Report from Engine Co. 82 (6 page)

I’m on the Lexington Avenue subway, on the way to the Bronx. The seats are filled with Saturday shoppers returning from a
day downtown, and there are a few people standing. Sitting across from me is a dark-haired Puerto Rican girl, about twenty-five
years old. I don’t want to stare at her, but the smoothness of her olive skin, the perfect symmetry of her lips, and the brightness
of her dark brown eyes have attracted me beyond control. Her synthetic fur car coat is opened, showing a soft blue pleated
skirt, which sits above the middle of her thigh. Tucked tightly into her skirt is a white nylon blouse, her full rounded breasts
pushing against it. The muscles in her legs slope gently, and the underside of her thighs sit flat on the hard plastic seat.
Her whole body moves in small, graceful motions as the train starts and stops at the stations.

Thank God that she has not been victimized by the Seventh Avenue mid-calf skirt. But even if she were, if her legs were completely
covered, if I couldn’t see the shadowed triangle where her skirt falls over her thighs, if the nuances of movement were hidden
beneath the modern style as she crosses and uncrosses her legs, even then, I would still have her face to look at.

She is made uneasy by my staring, and pretends to read the advertisements plastered all over the car. She is probably wishing
she had a book, a newspaper, or anything to focus her eyes on. I’ve taken possession of her beautiful face, and if I had pencil
and paper I could sketch her perfectly, even though I know nothing about drawing. Her eyes meet mine occasionally, but she
turns quickly away, making a little movement with her lips. I can see as she turns, the soft, almost invisible down at the
side of her cheek reflected in the light. How I would like to run the back of my fingers over it in an easy up and down way.

I am trying to look at her now in a different way. She is a human being, I say to myself, with friends, perhaps a husband
she loves dearly, children, a life-pattern with ordinary or even extraordinary ambitions, jubilations, and miseries. She probably
knows a lot about something, and enough about everything, to make her interesting in ways other than sexual. The train stops,
and a man sitting next to her gets off. Maybe I should sit next to her now. The train begins with a jolt, and she has to uncross
her leg to regain her balance. She settles in the rhythm again, and recrosses it, generating in my body a return to passionate
perception. Stop it. Stop it. Go sit next to her and say, “Hello, my name is Dennis, and I’ve been trying not to look at you
in a dehumanizing symbolic way, but as a real person, with feelings and intelligence, opinions and a point of view. I don’t
care about the tightly tucked blouse, or the shadowed triangle. I want to know what you think, and why you think it. Do you
think Spiro Agnew will be President? Will cybernetics ruin us? How are you handling future-shock? Are you a Consciousness
III person?”

The train stops again, and I look out of the window. Simpson Street. Freeman Street will be here next, and I’ll have to get
off. The train starts and I try to think of something else to say to her, but I can’t. I wonder what kind of a night we’ll
have. A Saturday night in the South Bronx is always hectic, and there is no reason to think this will be any different. I
get up without taking a “good-bye-I-loved-you” glance, and stand with my back to her by the train door. The doors spring open,
and I step into the cold of the Freeman Street Station. I don’t look back. It never makes any sense to look back, especially
on the Lexington Avenue express.

It’s five-thirty as I walk toward the firehouse on Intervale Avenue. In the summer time Intervale Avenue is a concrete swamp.
The constant running of open hydrants makes the street dank, and muddy. But now it’s just dirty. I can hear the choir practicing
as I pass Mother Wall’s Baptist Church, and the high, quick sounds of the gospel music remind me in a curious way of a siren.

The firehouse is empty. As I walk up the stairs to the locker room I hear the sirens and the air horns coming down 169th Street.
They pass the firehouse, and the sounds fade. They are coming from one alarm and going to another. I change clothes. There
is blood on the sweatshirt I wore last night, so I fumble through my laundry bag for a clean one. Even with three small boys
to care for, my wife always makes certain to have a clean change of clothes in my laundry bag. On the left side of the sweatshirt
there is a six-inch maltese cross. In the circle of the cross, in bold letters, it reads: “
ENGINE
82”—a mark of identification in one way, and a boast in another.

