Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [69]
Chief Kelsen, the Deputy Chief, orders Engine 94 to take their line up, and return to their Seneca Avenue quarters. He then radios Chief Niebrock that he has to respond to another “all hands” fire down on 138th Street. Chief Niebrock is back in charge of the fire, but there is only the final wash down left.
Much of the water we used has found its way down the stairs, and the cooled garbage doesn’t smell nearly as bad as we return to the street. The police are on the scene now, and are trying to control the crowd as best they can. But there are too many people, and only three cops. Ladder 31’s rig is covered with kids, but we are used to that. The truck is a mobile jungle gym set in a parkless neighborhood.
The apparatus radios blare, “A second alarm has been transmitted for Box 2188—Brook Avenue and 138th Street.” The Captain of Ladder 48 asks the dispatcher if he is assigned on the second alarm. The radio answers that Ladder 48 is assigned on the third alarm, and the anxious troops of Ladder 48 are disappointed.
I pull the empty hose to the back of our pumper. The men of Ladder 31 and Ladder 48 help us uncouple, straighten, and drain the hose.
“What do they have goin’ down there?” someone yells to Valenzio.
“They have an occupied tenement,” he returns, “but I didn’t hear how much fire they got. It must be goin’ good, though.”
Vinny Royce is on the sidewalk, across from the abandoned building. He has put his wet gloves on the fender of a parked car, and he is trying to get himself prepared to repack the hose. We are all hot and sweaty, but Vinny has just helped Bill Va-lenzio uncouple the six-inch connection from the hydrant, and he appears to be sapped of strength. Suddenly, as Vinny begins to remove his heavy rubber coat, a garbage can hits the ground next to him with a deadly thump. It hasn’t missed him by more than twelve inches. Vinny moves quickly to the security of a doorway. The people in the street scatter, and the kids jump off the truck and run down the block. The street is a valley, canyoned by six-story tenements from end to end, and all our eyes turn towards the roofs. Benny Carroll screams, “LOOK OUT,” and runs to join Vinny huddled in a doorway. A volley of two-inch iron balls hits the street, one shattering the windshield of Ladder 48’s rig. The cops run into the buildings, each cop taking a separate entrance. Some of the men from Ladder 31 and Ladder 48 follow them to the roof. One of the balls has bounced off the rig next to where I am standing. I pick it up, and run to Benny and Vinny for cover. It looks like a sawed-off end of an antique school-desk leg. I put it in my pocket, and then remember my Uncle Tommy coming home from Germany in the forties, his pockets filled with spent shells.
The cops and the guys of 31 and 48 return to the street. Whoever was up on the roof has disappeared, into a friend’s apartment, down a fire escape into their own apartment, or over the rooftops and down a safe hallway. Whoever they were got away with it this time, as they did the last time we had trouble in this street. I feel so desperately helpless as I think that they will in all probability get away with it the next time too.
We return to the street and look at the garbage can that flew from the roof. It is on its side, and it was filled with ashes. God, I wonder, would they be caught if Vinny were killed? This was attempted murder, but nobody was killed, no one even hurt seriously, and it makes no sense to press the issue. My in-sides scream, “A full fucking garbage can.” And here is Vinny, still shaken, his head moving slowly from side to side. The world couldn’t ask for a more beautiful guy.