Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [75]
But the firehouse was silent, the bells did not clang, the sirens did not wail. I was only slightly disappointed, for I realized it was a healthy silence. False alarms were rare in those days, and people were safe when the bells were still. I took the subway to the Personnel Department, down near City Hall, and I filed for the exam—the first step, the most important step toward becoming one of “New York’s Bravest.”
Now, so many years later, whatever romantic visions I had about being a firefighter have faded. I have climbed too many ladders, and crawled down too many grimy hallways to feel that my profession is at all glamorous. I have watched friends die, and I have carried death in my hands. There is no excitement in that, no glamor.
The National Safety Council has told me that firefighting is the most hazardous occupation in the United States—more hazardous than underground mining, or quarrying, or construction. I live in a country where the rate of death by fire is twice that of Canada, four times that of the United Kingdom, and six-and-a-half times that of Japan. Over twelve thousand persons died by the terrible swiftness of fire last year in this country.
I hope that the young men joining the fire departments around the country are doing so out of some sense of commitment to the profession and to the people, not because of the excitement of the sounds of sirens and bells. Firefighting is a brutalizing business. The community will take you for granted, they will not say “thank you” often if at all, and they are rarely on the firefighter’s side when the time comes to negotiate salary and benefits. Romantic visions of courage and heroism are the stuff from which novels are constructed, but the reality of courage and heroism to a firefighter is hard, dirty work. There are rewards, but they are intangible. Each firefighter must seek them in his own way.
As I stood shaving at the bathroom sink this morning, my wife came and stood by the door as she does at times. I was shirtless, and after watching me for a short while she put her hand on the long scar on the back of my neck—one of the reminders of a Fox Street fire. “That’s an ugly scar, Dennis,” she said. “Do you think it will ever go away?”
I smiled at her reflection in the mirror, and replied, “I doubt it, but a shirt collar hides it, so what does it matter?”
“It only matters as a warning for the next one,” she said, pulling my face down and pressing her lips to my fresh-shaven cheek. Then, her eyes wet with concern, she continued, “Because in Engine 82 there will always be a next one. Oh, I know, you’ll tell me that somebody has to do it, and I’m even learning to accept that, but I worry about you all the time. It will be hard for me to sleep tonight knowing that you might be in the middle of a fire, and as I lie there I’ll be wishing that you were beside me like a normal-living husband. But, at the same time, I’ll be as proud of you as the boys are. They just know that their father rides on the back of a fire engine, and they’re proud of that, but I know that you are doing what you think is right for all of us, and that’s good enough for me.”
At that very moment I felt one of the rewards of my occupation. My wife was communicating to me that she understood the nature of my job. She was fearful of the future, yet she acknowledged the importance, the value of fighting fires. I was so moved, so unduly proud of myself, that all I could think to say was “I love you.” It was enough.
The September sun is setting beyond the bulging tenements of the South Bronx now. It is six-thirty, and I am standing in front of quarters, enjoying the last warrh breezes of summer. I dread the thought of the coming winter—winter cold and firefighting are a hard combination. The summer has been frenzied, but we have begun to slow up. We were doing thirty to forty runs a day during July and August, but