Little Rena and Fire Truck 38

Were I to select from among Truck 38’s shortcomings to procure the most tragic among them, my discerning hand would likely select its sloth. Herr Johnson’s house, or what remains of it, is a paltry 2.7 kilometers from the municipal fire station. 5 minutes is hardly an acceptable response time. I chose this particular hour to test you, Truck 38, in order to take advantage of the brief congestion on our main thoroughfares created by the end of the traditional school day. Well, you failed, Truck 38. Perhaps you should have planned an alternate route to compensate for said traffic.

Tonight, when I visit Herr Johnson in the county burn ward, I will attempt to convey to the ear occupying the side of his face that is free of gauze how halcyon a moment it was to witness his wretched domicile give way under the remorseless forces of our brutal yet balletic universe. If my fortunes are good, I will also have enough time between the nurses’ shifts to impart to Herr Johnson the superiority of Truck 14. Like the death of Mimi in La Boehm, the timing of Truck 14 is impeccable. Its siren, a perfect balance of piercing wail and guttural horn, signals to the night its righteous insistence to make smoke rise in the middle path between water and flame.

I recall the night when first I witnessed the horrifying grace of Truck 14. A mere infant of 3 was I, chained to the charge of Herr Buckley, our neighbor, while Mama wrested baby Emil from her sacred aperture. How I hated Herr Buckley. His stench was that of the useless oils applied to the mustaches of reformed gypsies. That Mama and Papa trusted him with my most valued existence, I have yet to entirely forgive. I chuckle now at my naïveté, but when his archaic stovetop popcorn caught fire I called it justice. How we would all like to forget we were any of us so young as to entertain such abstract concepts. The coward Buckley left me in the inferno of his Berber split-level. I saw his cat, then named Dinky and subsequently christened Oliver by myself, struggle to doubt the tendrils of combustion that had found purchase on his fur. It was then that the mighty issue of Truck 14 laid waste to Herr Buckley’s front window and toppled my tiny frame in a shower of salvation.

I have read in Papa’s library of the cruel endocrine joys that await my body in the years to come. I have found fascination in the promise that my mind will warp to acquire a forever-dancing procession of fertility symbols in the world’s inanimate taxa. I am certain I shall one day come to a wet, spinal ecstasy at the mere thought of Truck 14, its virile hose and its robust engineering. For now, I must take what solace I can in the incomplete majesty of that most capable of red engines.

Given his forced repose, it is my hope that Herr Johnson will spend his convalescence in reflection. If he is truly enlightened, he will see at the very same moment that his condition is the result of his social inflexibility and that a more capable truck would have at least rescued his ability to grow hair. Like Oliver, Herr Johnson shall always wear scars like the patches on a corduroy bear. Unlike Oliver, Herr Johnson shall never think to carry on with dignity.

I feel the pangs of regret even now that my cherished Wiffle ball saw the end of its days on Herr Johnson’s roof. A shame it could not be brought to earth by well-aimed rocks or level diplomacy. But in its ash, may a lesson blossom. Likewise concerning that of Frau Johnson.