Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [34]
The trustee says that Beatty refused to be admitted to the hospital. He wanted to go home. He doesn’t like hospitals. The doctors were furious, but there was nothing they could do to detain him. The trustee says that Bob made a lot of noise at the hospital.
The Beast looks dead. There is dried blood all over his clothes, his head is bandaged, his arm is in a sling, and the side of his face is completely scraped. He must have hit the ground hard.
I can tell that he is still in great pain. He gives Marty Hannon the keys to his locker. “Just get my clothes, Marty. All I wanna do is go home.” Everyone wonders why his leg isn’t broken.
The trustee says that the X-rays showed no breaks. He tells us again how mad the doctors were. Marty comes down the stairs with the Beast’s clothes, and he puts them in the trustee’s car. It takes great effort for Bob to get into the car. He shouldn’t have gotten out of it to begin with. He grimaces as he bends his leg to put it in the car.
“So long guys.”
“So long Bob.”
“All I want to do is go home. The trustee will drive me home.”
I’m anxious to get off duty and to get home. I’m tired, and I need to sleep. I shouldn’t have drunk all that coffee.
5
IT’S 2:30 A.M. We’re spraying 250 gallons of water a minute at the fire and it seems like the wind is driving each cold drop back into our faces. With each bitter gust I swear to God I won’t stand another one. But, I do—another, and another. We’ve been here over an hour now. The fire is still burning freely. If we could only go inside the building and get close to the heat. The Chief says it is too dangerous—that the roof might collapse at any moment. I’m breathing through my mouth, because the cold has penetrated beyond the roof of my nose and my head aches. The wind picks up and now the water is hitting us like pellets shot against a plastic surface. Icicles have formed on the protective rim of my leather helmet, and they break off as I move to reinforce my grip on the fighting hose.
“Why don’t we get some relief here?” I yell to the men supporting me from behind, the men of Engine Company 82.
“Do you want a blow on the line, Dennis?^ Benny Carroll yells over the wind and the noise of the fire. Benny was once a student at the Fort Schuyler Merchant Marine Academy, and I wonder as he approaches if he ever thought that his life with the sea would be realized by directing hundreds of gallons of water through a brass nozzle.
“Yeah, Benny, you take it for a while,” I say, as he grasps the hose, “but what I really want is a bearskin rug in front of an open fireplace.”
“Say no more,” says Benny laughingly—an expression he always uses for agreement.
Kelsey, Knipps, and Vinny Royce will back Benny up on the line. It’s my turn to get lost for a few minutes. Lieutenant Welch is standing nearby watching, waiting for the roof to cave in. I tell him that I’m going to look for a place to get warm. The water has frozen over his rubber coat, and it flares at the bottom like a ballerina’s dress. Because he is an officer he has to stay with the men on the hose line at all times. He is jumping from foot to foot trying to get his blood to circulate. He looks at me and nods his head. He doesn’t talk because he knows words don’t mean anything at fires like this. He only cares about putting enough water on the fire. Tom Welch has been working in the South Bronx for over fifteen years, and he knows there is no challenge in this fire. If we were crawling down a hallway or fighting our way into a cellar, he would be talking all the time. He would be saying the words that give us the confidence to move into a building everyone has run out of. But now we are just standing in front of a building, pouring water on it. It’s cold, and our bodies are being beaten, and Lieutenant Welch just nods.
As I walk down the street in search of a warm hallway I hear a soft but distinct crashing noise, like someone dropping