Not yet titled
an excerpt

“There’s one thing that’s always realized by people too late. That’s the thing about culture. There’s this crowd mentality that overpowers the individual sense of “ego.” And when someone finds this ego, and goes against the grain, the crowd maintains its crowd mentality, and follows along with the new ego every time. It’s not that everyone’s a trend wanting more trends; it’s life that’s a trend that everyone follows. I’m not saying life isn’t like a box of chocolates, I’m saying that most people view life as a cookie-cutter existence, not like something out of a book or tale, but it’s just run of the mill, every-day white-collar, blue-collar working existence. Actually, what I’m saying is something to the effect of, ‘living life every day is nice and everything, and the crowd is what makes everyone comfortable, but it’s the rush of seeing someone new, seeing those few people who go against the grain every once in a while that makes life worth living.’ It’s those guys in blue, and those guys that dress ridiculously who stop the other ridiculously dressed guys from robbing the bank, or some other weird shit that they do. It’s those guys out there who inspired me to do what I do, and it’s those guys who risk their lives every day doing what they do to keep us safe from the terrors of everyday life that we refuse to acknowledge: the raping, the robbing, the beating, mugging, stealing, cheating, the lying, the unfaithfulness…just everything that people hardly ever see in day-to-day life that we see everyday that makes life so scary that we need to bunch up all the time and follow those people who make us think we’re safe. But it’s doing something to stop, and seeing someone stopping that stuff that makes me love what I do, and, I hope, I will keep doing for the rest of my life, however long, or short, that may be.”
--Johnny, “Aodhvaror”, Williams (April 27, 1965 – September 11, 2001)

The sun peeked through the eastern fourteenth floor window of Howard Amyntor, and, of course, he had left the curtains open after his escapades during the night. It was six thirty in the morning, the morning of Monday, May 18, 2009, according to Howard’s clock/calendar/radio in which the heinous sounds of an alarm were, like a banshee, shrieking. He lazily, and with a heavy hand, hit the long bar of the snooze button, which promptly signaled the soothing sounds of 102.7 SMJR, Smooth Jazz Radio to start playing.
“We’ve got a sunny day ahead of us,” the velvety, deep-toned radio disc jockey said, “we’ve got slight chance of light rain, partly cloudy, so watch out for Leprechauns at the end of those rainbows we’re sure to get!”
Howard turned over in his bed, wishing for that extra eight minutes of sleep would help quell his brain after only three hours of sleep. That was the thing which set Howard apart from most of his co-workers. His excuse was insomnia, but the real reason was something he had to hide. It’s wasn’t as if his life was already hard enough, a divorce suit was against him, after only a year and a half of relationship, which pretty much threw away the last six years of his life. It wasn’t justified at all. The woman said she “didn’t have the patience for a lasting relationship.” Howard’s response was harsh, during that night when she actually brought it up.

“What do you mean, ‘no patience for a lasting relationship?’ You should’ve thought about that before you said ‘I do,’ at our wedding. Better yet, you should’ve said that before you even accepted that nine thousand dollar wedding ring I bothered to get you. Do you know how long I had to save up for that? Two fucking years. Two mother fucking, useless years of hard work at minimum wage, while, no less, I was in school to help make a better life for ourselves, because at that time, the last three years of our relationship was stricken with poverty. Yeah, I know, I should’ve said ‘no’ to you when you asked to move in after eight months of our being boyfriend and girlfriend, but that’s no excuse for your behavior during that time,” he mostly yelled, throwing and flailing his arms about, trying to ruffle his feathers and puff his chest. The fight took a long while, about forty-five minutes, to heat up to that point, but the last line she said really set Howard off.
“Oh, my behavior is it?” she yelled back. “While you were out spending half of your paycheck at the bar most nights, I was busy caring for everything you neglected, your bills, your…everything! You don’t throw that long-winded speech at me unless you have some ammunition, you piece of fatherless shit!”
“Now you’re calling me a bastard, eh?”
“You better watch that language, mister, or you’re gonna get what’s coming to you!”
“Ragh, fuck that! I can use whatever language fucking damn well want to under the roof of my own fucking house!”
“Now you’re just throwing words around. You know what? Fuck you! You happy now? Fuck you!” She yanked the door of the coat closet open, grabbed her jacket, and stormed out of the house. She didn’t come back.

