There's a part of me that is waiting for the second call back, for the other shoe to drop. Part of me that thinks, there's no way this is real.
When I told my dad what I wanted, he was puzzled. I don't think he meant to come off as unsupportive, but I guess when a 19-year-old studying American Sign Language and working as a caretaker in a Deaf group home suddenly announces that she wants to be a 9-1-1 dispatcher, you tend to take that as strange. And maybe it is a strange thing to aspire to.
When I was six, my first grade class performed at an elementary school assembly. We lined up in a row and sang Upside Down by Jack Johnson, wearing around our necks the posters we'd made detailing what we wanted to be when we grew up. If we had costumes that corresponded with our dream jobs, we were permitted to wear them for the assembly.
I don't remember if I made my career choice because of childhood aspiration for the job, or because I knew we already had a firefighter costume at home. All I remember is coloring in my poster with scribbles of red and orange and yellow flames, messy swirls of black marker for smoke, thinking about the fire safety assembly I'd attended earlier in the year. How cool they looked to me then, their big heavy boots seeming to shake the earth as they walked. And how safe they made me feel, knowing that if something terrible should happen-- if my house were to succumb to the same fate as the adjacent condominium we'd watched burn down in the early morning hours before Easter, when I was just five years old-- at least I knew that these would be the men who would burst in and carry me out to safety.
Most kids outgrow their hero-worship for firefighters or cops by the time they hit junior high, but I'd never quite lost that strange feeling of excitement when I saw those shiny red trucks. They looked almost alive, the big front lights eyes that could see you in danger, sirens and horns that hollered in warning, something's coming.
But I also knew as early as the sixth grade that I'd never be able to handle the physical strain of the job, or even the Fire Academy. My place in the world would be earned by my brain, not brawn. I wasn't the self-described "work horse" that my father was, a gift he passed to his sons but not to me. Instead what I received from him and my mother was a combination of his analytic mind and her imaginative spirit. I was-- am-- a writer, a creative, a scholar. I write poems and have an unpublished novel, the first draft complete, the stagnated second still in the midst of major structural edits. I don't lift heavy things or build my body; I never even finished my black belt.
However, I realized only years later that my physical limitations did not necessarily mean I wasn't destined to work in public safety. Maybe there was a place for me in that heroic field after all.
In high school I considered the Police Academy, but after the social and political turmoil surrounding the police I witnessed as a teenager, I decided that such a difficult and controversial position might be bad for my health. The social scrutiny and criticism would wear on my sense of identity and eventually corrode away the pride I wanted to be able to take in my work.
So in college I went with the path that seemed to have been marked out for me: I would study American Sign Language. I would get my fill of the academic by pursuing the linguistics focus rather than the interpreter track, and then if interpreting appealed to me later, I'd enroll in the community college and fast-track my certifications then.
But interpreting didn't appeal to me, and after three years at the group home, I was only making a few dollars more than minimum wage. This wasn't sustainable. And one day, a fire alarm in the group home would lead me to the realization that would land me here, with a job offer in my inbox and a hot balloon of excitement rising in my chest.
Once I got my clients out of the house, wrapping them up in the blankets I keep in the back of my car and making sure they were okay, I called 9-1-1. I spoke to the dispatcher, a young man with a soft voice that somehow still commanded my attention. I explained about the fire alarm, told him I was sure it was a false alarm but that protocol dictated we remain outside until the fire department had cleared us to return. He got the engines started and collected my information, but a tiny, nagging feeling in the corner of my abdomen made me pause before disconnecting.
"Hey," I said. "Before you go... I have a question."
"What is it?"
I fought off the chagrin I felt about my inquiry, which now felt rather foolish, and forced myself to ask: "How exactly does one get where you are? I mean, how do you become a 9-1-1 dispatcher, or operator, or whichever you are?"
He laughed, and I realized with a start that there was a living, human person on the other end of this transaction. He was real, and he sounded young-- likely not much older than me.
"You can apply online," he said. "We're always hiring."
"You know what, I think I will."
And I did. A few weeks later, I interviewed with the Chief of Police for the town I went to college in. A few days after that he called me, expressing his own disappointment with the news that I would not be hired.
"I don't usually call applicants back personally," he confided in me. "But I was all but ready to hire you on the spot last week. We had a few more interviews, but I was sure about you. And then at the last second, we had a candidate walk in, fully certified, fully trained, with several years of experience... it would've been a bad management decision to turn her down, you understand."
I said of course, but would he put me on their shortlist, in case something opened up later? He said yes, and he'd do me one better.
"I know the Captain over at State," he said. "Old buddy of mine. I'm gonna forward your info to him with my recommendation. If they don't take you-- well, we have some retirements coming up in the next few years. If you're not scooped up by then, I'll vouch for you. I want you on my team, Diz."
The disappointment of not being hired was hard pressed to overpower the pride, the hope that his words had left me with. Sure enough, State interviewed me the next business day, and shortly after I was being prepped for the lie detector test. Unfortunately, before I even got to the actual lie detector test, I received a response from the hiring manager. Even with the Chief of the town police department vouching for me, State Police would be passing me by, too.
Crestfallen, I called them the next business day, asking if it was something that had popped up in my background check, or if, during my prep session for the lie detector test, I had said or done something wrong. It was nothing like that, they assured me. The hiring manager had simply removed my name from the short list because he felt that nineteen was too young, and that my longest record at a single employer, two years at my current job, wasn't long enough to demonstrate stability. I was encouraged to reapply in a few years.
After this, I gave up trying to pursue a dispatch career, at least for now. I had no intentions of leaving the state I had gone to college in, but life had other ideas for me, because a year after that I was back home in my hometown, living with my parents. I took the first job offered to me upon graduation, something my dad had pushed me to take up. He'd always seen me becoming a teacher, but I'd fought against his premonition. I hated the idea of teaching. Whether it was a rejection of what had felt like a prescribed path or just the disdain I'd developed for schools after spending my entire life in classrooms, I couldn't tell. But the pay was decent, and it made him so happy.
The school wasn't so bad. I met my roommate Elle there, and she and I get on so well as roommates. I like to joke that I'm not married, but I do have a wife. And there were a lot of other great people there too, deeply compassionate people who loved what they did. I, unfortunately, could not. I hated teaching, and despite working so hard to be successful at my job, I couldn't seem to stop screwing things up. So as I neared the end of my one-year contract, I began to put my resume out there again, this time in my home state.
The day that Regional 911 called me to offer me the position, I nearly fainted. I thanked the hiring manager profusely, and couldn't help but jump up and down, stuffing my fists into my mouth to muffle the squeals of joy that threatened to break the silent tension of the early morning. That was how Elle found me when she woke up, lying on the couch, dazed and exhilarated.
"This is my chance," I told her, my eyes brimming over. "This is my chance to show that I can be exceptional."
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