Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [58]
“How much you wanna bet?” Vinny says looking at the thumb.
“Two dollars, for ten stitches,” Richie says.
“I’ll take two dollars for eight stitches,” Vinny replies.
“I’ll take two for seven stitches,” Knipps says. “It doesn’t look like it will take ten.”
“Okay, nine stitches is open,” Vinny says looking at me. “Do you want to take nine, Dennis?”
“I’ll take nine,” McCartty says, before I have a chance to answer.
“Holy Christ,” Billy-o says, “I can’t get you guys to give a dollar a payday for a dishwasher—”
“All right,” I interrupt, “I’ll take a deuce for six stitches. That’s ten bucks all together, right?”
Everyone agrees. Billy-o leaves us to report the injury to Lieutenant Lierly, mumbling to himself as he walks. Vinny chalks the stitch projections on the kitchen blackboard, so there won’t be any disagreement later.
His injury reported, Billy-o drives his car to the emergency room of Bronx Hospital. His name will now be incorporated into the average of 5,000 injuries N.Y.C. firefighters suffer in the line of duty each year.
“I hope he remembers to bring back some bandages,” Lieutenant Lierly says as Billy-o drives away. “Our first-aid kit is getting low.”
Jerry Herbert has served lunch. The sandwiches are great, but I have an unsettled feeling in my stomach. I am not sure if it is because of the fire we have just come from, or because with every bite I expect an alarm to come in.
We eat the meal without interruption.
I put sixty cents into the collection bowl, and then boil some water for tea. I make tea the Irish way—half tea, half milk. There is a magazine on the table. The television is noising the nonsense of an afternoon show that sends the winners on weekend dates to Europe. The bells come in, but they are not for me. Engine 85, only. They hustle, half skipping, half running, out of the kitchen. I pick up the magazine and start to read. The Park Avenue rich, it seems, have concerned themselves with raising money to get a group of Black Panthers out of jail. A splendiferous party is given high above the boulevard gardens of Park Avenue, and the Pucci-clad chic and the dashiki-clad Panthers are exposed to each other. The story annoys me because I keep thinking of those two kids who haven’t a television set to watch any longer. Come away from Park Avenue. Stop dealing with abstractions—the philosophic-cultural-social implications of high bail for media exploiters. Look at the real world. Take Simpson Street for example.
“Ping. Ping.” The bells are hammered. Box 2558. I throw my tea bag into the garbage can on the way out. Intervale Avenue and 165th Street. Captain Albergray presses hard on the siren. Thirty decibels over rock sound. Hard rock. In an empty auditorium. I can feel the wailing going through both ears, and meeting at the auditory nerve. I wonder what damage is being done.
Ladder 31 and the Chief are behind us, red lights flashing, sirens squealing, jerking and jumping over the rough cobblestone surface of Intervale Avenue. The cold is biting, and I pull the corduroy collar of my rubber coat closer to my neck.
The pumper stops in front of a three-story, wooden frame building. The top floor is on fire, and the heat has already blown out the windows. This is a job for the big, two-and-a-half-inch hose. I take the nozzle, and three folds of hose, and begin the stretch into the building. The men of Ladder 31 pass me. Willy Knipps is behind me, and Bill Kelsey behind him, all dragging hose. Vinny Royce takes a mask case from the side compartment of the apparatus, opens it, and starts to don the mask. Cosmo Posculo helps the chauffeur to hook into the hydrant.
Captain Albergray is waiting for us on the third floor. The smoke is heavy, almost viscous. Dark brown waves with nowhere to go until one of the truckmen cuts a hole in the roof. The hose starts to bulge as I reach Captain Albergray. I crack the nozzle a little. The air flows out, sounding like someone has opened a valve on an oxygen bottle. Then the water comes, hitting the floor in front