Report from Engine Co. 82 (8 page)

Jim attempts a weak smile, and replies, “It couldn’t have been too beautiful, the fire’s not out yet, is it?” I laugh a little,
and run to the pumper for the masks. I pass a leaking hose connection, and bend low for a drink of water, but I can’t swallow.
I spit the water out. Valenzio has taken out two masks for me. I put mine on, and throw the other over my shoulder for Captain
Albergray.

The second alarm companies are in now. Hose lines—spaghetti—are all over the street, up the adjoining building, up the fire
escapes, up the aerial ladder. Some are bulging with water, and some haven’t yet been charged.

As I return to my company I pass Carroll on the stairs. “What’s up, Benny?” I ask.

“I got a goddam cinder down my glove. The back of my hand is all blistered, so 111 have to take up for a while.” He sounds
defeated.

“Take care of yourself,” I murmur as I continue up the stairs. I feel sorry for Benny, because I know he wouldn’t leave the
action for a burned hand, not unless Captain Albergray ordered him down.

I meet the company on the third-floor landing. They were pushed back. Captain Albergray backs down the stairs a little to
put his mask on. Carmine is on the nozzle now, and I ask him how they were pushed out of the apartment. He tells me that Engine
45 had water pressure trouble, and they had to shut down their line. The fire then got into the hall again, and my company
was caught between the two fires. A fundamental rule in this business is never to let the fire get behind you, so 82 had to
fight their way back to the hall stairs.

I take the nozzle, and tell Carmine to “take a blow.” The nob is heavy, and the back pressure makes my arms strain. I know
I won’t lose control of it though, because Vinny has a firm grip on the hose behind me. We are now keeping the fire inside
the two apartments. At least it hasn’t crossed the hall.

Engine 45 gets pressure in its line again, and returns to the landing. The fire is now spreading throughout both floors above
us.

We yell to Engine 45 to take the second apartment again, and Engine 73 passes us as it humps its hose to the fourth floor.
It is still ash hot, but the masks make it a lot easier to breathe. We are now at the door of the first apartment, and Engine
45 is at the second. We move in a little, and 45 moves in. Captain Albergray is next to me, and I say, “The only way to put
this fire out is to move in on it. Otherwise, well be here all night.”

“We’re gonna be here all night anyway, so take it slow,” he answers.

Vinny moves up and takes the nozzle, and Carmine moves behind Vinny. Deputy Chief Kelsen is on the scene now. He calls the
Captain on the walkie-talkie and Albergray tells him our position and progress. Chief Kelsen tells him to hold the position,
and not to take any unnecessary risks. We have advanced five feet into the apartment. The fire is burning freely overhead
in front of us, and we watch it closely, as closely as anyone would want to watch a fire. We have killed a good part of it
in the room on the left, but we can’t get it all unless we move up a few feet. But we can’t move up because of the fire overhead.
We don’t want to get directly underneath it. God knows what will fall.

Suddenly, the fire starts pushing in at us. It’s coming hard, and our line can’t hold it back. We know what it is. A company
has opened a line from the front fire escape, and they are pushing the fire toward us. We have to retreat to the hall again.
Captain Albergray calls the Chief on the walkie-talkie, and asks him to have that line shut down. In a minute the order is
given, and the fire lets up. We can move in once more.

Carmine takes the nozzle from Vinny, and I move behind Carmine. We know now that we’ll have to drown this fire, not attack
it, and we try to get in the most comfortable position possible. Carmine sits on his heels, and I kneel on both knees.

We start to get sprayed with rebounding water. Engine 73 is above us, and trying to move in. Carmine leans over, puts one
hand on top of his helmet, and starts shaking his head. He doesn’t say anything, but his head still shakes.

“What’s wrong, Carmine?” I ask.

“I think I got burned.”

“Where?”

“On the neck.”

I ask Captain Albergray for his lamp. Carmine is still moving the nozzle back and forth. I move his helmet up, and pull back
his coat. “You did get burned, Carmine. It’s all blistered already, about three inches long. It must have been an ember.”

