Fire Lover Read Online Free PDF

the test revealed passivity, and police officers need to be assertive.
    "Some people actually learn test taking," the shrink told him, "as a way of passing these exams."
    "That would be cheating," John said, resenting the implication.
    "That's a good spontaneous answer," replied the psychologist.
    Then the shrink did a surprising thing. He placed John's file on the desk, and announced that he needed a cup of coffee.
    "Be back in five minutes, son," he said to the astonished former candidate.
    John carefully opened the file and found the name of a Sparkletts coworker who had been interviewed by the LAPD background investigator. The worker had told the cop that John Orr was lazy and resentful of the other man's promotion over him. He described how John had been late on two occasions, and he thought the candidate would have trouble adapting to police work.
    John was bewildered. Was that it? A jealous coworker? Or was it that he'd confessed to stealing a beer from a former employer? He'd revealed this trivial peccadillo because he feared that if they gave a polygraph it might disclose deception when they asked "Have you ever stolen from an employer?" Well, he'd eventually paid for the beer. Was that it? Finally, the evaluation stated that he needed a few years to mature and examine his life before reapplying.
    Weeks later, the heartbroken air force vet quit Sparkletts and entered the management program at Jack in the Box restaurants. But he quickly left there for a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken, and toward the end of 1973, despite a raise and bonuses and Jody's protests, he gave notice again.
    About the failed psychological exam, he later said that maybe the LAPD didn't want people to see dancers and butterflies and sleepy lagoons in those ink blots. Maybe, he said, he should have given the LAPD "spiders and snakes and lightning bolts."
    He would've been a good cop, he thought, but if it wasn't in the cards, he'd be a great firefighter. He applied and was accepted by the Los Angeles Fire Department. He was a firefighter now. Almost. He still had to get through the fire academy. But he hadn't prepared himself physically for the academy rigors, figuring that his years as an air force firefighter should be enough for them. Two days before he was to enter the LAFD academy, John decided to play his first game of racquetball with another fire recruit. He ended up with painful foot blisters and also learned that his stamina was not so good.
    In November, on Friday the thirteenth, he was called into the captain's office at the LAFD academy in North Hollywood and told that he hadn't scored well on a written test, nor on two rope-and-ladder exams. John offered an excuse about sore feet, and the captain listened politely. Then he told the recruit that he could resign quietly now or wait for the next exams, which, if also yielding poor results, might result in his being fired.
    Stunned, John said he wanted to take the exams with renewed dedication.
    In the U. S. Air Force, getting onto a roof was a cinch, and almost anybody could muscle their lightweight aluminum ladders. But the LAFD academy used wooden ladders, heavy wooden ladders. How it was placed, even the angle, was critical. Lots of the other recruits had gathered to practice ladder-carries on their off-duty days. And they'd quizzed each other from the books and training manuals, but not John Orr.
    His attitude was, "I've been a firefighter for four years in the air force. Surely I can tie a bow knot and throw a ladder."
    In the air force, yes, but not to the satisfaction of the L. A. Fire Department. He was released on Monday morning and went home and wept. He described it as "paralyzing."
    The Christmas of 1973 was bleak. His marriage was nearly in ruins, and the only work he'd found was with a kindly neighbor who renovated gas pumps at service stations. And by now he had two infant daughters to support. In desperation, he applied, in January 1974, to the Glendale Fire Department,