Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [83]
“Ahh, turnin’ against me, huh?” Charlie says, mocking a surprised look. “At least I don’t have the long gray line around my house everytime I go to work.”
Benny lives near the United States Military Academy at West Point.
“O.K., Charlie. Ya got me,” Benny says. “Now sit down and stop making a fool of yourself.”
Malachy McKeon walks into the kitchen. He worked last night, and has changed into his civilian clothes. Charlie’s expression changes from surprise to one of concern. “Did you call the insurance company, Mai?” he asks.
“No, not yet,” McKeon answers. “Ill wait until after I have my coffee.” Mai is twenty-six, a handsome man, with penetrating brown eyes. He is usually full of life, and giving away smiles to everyone he meets. Now though, I sense indifference as he pours his coffee.
“Why, Mai?” I ask. “What happened?”
“They purloined his automobile last night,” Charlie answers. Even Malachy laughs as these words come from Charlie’s mouth.
“Is that right? That’s the third one in the last few months.”
The third? Who else besides me and Freddy Schoan?”
“Eddy Montaign. About two months ago. Poor bastardl It was the first new car he ever owned.”
Billy O’Mann gets up to pour another cup of coffee, and says, “Well it’s the goddam city’s fault. They could fence off that whole area across the street, there by Pete’s Bodega. It’s city property, and we could fit fifteen cars there, but instead they fence off all the vacant lots so people won’t dump garbage. They must have spent half a million bucks fencing off vacant lots in the last year. So the people throw the garbage over the fence, and it makes it twice, three times as hard for us to put out rubbish fires.”
A probationary fireman was on the back step with Benny Carroll and me not so long ago. As we were pulling out of quarters, the probie noticed three youths sitting on the fender of his car. It was a new car, and the moonlight shone on its fenders. “Get off the car. Whatsa matter with you?” the probie yelled over the loudness of the siren, and the pumper raced out of view of the sneering youths. It was a bad move, and I told the probie that it was a bad move. After he has worked in the South Bronx for a while he will leam that it never pays to say anything to anyone on the street unless the words are kind, or unless someone is going to get locked up. And if someone is going to get locked up it makes even less sense to say anything to him. If a guy refuses to move his double-parked car as we respond to an alarm, give him a ticket. If someone interferes with us as we try to fight a fire, have him locked up. It never pays to be less than polite, and there is no such thing as verbal satisfaction. When we returned from the alarm the youths were not sitting on the probie’s car anymore, and neither was his radio antenna. And the antennas of twelve cars in front of the firehouse were broken. See, it never pays. The probie understood.
“What we really need,” Billy-o continues, “is armored protection like Pete has around his Cadillac over there. A steel garage and a chain-link fence. But I’d even settle for chicken wire if the city would give us the space. But they won’t, and we all know it.”
“Yeah, but what can you do about it?” mumbles George Hieg-man. A short, stocky man, Hiegman is a sixteen-year veteran of the job, and an Engine 85 chauffeur. He’s been around the fires and the firehouses, and his opinion is respected. He continues, “The firemen always end up with the brown part of the stick. You know, the part that was dipped in human excrement.” Some of the younger firemen laugh, but the older guys are used to the way Hiegman talks.
“What department,” he asks, “does the mayor call on to cut its budget from year to year? The Fire Department. The traditional budget cutters. And it’s our own fault. We’re the dopes who paint our own kitchen to make it livable. The city buys television sets for every police precinct in the city so the cops can watch closed-circuit training films. We have to watch training films too, but does the city buy television