Report from Engine Co. 82 (26 page)

I walk to the urinal and read the one-line graffito on the wall. It is in two parts. The first part in red ink reads: “
THE BIG HOUSE—THE BRAVEST MEN IN THE WORLD.
” Someone added, in blue ink: “
SHAVE WHILE MILSAW TAKES A DUMP.
”

“I know what they mean, Milsaw,” I say, walking out of the latrine. “Talk about air pollution. I’ll take the streets of New
York anytime.”

Artie Merritt and Benny Carroll have joined Charlie and Billy-o at the bed-making.

Artie says to me, “Milsaw drove you out, huh?”

“Damn right. It’s unbearable.”

“I know,” says Artie, “I went in there a few minutes ago to brush my teeth, you know. And, you know, I was gagged.”

Billy-o sits on the edge of a bed. “You know, Artie,” he says. “I know. This is what George Hiegman was talking about before
when he said that being duped and being a fireman is the same thing. How the hell can we ever think of ourselves as professional
firefighters when we are forced to clean toilets and sweep floors? Milsaw is in there smelling the place up, but when he’s
finished he has to pick up a mop and wash the floor.…”

Charlie interrupts, “Yeah, but in Milsaw’s case it’s probably the right thing to do. You can’t ask a normal person to go in
there after Milsaw does his thing.”

The guys laugh a little, realizing that Charlie has to get a joke in on everything.

Billy-o continues, “Take a bank, for instance. The lowest job in a bank is the guy who sweeps the floor, right? And the next
lowest is the bank guard, but do you think a bank guard would ever sweep a floor in a bank? Hell no. That’s not his job. He
gets paid to maintain security, and maybe to direct people to the right window. We get paid for fire protection and fire prevention
services, but we also clean toilets, wash windows, and sweep floors. Professional, my ass.”

Billy-o gets up, and throws a blanket over a bed. He tucks the ends in. I can see that he is heated, that the subject angers
him. He is most effective and most convincing when he is mad, and I want to push his buttons.

“Listen Bill,” I say, “you know damn well that the only way we can change any of this is through collective bargaining, and
if you were so concerned you would run for union office.”

“Don’t give me that crap, Dennis. Mickey Maye worked in this firehouse for years, and then he became president of our union.
Cleaning shitbowls one day, and having a forty-minute conference with President Nixon the next. That’s what the union is all
about. They don’t want any real change. They want secure positions, and their positions become insecure if the boat begins
to rock. You can clean shitbowls one day and be mad about it, but when the President of the United States puts his arm around
you and tells you that you are a responsible labor leader, yessir, you’re no radical, then you begin to see yourself as part
of the responsible establishment. Well, I don’t want to be a part of the responsible establishment—not if my men have to clean
shitbowls. When I see the President of the AFL-CIO go to the White House to have lunch with a Republican President at a time
when unemployment is at its highest in a decade, that tells me that labor in this country is on the wrong road.”

Artie, Benny, and Charlie are interested, and now they are sitting on the edges of beds.

“Well,” Charlie interjects, “no matter what you say about the union, you hafta admit that we’re all happy with our job. Some
things about it may be bad, but we still like to come to work… .”

“But,” says Benny, “that may be because of what George said—that we’re all crazy and don’t know the difference.”

“I think Billy-o,” I say, “that you’re right about the little plumber having lunch at the White House—that was no place for
him to be. And maybe it’s true that the labor movement has gotten soft, rich, and comfortably settled in the establishment.
But, it’s still true that, at least for us, the only way we can effect change is through our union.”

The other men nod in agreement. “Listen Dennis,” Billy-o says, “you go get your brush and go in there and clean those bowls,
and then tell me that the union is going to change things. I’ve been talking about this for ten years now, and nothing happened.
I’ve written letters downtown, and I’ve spoken at union meetings, but nothing ever came of it. I’m still sweeping floors.…”

The conversation is interrupted by the sudden bells. Box 2743. That’s us. Charlotte and 170th. Eighty-two and thirty-one.
We get up and go. Slide the brass pole. Into our boots. Rubber coats. Helmets. R
RHHHHEEEWW.
Up Intervale Avenue. Up Wilkins Avenue. Up 170th Street to Charlotte. It’s a rubbish fire in a vacant lot. The lot has been
fenced recently, but a large hole has been cut into it. Benny grabs the booster nozzle, and squeezes through the hole. I look
around at the drab, overcrowded tenements. Little kids sitting on window sills, old ladies peering from behind plastic draperies.
Someone has painted a large sign on the bricks of the comer building. It says: “
TEN DOLLARS REWARD FOR THE SUPER OF THIS HOUSE.
” We have troubles, I think. But there is a way out of ours. The people of that building can’t find the man who is supposed
to clean the halls, tend the boiler, and collect the garbage. There is no union for them to turn to. They can only paint a
sign on the weathered bricks of their dirty building.

