One of the Chiefs at the Rescue Squad died in his sleep this week of an apparent heart attack. The Squad is draped in black ribbon, and all the units have a bar of black tape across their insignia, in the traditional marking that a firefighter has been lost. We spent much of the shift washing and waxing ambulances and other equipment in preparation for his funeral.

There were two young dudes helping out who had been assigned this community duty as penance for traffic violations. While we washed the units with them, they talked incessantly about their legal transgressions. Both had been nailed for driving substantially over the speed limit and beyond standards of common sense and care for the welfare of others. Nonetheless, they were quite proud of the fact that they had managed to get their parents' cars up to such impressive speeds. As I stood on a ladder to apply wax to the upper part of the Air Truck, one stood below me complaining about how bogus the charges were against him. He had been driving about 90, but it was early in the morning and there was very little traffic on the road. Apparently he thought that the speed limit was determined by a complex personal formula that took into account the number of cars in the vicinity.

I am not without guilt in the bad-driving department; a couple of cars were suddenly retired from active life by my hand early in my driving career. But I at least had the decency to be embarrassed by my moronic actions, and accept the penalties applied. I looked down at the dude's narrow, crewcut head beneath me and wondered if he realized that he was mouthing off in the company of people who must occasionally gather up the human debris resulting from other people's recklessness. I doubt anyone was enamored of their bravado, but no one challenged them. When the appointed hour came and they had fulfilled their duties, they dropped their towels and moved on. We continued washing wheels, applying wax, buffing the metal walls of the truck until everything was ready for the funeral.

It is one of the wondrous and enduring mysteries of humanity that everyone gets to believe that they are right virtually all the time. When that pedestrian steps off the curb in front of you, lay on the horn and let him know he's in the wrong. When you step into the intersection to cross and a car needlessly blows its horn, you can be sure he's just an asshole with an inflated sense of his own power and importance. I think the human need to be right all the time is just a fascinating byproduct of an evolutionarily-induced tendency to encapsulate the world into knowable chunks. On rare occasions, we'll modify our heuristics to better understand the way things are, but for the most part we adapt new data to fit our existing models.

Sometimes I see things on the ambulance that make me fear growing old, or get in my car, or leave home, or stay home within the ticking bomb of my own physiology. Maybe volunteering on the Squad is like a talisman that I somehow believe will insulate me from all that ugliness. Today, though, I remain in quarters for the whole shift. My medic unit only goes out once, to pick up dinner. So I have no role in solving the world's hurts tonight. So I am in danger once again.

Wax on. Wax off. Meditative, just like the karate kid.