Carmine moves out, and Vinny takes the nob. I try to think of something funny to say to Captain Albergray. I can tell that
he doesn’t feel too happy. “Your company is slowly diminishing, Cap,” I say. “Pretty soon there won’t be any more Engine 82.”

He smiles resignedly, and says, “It’s just one of those things. Look at the great job we did earlier. No one got hurt there.
This is just one of those fires. They happen from time to time, that’s all.”

The fire has darkened down. Chief Kelsen calls on the walkie-talkie: “Engine 82, I’m sending Engine 88 to relieve you. Report
to me in front of the fire building.”

We don’t mind giving the line to Engine 88, because it’s only a question of holding the position now, and keeping water on
the fire. We did our job. The pressure is off and we walk down the stairs to a well-needed break.

Vinny Royce, Captain Albergray, and I report to the Chief. He is a big man, handsome in that disciplined military way. His
eyes are bright and alert, and as I look at them I can sense intelligence and concern. “You did a good job in there, Cap,”
he says to Albergray. “Take your men now and rest for a while.” He looks at Vinny and me, “Nice job, 82.”

We walk to the pumper where Benny, Jim, and Carmine are sitting, waiting for an ambulance to take them to the hospital. I
am about to ask them how they feel, but Benny speaks first. “Did you hear about Richie Rittman?”

“What?” Vinny asks.

“He broke his ankle—at least they think it’s broke, but he made a good rescue. He got two kids and their mother out from up
above. They were huddled in a bathroom. And as he was carrying a kid down the aerial he missed the last rung and went over
on his foot. They took him to Bronx Hospital, so I guess we’ll see him there.”

I go to get a drink of water from a kind of spigot Bill has set up at the hydrant. My mouth is very dry, but that happens
after every fire. As I swallow the water, a strange feeling makes me bend over and spit out what is left in my mouth. It feels
like the water has been pressed through a pinhole. The throat passage isn’t working right, and I tell Captain Albergray that
I can’t swallow normally. He sends me to the Chief.

The Chief takes my name and tells me to wait with the others for the ambulance. Besides the guys from Engine 82 there is a
man from Engine 45 who tripped over a hose in the hall. He has a gash across his forehead, and he holds a handkerchief to
it.

The ambulance finally comes. It looks like a converted bread wagon, but it’s warm, and I feel relaxed as I sink into the soft
mattress of the stretcher.

“C’mon, get up and make room for the rest of us,” orders Benny. “What the hell ya think this is, a hotel?”

It’s almost ten-thirty as we walk into the emergency room. There is a doctor and two nurses waiting for us. The doctor ministers
to the man with the cut forehead, and the nurses go about cleaning the burns. One of the nurses, a large black woman, makes
small talk as she works on Jim Stack. “You firemen are always in here. I don’t know why they don’t make a special room for
you, with a big sign at the door: ‘FIREMEN ONLY.’ This hospital is busy enough, but you firemen make us twice as busy. What
is it that you do that you can’t do without getting hurt? Lord knows the fires have to be put out, but can’t you find a better
way?”

The other nurse quietly washes Carmine’s neck. She is slender and pretty, and reminds me of the girl on the subway. Smooth
olive skin, and long black hair pinned up beneath her starched cap. She moves in quick, determined motions, with an air of
professionalism that attracts me. She leans her elbow on the back of Carmine’s lowered head, applies the bandage, and then
confidently lifts his chin with her fingers. “Would you sit over there, please,” she says. It is not a request, but a pleasant
command. She looks at Benny. “Are you next?”

Benny sits on the stool, and she holds his hand. He has a burn the size of a silver dollar behind his right thumb, and he
winces as she wipes it with soapy gauze. But he is enjoying the attention, and I silently wish I could trade places with him.

The doctor comes to me armed with a flashlight and a tongue depressor. He chokes me in the gentle, easy way all doctors choke
people when they look at throats. “You’ll be O.K.,” he says, “but don’t smoke for a week, or use your voice too much. The
throat is irritated, but it’s not burned, luckily.” He writes a prescription for a syrup, and tells me to take it three times
a day.

