Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [32]
Tom Welch comes from the building and climbs into the pumper. John Milsaw makes a quick move, and the kids run down the street. Everyone laughs, and John shakes his head.
The pumper moves, and the chant is forgotten. Benny and Vinny plan the evening’s meaL Broiled half chickens, they say. French-fried potatoes. Salad. Creamed corn. I can hear what they are saying but all I can think of is pig, white, guinea, spic, hebe, motherfucker, nigger, donkey, mick, fishhead. Each word brings with it a flash of remembrance. The final solution sounded like a funny thing on the streets of the east Fifties when I was a kid. Any guy who didn’t look Irish was a wop to us. And nigger was a thing we caught by the toe before we played stick-ball. If someone called one of us a donkey he’d get his lumps if he wasn’t too big, and if he was too big three or four of us would lay for him.
Funny, isn’t it, I think. And who’s to blame for the way we thought as kids? Our neighbors, our teachers, our parents? It’s too late. But it wasn’t too late for me. I got my ass kicked when I was sixteen. I quit school, and started reading books. In that order. I have a lot of bruises. The milk bottle filled with black ink in the Baltimore Catechism No. 2 belonged to me. That was the one where the ink stood for mortal sins. But if I’m still around as my own boys grow up they will be sure to learn that people don’t hate other people. It is only when other people are dehumanized that they can become hateful. The Jews in Poland, Hungary, and Germany were never people, but an abstraction called “final solution.” Slave ships were filled with niggers, not people. Nobody would buy people. Guineas couldn’t join Irish-dominated trade unions, but people could. If Brendan, Dennis, and Sean can understand that, then maybe the empty milk bottle in the Baltimore Catechism No. 2 will belong to them. But those kids back on Union Avenue, they’ll have to work it out by themselves. The truly sad thing about it is that I do realize how much easier it is if you’re white.
We have just come from a rubbish fire. It’s two-thirty in the morning. There have been eleven alarms for us since we were at Union Avenue. Our meal was interrupted by two false alarms, but it didn’t matter. Chicken is as good cold as it is hot, and I didn’t mind doing without the creamed corn.
I take my coat off, and throw it on the rig. My legs are beginning to tire so I climb the stairs to the second floor. One-half of the huge room is taken up by our lockers, and the other half is filled with eighteen beds, spaced about twelve inches apart. Theoretically, we can sleep here until we are relieved at 9:00 A.M., but like many theories, it never works out in reality. I don’t take off any clothes before I lie down, because I know I won’t be here long. I fall asleep quickly.
As I awaken, the lights are on, and the bells are tolling. The housewatchman is yelling “85 and 31 goes.” Good, it’s not for mel I lie back. But the housewatchman yells “82 goes too. Get out 82.” I look down as I slide the brass pole, and make sure of my footing as I hit the floor. Benny slides the pole behind me. Kelsey, Knipps, and Royce come from the kitchen. The clock reads three-thirty.
Engine 85 and Ladder 31 are going to Southern Boulevard and Jennings Street. We have been special called to Hoe Avenue and 172nd Street, and we follow them up Southern Boulevard. Suddenly, the pumper screeches to a stop. Ladder 31 has stopped before us. But we have to go up to 172nd Street. As we pull around the Ladder truck we see that it has crashed into the back of Engine 85. Bob Beatty is lying in the street, blood gushing from his forehead. The pumper stops momentarily, and then races toward 172nd Street. Evidently Lieutenant Welch ordered the chauffeur to keep going. We all want to stop, to help Bob, but we know that we have to get to the box on Hoe Avenue and 172nd Street. Every second will count if there is