Just A Man

He wasn’t the man she had created him to be in her mind over all of those years. It took time for her to unravel the theories she once smiled curiously, pondering while he would teach the class with his purely acquired life experience.

Marvin Dawson was no average man to those who knew him well. He was a simple farmer who stood an absence of nine inches from the tall, dark and handsome six-footers most girls dreamt over. He was far from rich; a laughable attribute actually, and he had never won a gold medal for anything in his whole life.

However, to the volunteer fire fighters, who served under him for any part of his 37 years as Fire Chief at the Bellawood Volunteer Fire Department, he was a freaking hero!

Haley hadn’t had much to be proud of in her life, growing up in her poverty ridden, abusive childhood. When she finally survived the required days to accumulate the legality of 18 years of life lived to apply for service, Marvin was the one who took her application. A father-figure hungry teenager could not have gotten any luckier. An old sheep dog mentality, Fire Chief, who herded in the lost ones with a fiercer bark, than most, he would not only treat her like a human being for the first time in her life, but even more so, like a daughter.

Haley swore up and down that he must have hated her those first 2 years of training. She strived to be more than she had come from, but even the best, seemed not to be the “best” to Marvin. She placed first in her class on firefighter one exam day. She broke the Bellawood Agility Test women’s record on her first try. For some reason, after every success, Marvin would always say the same thing: “That’s good, gurl. Now ya need to start workin on gettin your FF2 certification”. Or whatever the next level of skill happened to be at that time in her pursuit to be the best firefighter she could be.

And so she did. Within 6 years time Haley had mastered FireFighter 2 certification with Instructor endorsement & Paramedic/Rescue Command. Marvin had stopped pushing her over a year ago. With the new cadets that would filter in, he quickly became detained with other babysitting duties.

Haley knew she was and would always be his favorite though. The stories they could tell! Like the one time they had been dispatched to a chimney fire at an elderly couples home, and it took them all day to rescue a crazy little barn owl that had decided to build roost in the flue. He was non-responsive when they finally got the limp, soot covered, feathered body from the, then demolished chimney. Haley could still remember hearing the old home steadier yelling at Marvin for taking the sledge hammer to his brick facade.

“Go get the oxygen tank from Truck 3, Haley!” Marvin squawked, as she simultaneously took off for the tank and mask, eerily as if she could read his mind.

It took them both about 45 minutes and a lot of giggles, but they saved that barn owl’s life and found him a sanctuary to recover in before the end of their shift.

She would never forget all of the silence. There was a lot of silence.

Fires that didn’t have a happy ending. Automobile accidents that comprised of spraying blood off highways with the fire hoses and scraping human remains from embedded machinery. It wasn’t always pretty, but it always felt like a family.

Even the day Marvin sat the department down to tell them he had lung cancer. He made jokes and tried to lighten the heavy hearts seated at the tear soaked tables.

Haley didn’t think twice about it. Cancer? So what!? It was Marvin. He could beat that shit with one eye closed and both hands tied behind his back.

Months passed and Marvin’s already short stature had withered to a frail man barely acceptable to pass as a human being. He was always carded for the senior citizens 10% discount at Druthers; before the cancer had ate up his body. Now, he looked more like a walking corpse. “It was still possible though”, she thought. Wasn’t it?

3:02 a.m. Was the first visual perception Haley took in from her bedside clock that morning the pager tones went off. She listened as the dispatcher recited the box number and gave the street address of her undefeatable, fire chief’s home.

The cancer had come for him in the night. She raced frantically as she had not done in so many years. Nerves of steal, now felt like jell-o as she tried, while wiping wet eyes, to tie her boots.

“Firefighter 302, in service- dispatch”, was the only words she relayed before she drove less than 2 miles to her neighbor’s home, her friend’s house, her “Dads” place.

“He’s not breathing, he’s gone!” Kathy screamed over and over and over as their home echoed with the sounds of boots running down the hallway to the bedroom the couple had shared for 32 years.

His body laid crinkled on the floor, no different than the hundreds of bodies Haley had attempted to recucitate in years past. It was a job at this point. Go through the motions, she knew what she was SUPPOSED to do, as the robot responder kicked in. But, Marvin was dead.

He had just been a normal man all along. His super powers she manifested in her heart for this amazing, indestructible man had not been enough to keep him alive for her.

The call was one she had not anticipated, and had for sure not thought would fall on her to respond for. One thing was for sure, he did have one of the most beautiful funeral percessions ever conducted!

It took a few weeks for the numb to subside and it wasn’t until the day, the “you be tough Haley gurl”, had worn off that she found herself drifting a thought toward her beloved fire chief. She collapsed right there on her front porch. Sobbing ridiculously she laughed through a snot smeared smile.

Oh how he would have scolded her for this display of, “unprofessional baby crap”. This critique he would say to the whiners who tried quitting the PT challenges.

She sat up on her knees and took a deep breath, stretching her neck back to open her chest for air. Something had caught her eye moving so slightly in the corner of the porch truss. As she blinked grabbing for a bit of light from night stealing, she focused on the gray blur. She recognized a familiar little ball of fluff. A wide-eyed barn owl sat comfortably in the corner of her porch, watching the display of self-pity, perhaps spying on her.

“Where did you come from little guy?” She asked the owl. He blinked his big eyes a couple of times, and stretched out his wings in a display of pride for the power and strength he possessed and with a confident force he soared through the porch rafters and out across the night’s sky.

“Goodbye my friend.” She whispered, alone.