Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [11]
The Chief sees what the conditions are, and uses his walkie-talkie to tell his aide to call for an ambulance and for the cops to control the crowd. Chief Niebrock has been around for a long time, almost thirty years, and nothing shakes him. He spent all his time as a fireman in Harlem, and as a fire officer in the South Bronx. He has seen it all, and if the whole block were burning he would act as he acts now—with cool and confidence. “Make the kid comfortable,” he says, “but don’t move him. And try to move this crowd back a bit.” He is not talking to anyone in particular, but we all move to do as he says.
I take off my rubber coat, fold it, and place it under the boy’s head. John Nixon, of Ladder 712, is feeling around his body for other injuries. The boy is really in pain, and I feel sorry for him, but I can’t help thinking how lucky the boy is that he seems to have only a broken leg.
There is a lot of hysterical screaming and yelling. A woman is trying to get close to the boy, but she is being restrained by three men. She is a heavy woman, and the men are finding it difficult to hold her. They are screaming at her in Spanish. It is the boy’s mother, and she wants to pick her son up. Luckily, the men understand that the boy should not be moved, and they carry her away.
Soon Spanish passion infects two other women who evidently know the boy, and they, too, are carried from the street by their neighbors. There are about three hundred people gathered now in the middle of Home Street. The boy seems confused by the crowd and the noise, but he still doesn’t cry. I lean down close to him, and ask, “Does it hurt anywhere else?”
“No, just my leg,” he replies in a mild Spanish accent.
“Just hold on, son. The ambulance will be here soon.”
John Nixon covers him with a blanket, and starts to say those reassuring words kids need to hear. There is nothing to do now but wait for the ambulance, so I push my way through to the rim of the crowd.
I put a cigarette between my lips, and I’m about to ask Bill Valenzio, the chauffeur of our pumper, for a light when I hear an urgent cry: “Hey Dennis. Bill. Here, quick!”
It is our captain, Al Albergray, and he has his arm around a bleeding man. It is the driver of the car that hit the boy. His eye is closed, and blood drips from his lip. Captain Albergray has managed to get him away from a group of eight men who have beaten him. The leader of the group reminds me of a Hollywood stereotype of the Mexican bandito. His eyes are close together, and one is slightly turned. He has a wide, thick mustache on his dark face, and he wears a bandanna around his forehead. He stands squarely in front of the others, in a flowered wool jacket, yelling “Peeg, peeg,” but I’m not sure at whom.
“These guys are looking to kill this man,” Captain Albergray says. “Put him in the cab of the pumper, and sit in there with him. And call for police assistance.” As Bill and I hustle the man into the pumper, I can see Captain Albergray trying to talk to the group of men, but they want nothing to do with him and walk away.
A police car arrives. Bill and I take the man from the pumper and put him in the back seat of the squad car. Captain Albergray tells the cops what has happened. The eight men have now been joined by others, and there is a crowd of hostile people surrounding the car. The cops put in a call for additional assistance.
The early winter cold is penetrating my sweatshirt, and I silently wish that the ambulance would get there so I could get my coat back. Many of the men around the car have cans of beer in their hands, and they are screaming for the man sitting in the back seat. Their words fly into the night in English and Spanish. I can understand only the English. “Give ’im to us, man, he needs a lesson, give ’im to us,” they are saying.
Suddenly, the man in the flowered wool jacket jerks open the rear door and begins to swing wildly at the man in the back seat. The two cops struggle with him,