Report from Engine Co. 82 (21 page)

There is not much for me to do on the second floor, except hump the hose in. Lieutenant Welch and Knipps start to make the
apartment on the left side of the hall, and the guys of Engine 94 start to push their way into the apartment on the right.
Soon, Willy Knipps crawls into the hall, his chubby face covered with sweat. He wipes his running nose, and spits.

“God, it’s hot in there,” he says. “The smoke wasn’t too bad, but the heat was murder. I could’ve made it, but Kelsey had
the mask, so I figured what the hell.” Yeah, what the hell, I think, and I hope the day will come when all firefighters will
refuse to enter a burning abandoned building unless they have a mask on.

“Give us some more line,” Vinny Royce is yelling from the doorway, and I hump the hose forward. There is a guy next to me
doing the same with Engine 94’s line. Both companies are progressing through the rooms at an even pace. I can’t help but think
of Tennyson’s poem. There is fire to the left of me, and fire to the right of me.

The fires in both apartments are extinguished quickly, though. Gasoline must have been used to create so much fire, but it
hasn’t been burning long enough to get through to the floors above. Chief Niebrock walks calmly through both apartments, checking
each corner beam and crevice with his portable lamp. He radios what he sees to the 6th Division Deputy Chief, who is standing
in the street supervising over-all operations.

The smoke has cleared, and I look around for roaches, but there are none, for the walls are now burnt black and blistering.
Bill Kelsey takes his mask off, and sits smoking a cigarette in the hall. The rest of us join him, for there is nothing to
do now until Ladder 31 pulls the ceilings down, and strips the window and door frames. And all the walls have to be opened
to check for fire. I can watch them work from where I am squatting in the hall. Billy-o is using the pointed end of his halligan
tool to release a window frame from the wall. He struggles briefly, and with a final yank the three part frame loosens and
crashes down. Cagey Dulland and Horace Brewster pull the lath slats down a bay of beams until the ceiling disappears, dropping
and smashing to pieces on the floor. The room is filled with plaster dust, which sticks to Cagey’s wet face, and which makes
Horace’s handsome black face appear white. And they occasionally spit the dry chalk from their mouths as they work. There
is not another group of men in the world who could strip a room to its skeleton as efficiently as these men. This is heavy
work for them, but it is not hard work. They perform this overhauling work well, but the hard work, the work they do best,
is getting in and around a burning building where a life is in danger.

Chief Kelsen, the Deputy Chief, orders Engine 94 to take their line up, and return to their Seneca Avenue quarters. He then
radios Chief Niebrock that he has to respond to another “all hands” fire down on 138th Street. Chief Niebrock is back in charge
of the fire, but there is only the final wash down left.

Much of the water we used has found its way down the stairs, and the cooled garbage doesn’t smell nearly as bad as we return
to the street. The police are on the scene now, and are trying to control the crowd as best they can. But there are too many
people, and only three cops. Ladder 31’s rig is covered with kids, but we are used to that. The truck is a mobile jungle gym
set in a parkless neighborhood.

The apparatus radios blare,
“A second alarm has been transmitted for Box 2188—Brook Avenue and 138th Street.”
The Captain of Ladder 48 asks the dispatcher if he is assigned on the second alarm. The radio answers that Ladder 48 is assigned
on the third alarm, and the anxious troops of Ladder 48 are disappointed.

I pull the empty hose to the back of our pumper. The men of Ladder 31 and Ladder 48 help us uncouple, straighten, and drain
the hose.

“What do they have goin’ down there?” someone yells to Valenzio.

“They have an occupied tenement,” he returns, “but I didn’t hear how much fire they got. It must be goin’ good, though.”

