Why I Became a Fireman, Resplendent
In which I reflect on the little baby story that keeps coming home to me in times of hope and rage
It was the summer of 2011. Lady Gaga. Lil Wayne. Bridesmaids. Color blocking. Maxi dresses.
It had been a little more than a year since I’d quit drinking, and I was still working out how I might someday come to enjoy life without alcohol as my central hobby. I was very uncomfortable almost all of the time. I was twenty-eight years old. I was working as a tutor at The Writing Center at George Mason University. I was on track to graduate from my three-year MFA program within a neat four-year time frame. Generally speaking, I was out of my fucking mind.
So, as one does, I submitted a prose poem to the 2011 Barthelme Prize for Short Prose. The contest is still held annually by Gulf Coast.
At that time in my life, Donald Barthelme was “my guy”. I wouldn’t shut up about how much I loved “See the Moon?” I wasn’t fully aware of my neurological differences yet, so I wouldn’t hesitate to read it at you. (I still highly recommend it.) Here are some snippets from “See the Moon?” presented in order but without context:
I suffer from a frightful illness of the mind, light-mindedness.
Light-minded or no, I’m . . . riotous with mental health.
My father on the other hand is perfectly comfortable, and that’s not a criticism.
Gregory you’re going to have a half brother now. You’ll like that, won’t you? Will you half like it?
There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.
Anyway, of course I was going to submit to the literary magazine he’d founded.
The piece I wound up submitting actually had more Grace Paley DNA than Donald Barthelme DNA. Grace Paley being my other “my guy” at the time. She’s probably still my guy more than any other writer. I find it unlikely that I will ever hesitate to read “Wants” at anyone no matter how aware of my neurological differences I become.
Here’s a sentence from Grace Paley’s 1959 short story “Goodbye and Good Luck”:
If there was more life in my little sister, she would know my heart is a regular college of feelings and there is such information between my corset and me that her whole married life is a kindergarten.
I texted this quote to my friend Dan just the other day.
“God, she was so good,” I said.
The Barthelme contest was judged by Sarah Manguso that year. (!!!) I didn’t win the thousand-dollar prize (which, woof, I really could have used at the time), but I was one of “two runners-up”. I honestly don’t know whether it was Sarah Manguso herself or the editorial staff who chose the two runners-up. However, I do know that Sarah Manguso wrote a very thoughtful introduction for the actual winner that year, Erica Olsen. I’d like to think that Sarah Manguso also wrote a very thoughtful introduction for me that went unpublished. You know. Just in case she changed her mind? Maybe she still has it in a drawer somewhere.
Anyway, I was thrilled. And as these things go, after about a year had passed, “Why I Became a Fireman” was published—in print—in a handsome, heavy-in-the-hand lit mag that happened to have a luminous night chicken by artist Allison Hunter1 on its cover. I could not have been more in love with this cover art. I love a good chicken. I was so psyched to be associated with it.
For the first time in my life, I had this very professional-looking, made-of-glue-and-paper object that I could hand to friends and family and say, “Here, [painting nails emoji].”
I was so goddamn proud. It felt like the beginning of my writing career.
It was not the beginning of my writing career. At least, as of now, it has not proven itself to be, as I do not have a writing career per se. Though I suppose if I should happen into a writing career at any stage in my life, “Why I Became a Fireman” will retroactively become its beginning.
Other than a short story of mine that was published about a year later in a lit mag that was—boldly—presenting that particular issue as an iPad app (which was no longer supported in the app store by the time I or anyone I knew had an iPad), I haven’t had a single piece picked up for publication—not once in fourteen years. It’s not for lack of trying. I have amassed quite a few of these little cuties though:
We found much to admire in this fine work; nonetheless, it didn't quite land with us at this time.
Then Things Get Weird
Soon enough, I graduated and transitioned from my safe and happy little gig at The Writing Center with its adorable little stipend to the worst job I’ve ever had.
I was an English tutor and teacher for a local, after-school test prep center for way too long. I was paid in handwritten checks. The hand that wrote those checks liked to speak with me at length about my underwhelming performance while it was wagging its checkbook at me. I had zero benefits. To this day, I consider the “classrooms” they’d cobbled together in off-hours office spaces to be “intrusive thoughts”.
