When I was a firefighter Chapter 5 part 5 of 10

When I was a firefighter
Chapter 5 part 5 of 10

The next two days seemed to pass in slow-motion. Between Cherry’s Mom picking her up from practice and getting ready for my presentation, we were not able to get together on the sly as we’d hoped we could; even though she was no longer grounded.

Monday came and went without Cherry having her period—she was officially late. She asked her squad leader and best friend, Olivia, to get her a pregnancy tester from the drug store; Olivia was NOT pleased (but as a true friend, bought the test kit for her). Late Monday night, Cherry called me to give me the news about her no-show monthly visitor and that she wanted me on the phone when she took the test.

She read the directions quietly to me and went through the steps as prescribed. Several minutes filled with mixed emotions later, Cherry read the stick to me.

“According to this,” she said, “I’m not going to have a baby. I don’t get it: if I’m not, why haven’t I had my period yet?”

I said, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s wrong. Or maybe you are just really late. Did the kit come with two?”

She said, “Yeah. Should I try the other one?”

I said, “No; not right now. Take it in the morning. Sometimes the first one of the morning is more accurate.”

Cherry said, “Ok: I’ll call you at 6:00, then?”

I said, “I’ll be up!”

I didn’t sleep much that night; a wide range of thoughts swam through my head, keeping me confused about what I really wanted to hear in the morning. I was out of bed by 5:30 and wanted to call her.
But I refrained in case she was sleeping. It was 6:02 when my phone finally rang.

I answered the phone saying, “God morning! I thought you’d never call!”

She laughed and said, “Very funny… I have good news and I have bad news: which do you want first?”

I said, “I like to be optimistic: good news first…”

Cherry said, “The good news is there’s no need to take the test this morning. I got my period last night—I’m not pregnant.”

A bit surprised (at that being the good news) I said, “Oh! Ok. That is good news, I guess. What’s the bad news?”

She said, “The bad news is I’m not pregnant.”

I laughed slightly and said, “AWWW, Babe… Don’t worry there’s plenty of time for that down the road. Now would have been bad timing for you anyway. Remember?”

Sounding a mix of sad and reflective, she said, “I know. But still…”

I asked, “What do you propose? Should we now try and MAKE SURE you get pregnant?!”

Cherry nearly gasped and said, “Oh god no! I mean: I don’t want to do that on purpose right now! It just would have been kind of nice if it had happened. That doesn’t make sense, I know. It’s complicated!”

“No: it’s not complicated,” I said, “I get it—I really do.”

Switching the subject, Cherry said, “I want to see you so bad, but today is going to be like yesterday. Tomorrow might work, though. What time is your ‘thing’?”

I said the ‘thing’ was scheduled for mid-morning and I was sure I’d be out of there well in time to make it to see her practice, so we made plans accordingly before she had to go and get ready for school.

That day was spent going over notes and fine-tuning what I needed to say at the meeting. The speech was more or less memorized, and I wondered how much of it would actually happen the way I envisioned it going down. I tried to imagine what questions they might have and tried to come up with all the answers to them. And even though this was extremely important to me (and the community, in my opinion), I was not stressed about it. It was like I had found a center balance within me and I was able to keep calm and focused.

That night after her cheerleading practice, we texted and chatted for a while, but Cherry insisted that we call it a night by 10:00; she knew the importance of the following day and wanted to make sure I was rested and thinking clearly about it.

The day of the town hall meeting came and it felt like I had been waiting for years for that day. I was at least thirty minutes early and wearing my fireman’s dress uniform; the thought was that maybe showing my public service would give me some latitude if I inadvertently broke some political protocol or policy. As it turned out, that was not really necessary since town hall meetings were less formal than I had imagined them to be.

There were a few dozen local residents attending the meeting, each with their own particular issue they wanted to have addressed. Most issues seemed to be a bit ‘self-serving’ to me: one woman wanted the speed limit lowered on her street so her kids could ride their bikes in the road; another wanted the school bus route changed to stop in front of her home. One by one the ‘issues’ were discussed; few had clear resolutions.

It was getting to the end of the meeting when I finally got the chance to pitch my idea. Introducing myself as a firefighter from the nearby station 3, I thanked the chairman and the board for their time; the chairman said I had the floor.

I said, “Thank you, sir. The reason I’m here is because of this intersection.” I handed him the photos as I set up my presentation of the problem and continued, “As I’m sure you are aware, there was an accident here a week ago last Sunday. A mother and her young daughter both lost their lives in that accident; I held the little girl’s hand as she died on the way to the hospital. This intersection is dangerous in the way it is laid out and I believe if we don’t do something about it, Katie and her mother will not be the last ones to die here.”

To be continued