We are back in the firehouse now, and it is almost eleven o’clock. Benny Carroll and Artie Merritt are collaborating on the
day’s meal. Hamburgers. Artie will go to the butcher for the meat, and the bodega for the rolls. Benny will cook. Like all
the other times we have had hamburgers I will take only one bite, and throw the rest away. I do not like hamburgers. When
I was a child we ate hamburgers three or four times a week. My mother would occasionally mold them into meatballs or a meat-loaf,
or break them into chips to mix with a sauce. But it was all hamburger to me. Like potatoes to the Irish before the famine.

The committee work is done quickly. My value to the people of the city of New York is that I keep their firehouse clean. Ignominious
effort swept the floors, and pride was flushed down the toilet along with the coal tar cleanser.

It is noon, and the hamburgers sizzle on the grill. Jim Stack is helping Benny separate the rolls while Artie Merritt washes
the cups that have accumulated in the sink. The bells sound Box 2544. Get out. The housewatchman is yelling, and men are scurrying
from the kitchen and down the poles. “Eighty-two and thirty-one goes. Union Avenue and 166. Both companies are second due.”
Engine 50 and Ladder 19 are first due at that location.

Captain Albergray and our regular chauffeur are on vacation. Jim Stack is the spare chauffeur while Bill Valenzio hustles
a second job instead of going to Florida. Captain Albergray has been replaced by a mild, quiet man named Collins. Lieutenant
Collins was promoted from the rank of Fireman only two weeks ago, and I get the feeling that he doesn’t care much for his
new role. There is a two-thousand-dollar difference between Fireman and Lieutenant, and that is a good enough reason to study
for promotion, but when a guy becomes an officer he is separated from the men he has worked with for a good part of his life,
the men he grew to love, the men who made going to work worth while. He doesn’t have time anymore to sit and laugh or argue
in the kitchen, because his role has changed. He must learn to relate to the men as a supervisor, and Lieutenant Collins is
finding that hard to do. He doesn’t like to give orders, or to check up on firemen, but he’ll get over that. He will adjust,
and he will make a good boss, because he has a genuine respect for the men he supervises.

The second floor of a three-story frame building is fully involved with fire at the corner of Union and 166th Street. It is
a vacant building that someone has set up to cause some excitement, or to achieve an orgasm, or to kill a fireman.

Engine 50 has stretched the heavy two-and-a-half hose, and Ladder 19 is searching the building for sleeping derelicts or unconscious
drug addicts. Benny Carroll and I run to Engine 50’s pumper to stretch a second line. The fire is coming out of six windows,
but it doesn’t look like it has gotten into the floor above yet. Kevin McMann and Cosmo Posculo, two of the younger members
of Engine 82, don the heavy Air-Pac masks as Benny and I stretch to the floor above the fire. Luckily, there is a hydrant
in front of the building, so the stretch is a short one.

As we reach the second floor I can see through the smoke a lifeless figure propped against the landing wall. I tell Benny
to hold up a minute while I check it out. As I get closer I can see by the bulky outline of a rubber coat that it is a fireman.

The roof has been vented, and the smoke begins to lift. I recognize the face before me. It is exhausted, and has two black
liquid lines running from the nose. “How ya feeling, Louie?” I ask.

Louie Minelli, the senior nozzle man of Engine 50, answers, “I’m O.K. I got the first two rooms. Mike Roberti will get the
rest.” That’s Louie’s way of saying Engine 50 can do the job.

Lieutenant Collins is on the third floor landing waiting for us. The smoke is lifting, but it is always bad above a fire.
“I don’t think we’ll hafta charge the line,” he says to nobody in particular.

Benny and I sit on our heels in the hallway. Artie Merritt comes crawling out of the apartment above the fire. He has a halligan
tool in one hand and an ax in the other. It was his job to search the apartment thoroughly.