The telephone rings. It is the Fire Department Medical Officer, and he wants to talk to the attending physician. The doctor
talks into the receiver in the matter-of-fact way doctors talk to each other. The conversation is brief, and he turns to me,
and says, “The Department doctor wants to talk to one of you.”

“This is Fireman Smith speaking.”

“Listen Smith, are the other men with you? Carroll, Stack, Belli, and McDowell?”

“McDowell?”

“Yes, the man from Engine Company 45.”

“Oh, yes, everyone is here.” I had forgotten about that guy.

“Well, tell them that you are all to report to the medical office a week from Monday. We won’t have to worry about Rittman,
because he has a broken leg. Do you have the message?”

“Yes sir, a week from Monday, thank you, good-bye.”

I
live in a small town called Washingtonville. It is a pretty town located sixty miles north of the city, and the only objection
I have to it is the length of its name. The surrounding countryside is filled with the soft, rambling hills of pasture land,
and it is only in the past decade that the dairy farmers have begun to sell pieces of their farms to developers. People were,
and still are, moving from the city in droves, buying their little piece of America. Cops, firemen, construction workers,
school teachers, engineers, and auto mechanics—all abandoning the place that provides them a livelihood. And why not? After
living in tenements all my life, I want to give my three sons a little more space than I had, a place where they can ride
a bicycle and breathe clean air.

My piece of America is a four-bedroom house on a half acre of ground. The house is built on top of a hill, overlooking distant
mountains and my neighbor’s backyard. It is peaceful and plain. I can’t enjoy the solitude Thoreau talked about, not with
the kids playing noisily in the yard, or the roar of a neighbor’s lawnmower or snowblower, but I can plant a bean row if I
want to.

A little old lady died a few years ago in Boise, Idaho. She left no will, and her property was divided among unknown relatives.
My wife’s uncle, a poor blind man living in Ireland, was made rich by Irish standards, and a wealthy cousin was made richer.
My wife was given several thousand dollars, enough for a down payment on the house. We could never have saved that money on
a fireman’s salary. That is what life is all about—living in a three-room apartment with three kids until a strange lady,
a thousand miles away, dies.

Washingtonville is a bastion of Goldwater Republicans. The people are not unfriendly, but neither are they friendly. It’s
a mind-your-own-business kind of town, and as long as the law is obeyed, the high school students are orderly, and the taxes
are kept low, the townspeople remain passive. But if, as happened recently, a student bewildered by the shootings at Kent
State paints a picture of the American flag rimmed with question marks, and the school’s art teacher hangs the painting in
the main corridor, the local chapter of the John Birch Society can be counted on to protect American ideals by demanding that
the teacher be fired. It was the most exciting series of events since I’ve lived here. The Birchers made headlines in the
local paper for three days, but finally they succeeded only in making a lot of noise. The painting remained hanging and the
teacher kept his job—facts that instill confidence in my Irish-Catholic-Democratic heart.

The town was a stopping place of the underground railroad, which provided freedom for so many Negroes prior to the Civil War.
As a result, there is a large black population in Washingtonville. But even the blacks are insulated from the problems faced
by residents of bigger towns. There is no real poverty or deprivation here. Very few people are on the county welfare rolls.
There is no black section of town, but there are black and white sections. A black family lives down the street from us. A
young black couple just moved in two houses away. Nobody got excited, and that’s what I like about Washington-ville. It’s
unfortunate, though, that I had to travel sixty miles away from New York City to find it.

Like most firemen who have moved from the city, my children are my first consideration. I want them to be able to go to school
without being held up by a fifth-grader for their lunch money. They can ride their bicycles through the neighborhood with
a feeling of freedom. They can park their bikes and go rambling through the woods, knowing that the bikes will be there on
their return. They can leam to defend themselves, and to stick up for what they think is right by arguing with the kids next
door. They won’t have to fight their way-through a band of marauding youths. There aren’t any. They have a good chance of
reaching adolescence unscarred.