Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [12]
The man in the back seat is crying, but his tears come more from fear than pain. Just a few minutes before he was speeding happily through the streets of the South Bronx in a souped-up Chevy sedan, and now he sits in the back of a police car, looking out at a panorama of hating eyes. He came close to killing a boy who doesn’t cry, and now he sobs because he is not sure if a few cops and firemen can hold off the crowd that wants to kill him.
It is not very long before two more squad cars arrive at the scene. The noise of their screaming sirens alarms the crowd, and they back off. The newly arrived cops clear a path between the people, and the beleaguered squad car backs out of the street carrying the sobbing driver to safety. The disappointed crowd returns to mill around the boy.
The ambulance finally appears. It has been thirty minutes since the Chiefs aide called for it. The attendant pulls out a stretcher and hands it to Benny Carroll, one of the men in my company. John Nixon, two other firemen, and I carefully lift the boy as Benny shoves the stretcher beneath him. The boy cries out in agony as he feels his leg being moved. “It’s all right, Joseph,” John says. “In a little while it will be all over, and all the kids on the block will want to sign their names on the big white cast the doctor will fix you up with.” The boy feels reassured, and he holds John’s hand as we lift him into the ambulance.
Our job is done as we watch the ambulance carry little Joseph Mendez away. Captain Albergray will make an entry in the company journal: “Assisted injured civilian, rendered first aid, 35 minutes.”
Most of the people have re-entered the buildings now, and the street is near normal as we drive up toward Southern Boulevard. On the way back to the firehouse, Benny Carroll says to me, “A lady back there told me why they were trying to do that guy in. It seems that he’s the neighborhood hot-rodder. Drives up and down the street like a maniac. They warned him a couple of times that they were going to break his ass if he didn’t slow down, and tonight was his night.”
“You can’t blame them, I guess,” I say.
“Hell no,” Benny replies. “If that was my kid I’d make sure I had a piece of him, especially after he was warned and everything.”
We have backed into the firehouse, and are taking off our rubber gear at the rear of the apparatus floor when the bells start. Box 2596, again, Home and Simpson streets. In ten seconds we are out the door.
I had forgotten about the souped-up Chevy, but I can see it now completely engulfed in flames. In his haste to leave the scene, the driver forgot about it, and the police who are now questioning him evidently figured it would be safe double-parked on Home Street.
There is no crowd now in the middle of the street, except for a small group involved in a crap game at the corner. The car burns, and few watch as we pull the hose off and extinguish the fire. All the windows are broken, and all the tires are flat.
It was a good-looking car, deep violet, and well cared for. All the chrome was removed, in hot-rod fashion, and the rear end set lower than the front. It was probably the most valuable thing the driver ever owned, and now it is destroyed. As we roll up the hose, I think about how much longer this will hurt him than the beating he took tonight.
As we turn the corner at Simpson Street, the men playing dice stop to watch us pass. The man with the close eyes and the flowered wool jacket is there, and he waves to us, and smiles, in that ironic way that means he knows more than we do.
It is now after 10:00 P.M. as we back again into the firehousc. The men of Engine 85 and Ladder 31 have already eaten the Irish footballs, and are now washing their dishes and cleaning up. Billy-o sees us coming and begins