OCD

Peter hated mornings. The first thought that crossed his mind at 6 a.m. was, I always get the shitty jobs. He always got the morning shifts at Ladder Company 6 in Manhattan. Nothing ever happened in the morning. It seemed like all the rest of the guys at the station were on the exciting shifts except for him.

He walked the same path from his studio apartment on 42nd Street to the firehouse every morning; two blocks north, one block east, and two more blocks north. The walk was boring for Peter and he remembered when he used to get bored as a kid in church he would count. He was seven when he started counting the number of people with gray hair in church. He was eight when he started counting how many times he had sat in a certain pew. When he was ten, Peter graduated to counting how many pieces of glass made up the central, stain-glass window. It had been sixteen years since then and Peter still counted, but not only when boredom commanded his mood. He counted everything and now counted the blocks of cement he walked on to the way to work.

“Peter, you hear about the fire last night?” Hank said as Peter crossed into the garage from the sidewalk.

“Huh, no,” Peter said.

“Right over on forty-eighth street. It was nothing big. You didn’t miss much,” Hank said.

Hank was always polishing the trucks when Peter came in. It’s what Hank liked to do before he went home for a few hours. He was portly and his shirt became un-tucked every fifteen minutes because of his girth shifting in movement.

Peter had a soft spot for Hank because he was the only one in the house who encouraged his counting obsession.

“Hank, you’ve told me that sixty-seven times,” Peter said.

“Oh yeah? And how many days have you been working here, man?” Hank said.

“Day number four-hundred and twenty-nine right here, Hank.”

“Well, I will see you on day four-hundred and thirty because I’m outta here.”

Peter walked into the kitchen, past the long table of plates laid out for breakfast, and went to the fridge. He needed some orange juice to start off this day. He always drank in three sets of three swallows. The juice was filling his mouth for the eigth time when he heard the bell tear through the firehouse. Commotion upstairs followed and Peter dropped the orange juice and ran out to the garage. The other firefighters in the house fell more than slid down the pole in their excitement.

“C’mon Peter, let’s get going,” Gagne yelled as he slid down.

“I’m on it,” Peter answered. This was the first time an alarm had sounded this early since Peter had been on the job. He tried to keep his excitement at bay just in case it wasn’t a fire worth fighting.

Peter grabbed his gear and jumped into the rear of truck six. The cold truck soon heated up with the excitement in the air. Gagne was bouncing legs the size of tree trunks on the floor. In his nervousness Peter started counting and didn’t stop until they pulled up to an abandoned five-story building on 30th Street. Gagne’s heels hit the metal floor two-hundred and thirty-nine times until he stopped when the air brake on the truck hissed.

Peter and Gagne were inside the building with the first company and he realized this was no worthless fire. The entryway of the building was a large room that was three stories high. The fire wisped up the far wall and stretched its fingers on the ceiling almost to the roof above Peter.

“This is my second fire in a building like this,” Peter said.

“Who are you talking to Peter? Pay attention man! We have to move to the opposite side and get through that door,” Gagne ordered.

The door was fifty yards away from them. There was no debris in the way but the fire was constantly overhead. The guts of the building moaned under the contortions of the heat.

“I estimate one-hundred steps to the door,” Peter said.

“Great, let me know if you’re right when we get over there,” Gagne smirked.

“Thirty-seven, Gagne. I think I was right on the money.”

Gagne was ten yards ahead of Peter and looked back and didn’t give the laugh Peter expected, instead Gagne’s eyes darted upward. The roof was making a new noise. It was giving in to the fire. Roof tiles started to fall in between Peter and Gagne.

“Get over here Peter, quick!”

Peter started running, “Thirty-eight, thirty-nine.”

The roof shuddered and the tiles were peeling off quicker now. Gagne couldn’t see what was coming down behind the tiles until it broke through about halfway down. One side of a crossbeam had come loose and was arcing its way toward Peter. The helmet crumpled like aluminum and Peter lay prone on the cement floor.

“One,” Gagne said.