The alarm went off again, interrupting the dream he was having about failed relationships or some other, and the radio disc jockey’s voice was louder this time after the snooze button was pressed. Howard finally surrendered to the idea that he should get up, and wrestle himself from the bunk. Howard never found it tough for himself to sneak out of the firehouse at nights to do his patrols as he did most every night, but it was hard to hide his absence from the fire crew when there was a call. His bunkmate saw to it that it was made clear his absence hurt the rest of the team.
“Howard, where were you last night? You know you can’t go off and do shit when you’re on duty, savvy?” Louis’s old habits were hard to suppress when he was angry. “Nobody knew how to get the pump to start right and proper like you do. It’s like, you’ve got some sort of empathy with the machine that none of us do.”
“I know, pal, I know,” Howard said, grabbing a bottle from his nightstand drawer, and taking a sip of the brown liquid it contained.
“Hey, hey, you best stop that. Being drunk on duty is a thing that could get you fired. You could get fired, and I could be the source that gets you fired for that,” Louis said sternly, forcing the emphasis on the word “fired.”
“Yeah, I know, but you wouldn’t put a man like me, living in a studio apartment as a full-grown adult, while paying too much in alimony to my ex-wife, who, I might add, is probably the most evil woman, because she sued for everything I own, not just half. And won.” Howard too another drink to that last statement.
“You know, How, you’re lucky the chief takes pity on you and doesn’t fire your ass raw right here, right now, because being absent on fire duty during a fire call is practically impossible, and if it weren’t for a sympathetic, soft, favoring fire chief, you’d be long, long gone.” Louis patted Howard on the cheek softly, and turned away from the man.
It was funny to Howard that someone could be so antagonistic towards him in some, intense, moments, and yet be one of his best friends almost every other time. He swore that man would take a bullet for him, but may, one day, be the one to pull the trigger.
It was a tense breakfast that morning. Thomas was in a cheerful mood, and decided to make pancakes for the bunch; an event that was strange to everyone, who was used to him being so adamant about a cooked breakfast, he went out of his way to loudly eat a bowl of cereal when someone cooked so much as a couple eggs.

“Cooking anything should be left to dinner. Breakfast should be cereal or fruit, lunch should consist of a sandwich, or other sandwich-like object that is not cooked, and dinner should be a nice, hot, seasoned, grilled, juicy steak,” he would say every day, on the day that breakfast or lunch was served warm. “How do you think our ancestors did it? Waste wood in the morning and afternoon so they wouldn’t have a fire throughout the night, or saved all those resources so they can have a warm night all night, and a hot meal to keep their bellies full and help battle the cold?”

It was these characters Howard lived with in the firehouse that made him think his life would be a great sitcom. Leo, one of the other firefighters stationed on Ladder 88 always made life seem like an episode of Seinfeld.
“There it is, dude, there it is,” he’d always say. He was young, 20, probably, still going to college working on his business degree. “It’s the Soup Nazi, I swear! Look, dude, look.” This time, it was a sandwich guy, working at a local deli/butcher shop.
The man had just finished yelling at a customer for drawing out the names of the items he wanted far too long, and denied his service.
“See, dude, see? I’m telling you, man. You’re like Jerry, see. And me, I dunno what role I play, but I’m in there somewhere. And Louis, when he’s not yelling at you all the time, he’s like George. Yeah, dude, seriously, dude. Not even lying, dude!”
His use of the word “dude” was always too much. He used it chronically, not even realizing it. He also used the word “fuck” too much. There had to be some kind of mental disorder like that. A neurosis, or something.
“I haven’t found a Kramer yet, though. But, if you’re a Kramer, you won’t know it. He’s always overacting, and he’s such a physical character, always spazzing out or what not. Right, dude? Right?” Leo didn’t realize, but he was definitely the Kramer in his Seinfeld world. He didn’t notice, but he always mooched off the firehouse refrigerator, never paying for, or replacing anything he took or finished off.
That was the wonderful thing about Leo, though, he always got everyone caught up in his games and theories.

“Alright, alright, guys,” the head of the team, Will, said at the table. “We gotta say grace at the table today, or I won’t feel right. We didn’t lose anyone, nobody got injured or nothin’ last night at the call. And, wouldn’t ya know it, but that new hero, uh, whatsisname, Nikecross? Nikedrone?”
“Andronikos, sir, it’s Greek or somethin’.’” Thomas corrected.
“Ah, I thought it had something to do with Nikes. Haha. Anyway, that man came up and asked me what the problem was, and, by God, he saved four people from that burning pile o’ wood.”
Andronikos was Howard’s alias as a hero, though nobody in that room knew it.
“Yeah, Howard, you shoulda been there, it was some scene.” Will pointed at him with an upside down fork, “Next time, make sure you make it to call, or I won’t be so nice and let you have these damned tasty hotcakes.”