strike that

all that and a hard hat

There is a part in Native Son where Bigger Thomas is standing on a street and a firetruck goes by, lights and sirens blaring, and he is thrilled by it. Thrilled in this particular way that is physical and consuming. It is probably symbolic of something that I had to write an essay about when I read the book for tenth grade English class, but that’s not what I remember. What I remember is the description of the feeling. And I remember it still, fifteen years later, because when I read it I had that specific feeling that great songs and great writing can elicit: the feeling of Exactly. That is Exactly how I feel.

Is there a way to say this without sounding callous and insensitive? I really get off on emergencies. It’s not that I want them to happen, obviously. It’s not that I’m glad that buildings burn down and cities flood and people shoot each other. Obviously. And often during every-day life it is actually so hard for me to disconnect myself from the reality of these things that though I can read the newspaper and then go out with friends the same as everyone else, I feel this kind of lingering sickness and agitation that sits there on the sidelines most of the time. My own personal elephant in the room. I don’t think most people have this and I don’t know why I do, and I do know it doesn’t make me any more useful. I realized a long time ago that awareness mostly just makes people self-righteous about how aware they are, without accomplishing anything much at all.

Occasionally, though – so very occasionally – there is actually something to be done. And when this possibility presents itself, some creepy switch gets flipped. I don’t feel a thing at all, except adrenaline and immediacy, and alarming practicality. Taking down houses in New Orleans was like this: the sledge hammer would swing and swing in my hands for hours in the stifling heat, and only later when all the moldy walls were broken on the curb did the ideas of homeless and flood and refugee come crashing in on me. I guess I like to Make Things Better in the most naïve and selfish sense, and this is the way my brain manages it.

I was not brought up to Fix Things. The reality that a person – just a regular person, a small and soft-hearted person with thin skin and a bad sense of direction – could frame doors and set bones was a thing that took me an embarrassingly long time to uncover, and it surprises me still. But like many overdue and hard-won discoveries, its truth amazes and excites me, and I feel compelled to make up for lost time.

So when I got an email about Neighborhood Emergency Teams I signed up for the four Saturdays of training. NET members are Portland’s community first responders in extreme emergencies when city services are overwhelmed. They taught us about how unreinforced masonry buildings crumble in earthquakes and where to site an improvised medical facility and what to do about bleeding. And today was our final exam.

It happened at Fire Station 2 out on the northeast corner of town, a sprawling lot with firetruck bays and one of those big square-windowed search and rescue practice towers. We put out fires, of course. And we lifted a nine hundred pound block of cement off of a black canvas dummy before rolling him onto a board and duct-taping him in place. We crept around the walls of a smoky apartment, shining our flashlights into debris-filled corners looking for survivors. We did triage, and I carried an eleven year old boy out of the building over my shoulder.

And I get that it wasn’t real. And if it had been real – if all the blood and terrible decisions had not been a drill - I probably would have vomited and cried and maybe passed out. But as it was, I just felt thrilled – in the most neutral, sensory sense of the word.

posted by tortaluga @ 12:29 AM