Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [15]
Billy-o is rapidly squeezing the boy’s cheeks. Bill Finch has the resuscitator turned to the inhalator position, and puts the face piece an inch from the boy’s mouth. The boy finally begins to moan and move slightly. The crisis is over for him, at least until the next time he squats in a vacant building, wraps a belt around his arm, and puts a match under a bottle cap filled with white powder.
“Put in another call for an ambulance,” Chief Niebrock says to Captain Albergray. It is now near 11:30 P.M., and I make a mental note to pick up a container of milk and a piece of cake on the way back to the firehouse. I have lost any hope of being satisfied with dried-out Irish football.
We have been here a half hour when the ambulance arrives. We are able now to walk the boy to the ambulance, although he still cannot support his own weight. The nurse in the ambulance looks at me and says, “What a night!” I know what she means.
Some nights our job has little to do with fire. Since the O.D. case on Hoe Avenue, we have responded to eleven alarms. One was a water leak—a guy’s bathtub overflowed at four in the morning. Another was a fallen street wire, which required the emergency crew of Con Edison. And the other nine were false alarms—one each hour from midnight to eight.
It is a little after 8:00 A.M. now, and I am sitting in the kitchen having coffee and a roll. The men working the day tour begin to arrive, but I’m too tired to say much more than “Good morning.” Instead of driving the sixty miles to where I live, I think that I’ll take the subway to my mother’s apartment in Manhattan. At least there I’ll be able to get six solid hours of sleep in. I’ll have to get up at four, because I’m due in again tonight at six.
3
I can hear a vague voice calling, “Dennis, Dennis.” I don’t want to get up, but I realize I have no choice. I was dreaming, but I can’t remember what about. It must have been pleasant though, because I feel relaxed, relieved. “Dennis, Dennis,” my mother calls. Her words sound apprehensive. They lack conviction, like she doesn’t want to say them, but knows she has to. “Dennis, Dennis,” the words soak through my body, and I make an effort to rise. Then the words suddenly change in my mind, and I am hearing “Rufus, Rufus,” and I rest my head back again. I wonder what that woman is doing now. Before I left work this morning, I heard that Rufus was D.O.A. at the hospital, and now all I can think of is the yearning, pleading sound of his wife’s voice.
“Dennis.”
“All right, Mom. All right. I’m up.”
“Do you want some bacon and eggs?”
I look at the clock on the kitchen wall. “No thanks, I don’t have time.” It is four-thirty. I like to be in the firehouse before five, but now I won’t make it there until five-thirty.
“How about a cup of coffee, or tea?”
“Yes. Tea. Fine. Thanks.” I get up from the living room couch, and look for my socks on the floor. I get on my knees and look under the couch. There they are. Now my pants. I left them on the chair, but I don’t see them. “Hey Mom, did you see my pants?”
“I put them on a hanger. Somebody has to take care of your clothes. They’re hanging in my closet.”
O.K. Now where is my shirt? “Hey Mom, did you see what happened to my shirt?”
“It’s here in the kitchen. I just pressed it.”
I walk to the kitchen and kiss her cheek. “Thanks. It looks fine.” I sit at the table and spoon sugar into my tea. My mother puts two pieces of toast in front of me and goes to the refrigerator for a jar of jelly.
“You know, Mom,” I say, “you should have been named Goldberg. I’m surprised you don’t give me some chicken soup.”
“Well,” she says, “I was born a Hogan, and I married a Smith, but a name doesn’t make any difference to a mother. A mother is supposed to mother, and that means to take care of her children.” She sits down opposite me. “And while I’m at it,” she continues, “maybe I shouldn’t mention this, but you really aren’t getting enough rest lately. I don’t know why you don’t transfer out of that place you work in. You’ve been there over five years now, in