It was a mess. I was a mess. For a while there, I was having near-daily panic attacks. I was also having near-constant brain zaps because I had foolishly stepped myself down from Lexapro without the aid of a doctor. As stated, my job had no benefits, which, in America, meant I had no health insurance. The Affordable Care Act had been signed into law in 2010, but the rollout of its very first open enrollment wouldn’t be until 2013. I had just graduated in 2012 and had lost the basic health insurance I was entitled to as a TA.
So I made what seemed like the most practical choice at the time, which is to say, I hoped that my mental health would work itself out. Do not do this.
But I was sober and I had a job, so things were really turning around for me, right? Right?
It was during this time that one of my seventh graders raised his hand.
“Yes?” I said.
“I know this is weird,” he said, “but are you the Paul Zaic?”
I was terrified.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“My teacher in real school had us read ‘Why I Became a Fireman’ a little while ago,” he said. “Is that you? Did you write that?”
The warm buzz of feeling seen didn’t replace the cold terror of standing in front of a room full of moody adolescents, but the buzz did at least drape itself over the terror like a space blanket over a snowman.
“Um,” I said. “Yeah. I did. I mean, I am. The Paul Zaic. How did your real teacher find that story? What’s your real teacher’s name?”
I never did find out exactly how a local seventh-grade public-school teacher had come across my little prose poem in a lit mag, but crazier things have happened. Plus, there are only ever one or two degrees of separation between graduate students studying English and English teachers working in nearby public schools because graduate students and public school teachers both badly need a side hustle.
And, sure enough, there I was, side-hustling, in an un-decorated interior room in an office building on a Thursday night with no desire whatsoever to be a teacher. There I was, center-hustling, really, hustling right over the middle of the plate, trying to pay the rent with something most people would have been able to recognize as “never meant to be the main gig” from a mile away. Of course something I’d written had found its way to a local teacher. I worked at a teacher crossroads where some were on their way up and some were on their way down and some were just popping in to support their art dreams—all of us just trying to make a buck.
In the end, I figured someone I knew from my cohort must have linked a teacher they knew to “Why I Became a Fireman” and that whoever that teacher was had subsequently decided that a digitally accessible four-paragraph short story would be a good way to pad out their curriculum. In other words, my little prose poem was perfect for children.
And For a While, That Was That
The fact that one of my students had recognized me as “famous” might have been perfectly explicable, but it was also much needed. It was a welcome—if minor—self esteem boost. I was sure at the time that later on it would at least become a fun story to tell. I hadn’t yet had the full-on optimism bleed out that was to come.
As the years went by, I would Google “paul zaic why became fireman” from time to time for one reason or another. Sometimes I just needed the link to share the story with a new friend. Sometimes—if I’m being honest—I just wanted to remind myself that once upon a time I’d accomplished something. I wanted to give myself the injection of confidence I needed to submit “Whatever the Next Thing Was” to Wherever I Thought It Might Fit.
Once, when I was still stuck teaching and feeling completely paralyzed by the “resume” staring back at me from my laptop, I decided to bite the bullet and make a LinkedIn profile. I was going to need to if I was ever going to get out of my health-insurance-less hell job.
I’m a published author, I said to myself. Technically, I am. Right? I should mention the Gulf Coast publication in my profile. (In reality, what happens next is weeks of the shpilkes punctuated by distressed phone calls to friends wherein I endlessly debated whether I should be advertising the fact that I was “a fiction writer” if I was hoping to land “a real job”.) Then I immediately, without worry or consultation, once again Googled “paul zaic why became fireman” so I could be sure of what year it had been published and that I hadn’t misspelled Gulf Coast or whatever. After that, I kind of forgot about “Why I Became a Fireman”. I settled into my “guess I’m not a writer” years and eased up on the habit of Googling that one story I had published that one time.
Then, sometime later, well into my having-a-grown-up-job-with-basic-benefits years, I couldn’t tell you why, but I Googled it again. And for whatever reason, I scrolled through the results instead of just clicking the top link.
At first, I found only the kind of white noise you might expect from a query like that. There were several archived 2012 listserv entries from various colleges that said something like, “last year’s winners,” followed by references that included my name and the title of my story.
But Then!
Among the results, I came across a blog post that had been published on Medium in 2018 called “A Reader is a Noble Thing to Be” by author Brandon Monk. I read it, and there at the bottom in bold type, it said:
Inspired by Paul Zaic’s “Why I Became a Fireman” p. 68 of Gulf Coast Literary Journal Vol. 24, Issue 2.
Mind. Blown.
Wow.