“It’s clean,” he says. “The walls are a little warm, but I don’t think the fire has extended.” Kevin and Cosmo have arrived,
breathing easily in their masks. There is nothing for them to do but to join us in sitting on their heels.

The Chief from the Seventeenth Battalion passes by us. He disappears into the apartment for a short while. Upon reappearing,
he says, “Take up, Eighty-two.” The fire is out. Engine 50 saved us a lot of effort.

We drag the hose back down the stairs, and begin to fold it onto Engine 50’s pumper. It is easy work, and we are all silently
satisfied that the line wasn’t charged, and there is no water to drain. I am not paying much attention to what I am doing,
for I keep thinking of Louie Minelli. His eyes, heavy and watered, staring at me through the lifting poison. Tired and blank.
“I got the first two rooms.” His body robbed of energy, he barely mustered the strength to turn his head. “Mike Roberti will
get the rest.” His words, though barely audible, were filled with pride. Engine 50 can do the job. Engine 50 can put out any
fire. I want to yell as I pass the limp, empty hose forward, “But Louie, the goddam building is vacant. We should let it burn.”
We won’t let it burn though. I know that, and Louie knows. We have a tradition in this department of going where the fire
is. And we know that two or three fires will be set in this building every week, until the city tears it down.

There are five Fire Department vehicles parked on 166th Street. The engines are running, and the radio volumes are at their
highest. The rigs sing like a chorus as the dispatcher asks:
“Engine Eighty-two. Ladder Thirty-one. Are you available?”

Jim Stack is sitting in the cab of the pumper, He yells over to Lieutenant Collins, “We’re available. Huh Lou?”

Benny lays the nozzle over the hose, and Lieutenant Collins nods to Jim. We can hear Jim’s voice blare over the radio as we
run to our pumper:
“Engine Eighty-two is available.”

The dispatcher replies:
“All right Eighty-two. Ladder Thirty-one?”

The Chief of the Seventeenth Battalion answers:
“Ladder Thirty-one is in the process of taking up. They will be slightly delayed.”

“Ten-four Battalion Seventeen. Engine Eighty-two, respond to phone alarm Box 2509. Location, 1335 Intervale Avenue. Did you
receive, Engine Eighty-two?”

Jim comes over the air:
“Engine Eighty-two, ten-four.”

The fire engine races and wails away from Louie Minelli and the smoldering abandoned building. 1335 Intervale Avenue is right
up the street from the firehouse. We could have been there in thirty seconds. Now, it will take us three or four minutes.

We can see the smoke five blocks away. Our boots are up, and we are ready. Finally, we pass the firehouse and the sizzling
hamburgers. The doors are open, and the house is empty. I look over the side of the pumper, and I see the men of Engine 85
stretching into a five-story tenement house. They are not assigned at this location, and they must have been special-called
since we were operating elsewhere.

The fire is roaring out of two windows on the ground floor. Benny and I, and Kevin and Cosmo are off the pumper and running
before Jim Stack brings the rig to a stop. This would be an ordinary fire, except that the fire escapes are a circus of people
yelling desperately at every level. There is no ladder company at the scene, and we all know without speaking that we have
to think about life. Engine 85 will think about fire.

“Aqui, aqui,” the people cry fearfully. The drop ladder on the fire escape has been let down, but it is not secured well,
and it shakes. I make a quick wish, as I climb the thin, narrow bars, that a ladder company will get in soon. Benny is before
me; the others behind. There is a man yelling in wild frenzy on the third floor, and we are trying to reach him. But the fire
escapes are crowded with fleeing people. Please hurry. Hold the handrails. Watch your step. Let us by. Let us by.

The man on the third floor is holding an infant out of the window. His arms are outstretched, and it seems he is offering
the baby, as even Abraham offered his son. Benny nests the child in his arms. It is in its first month of life, and cries
the high violent cry peculiar to its size. The man turns and bends down to the floor. He picks up another infant, and hands
it to Benny. It is the sixteen-inch twin of the first. Benny cradles it in his other arm, and begins to descend the fire escape.
There is a light mist of smoke in the apartment, and a little girl coughs. She is about three years old, and she wraps her
small arms around my neck as her father hands her to me. I start down the fire escape, followed by the barefooted, shirtless
man.