Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [37]
Big Van, a huge man from Ladder 42, leaves us to look for a tool. There are now seven firemen in the lobby, including Jim and me, and we all gather around the furnace room door. Jim is the only man who has ventured to take his coat off. The rest of us know that there is no sense taking our coats off until there is some possibility of getting warm. Jimmy McClure, from the Squad, has a screwdriver, and begins to turn the screws in the hasp. Good, now the superintendent of the building won’t be as mad as he would be if we broke the hasp off altogether.
Jim Gintel asks, “Anybody stop to think that this is breaking and entering?”
“A small crime committed in the name of humanity,” I say, rather proudly.
“Humanity, hell!” Jim retorts, “I’m only thinking about us here. There won’t be enough room in there for the rest of humanity.”
Big Van returns with a halligan tool, a steel bar with a claw on one end and an adz and a pick on the other. “Shove it,” Jim says, “McClure’s almost got it now.”
McClure removes the last screw, and the hasp swings freely on its hinges. I have carefully positioned myself on McClure’s left, so that I’ll be the first one in as the door is opened. As the door begins to swing out I can feel the moisture and the warm air escaping. I am the first one in the-room. There are two concrete steps leading down to the boiler pit. I don’t want to go any further unless I can see where I am going.
“Someone turn on the light,” I say. Hands go up on either side of the doorway, and they slide the walls. The switch is found and the room is lighted. I look around and begin to shake. I can feel my stomach turning, and the relief of the room’s warm air just brings sweat to my forehead. The walls are covered with cockroaches and water bugs scurrying in every direction. Some are as long as three inches, and as they scamper, the smaller ones drop from the walls. The light has surprised and confused them. I look up at the ceiling, and it, too, is a moving black mass. Roaches are falling all around us, and as they hit the floor they shoot in the direction of the coal pile as if propelled by a twisted rubber band.
There is a concrete ledge around the boiler pit, just high enough to sit on. McClure throws his coat against the wall. It hits, then falls on the ledge. He walks down the two steps, picks up his coat and begins to swing it against the wall. The roaches are fleeing from this madman, and he continues until a portion of the wall is cleared. He sits down, and the other men begin to sit or stand around him. I don’t want to appear alarmed in front of the other firemen, but I know I have to get out of this room, out of this building. I’ve been nervous about roaches since I was a kid.
I grew up on the East Side of Manhattan, in the shadows of Sutton and Beekman Places. I lived in a tenement much like this one, and each Sunday my aunts, uncles, and cousins would climb the five flights of gum-stained marble stairs to our apartment. They would bring beer, and soda, and food for the weekly visit. At the end of the day, after all the Irish songs were sung and after a fist fight with a cousin or two was won or lost, the empty bottles would be gathered up and stored beneath the bath tub, which was prominent in our kitchen. The following morning the bottles would be put in a large brown paper bag. It was my job to take them to the store for the deposit, which my mother would share with me.
One sunny Monday morning I noticed as I was carrying the bag down the stairs that there was a half inch of beer remaining in one of the bottles. I put the bag down, and put the bottle to my lips. Since children don’t sip things, I put the lip of the bottle wholly into my mouth. The bottle was emptied, and as I was about to swallow I felt something moving within the liquid. I spit the beer out, and with it came a long, thin brown roach. I was nine years old then; it happened more than twenty years ago, but I still can’t forget it.
Jim Gintel is running back