It is 5:45
P.M.
now, and Ladder 31 and Engine 82 are backing into quarters. Engine 85 is still out somewhere, along with Ladder 712 and the
Chief. I see Ed Kells and ask him how the day went. He says, “Same old crap—about ten runs, most of them rubbish. Engine 85
caught a good ‘all hands’ this morning on Hoe Avenue.” (An “all hands” is a serious fire, but not serious enough to call for
a second alarm.) “Don Butts got a kid out,” Ed continued, “and they’re gonna write him up.”

“Lot of fire?” I ask.

“Yeah, a frame building fully involved. Don got the kid out a rear window with a portable ladder. It was a great job.”

“How’s the kid?”

“He’s in the hospital with second degree burns, but he’s O.K.”

The boy really isn’t O.K. What Ed means is that he will live. The Fire Department does not like to give medals for saving
people who die, and since the boy is still living Don Butts has a better chance of getting a medal.

I go to the company journal to check that my name has been entered by the housewatchman. It has, and I’m officially on duty.
I go to the rack on the side of the apparatus floor and get my rubber coat, my boots, and my helmet. I make sure I have a
pair of gloves and a flashlight in my coat pocket. I put my gear on the pumper and go to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
Jerry Herbert is sitting in the comer. I’m ready for one of his inevitable wisecracks. He spots me and says, “I see you finally
took that sweatshirt home for an oil change.”

“No Jerry,” I return, “I took it out to your house and your old lady did it for a dime. If you gave her some money once in
a while she wouldn’t have to work on the side.”

“Ahhh, so that’s what kind of a night it’s gonna be,” Jerry says to the eight guys sitting around the kitchen. “Dennis must
have ate a tough pill, and thinks he can hit flies with the big guys. Well, lemme tell ya pal,” he says, directing the words
to me now, “you better go upstairs and eat about ten more of those pills ’cause I’m gonna eat you up.” He emphasizes the “up,”
and everybody laughs. I know now that the joke is over so I pinch him on the cheek and say, “What we need around here, Jerry,
is more love.” He makes a dirty gesture, everybody laughs again, and he continues the conversation that was going on before
I entered.

Jerry is the oldest member of Ladder 31. He is thirty-eight, the chauffeur of the truck, and the senior man. He is called
the “first whip,” a term which has survived from the days when horses pulled the fire engines. He is also the union delegate
of Ladder 31, and he is talking now about a cousin of his who is a waiter in a fancy restaurant in Manhattan.

He says, “I’m tellin’ ya, the guy makes at least three grand more than me each year. I know. My other cousin does our taxes.
The people of New York are willin’ to pay a guy who does nothin' but bring them food a damn good salary—20 percent tips on
everything. But, do they support the firemen when we demand a livin’ wage? Damn right they…”

The bells start coming in. Everybody stops what they are doing. I stop putting sugar in my coffee. Jerry stops talking. Two
bells. Seven. Four. Then three. We know that box well—2743—Charlotte Street and 170th. We go to that intersection more often
than any other. It is usually a false alarm, but there is no such thing as “crying wolf” in this business.

As we hustle toward the kitchen door, the housewatchman yells out, “82 and 31 goes.” I kick my shoes off by the pumper and
shove my feet into my rubber boots. Jim Stack slides the pole from the second floor. He is the senior man in Engine 82—the
first whip—and I always feel good when I work with him. He’s thirty-nine, and in great shape because he loads soda trucks
on the side. Like most of us, he has a wife and a few kids, and a house in the suburbs. If he didn’t work that extra job he
would be still living in the Bronx. He is the most experienced engine man in the house, and when he is with me on the nozzle
I could fight my way into the core of the earth.

As I put on my rubber coat I see Vinny Royce standing next to me on the back step of the pumper. He is a quiet, sincere guy,
and the Fire Department is his whole life. He used to work in Harlem, but he transferred to Engine 82 when we became the busiest
company in the city. There is enough action in Harlem to keep any fireman running, but Vinny wanted that little extra that
made him part of the busiest.

The pumper starts to roll out and I lean down to help Carmine Belli up to the back step. Carmine is an exercise buff. He runs
three to five miles each day. He’s also an excellent folk guitarist. Like Royce, he doesn’t say much, but he is quick to laugh
at the jokes that fly so often through the firehouse air.