Vinny Royce is on the sidewalk, across from the abandoned building. He has put his wet gloves on the fender of a parked car,
and he is trying to get himself prepared to repack the hose. We are all hot and sweaty, but Vinny has just helped Bill Va-lenzio
uncouple the six-inch connection from the hydrant, and he appears to be sapped of strength. Suddenly, as Vinny begins to remove
his heavy rubber coat, a garbage can hits the ground next to him with a deadly thump. It hasn’t missed him by more than twelve
inches. Vinny moves quickly to the security of a doorway. The people in the street scatter, and the kids jump off the truck
and run down the block. The street is a valley, canyoned by six-story tenements from end to end, and all our eyes turn towards
the roofs. Benny Carroll screams, “LOOK OUT,” and runs to join Vinny huddled in a doorway. A volley of two-inch iron balls
hits the street, one shattering the windshield of Ladder 48’s rig. The cops run into the buildings, each cop taking a separate
entrance. Some of the men from Ladder 31 and Ladder 48 follow them to the roof. One of the balls has bounced off the rig next
to where I am standing. I pick it up, and run to Benny and Vinny for cover. It looks like a sawed-off end of an antique school-desk
leg. I put it in my pocket, and then remember my Uncle Tommy coming home from Germany in the forties, his pockets filled with
spent shells.

The cops and the guys of 31 and 48 return to the street. Whoever was up on the roof has disappeared, into a friend’s apartment,
down a fire escape into their own apartment, or over the rooftops and down a safe hallway. Whoever they were got away with
it this time, as they did the last time we had trouble in this street. I feel so desperately helpless as I think that they
will in all probability get away with it the next time too.

We return to the street and look at the garbage can that flew from the roof. It is on its side, and it was filled with ashes.
God, I wonder, would they be caught if Vinny were killed? This was attempted murder, but nobody was killed, no one even hurt
seriously, and it makes no sense to press the issue. My in-sides scream, “A full fucking garbage can.” And here is Vinny,
still shaken, his head moving slowly from side to side. The world couldn’t ask for a more beautiful guy. How ironic that Vinny,
who has been in more fires than almost any other fireman, came so close to getting it with a can of ashes.

Lieutenant Welch makes a call for more police assistance, as we hurriedly repack the hose. We all keep our eyes on the roofs
as we pull the hose forward and onto the fire engine. Three squad cars come wailing into the block, and we feel a little safer.
The hose is packed and we drive quickly from Fox Street, never taking our eyes from the roofs. That’s it. Lieutenant Welch
will make a report of the incident when we return to the fire-house, and that will end it. The fire marshals may phone to
get the complete details for their report, but nobody will actually go into Fox Street and question people. That takes too
much time, and, anyway, nobody was killed. I can’t help thinking though, that if it were Mayor Lindsay standing there instead
of Fireman Royce, the guys who threw that garbage can from the roof would spend tonight in jail.

As we are returning to the firehouse we are redirected to Boston Road and Seabury Place. Engine 45 arrives at the location
before us, and transmits a signal 10-92—a false alarm. Once more in the firehouse, I run to the second floor, and the air
conditioning. I remove my shirt, and dry my arms and chest with a beach towel. I take a clean shirt from my locker, and think
of my wife as I look at the well-pressed sleeves. And I think of my kids, of the kids on Fox Street climbing on the apparatus,
of sitting on a rainy stoop in my youth, not wanting to climb the steps to my apartment, yet not knowing of anything else
to do, of school-desks falling from the sky, of picking buttercups with my children on soft, green mountainsides, of walking
with my beautiful wife through a calm starlit night, and of talking with a beautiful whore on Fox Street. I should wash up
a little, but the newly-washed shirt makes me feel clean enough.

Benny and Vinny come into the bunkroom. They wash up, and change their shirts. I am lying on a bed, smoking, and listening
to the radio. The music is the easy, popular kind that is usually piped into offices and elevators. Benny and Vinny, clean-faced
and clean-clothed, lie on beds on either side of me. We talk some about what has happened, but we all agree that it is difficult
to make any sense out of it. Benny says that it could be an organized guerrilla warfare, and Vinny says that it is just a
part of the lawless times, and I say that it could be both of those, but it is also due to a sad loss of respect for human
life. The people on Fox Street may feel that they have good reason to hate us, but that’s not the issue. I hated plenty of
people when I was a kid, but I never thought of killing them.

I used to believe that people who threw rocks at firemen were motivated by conditions—the lower depths of American society.
I used to believe that the fundamental problems were housing and education, and that people would stop throwing rocks if they
had a decent place to live and were given equal educational opportunities. But I don’t believe that anymore. That, to me,
is prescribing for symptoms. The disease is more seriously latent, more pernicious than uncaring landlords, or bureaucratic,
apathetic school officials. The malignancy lies in the guts of humankind at all levels. We have unlearned the value of a human
life.

