If an out-of-town visitor is in town for long enough, it’s bound to happen. At some point we’ll spot them with their hands held tight against both ears and a shocked look on their face. 

“What,” they’ll yell out, their voice a mix of agony and anger, “is that NOISE?”

The noise is a shrill “waaaaa-oooonnn, waaaaa-oooonnn” howl that rises and falls, repeating for as long as it takes to alert the local fire department volunteers to an emergency. Somewhere in the neighborhood, forks are dropped onto plates still full of food, conversations are dropped mid-sentence. 

When you live within earshot of a firehouse in upstate New York, it's part of the soundtrack to your daily life. Your body is primed to anticipate what's next: the slam of a car door down the street, the rumbling growl of the diesel engine turning over followed by the vrooooom-roar as someone hits the gas.

Year after year, the noises are the same: screaming siren, door, engine, gas, gone. 

The out-of-towners hear the emergency in it all, that siren piercing and urgent. Their bodies are now on high alert, and yet I’ve noticed something time and again: They don’t seem to hear the rest of the pattern. 

But they’re just in town for an afternoon or a long weekend. They can hear the question in the siren, but they don’t know to listen for its answer.

I’ve been here 23 years, long enough to stop being knocked off kilter by the siren and start hearing what comes after it. The door. The engine. The gas. The gone. 

In all that time I have never once heard the question sounded and not heard the answer follow.