That summer I saw the full spectrum of hotshottin’. It was a blur of smoke, chaw, exhilaration, being dog-tired—and brotherhood.
I was alive in a way I couldn’t remember feeling before. Rejuvenated. I could run for hours now. Not fast, but I could run. I was tanned, my chest had filled out with muscle, my thighs were straining against my jeans, and my eyes were clear.
I was spending half my time in the wilderness. Bald eagles soared over our campsites in the morning. At night, sometimes in temperatures below freezing, we’d sit around roaring fires talking about famous blazes the veteran guys had fought, like the 1990 Dude Fire, which killed six firefighters: a blaze so extreme it closed the Phoenix airport because no one knew if fully loaded airplanes could operate in that kind of heat.
Or we put on skits to entertain ourselves. The wooden handle of the Pulaski became a microphone stand and an ax would become a guitar and guys would sing out into the wilderness, hopelessly out of tune. My big star moment was performing “I’m a Little Teapot.” I had one hand on my hip like the handle and the other curved out like the spout, the whole nine yards. The competition was fierce; the prize was a tin of Copenhagen chaw, and we all wanted it bad.
Guys acted out scenes from Granite Mountain’s past or imitated each other or Hollywood actors. The dialogue was often unprintable. The winners that day were Brandon Bunch and Boone McCarty, who had done a skit featuring an awesome old-timer named Todd who worked in the Granite Mountain office and did a lot for all of us. Brandon played Todd and Boone pretended to shave him and put a chaw in his mouth, and it was just hilarious. Guys actually fell off their logs laughing. I didn’t have a chance.
We were like boys playing in God’s country. I grew to love that feeling, of being alone with the night and the firs in our own private part of the wild.
Back in Prescott, I’d see some of my old druggie friends downtown and they’d do a double take. “Brendan?”
I had no idea how they’d react to me, whether they’d be cynical or hating on me because I wouldn’t snort some heroin for old times’ sake. But I got none of that. In fact, my druggie friends were proud of me. Imagine that!
I was like that guy who made it out of Alcatraz. One guy saw me and said, “Dude, even if you begged me for a toke, I wouldn’t give it to you. I wish I was doing what you’re doing.” When they found out I was a father, they were even more stoked. I was their little success story. There weren’t too many of those in Prescott that I knew. So they wished me well and I did the same to them.
I didn’t miss the drugs, honestly. I never want to go back.
I’d found my calling as a hotshot, but my life was far from perfect. I was having problems with Natalie. We were fighting all the time, mostly about Michaela. My grandma had told me once, “Brendan, you’re the one who’s going to break the cycle in this family.” To really stop the cycle of addiction and hopelessness, I knew I had to raise Michaela right. And I couldn’t do that alone.
So during lunch breaks, I’d be on the phone going at it with Natalie. I have a temper. I get it from both my parents. And I’d be yelling “bitch” this and “motherfucker” that and be getting it right back from her. One day after I’d put down the phone, Eric came up to me.
“What’s going on, Brendan?”
I told him about it. About the fights over how to raise my daughter, custody, the whole ball of wax. I got pissed off all over again talking about it. I told him there were times I felt like getting away from it all, heading home to just be with my daughter.
“So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna go home and blow up at her?”
I cursed a bunch more. Eric shook his head, his kind blue eyes studying me. “Brendan, what else do you have besides this job? If you leave, you’re not gonna be able to get another job. You’re still on probation. You leave, and Natalie will get full custody and your daughter will grow up barely knowing you.”
I nodded. I was a bit shocked by the conversation, actually. No man had ever taken the time to look at my life, analyze my problems, and try to find a way to solve them. I was used to my mom yelling at me about what a fuckup I was. But being rational about how to change? That was brand new to me.
Eric wasn’t even a dad, but he taught me how to be one. He taught me about patience and compromise. He had a saying: “If I make you a better firefighter, that’s all well and good. But if I don’t make you a better man, then I’ve failed you.”
I started listening to Eric. I learned patience. I learned to put myself second. I bit down on the rage and even tried to see things from Natalie’s point of view. But most of all, I manned up. And whenever Eric saw me about to lose it again, he’d find me and ask me what was going on. And I’d instantly feel my blood pressure start to drop.
No one had ever done that for me before.
Those first nights I had Michaela as a single dad, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing half the time. One night, she was sick as all get out, a fever of 102 and lethargic. She couldn’t keep any food down and her head was lolling back like she was a rag doll.
I was terrified. I couldn’t call my ex, and my mom was out of town.
I called up Travis Turbyfill, the ex-marine with the balance problem. Travis had two little girls and his wife was a nurse.
He picked up. I launched right into the details, then blurted out, “Dude, what do I do?”
“Calm down, Donut,” he said. He told me that first I had to knock down the girl’s temperature. Then he instructed me on what medicine to get from CVS. Said to draw a cool bath when I got back. Walked me through the whole thing.
Travis was always talking to me about what he’d learned about being a dad. I remember on the way home from one big fire I was talking in the buggy about everything we’d done that day. I was starting to think like Eric or the other veterans: how to outthink a fire. We hooted and hollered and called each other liars.
I felt good. We’d saved some homes that day. People had come up and thanked us. I was a little high off it.
When we were done bullshitting, Travis smiled at me. “Donut, one thing.”
I nodded. “Yeah?”
“When you get home, your brain is going to keep throwing up scenes from the past few days. Your brain doesn’t know the fire is over. But you’ve got to turn that off. Forget the fire. Spend some time with your daughter. Get into her world, man. She doesn’t give a shit about hotshots. She cares about you.”
It was great advice. And I didn’t understand it then, being twenty and, in my own mind, indestructible. But more than one of the dads told me the same thing during that first season. I think what they were saying to me was: Hold your daughter and forget about anchors and chains and all the rest of it. Because this could be the last time you see her.
We were a kind of family. We had barbecues to open the season in May, and then to close it in September. We’d get together at a local park, cook some ribs, throw the Frisbee, meet the families of the other guys, and goof around with their kids. A lot of hotshot crews only spent time together on the job, but Granite Mountain was tight.
One thing you never talked about, though, was the danger of the job. We all knew there were risks, and we talked about the specific things to watch out for. But dying in a fire? We never discussed it. We never talked about how our kids would see the news on TV and be unable to sleep. Or how wives and girlfriends found it hard to let go of us before we flew out to a job.
What, really, could you say?