feet were into his boots before the voice began to erupt from the radio speaker.

"District four respond, Possible house fire ..."

Jim pulled the suspenders to his bunker pants over his shoulders as he hit the doors to the apparatus room. Jim thought about the address of the call, a middle class neighborhood of single-family homes built in the late 1940's. Late night calls in areas like this were rarely false alarms.

Jim pulled the last strap of the breathing apparatus tight and reached behind him to turn the valve on the tank. As air rushed into the regulator, the alert bell rang and the facemask vibrated briefly. The rear wheels of the "quint" slid on the snow covered road as it rounded the corner. The sudden change in direction slammed everyone toward the right. The breathing apparatus on his back pulled loose from its storage bracket as Jim's weight shifted. As he reached to brace himself against the window frame, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the outside. Orange flame from a small octagonal window reflected off the white landscape and the gray column of smoke. As the truck lurched to a halt, Jim was thrown against the back of his rear-facing seat.

As Jim exited the truck, he quickly sized up the building as he grabbed a hose line from the top of the truck and headed for the front door. A woman was kneeling in the snow sobbing as two men tried to raise a ladder to the second floor balcony. As Jim reached the front steps, the tip of the entry man's prybar bit into the wood frame of the door. "There's a baby upstairs" a voice yelled from the darkness. As Jim reached the top of the stairs, the doorframe splintered and the door swung inward. Jim and his partner passed through the open doorway in a crouch and turned right, hugging the wall as they went in search of the staircase.

As he climbed the stairway toward the second floor, Jim heard the voice behind him, muffled by the air mask, "Quint five, give me water on the green line." Almost immediately, the hose under Jim's right arm began to expand as it filled with water. He pointed the hose toward the ceiling and opened the nozzle. A brief rush of air was followed by the wide water fog pattern. The hose's back pressure would have thrown Jim down the stairs, if not for the strong push as his partner leaned forward into him. The flames rolling along the ceiling turned from bright orange to dark red and Jim snapped the nozzle shut. Jim propelled himself up the rest of the stairway and again turned the hose onto the fire, this time aiming at the floor to the left. The fire was pushed back and the two firefighters moved ahead, leaving the hallway and entering a bedroom. A small night-light glowed on the wall. As they circled to the right, red and white lights flashed in the windows.

Jim's hands hit the rails of a crib. He rose from his knees and swept the bedclothes up with both arms. There was a tiny body in his arms along with the linen. "I got him," Jim yelled. As Jim crawled toward the window, his partner pushed the lower sash upward. In seconds the tip of a ladder appeared in the window. His partner climbed out onto the ladder and Jim handed the toddler out too him.

The child had barely left Jim's arms when the floor gave way. The light became blinding as the window rose above Jim's head. Time seemed to come to a halt.

The cat let out a cry as the rope around its hind leg pulled taut and began to raise his him off the ground. He swung his head around to snap at the intrusion. Jim and his friends laughed at the jerking and twisting of the cat as they pulled the rope. The rope went up over a branch and back down to the cat's hind leg. Jim continued to chuckle as he raised the air rifle and drew a bead on the writhing cat.

There was a muffled report from the air gun and the cat squealed as the pellet struck. The group of boys cheered as Jim passed the rifle along to the next boy. Cheers and jeers sounded as each boy took his turning shooting at the cat. By the time each boy had taken his second shot, the calico hung motionless from the tree.

Jim felt his feet touch the floor.

Jim's friend kept prodding him to hurry as he screwed the end of the dent puller into the ignition switch. Three hard pulls on the slide, and the switch was free of the column. Jim cut one wire with his knife, touched it to the other side of the switch and the car engine cranked and caught. Jim smiled at his friend as he cranked the wheel hard to break the column lock, put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb in the new mustang. "Nothing to it," Jim said as he accelerated up the road in the stolen car.

Jim's right knee gave way under the weight of his falling body and the equipment designed to protect him.

Michelle's head rolled onto Jim's shoulder as the car rounded the corner. The smell of gin emanated from her breath. Jim had been buying her drinks and talking to her for the last hour at the bar. The strong drinks had finally taken their toll and she had passed out during the drive to her house. As the car lurched to a stop in the driveway, Michelle's head rolled forward and Jim had to catch her before her head struck the dash.