As we roll up Intervale Avenue, I see Benny Carroll riding on the side step of the pumper. Along with Carmine and me, this
is his second night of duty. He looks a little tired—like he didn’t get any rest today. He is studying hard for the coming
lieutenant’s test, maybe four or five hours a day. Hundreds of facts about building laws, chemical formulas, personnel management,
fire intensity, and department regulations were floating through his head as I slept calmly on my mother’s couch. He is a
handsome guy with perfect white teeth, and when he smiles I always think of a toothpaste commercial.

We are now going up Wilkens Avenue. I remember going up this street one night recently. I was riding on the side step where
Benny is now. A kid threw a rock, and everything turned black. I was hit in the middle of the eye, and my knees buckled. My
grip on the handrail tightened, as it tightens now. Some little kid who was never taught any better threw a rock, and I remember
now how lucky I was to have had a grip on the handrail.

The pumper turns up 170th Street. Ladder 31 is right behind us, and the sirens and air horns are wailing. Few people even
tum to watch us go by. Screaming fire engines and police cars are part of life in the South Bronx, just sounds to which people
have adjusted.

There are three men sitting on milk boxes near the alarm box drinking from cans of beer wrapped in small brown paper bags.
Jim Stack and I walk up either side of Charlotte Street looking for smoke or waving people. We have done this a thousand other
times, and it seems now to be a dumb ritual.

The three men are disinterested, and talk among themselves. Captain Albergray looks around and goes to rewind the alarm box.
I walk over and ask the men if they saw anyone pull the box. One man, without looking at me, said, “Yeah, a kid. He went up
the street.”

“I guess you didn’t think of grabbing him,” I said.

“That’s not my job, man,” he said.

I would like to tell this guy about Mike Carr, and about the letter the President sent to his widow. But I know that he doesn’t
care. He doesn’t want to hear it.

Bill Valenzio yells from the driver’s seat of the pumper, “Hey, we got another run.”

The siren and air hom begin to wail again as the pumper turns down 170th Street. I can see the radio at Captain Al-bergray’s
ear. We don’t know where we are going, but we know that a box has been pulled somewhere.

The pumper turns up Freeman Street and we can see a lot of smoke on Stebbins Avenue. It is an abandoned Pontiac convertible,
about a year old. The flames are shooting ten feet above the car. We don’t have to hook up to a water hydrant because the
pumper has a 275-gallon water tank for small fires like this. I pull off the small, one-inch booster hose that is already
connected to the tank. The water spurts and I direct the stream behind the rear wheel. The gas tank must be cooled off to
keep it from blowing. I’ve only seen one gas tank blow since I have been a fireman, and that one sent a guy to the hospital.
As I extinguish the rest of the fire, the men of Ladder 31 open the doors, the hood, and the trunk. The trunk is empty. The
block and the radiator are all that is left under the hood. The car is sitting on wooden crates, the tires and rims gone.
There are no license plates. The guy who owned it will never find out what happened to it. It must have given someone a few
hours of joy riding, and whoever got the tires must be twenty dollars richer. We extinguish four or five of these fires every
day.

It is 6:30
P.M.
as the pumper backs into quarters. As I walk to the kitchen to attempt another cup of coffee, Bill Valenzio pulls a hose
to refill the booster tank. It means a lot of extra work for us if that tank is empty. I remember the times we had to stretch
six or more 50-foot lengths of hose to put out a simple car fire, or a garbage fire. When the fire was extinguished the hose
had to be uncoupled, each length drained, and then reloaded onto the pumper. You can see why Bill makes sure the tank is full
at all times.

In the kitchen, Billy-o and Jerry are making a shopping list for tonight’s meal. One of the younger guys, or “johnnies,” will
go to the store.

“What’s on the menu, Billy-o?” I ask.

“Dennis pal,” he replies, “everything will be just the way you like it.” This is a phrase Billy-o uses often. He continues,
“To begin with, a little tomato juice for an appetizer, breaded pork chops topped with a baked peach for the entree, and Jerry
is gonna make his great potatoes with sour cream sauce. And for dessert,” he adds with a twinkle in his eye, “the cabinet
is filled with Alka-Seltzer.”

I laugh and ask, “What about the vegetable?”

“Me and Jerry were just thinking about that. Any suggestions?”