Wait… How? Who… Wait, really? Do I know someone named Brandon Monk? Had I met him in grad school in a blackout before I quit drinking? As over-the-top as that may sound, it isn’t histrionics. It would not have been out of the realm of possibility at the time.
I texted the link to my wife. She thought it was neat. It seemed like maybe she felt a little proud of me, and that made me feel like maybe I felt a little proud of me. I texted the link to the handful of grad school friends I’d stayed in touch with.
Guys, this is fucking wild. Do any of you guys recognize this name?
We had a little group-chat fun with it. We didn’t sleuth too hard to find out who this person was or how they might have come across my story. It was more fun at the time not to know.
Personally, I was mostly just musing on how these sorts of things make their way around. I mean, I’m aware that it was published. Publicly, no less. And with my enthusiastic consent. I’m no dodo.
This is fame by definition, right? People know your name because of a thing that you did. The thing gets around. That’s kind of the goal. But it still felt a bit magical to me. It felt like finding a message in a bottle except that it was my message in a different bottle than the one I’d thrown into the sea.
I thought about commenting on the Medium post back in 2018, but I never did. Life got busy. And after a while, I forgot about it.
Until Just the Other Night
I Googled “paul zaic why became fireman” again. Why did I do it this time around? Well, because I do the Substacks now. Over these first couple of months using the platform, I’ve made a few new internet friends. I wanted to share it with them, so I needed that silly-old, ding-dang URL again. After I’d copied and pasted it for that purpose, I went ahead and scrolled through the rest of the search results. Hadn’t someone referenced it in a blog once? That was a real thing that happened, right? I didn’t imagine it? How many years ago was that?
And, as you might expect, I found the Medium post again that had referenced my story. But this time, it wasn’t on Medium. It seemed that in recent years the author had migrated their oeuvre to Substack. Yes, that Substack. The same Substack where I do my blogs. So this time around I gave Brandon Monk’s post a like and a friendly comment. Because of course I did. Because I’ve grown, man. And really, what thrills do I have left besides these kinds of thrills?
But Finally, There Is the Most Absolutely Bonkers Thing
I kept scrolling through the search results, and wouldn’t you know it, “Why I Became a Fireman” is on a reading list for an online creative writing course that is being taught as we speak in the year of our Lord 2025. Via Falmouth University! Which is in the UK! Apparently!
And, just like any hot blooded and perfectly normal human would do, after taking a few screen shots, I immediately found the instructor on LinkedIn and sent him an invitation to connect with me. No response yet, but here is the draft message I have ready to send if and when he accepts:
Dear Mr. Scott,
I was delighted to learn that you have included “Why I Became a Fireman” on your CRO100 reading list for the 2024-25 study period. I humbly request that you elevate it from the list of “Recommended Readings” to that of “Essential Readings” because, after all, it is very, very good, and I am so goddamn proud of it.
All the best,
Paul Zaic
And as Much as I Am Mystified Whenever This Story Finds me Again
I think I understand why “Why I became a Fireman” has managed to hang in there by its sooty little baby fingers all these years. I think I understand why some people really connect with it and would want to share it person to person even though neither it nor I ever have ever become widely known.
First, let’s just acknowledge that it’s only four paragraphs long. That really helps. You can ask your friends to read it and they will read it because it’s an easy win for them in their capacity as your friends.
And it’s ostensibly about fighting fires. With every passing year, actual fires become more and more of an actual existential threat to more and more actual people. Fuck you, actual fires.
And it’s a middle finger to assholes with power. It’s righteous in that way. And it’s funny, if wry. It’s about a person who decides to do what he’s been told that he cannot and should not do. It’s a David and Goliath story. It’s got a shape and a pattern to it. It’s repetitive in a pleasing way—in the way that galvanizing speeches are repetitive.
It has much to recommend itself, but I think the most important thing it has is the harmony of hope and rage baked into each and every sentence.
There have been very few times in my life where my rage and my hope were in harmony. They most certainly are not at the moment. But long, long ago, in the summer of 2011, for a brief time, they were. And one afternoon that summer, with someone else’s cat on my shoulder, I dosed them out in equal measure and spread them out into four paragraphs. I read the words aloud for a few hours and made tweaks to get the rhythm right. Then I put them in a bottle and threw them into the sea.
I wanted to link to the photographer Allison Hunter’s work, so I reached out to her yesterday to verify that I had the right Allison Hunter. She couldn’t have been nicer about it. Check out her official website and her Instagram. She’s still doing great work.