Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [14]
The crowd looks wonderingly at her, and the cops and the firemen search in, under, and around the car. A cop goes back to the ambulance, and returns saying that the other two women don’t have their pocketbooks either. The crying woman falls to the ground amid broken glass and drying blood. “I am not leaving until I have my pocketbook!” she screams. Herbert and I gently lift her to her feet, and she becomes passive. We lead her to the ambulance, and sit her in the corner seat. The yearning cries, “Rufus, Rufus!” will occupy her mind until they reach the hospital.
We are about to return to the firehouse, but I ask Bill to drive past the squad car, where the two cops are recording the information in their logbooks. “Hey, Officer,” 1 yell. “Which one was Rufus?”
“The driver,” he replied.
Bill directs the pumper toward the firehouse, stopping for the red lights along the way. We are about to turn onto Intervale Avenue when the apparatus begins to go faster, and the siren begins to penetrate the air. The Captain has received an alarm over the department radio.
We turn down Hoe Avenue. There is a small crowd of about thirty people waving to us. Bill stops the pumper next to the crowd, and as we push through them Benny Carroll says, to no one in particular, “Looks like an O.D.”
There is a boy, about fifteen years old, lying on the hood of a car. His eyes are closed and his arms spread out, like he was crucified on the ’69 Oldsmobile. The car is white, and the boy’s black face seems darker against the solid white background.
I get to him first, and as I check his arms, I can hear Captain Albergray asking “Does anybody know him?” There is no reply from the crowd. The boy’s friends are probably there, but if they are, they are high, and know they can’t get involved.
The boy’s wrists and forearms are covered with holes, and round, purple scars. I raise his eyelids and see that his eyes haven’t rolled back yet. They stare straight out as if belonging to a catatonic.
“Someone go get some ice for us!” Benny yells to the crowd. A man turns to a woman, talks to her in Spanish, and she runs into one of the tenements.
The boy is breathing, but his breath is dangerously slow. An overdose of heroin slows up the system until everything stops completely. We lift the boy up and begin to slap his face and shake him. He isn’t conscious enough to walk around. If this boy lives it will be because his blood begins to circulate normally again.
The woman returns from her apartment with a small pot filled with ice. Benny takes it and thanks her. He puts a half dozen cubes into his handkerchief, and knots the top. “Pull his drawers down, Dennis,” he says to me.
Ladder 31 and the Chief have pulled into the block now. Billy-o comes over with a blanket, and he and Vinny Royce lift the boy up as I pull his dungarees and shorts to his knees. Carmine Belli has the blanket, and shoves it under him. Benny takes the ice pack and places it under the scrotum. He covers his arm and the boy’s legs with the blanket ends.
The crowd looks on with interest. There is no yelling or pushing, only the fast syllables of conversational Spanish. A man once told me that he was told by an immigration officer in Puerto Rico to call the Fire Department if he ever needed emergency help in New York City. The people in the South Bronx know that when the corner alarm box is pulled the firemen always come. If you pick up a telephone receiver in this town you may, or may not, get a dial tone. If you get on a subway you may, or may not, get stuck in a tunnel for an hour. The wall socket in your apartment may, or may not, contain electricity. The city’s air may, or may not, be killing you. The only real sure thing in this town is that the firemen come when you pull the handle