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Youthful Days
Most of them were farm shots. Big groups, muddy boots, everyone squinting in the sun. Josh kept flipping—
A toddler in a floral dress, scowling at the camera while a dog herded him away from the frame.
“I didn’t know you did drag.”
“My brothers thought it was funny.”
“Is this why you don’t like dogs?”
“I like dogs. I just don’t like being called by the dog’s name.”
Past Ben’s teenage years the photos thinned out. Fewer group shots, more loose prints that didn’t match the rest. Stuff Ben had added on his own.
One of them stopped him. Two young firefighters in matching gear, relaxed and leaning into each other’s space. He recognized Ben on the left, with the same idiotic grin. The other guy was clean-cut and built like an athlete.
“Wait, is that Matt?”
“Yeah. That’s him.”
Until the birthday, he’d always assumed Matt was a fair bit older than Ben. They looked like classmates here. The Matt he knew had gone salt-and-pepper, rarely bothered shaving, and really could’ve used a haircut.
“He looked different.”
“He did.”
The guy in the photo actually looked happy. The guy who roasted him every week would have been joking about his own legs.
“Were his jokes always this bad?”
“The dry stuff, yeah. That’s always been him. The rest of it—using himself, the chair, all of it—that’s new. That’s how he gets through the day.”
“Must be exhausting, doing that all the time.”
“It wasn’t always like that. He used to just be funny.”
“What was he like back then?”
“He was the same annoying bastard. Probably the only guy I know who actually liked paperwork. Knew the regs so well he could pull some obscure clause from memory to bail you out.”
“Something tells me this has to do with you.”
“Hey, my ideas worked. Saved his ass plenty of times.”
Ben told him about the forklift. It involved a roof, a crane, and what Ben called “applied physics.”
“What the fuck.”
“That’s what he said.”
“So Matt was the by-the-book one.”
“He swore by the book, right up until it didn’t work. Then he’d come up with some plan that made perfect sense and you’d wonder how the hell you missed it.”
“Please tell me his version is more reasonable.”
“Oh, absolutely. So get this. Underground substation downtown. Ceiling comes down, two guys trapped, whole lower level still live. We set up at the stairwell, looks clean. Then the coolant main bursts. Stairs gone, lights gone, voltage everywhere. Only way down is flooded and probably energized. Everyone’s rattled. I’m rattled.”
“But not Matt.”
“Matt just looks at it, looks at us, and starts talking like he’s reading off a checklist. Found a dry corridor on the plans, confirmed the guys were alive, had us drill through the wall and set up from there. Wouldn’t let anyone go through until Utilities cleared the live section. Then we pulled them out.”
“He figured all that out on the spot?”
“And when it was done he just shrugs and goes, ‘Wasn’t that hard.’”
That was the Matt who existed before Josh ever knew him. Comfortable in his own skin, dangerous with a rulebook, and three steps ahead when it mattered.
“He really changed a lot, didn’t he.”
“He’s still the same guy,” Ben said. “Just carrying more.”
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