As he walked around the car, Jim stumbled on the gravel driveway and had to balance himself on the car. He hadn't realized how much the alcohol had affected him. He yanked the passenger door open and leaned into the car, pulling the unconscious woman out as he stood back up. Jim easily hoisted her small frame to his shoulder, and then retrieved her purse from the front seat. Digging through her purse as they approached the front door to the house, Jim found her house keys and fumbled with them as he looked for a likely suspect for the door key. The second key opened the front door and Jim went in, careful not to let the storm door strike her in the head as it closed behind them.

The trip up the stairs was no problem for Jim, he was in good shape, and the girl weighed barely a hundred pounds. The open door led to an immaculately kept bedroom with a queen size bed. Jim carried her in and dropped her onto the bed. A moan escaped her lips as she unsuccessfully tried to lift her head from the bed. She didn't even move when Jim climbed onto the bed beside her and began to unbutton her clothes. It was two in the morning.

Thirty minutes later Jim crawled off the bed and began to button the fly on his slacks. He smiled as he looked down on the young woman's naked body. He thought it was a shame that he would never see her again, she was gorgeous. Jim sighed as he took one last look and pulled the blanket over her naked form and headed for the door.

As his right knee struck the floor, there was an audible snap in his leg.

Kryssy's voice was shrill as she said it, "I hate you." Jim's reaction was instantaneous; His open hand struck his daughter's face and sent her to the floor. The young girl's face showed the red where she'd been struck and her left eye began to swell shut. Tears streamed down her face as she cowered from the man towering over her.

Jim's right hip struck the floor, followed immediately by his right hand.

The face of Jim's father was bright red as he listened to his son. Jim's expletives were beyond any that had ever passed through his father's lips. The trivial beginnings of the argument were blurred by the alcohol Jim had been drinking. Every day since his wife had left, Jim's drinking had gotten worse. Now he was drinking every day that he didn't work. As his father opened his mouth to speak, Jim cursed him again, turned his back to the man, went back into the house and slammed the door shut.

Jim's hand did little to break his fall and the air bottle on his back struck the floor and the air left his lungs in a sudden rush. His legs would not work, although they didn't hurt, nor could he seem to get his breath. He struggled to reach up to the strap of his breathing apparatus. Jim's fingers found the "pass" alarm there and depressed the button on the side of the little box and he was rewarded with the shrill distress tone the device emitted.

The sound of the siren nearly obscured the voices in the back of the ambulance. " I still have flat line. Continue CPR and repeat the epinephrine."

"Two minutes to the hospital" another voice added as the paramedics worked furiously to save a life.

"What is the down time," the doctor asked?

"Just under an hour since the fire fighters pulled him out. He was flatline then. There has been no change"

"Thank you ladies and gentleman. The time of death is 1:32 AM."

The chords of "Amazing Grace" were haunting as they emanated from the three drones of the Scottish war pipe. As the piper marched away, his kilt fluttered in the breeze. Verse upon verse the piper played as he moved away from the crowd. Tears streamed down Heather's cheeks as she watched the piper move off in the distance. The young child that clung to her hand did not understand why she cried.

An elderly man stood beside Heather, His eyes were red from crying, but there were no tears there now. He too watched the kilt clad stranger as he marched away. He wondered why any God would leave him on this earth and take such a young boy, with so much promise, away. If Chuck could trade places with the dead boy, He would do so in an instant.

Chuck's mind wandered to a warm summer day. Chuck had been about twelve rungs up on the ladder, his son was working up near the eaves, when Chuck had passed out. He did not remember anything for two days. The doctor later told him that his heart had stopped for nearly four minutes. His son had done CPR until the Paramedics arrived and shocked him back to life. Had Jim not been there that day, Chuck would probably not have been found for hours.

Kryssy held her brother's hand as they each laid a rose onto the casket. Both cried openly as the line of people across the casket from them passed and added to the pile of flowers. They cried for nearly an hour, watching as the procession of firefighters from across the land passed by. The bagpipes that their father had loved so much had long since faded. Neither child would ever hear bagpipes again without crying.

Over two hundred pairs of eyes watched as the body of James Brahney was lowered to its final resting place. Among them were his two children, a woman he loved more than life itself, the father he had once saved, and a grateful mother and her child who Jim had given his life to save.

All the evil in James Brahney was gone forever and his loving legacy was left behind, to carry on.

This story is dedicated to my absent friends.

Fire fighter Patrick Dekramer, Suki Derue EMT-P, Eugene Turoski EMT, Bonnie Lessar EMT, Fire Fighter Lloyd Curtice, and Craig Boula EMT-P.

I am a better person for having known each of them.