Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [36]
Jim Gintel from Squad 2 lights my cigarette. Jim is an old friend of mine. We played the bagpipes together in the Emerald Society band.
“Bad night, Dennis, bad night!” he says as he takes his rubber coat off. Like all of our coats, his coat is frozen, and it stands by itself against the wall. The lobby light is reflected by the ice and the coat appears jeweled. Jim laughs, “Now if we were only Pigmies we’d have a ready-made tepee.” Everyone laughs at Jim’s joke, but nobody adds to it. It’s too cold to be funny.
I can’t help thinking that in another place, another city perhaps, wheie fires are uncommon and exciting, apartments up and down the street would be opened, and residents would be serving coffee and biscuits and offering the warmth of their homes to the firemen and to the victims of the fire. I think of Dylan Thomas' Miss Prothero asking if I would like something to read. But we are in New York City where neighbors traditionally don’t bother to find out each other’s names, where people live their lives within the walls of their apartments, where a raging fire across the street bums unwatched.
There are six doors around the lobby, but it is almost three o’clock in the morning, so I erase the thought of knocking on any one of them from my mind. I remind myself that people have to go to work in the morning. Anyway, this is what I am paid for—fighting fires all the time, not just on pleasant spring afternoons.
Jim Gintel, who was pacing, jumping, and rubbing his arms, has found a seventh door.
“Hey man, anyone got a claw tool?” he asks, his words echoing through the hall. He is a medium-sized man with graying hair, and he wears an ever present smile. Even in the worst situations Jim has something funny to say. We were once trapped above a fire along with Lieutenant Nandre, Kelsey, and Knipps. The burning building was a two-story factory, and we had thought that the fire below us was completely extinguished. Jim was helping us advance the hose on the second floor. We were making slow but sure progress when we realized the floor beneath us was burning. We tried to back down the stairs, but they were completely engulfed in flames. There was too much fire for our one hose line to control, and there was no way out. We had to make a choice between sticking it out and hoping that other lines would appear quickly to help us out, or jumping out of the window. Fire is fast and deadly, so we didn’t have much time to decide. I was for making it out the window, since it was only about a twenty foot drop. Kelsey and Knipps were for sticking it out, since they were sure Engine 50 would have another line there in a minute or two. Lieutenant Nandre had gone to the window to look things over. We looked at Jim Gin-tel, and through the thick smoke we could see him sitting back on his haunches. We were all choking and coughing, but Jim put a cigarette in his mouth, smiled, and said, “Anyone got a match?” Fortunately, the Chief realized where we were, and had a ladder placed to the window before I had to think about lighting Jim’s cigarette, or keeping the fire from lighting it for him.
Looking around the lobby I can see that no one has tools with them. “No claw tools around here Jim,” I reply. “What do you want one for?”
“The furnace room is under the stairs,” he says, “but it’s locked up. All we need is a claw tool to break the hasp. The way I feel now all I want to do is open the furnace doors