Becoming a Firefighter by Jeff Wilser

Author:Jeff Wilser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2021-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

But the larger point? Most firefighters don’t do it for the money. “Find me another job in America where people in such large numbers are willing to do the job for nothing,” says FDNY fire captain Jason Brezler. “There isn’t one.” He’s referring to the 700,000 volunteer firefighters who do the job for free, on the side, while they work a nine-to-five job and live a normal life.

The Challenge of Inclusion

4:30 P.M.

Licole finishes her stint at dispatch, then heads to her firehouse, Engine House 33, on the north side of St. Louis, just a few miles from the town of Ferguson. The neighborhood is high in shootings, heroin overdoses, and prostitution.

This doesn’t seem to faze Licole. “I just treat everyone the same. When I treat everybody as if they’re my family member, it’s a lot easier for me. If you’re elderly, I treat you like my grandfather,” she says. She extends that same courtesy to the homeless and the call girls who loiter by the station. At 6:50 one morning, for example, a guy came to the firehouse requesting help: he had locked his keys in his car, just a block away. Could they open it for him?

“Sure,” Licole told the guy. “No problem.” Firefighters do this kind of thing all the time. She grabbed some wedges and the BigEasy, a long, slender tool that’s used to jimmy open the door. Then, at the car, she encountered a young woman yelling at the guy, saying he owed her twenty bucks.

“I don’t owe you shit,” the guy told her.

“I sucked your dick,” said the woman. “You owe me twenty bucks.”

On the ground by the car, Licole saw a purse, condoms, a crack pipe, lip gloss, and panties. Now it became clear: she figured the guy must have angrily thrown the prostitute’s things on the ground and locked himself out of the car.

“Sir, do you owe this woman twenty bucks?”

“I don’t owe this bitch shit.”

“Sir, look. I’m not saying I condone what she does,” Licole told him, “but I work hard for my money, too. And if you owe her twenty bucks, then you need to give her the money.”

The man said that he had only a hundred-dollar bill. Licole pointed to a liquor store and told him that he could break the hundred and pay the lady.

“I’m not paying her shit.”

So Licole gave an ultimatum: Either pay the lady the $20 or keep his $20… and pay another $60 for a locksmith, because Licole wouldn’t open the door. (She conferred with her captain and got his backing.)

“Thank you, Ms. Fire Lady!” the prostitute said.

Licole looks at me now, laughs a bit. “You don’t do people like that. You pay the lady.”

From that point on, the local prostitutes knew her as Auntie Licole.

Most of the stories involving sex workers aren’t cute. Almost in the next breath, Licole tells me that the fire station made friends with a prostitute named Tiara. “She was a regular, and we loved her.” She pauses, then adds, “A guy raped Tiara and killed her.

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