The bells ring out an alarm: Box 2737. But Vinny, Benny, and I relax when we hear the three bells follow the seven. We know
that’s not for us, and we lie calmly as we listen to Engine 85, Ladder 31, and the Chief roll out for Hoe Avenue and Jennings
Street. In a matter of minutes, the signal 75-2737 is transmitted. All hands are working at Hoe Avenue.

We slide the pole to listen to the department radio. Whatever they have must be hot enough, since Chief Niebrock doesn’t sound
an “all hands” alarm lightly. From the doors of the fire-house we can see the high spiral of smoke rising to the northeast.
Vinny turns the radio up as the dispatcher asks Battalion 27 if the Field Communication Unit and another Battalion Chief are
needed at 2737. The reply is a laconic “yes.”

“The dispatcher is supposed to send those units automatically,” Vinny says. “Why the hell is he asking if he should send them?”

But, before anyone can answer the bells start ringing. Three bells, then three more. Then there is a long pause, followed
by Box 2188. A third alarm has been sounded for 138th Street. Now we know why the dispatcher asked. He’ll have to call another
Field Com Unit from Queens. The dispatcher’s office must be a madhouse of noise, bells, and men running to find available
companies, and making sure that no section of the Bronx is at any time completely stripped of fire protection.

The radio begins to squawk again:
“Battalion 27 to Bronx.”

Now we will find out what kind of a fire they have there.

“Bronx to Battalion 27—go ahead.”

“Transmit a second alarm for Box 2737.”

The dispatcher will have to send companies from Queens and South Manhattan for this fire. He needs three additional engine
companies and another ladder, but some of the assigned companies are operating at the third alarm on 138th Street.

“Can you give us a progress report?”
the dispatcher asks.

“We have a large body of fire on the fifth and sixth floors of 1994 Hoe Avenue. It is a six-brick,”
[six stories made of brick construction]
“100 by 100,”
[dimensions in feet]
“occupied building. The occupants are being removed. Surrounding properties are, 1) A street,”
[in front of the fire building]
“2) A six-brick 40 by 80 multiple dwelling,”
[the building to the left] “3)
A rear yard,”
[behind the fire building] “
and 4) A six-brick 40 by 80 multiple dwelling”
[the building to the right].
“We have one line in operation on the fifth floor, and two lines are being stretched. Doubtful at this time”
[it is doubtful that the fire will be controlled with the present assignment of companies].

“Ten-four, Battalion 27,”
the dispatcher signs off.

“That must be that big, H-type building in the middle of the block, there,” Benny says.

“Yeah,” Vinny replies, “and if the fire gets in the cockloft they’re gonna be there all day.”

The Tactical Control Unit, Ladder 712, pulls in front of the firehouse. It is three o’clock, and their day is just beginning.
As Johnny Nixon backs the rig into quarters, he stops and points to the smoke above Hoe Avenue. He says, with a wry smile,
“That’s one of the few we missed around here.”

“You may end up there yet,” I say to him.

He replies, laughingly, “I’m not afraid.” And I know he isn’t, for Johnny Nixon has been fighting fires in the South Bronx
for the past twelve years.

There are so many bells coming over the system that I stop counting them. Each time a company is special-called to a fire,
or relocated to cover another fire district, the signal is telegraphed over the bells. I make a mental note to visit the dispatcher’s
office someday. It must be interesting to watch them organize such confusion.

Bill Kelsey is on housewatch, and he is yelling “Get out eighty-two, and seven-twelve. Boston and Seabury.”

It is probably another false alarm, I say to myself as I grab the handrail on the back of the pumper.

A young boy waves us on at the intersection of Boston Road and Seabury Place. As we approach, he runs down Seabury, turning
occasionally to make sure we are following. There is a large crowd gathered in front of the Diaz Bodega. Benny Carroll yells
over the siren, “It must be an O.D.” The pumper stops, and the crowd makes room for us. I am the first to reach the object
of attention, and see a guy in a crimson-stained yellow shirt lying in a mass of thick blood spread evenly over the sidewalk.
I can hear the faceless voices of the crowd uttering in broken English, “Someone tried to off ’im, man. Some bad-ass thought
he made peace with hisself. Who the man who cut ’im? We gonna get ’im.” It seems strange to hear the black’s dialect spoken
with a Spanish accent.