Fonz

He never turned on the radio. It’s not that he disliked it, his ears just never felt like anything was missing. He loved it when the hounds blared it in the mornings, the occasional clink of weights or the howl of laughter carried along with the chorus up the hill and through his office window. Perhaps the lack of music allowed his thoughts to form more tangible patterns by eliminating another distraction. With everyone gone, he had time to think. Too much time. Sleep hardly offered any reprieve from the long nights and late mornings. He was lucky to garner three hours of it on any given night. The office is thirty steps away from his quarters. Farther when it snows. Keith is a small man, just over five feet tall and 100 pounds on a full stomach. He’s too kind to incur sympathy for his loneliness, so he proclaims the snow to be his greatest enemy in the dark months.

On the weekends he goes south, to a town along the forest fringe, presumably to another small shack filled with trinkets more precious than gold. Sun faded printouts of faces covered in ash. White teeth shine prominently above a stained yellow jump suit. Heartfelt words scribbled on the other side illuminate when the image is touched by sunlight, always addressed to “Fonz”. The small space isn’t messy, just cluttered. Model helicopters and air tankers occupy shelves, and the walls in paper format. He doesn’t spend a lot of time there. His mom resides nearby. Keith looks after her.

Two emails have come in today, from Regina. Meaningless banter from another world. These people had no mind for the North, he is just another number on the government mailing list. The phone hasn’t rang. His boss is in Prince Albert, maybe. He hasn’t spoke with Malcolm in days. Fonz had been supervisor then too, when Malcolm had started as a crew member back in the nineties. At times no one cared what Fonz did from day to day in the off season. He already had their love, their respect, a veteran of a thousand battles, all unique. Nothing kept him in that chair from eight to four thirty everyday. It had been so for over thirty winters, and yet he was there day after day, watching the weather change. Today brought hoar frost, a bad omen for the action-hungry firefighter. He flipped six months ahead in his journal and made a note indicating the prediction of wet weather. The months of November and December brought heavy snows with no frost, an indicator of a dry, action packed spring. What the spring lacked in temperature, it made up for in dry trees that hadn’t took in their summer moisture yet. Even aspen burned in the spring. There hasn’t been fire in his FPA since 2015, not anything of note. Would he be satisfied after this bust of spring fires? Could he really walk off the base and into legend after 44 years? He was as much a part of the base as the structures that composed it. Most were erected during his time there. Cement helipads bear his name upon close inspection. Living and working on base, he’d spent more time there than anywhere else. He doesn’t have a family, and his mom’s mortality is evaporating before his eyes. The base is his family. Firefighters chasing the flame between college years move on, but all remember him, and most hold onto him, exchanging messages from time to time or stopping by the base on the way to the lake to shake his hand, young families in tow. Some take promotions in Prince Albert at the headquarters, some become supervisors at other bases in the North or take to the wing as air attack officers or pilots. This family does not leave him, simply becomes extended. Keith’s love is not bound by distance or pride, and he inspires others to respond in kind.

I cannot write the end of this story, in fact, I don’t believe it will come true. I cannot conjure Fonz being anywhere else, or being anyone else. Perhaps I hope the story will go on and end in a similar fashion to the way it started. My above etchings are an attempt to articulate his character, yet in his story, he is just an observer. He always was. Not the hero, simply the person surrounded by them. In the summer all of his hero’s return and the weather observations in his journal are replaced with stories about the characters he loves the most. Never complimenting them, just giving credit daily. Because it was due and he didn’t mind paying it. If he could, pages would be adorned with flying machines, paint jobs fit for nascar on the side of Bell 212’s. That dusty box full of journals under his desk would roar with all the ferocity of sky cranes, Convair 580's and crown fire. It would feel like blistered feet and droopy eye lids in the back of a pickup. Sore throat and black snot, tears and unimaginable camaraderie. It would smell of smoke, av gas, and fresh red paint. He is loved, but all that love pales in comparison to his love of the business. “Hell of a sport," he always says.