The Tour
By Sharon
John Gage leaned against the map hanging on the apparatus bay wall. He stood watching as his shift mate, Mike Stoker, was winding up his guided tour of the station for a troupe of Cub Scouts. Silently, Johnny was thankful Hank had bestowed the chore to Mike and not himself. He'd learnt the hard way that kids were much smarter than he ever gave them credit for. Just thinking about his failed tour of the hospital to a group of grade five students made Johnny shiver.
As he continued watching this group of six year olds, Johnny's lips formed into a small smile. The children were not so patiently waiting to be lifted up, one by one, into the driver's seat of the rig, which was parked in the driveway in front of the station. Once inside the engine each child was then given the opportunity to turn on the lights and pull on the air horn, before exiting the vehicle from Captain Stanley's side, where Marco lifted them down safely to the pavement. The young boys then filed around to the driver's side of the engine once again, to wait for the rest of the boys to have their turn inside the machine. Once they'd all pulled the air horn, Mike was going to discuss the instrument panel with them. Explaining all the levers, knobs and gauges on the side of the rig.
Johnny continued to watch as one small boy, with jet black hair, just stood staring up at Big Red. The boy wore a pair of dark blue jeans, white tennis shoes and a button up shirt with an oversized collar. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Although Gage was unable to see the boy’s features, he was positive the child's eyes were as large as saucers in admiration of the machine before him.
Johnny's smile grew wider as he thought back to the day his Cub Scout's received a guided tour of a fire station in the City by the Bay. It would turn out to be the day his life's journey began.
***
"Hey son, you don't want to climb aboard?"
"Na, ah, not there anyway." Young Johnny replied as his eyes focused on the end of the rig.
"Oh, you wanna check out this here?" the fireman asked as he nodded his head in the direction of Johnny's eyes.
When the only response to his question was met with an enthusiastic nodding of the young boys head, the fireman took the boys hand in his and directed him towards the tillerman's seat. After carefully lifting the young boy into the driver's seat on the back of the rig, the fireman joined him.
He answered any and all questions his young charge asked, hoping the young boy was comprehending his answers. Although he was pretty sure his answers didn't really matter to him. The lad seemed overjoyed at the opportunity to twist the steering wheel back and forth. The fireman noticed the gleam in the boy’s eyes and was pretty confident this particular child was bitten by the smoke eating bug. Yep this one was destined to be a fireman, tillerman or not. The fireman smiled down at the dark haired boy, "So you think you'd like to be a tillerman eh?"
"Yeah it's neat. Everyone would see me and I could wave to them all!"
"Yep you sure could." the fireman smiled.
***
Johnny approached the young boy. "Some'en you'd like to see young man?"
Looking up at the tall fireman, the dark haired boy looked nervous. He wasn't sure whether or not he should ask.
Johnny kneeled down so he was eye level with the boy. "How would you like to climb up on the hose bed?"
"Really?"
"Sure, lemme help ya." Johnny took the young boys hand into his and led him to the back of the rig. After carefully lifting the boy onto the back of the engine and onto the hose bed, he joined him.
Once they sat down
the young boy asked, "How come the hoses don't have ends?"
Johnny scrunched up his face, trying to figure out what the boy was asking. When he finally figured it out, he explained the fireman working the hoses put the nozzles on them when they reached the fire. The young boy threw many more questions at Johnny and he patiently answered them all, hoping the young child understood his answers. But then again, he supposed it didn't matter, as he was sure, the young man seated beside him was destined to become a fireman. He could tell by the gleam in his dark eyes.
"You think you wanna be a fireman?"
"Yeah, I wanna put out fires. It's cool!"
"It sure is." Johnny smiled down at the young lad.
