One Bride for Three Firemen

Pete pulls into a driveway and we all get out of the fire department trunk, which is not a big truck but a regular-sized pickup truck that says “St. Charles Fire Department” on the side.

A lady two doors down stands up from her flower garden and stares at us from way over there, shielding her eyes with her hand, a spiky garden tool in her fist. When she realizes who we are, she waves in a friendly way. I wave back.

Sometimes I don’t really feel like I physically fit in these houses. I mean, we sound really loud on the front porch. I am pretty sure I could not sit on that furniture either, which is made of wicker and flowery cushions. I would probably smash it flat.

Stephan rings the doorbell and we all stand there, waiting for a couple of minutes until the door swings open. The guy looks at us suspiciously until Stephan explains we are there to check the house for fire code violations.

“You serious?” the guy asks, not in a totally friendly way.

“Are you the owner?” Stephan asks politely.

“Yeah,” the guy confirms. “Aren’t you supposed to send a letter or something?”

“Landlords are subject to a yearly inspection,” Pete answers, because he can’t help himself.

Stephan shoots him a dirty look, reminding him that he asked Stephan specifically to take care of this.

“Yeah, all right… Come on in if you gotta come in,” the guy answers, stepping aside and letting us through the front door.

He’s a medium-sized man, probably about Stephan’s age. He’s got curly dark hair and I’m so much taller than him, I can see the bald spot on the very top of his head. He’s wearing long, khaki shorts and flip flops, with a striped tank top like you would see in a magazine.

This is one of those giant old mansions that somebody turned into an apartment building. Maybe this guy, or maybe he bought it like this. I don’t think there are a lot of apartments on this street. Mostly it is just single-family homes filled with orthodontists and insurance salesmen.

There were four doorbells on the porch, so I guess that means there are four apartments now.

The front hallway is really nice. It looks like a movie, all yellow with striped wallpaper and a giant staircase curving up one wall. There are even old-fashioned picture frames all over the place with people in them, in black and white or sometimes brown and white.

There is a word for that. The brown and white thing. I can’t remember what it is.

“So… What do you need from me?” the guy asks, kind of cranky.

Obviously we are interrupting his morning plans or something. He doesn’t look like he is dressed for work or anything. But maybe he just doesn’t like people. I don’t know.

“We need to check for smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors. You have exhaust fans in all the bathrooms?” Stephan says, trying to sound formal.

“Yeah, of course,” the guy answers.

“Okay, well, can we start in the basement? Is it a boiler or furnace?”

The guy sighs for a long time. He rubs the back of his neck. He has furry shoulders.

“Fine, whatever,” he finally answers, then holds out his hand. “Basement is this way.”

Pete shoots me a look as they go down the hall, basically telling me to wait here. I am happy to see that because I am a pretty big guy, and sometimes those basements are pretty small. I don’t think all four of us want to be hanging around in a four-by-six-foot utility room staring at the water heater or anything.

But when they come back upstairs, I guess it didn’t all go really well. The guy is red in the neck, and Stephan has that look on his face again like he must’ve found something wrong and he is feeling like he won something.

Pete looks pretty proud of himself too. It’s not our job to hassle people, but if they can’t be nice, we can jerk their chains a little bit. The fire department is almost as powerful as the police department. People just don’t understand.

Now Stephan is feeling confident. He walks through one of the apartments on the first floor, then the other. I can hear his boots stomping across the wooden floors. To pass the time, I look into the old photographs. I wonder who these people are. Maybe they knew my grandparents. These photos are probably a hundred years old.

Some are from studios, where people used to go and have their portraits done. They are all set up like a sofa in front of a mural that looks like trees and a river. There’s usually a big potted plant in the corner. People didn’t smile in the old days.

Other pictures are more normal, but still no color. Ladies holding babies with weird looks on their faces. They are taken outside sometimes. One of them is in front of a cool old car, a guy in a suit and hat looking very proud, with his foot on the running board.