“Oh, my!” people in the crowd said, pronouncing it “Oh, moy” and looking up at me with arms folded across their chest. A guy named Bigfoot on my truck, Truck One, thought he’d tricked me into the dunking booth by telling me that all new members had to do it, but I wasn’t stupid enough to believe him. Other firefighters went out as crew on boats in lobster season, from Dumping Day in November through the last day of May, in Lobster Fishing Area 33, from Cow Bay to Port Latour. Shelburne, my old department, my old band of brothers, was the department at the center of the Nova Scotia wildfires that burned so hot in June that the smoke turned the sky orange over New York City and the Hamptons. Because I wasn’t on the attack truck and rarely came close to the flames, I didn’t qualify for new turnout gear.
