It's that time.

Lock and load.

The Michael Derry Show is on the air. Firemen.

Nobody knows why firemen are firemen, not even they could tell you why.

But it is time somebody try.

Firefighting is the most risky of jobs.

Fire and ice are uncomfortable separately or together. Wives hate the hours. Kids love

the noise, fire and ice. Any day at the firehouse, the bell puts the dispatcher on the horn

with a tenement tenderbox address, into bunker pants, rubber turnout coat, grab the mask and go.

Minutes later, you're on sight. As others run out, you go in. You'll need all you

can carry. The four-pound axe, a six-foot hook, the Halligan pry bar. The ceiling has to come

down, and it's one of those stubborn tin ones. In the scary dark, you are gouging out and

tearing loose and pulling apart, gulping air and tasting black, your windpipe is closing and you've lost track

of which way is out. Is it really worth it? They've cut your ladder company from six men to five,

so now everything you do is 16.67 percent more difficult and more dangerous. Your air is low.

Inside your mask you're throwing up. There's a searing ember

down your neck, torn gloves exposed, a smashed hand, so you emerge from the Holocaust,

hugging with your elbows, somebody's singed kitten. Back at the station house, you can almost

breathe again. Next come the tedious hours as you gang up on grimy tools.

The cleanup crew at the firehouse is you.

When windows need washing and toilets need cleaning and floors need mopping and beds need making, you do it.

Is it worth it?

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