"It all depends on your fuel, gentlemen. Is she an ice maiden with a high flash point and a tepid HRR? The affair will die from lack of passion. She's a frigid bitch, my jolly boys – do your worst, she won't respond. Or is she a hot number? A low flash point, a steaming HRR? Then hold on, buckoes, you are in for a ride. If she's hot enough and big enough, your fire will reach a critical temperature. The heat will radiate down from the ceiling hot enough to overwhelm the ignition point of all the materials underneath it, and then the fairies start flying.
"What do I mean by that esoteric and somewhat effeminate reference regarding flying fairies? Just before flashover, boys, you might see little pockets of gas in the air ignite – little licks of flame dancing in the air. That is the 'fairies flying,' and that is the time to put it in Reverse, gentlemen, because if you see the fairies flying, it is a prelude to "WHOOSH! Act Three: The Flashover Phase. All the exposed surfaces reach ignition point, and now you have an out-of-control fire. An undeniable passion that sweeps everything before it. Nothing can resist it, every substance opens its legs and joins the orgy. The heat is transferred upward by the air, downward by radiation, and sideways by conduction. It thrashes in passion in all directions. The intensity doubles with each 18-degree rise in temp. It gets hotter and faster, faster and hotter. This is fire's orgasm, gentlemen, the fiery consummation of the affair. It roars and screams and groans and moans. It howls like a banshee into the air. It burns until it runs out of fuel or someone comes along and puts it out.
"And now," Fuller says, "we shall have a cigarette."
He lights his cig and leans back against the desk in a parody of sexual satisfaction and exhaustion. After a minute he says, "Three phases of fire, ye thirsters after knowledge: smoldering, free burning, and flashover. The first act often dies from its own lack of energy, it suffocates from lack of air; the second phase can be put out by prompt and appropriate action; the third phase, flashover – well, Katie, bar the door.
"So what is fire? A dry chemical interaction between molecules. A three-act drama that often ends in tragedy. A metaphor for sex, which reveals itself in our language of love, i.e., the 'heat of passion': 'You get me so hot, baby.' The stereotypical seduction setting of the bearskin rug in front of a roaring fire. The heat that can only be extinguished by the emission of cooling exothermic fluids.
"This is the chemistry that old Prometheus instinctively understood," Fuller says. "He gave it to man and man has used it to warm his caves, to cook his food and – being human – to incinerate his fellow man in all manner of nasty combustion.
"Well, let the sparks fly. Let the eagles feast."
He finishes his cigarette, tosses it into the trash can, then says, "Let's go dance with the bitch."
Dance with the bitch?
13
The crazy bastard puts them into a burning building.
Jack loves it.
Fire school – outrageous, man.
The little Irish dude walks them out onto this big concrete square where there's this two-story concrete building that looks like an air control tower designed by some sort of Soviet architectural committee. Thing's got doors and windows and fire escapes all over it and there's firemen standing around looking at the students like they are meat.
Firemen have these little smirks on their faces, like good morning, welcome to our world. Welcome to your hosing.
Firemen standing in front of a stack of oxygen masks.
Which makes the students a little, you know, apprehensive, then one of the older firemen comes up and starts giving them a briefing about how to put on the masks and how to use them.
Five minutes later Jack is standing in a crowded mass of his fellow students on the second floor of the concrete building, and it's hot and sweaty and then it's pitch black because the door slams. Some of the boys start scrambling to put their masks on, but a voice comes over the PA screaming, Not yet!!!!
There's something we want you to experience first, gentlemen.
Suffocation.
More properly, asphyxiation.
First thing Jack feels is like this intense heat, then the room starts filling with smoke. Jack's like, This is wild, and wild it is because what you got here is a bunch of men crowded into a dark locked room, part of which is on fire.
Jack gets the game.
The game is, you put your mask on before the order comes, you are out of there – out of the building, out of the school – so Jack squats down as close as he can manage to the floor, where there's still some air. But it's only a minute or so before his eyes start burning and tearing, and then he starts choking and gagging, and everyone is choking and gagging, and Jack feels this moment of absolute primal terror – which is like panic, man. He feels it and appreciates it – this is what they want me to feel, this is the moment they want me to confront. Want me to give in, freak out, lose it.
Which is what a couple of guys do – they're history, they're past tense – but Jack is like, Fuck that. Jack's been held under by a wave more than once in his young life. He's already experienced not breathing, so he's like, Bring it, dudes.
I will fucking die in here before I reach for the mask.
But is nevertheless very pleased to hear Fuller scream, Put your masks on, you silly bastards, except it's no gimme putt in the dark, with your elbows banging against other elbows, and you can't see a damn thing, and your brain is telling your hands to like Hurry the fuck up and your fingers are telling your brain Fuck you and then you get the mask on and it's like Aaaaaahhhhh.
A completely new appreciation for oxygen.
Then the door comes open and a big beautiful rectangle of light penetrates this contrived little mock hell and some guys are standing and some are keeled over and Jack sees this one guy crouched on the floor. In bad shape, man – dude is still fiddling with his mask. Dude is going to be out in a second, so Jack pushes his down to the guy and holds the mask to the guy's face and gets him strapped in and then Fuller's voice comes across the PA screeching, Get out of there, you total idiots!
Jack rips his mask off long enough to yell, "Guys! Be cool!"
The guy nearest the door stands at the side and plays traffic cop, pushing guys through one at a time. Jack's boy is in bad shape, though, can't straighten up, so Jack gets a shoulder under his arm and lifts. Waits his turn by the door and carries the guy out onto the fire escape.
Which is on fire, of course.
Just fucking outrageous, Jack thinks as he looks up and sees that the roof of the tower is a mass of flames, and the railing of the fire escape is a line of flame, and flames are bursting out the windows they have to get past.
Jack spots Fuller and the head fireman watching them from a nearby tower, so he sets his boy down and gives him a little shove down the stairs, which is too crowded for the guy to fall anyway, and even if he does, it's better for him to be seen taking a header than getting carried out of there.
Just to make things more fun, the firemen are spraying them with a hose, so by the time Jack makes it down the stairs he's half-choked, semiblinded, singed, bruised, and soaked.
The whole class is sprawled out on the concrete, not caring that they're lying in puddles, just happy to be breathing and not on fire when Fuller comes over and looks down at them.
Fuller lights himself another cig, has himself a long smirk and asks, "Any questions?"
Jack raises his hand.
"Mr. Wade?"
"Yeah," Jack says. "Can I go again?"
Fire school.
What a ride.
Better than Knott's Berry Farm.
14
Fire school.
Jack's having more fun than a boy should have.