Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [59]
“Ready?” Captain Albergray asks.
“Ready.”
“Let’s go.”
The fire is in the front two rooms, and probably in the cockloft, the space between the ceiling of the rooms and the wood of the roof. We have to make a hard bend around the hallway banister rail. “Give us about ten more feet,” I yell back to Knipps and Kelsey. They hump the hose as I advance the line to the threshold of the fire. I am on my stomach, Captain Albergray at my side. Knipps comes and supports the surging hose from behind. Fluid runs from our noses and mouths as we work. I am starting to cough a lot, but I keep the nozzle moving—up, down, and around. Royce climbs over Knipps and taps my shoulder. “I got it, Dennis,” I can hear his muffled voice through the face piece of the mask. Cosmo also arrives with a mask, and Knipps and I bail out.
In the street again. Kelsey is donning a mask, and a mask for Captain Albergray lies on the sidewalk beside him. But he won’t need it now. We look up at the third floor. The fire is extinguished, and only smoke from smoldering cinders comes from the windows. The members of Engine 73 and Engine 94 are standing in front of the building, waiting anxiously for an order to go to work. But they are told to stand fast. In a few minutes they will be told to take up.
I am sapped of any vitality as I sit next to Knipps on the back step of the pumper. I would smoke a cigarette if I thought my lungs would take it, but I know I couldn’t hack it. Knipps and I don’t speak. We just sit there limp and satisfied, knowing that we did our job.
Kelsey returns from the building, carrying the two masks. “We need a length of inch-and-a-half to wash down,” he says. I feel a little recouped, so I go to the side compartment for a rolled up length of the smaller hose. Kelsey takes it from my hands. It only weighs forty pounds, but that’s forty pounds I don’t have to carry up the stairs.
Vinny and Cosmo have their masks off, and are resting in the hall. The men of Ladder 31 are overhauling, or ripping apart, the burnt rooms. Chief Niebrock keeps his eyes on the ceiling as the men hook down the plaster and lathe. The fire has not extended to the cockloft.
A young black man, about twenty-two, walks through the rooms, shaking his head. A mild looking man, small-framed, he appears shaken by what he sees. He is modishly dressed, with flared pants and a wet-look plastic jacket, and he is careful not to soil the bottoms of his pants as he steps over the debris on the floor.
“Do you live here?” Chief Niebrock asks him.
“Yeah, this is all mine, man. What’s left of it.”
The Chief writes his name down, and asks him if he knows how the fire started. The man replies that he doesn’t know, that he was sitting in a bar down the street when he heard the fire engines come by.
Suddenly, a big woman steams past us in the hall. “Where is that sonovabitch!” she screams. “Where is that sonovabitchl” She has a two-foot machete in her hand. A machete. Her eyes wide, and violent. “Where is that sonovabitch!” Not a question. A statement. She knows who she is looking for, and that she will find him. A huge woman, but not fat. About 200 pounds. Appearing out of nowhere, like a wild woman from a sugar cane field.
The machete is high in the air as she lunges forward. “Look out Chief.” The Chief turns just as McCartty grabs the woman. The knife is still free, and she swings it crazily, missing the Chief by inches.
“I’ll kill you you sonovabitch,” she cries, tears falling from her eyes. “I’ll kill you.”
The young man who was standing next to the Chief runs to the next room. The woman struggles, and it takes three firefighters to control her. McCartty finally gets her to loosen her grip on the knife, and he pulls it, throwing it to the floor. The woman collapses in hysterical sobbing.
The young man is yelling, “That woman’s crazy. Get her outa here.” He peers out at her, and sees that the violence is subdued. Feeling safer, he re-enters the room. A light mist of smoke is still rising from the burnt contents.
McCartty and Rittman, two big men, have a firm grip