in his drill class in 1972. The officers—Halvorsen, Coakley, Johnson—were three of the best in the department. Smart, seasoned, aggressive. He was especially close to Coakley, a relative by marriage, Joanne's cousin. “No family trees in Worcester,” Mike used to muse. “Just one big, tangled wreath.” Plus, he'd taught with Coakley in the eighties, when they were both assigned to the drill school. Paul Brotherton had been in their first class. So had Yogi. Three more men working out of Central that night—Bert Davis on the ladder, Bobby McCann on the engine, Tommy Dwyer on the rescue—had been Mike's students. Good firemen, Mike told himself, every one of them.
Teaching had been his idea, a request he'd made after ten years on the street. He'd had a good run, moved up fast. After two years on Ladder 7 out of Winslow Street, a crumbling, rat-infested shack of a station, he got onto Rescue 1. Five years later, he was promoted to lieutenant and sent to run his own truck, Engine 4 in the Park Avenue station, just north of downtown. A good district, fiery enough to keep a man busy, give him a regular fix. But he was still an egghead, worked a lot of the job in his head. He digested dense monographs and trade journals, kept current with advances in equipment and techniques, all of which made him a bit of an oddity. Firemen were creatures of habit, products of their own experience; they weren't much for newfangled gimmicks and book-read theories. Firefighting was a job learned by doing, by charging into the flames with a hose and an ax and a gut full of courage. And once a man conquered a fire, once he'd stood in the center of a furnace and walked back out, once mortal combat became a matter of routine, he was reluctant to change his methods.
Generations of firefighters, for instance, had worn the same basic battle gear—rubber waders that rose to the middle of the thigh and a long, heavy coat that fell just below the top of the boots. Standing straight and still, a man was fully protected; wrench too hard to one side or reach up too high and the coat shifted, exposed the lip of the boot, which would pucker into a funnel and catch water or, worse, a hot ember. By the late 1970s, however, lightweight, heat-resistant fibers had made full trousers practical. But hardly anyone wore them. A curious logic was invented to justify it, too: fireproof pants—quick hitches, in the jargon, or bunker pants—prevented men from feeling heat on their thighs, which gave them a false sense of security and thus made their job
more
dangerous, not less. Mike had heard that argument. Then he heard Bobby Woods got caught in a backdraft that blew his coat up around his waist. He visited Bobby in the hospital, saw the black scars charred into his groin and belly. Mike bought a pair of quick hitches after that, the first man in Worcester to routinely wear them.
Controlling his own equipment was no problem. But Mike saw other things, nagging inefficiencies that required a more systemic redress. Like the way hoses were fed. Worcester had strong water mains—tap a hydrant and the liquid spewed out like an uncorked geyser, a torrent more than adequate to feed two of the department's biggest hoses simultaneously. So Worcester firemen routinely attached their attack lines—the hoses that sprayed water on the flames—directly to the hydrants. In the days of horse-drawn hose wagons and, later, primitive pumper trucks, the vigorous supply was a blessing, allowing the men to put a maximum of wet stuff on the red stuff. It became a habit: the first engine on the scene would screw a Y-shaped valve onto the hydrant and run a pair of lines off it, the second engine would go find another hydrant, and so on, until hundreds of yards of hose had been dragged across rough asphalt and sharp curbs, stout cables crisscrossing the street like so many unraveled threads.
There was no need for such a tangle. Each of the department's engines were outfitted with
Teaching had been his idea, a request he'd made after ten years on the street. He'd had a good run, moved up fast. After two years on Ladder 7 out of Winslow Street, a crumbling, rat-infested shack of a station, he got onto Rescue 1. Five years later, he was promoted to lieutenant and sent to run his own truck, Engine 4 in the Park Avenue station, just north of downtown. A good district, fiery enough to keep a man busy, give him a regular fix. But he was still an egghead, worked a lot of the job in his head. He digested dense monographs and trade journals, kept current with advances in equipment and techniques, all of which made him a bit of an oddity. Firemen were creatures of habit, products of their own experience; they weren't much for newfangled gimmicks and book-read theories. Firefighting was a job learned by doing, by charging into the flames with a hose and an ax and a gut full of courage. And once a man conquered a fire, once he'd stood in the center of a furnace and walked back out, once mortal combat became a matter of routine, he was reluctant to change his methods.
Generations of firefighters, for instance, had worn the same basic battle gear—rubber waders that rose to the middle of the thigh and a long, heavy coat that fell just below the top of the boots. Standing straight and still, a man was fully protected; wrench too hard to one side or reach up too high and the coat shifted, exposed the lip of the boot, which would pucker into a funnel and catch water or, worse, a hot ember. By the late 1970s, however, lightweight, heat-resistant fibers had made full trousers practical. But hardly anyone wore them. A curious logic was invented to justify it, too: fireproof pants—quick hitches, in the jargon, or bunker pants—prevented men from feeling heat on their thighs, which gave them a false sense of security and thus made their job
more
dangerous, not less. Mike had heard that argument. Then he heard Bobby Woods got caught in a backdraft that blew his coat up around his waist. He visited Bobby in the hospital, saw the black scars charred into his groin and belly. Mike bought a pair of quick hitches after that, the first man in Worcester to routinely wear them.
Controlling his own equipment was no problem. But Mike saw other things, nagging inefficiencies that required a more systemic redress. Like the way hoses were fed. Worcester had strong water mains—tap a hydrant and the liquid spewed out like an uncorked geyser, a torrent more than adequate to feed two of the department's biggest hoses simultaneously. So Worcester firemen routinely attached their attack lines—the hoses that sprayed water on the flames—directly to the hydrants. In the days of horse-drawn hose wagons and, later, primitive pumper trucks, the vigorous supply was a blessing, allowing the men to put a maximum of wet stuff on the red stuff. It became a habit: the first engine on the scene would screw a Y-shaped valve onto the hydrant and run a pair of lines off it, the second engine would go find another hydrant, and so on, until hundreds of yards of hose had been dragged across rough asphalt and sharp curbs, stout cables crisscrossing the street like so many unraveled threads.
There was no need for such a tangle. Each of the department's engines were outfitted with
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