The retired fireman\u2019s helmet usually sits on top of the entertainment center in the retired fireman\u2019s living room, but tonight, the fireman\u2019s helmet is outside having a smoke.<\/p>\n
Man, it\u2019s rough waiting all day to topple off the entertainment center and scuttle out the cat door for stress relief. Calms his nerves, though. The fireman\u2019s helmet started smoking when he was fourteen, and kept it up because it helped with his stutter.<\/p>\n
The retired fireman doesn\u2019t know the helmet smokes. It was easy to hide when they were working, because well, what fireman\u2019s helmet doesn\u2019t smell like smoke? The cat knows though, the ball buster. Anyways, he slips out the cat door and smokes about a half a pack each night. It\u2019s nice out there for the fireman\u2019s helmet, he can hear the sirens.<\/p>\n
He used to be out all the time of course, when they were working. The fireman was fifty when he retired, but the helmet was only twenty-five. The helmet says people never think about that. They think just because a fireman retires, his helmet has to hang it up, too. He knows he was custom made to only fit his particular fireman\u2019s head, but still, he thinks he could have been used in a training film or something. He could have a professional acting career by now! He doesn\u2019t know, the fireman\u2019s helmet, it just seems unfair. Now, he doesn\u2019t even know if he\u2019s got what it takes anymore.<\/p>\n
So one night, he\u2019s out on the porch smoking, leaning back against the railing, when a dog jangles by. He comes right up to the fireman\u2019s helmet and scares the shit out of him, but the helmet can\u2019t do nothing, you know, with his back right up against the railing. Wouldn\u2019t you know it, the nylon straps on the inside of the fireman\u2019s helmet smell, to a dog, like rank pieces of meat. So the dog sniffs the fireman\u2019s helmet, you know, like all over, and he knocks him down and starts licking him. It\u2019s weird. The dog tumbles the fireman\u2019s helmet over three or four times, puts his jaws around the helmet\u2019s brim, and runs off with him. The fireman\u2019s helmet thinks, this is it, my life is over, I\u2019m going to be chewed to death by a dog. He always thought he\u2019d die in a fire, and then after the fireman retired he thought he\u2019d die of boredom on top of the entertainment center. Mauled by a dog? Never in the helmet\u2019s wildest dreams.<\/p>\n
Dog takes him to a house and starts wiping up the grass with him, thwack, thwack, growling, you know how they do\u2014and someone inside the house flips on a light, opens their screen door, and yells. And the dog leaves him, just like that, ass over teakettle in the backyard, and runs inside. The fireman\u2019s helmet didn\u2019t know where the hell he was, but fortunately it was night so he could rock through the backyards the way he thought they came. Well, it didn\u2019t take long for the helmet to realize he was completely lost. So, he stops to take a piss and who walks up to him but the goddamn cat he lives with. First, she sits down and washes her entire goddamn face, and then she asks the fireman\u2019s helmet if he wants help getting home. The fireman\u2019s helmet knows he\u2019s going to stutter, so he just gives her a look, you know, he just gives her a look.<\/p>\n
Anyways, this thing with the dog. It was kind of fun. He was terrified and all, but he also felt\u2014um, don\u2019t get him wrong, it wasn\u2019t about the licking. Well, hell, he admits, that was kind of a thing. No, really. It was those first few moments after the dog ran into the house and the helmet was lying in the dog\u2019s yard. He could smell the grass. He didn\u2019t know what was going to happen next. Hell, he didn\u2019t even want a cigarette. There\u2019s still some life in him yet, he thought. Yeah, he thought, there\u2019s still some life in me yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The retired fireman doesn\u2019t know the helmet smokes. It was easy to hide when they were working, because well, what fireman\u2019s helmet doesn\u2019t smell like smoke? The cat knows though, the ball buster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2995,2997,2996],"class_list":["post-18236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-firemen","tag-retirement","tag-smoking","writer-ellen-santasiero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18996,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236\/revisions\/18996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}