THAT Guy

We've all been on those calls where a member of the public walked up and interrupted our work to ask what was going on. We've all wished we could be smarmy with them, sometimes wished we could be outright rude. After all, it's obvious that when there's an incident, we don't have time to answer questions.

Not long ago I was on one of those calls. Multiple fire units - engines, ladders, rescues and two BC's - are on scene from two cities' fire departments. When I first arrived flames had eaten up one side of the house and were now shooting well into the early-evening sky (this was a pretty big house, though, so the fire had a way to go). The situation was controlled quickly and the main fire was put out in good time. As is customary, police roped off the neighborhood so that moochers wouldn't try to show up and defraud the victims out of their insurance settlement or belongings inside the home once we were all gone.

That doesn't stop people from coming from all over the neighborhood to gawk. Often we have to ask police officers to come and escort them out of the fire ground. I have even seen some geniuses try to drive over our main 5" hose lines to get in close and see the action. To them, I often wish I could say, "please, if you really wanna know what it's like, join the fire department yourself." Movies like Backdraft (terrible film - Ladder 49 was WAY better, even if parts were unrealistic) don't help with all the glorification of fire itself.

Anyway, I'm at this scene, the fire is out, one BC has left and now one engine and the ladder are leaving. Three engines remained, however. Floodlights are still on the scene. I've had to ask several people myself to back away for their own safety. Most of the folks have figured out that the show is over, fire's out, there's really nothing left to see - then, that guy shows up.

We all know who THAT guy is. He's the one who has candle-moth syndrome times ten, who will stare at a scene with his mouth hanging open and a glitter in his eye that says the only words going through his mind are, "wow...cool!" He's the one who never has an intelligent question to ask, but will ask any dipshit question that comes to mind just to be able to tell his buddies later that he got his information from "the source". He's the dude everyone dreads when he wanders into a scene to check it out with a dumb grin on his face. THAT guy is the one you can never see coming, but you can feel his life force creeping up on you like a flashover...you get that gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach as the temperature rises, see the smoke rising from every surface in the room, then SHIT! There he is!

THAT guy showed up in the form of a college-aged kid, stoned out of his squash, waltzing down the middle of the street wearing nothing but basketball shorts (he wasn't even wearing shoes). He walked right up to lil' ol' me, standing in front of one of the engines with an SCBA in each hand, with several guys packing up hose lines in the distance, and asks, "doooood...what happened?"

Hoping I could get him to leave, I flashed my best face-the-public smile and said, "we can't really discuss the particulars with the public right now. Sorry!"

Oh, it only went downhill from there. THAT guy got this grave look on his face and said, "holy fuck - it was a murder, wasn't it?"

I refused to let so much as an ounce of disdain register on my face. I looked at the small river running down the street along the curb, looked back at my subject, and with a stock-straight face I replied, "nope. Boating accident!"