Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [86]
Billy-o gets up, and throws a blanket over a bed. He tucks the ends in. I can see that he is heated, that the subject angers him. He is most effective and most convincing when he is mad, and I want to push his buttons.
“Listen Bill,” I say, “you know damn well that the only way we can change any of this is through collective bargaining, and if you were so concerned you would run for union office.”
“Don’t give me that crap, Dennis. Mickey Maye worked in this firehouse for years, and then he became president of our union. Cleaning shitbowls one day, and having a forty-minute conference with President Nixon the next. That’s what the union is all about. They don’t want any real change. They want secure positions, and their positions become insecure if the boat begins to rock. You can clean shitbowls one day and be mad about it, but when the President of the United States puts his arm around you and tells you that you are a responsible labor leader, yessir, you’re no radical, then you begin to see yourself as part of the responsible establishment. Well, I don’t want to be a part of the responsible establishment—not if my men have to clean shitbowls. When I see the President of the AFL-CIO go to the White House to have lunch with a Republican President at a time when unemployment is at its highest in a decade, that tells me that labor in this country is on the wrong road.”
Artie, Benny, and Charlie are interested, and now they are sitting on the edges of beds.
“Well,” Charlie interjects, “no matter what you say about the union, you hafta admit that we’re all happy with our job. Some things about it may be bad, but we still like to come to work… .”
“But,” says Benny, “that may be because of what George said—that we’re all crazy and don’t know the difference.”
“I think Billy-o,” I say, “that you’re right about the little plumber having lunch at the White House—that was no place for him to be. And maybe it’s true that the labor movement has gotten soft, rich, and comfortably settled in the establishment. But, it’s still true that, at least for us, the only way we can effect change is through our union.”
The other men nod in agreement. “Listen Dennis,” Billy-o says, “you go get your brush and go in there and clean those bowls, and then tell me that the union is going to change things. I’ve been talking about this for ten years now, and nothing happened. I’ve written letters downtown, and I’ve spoken at union meetings, but nothing ever came of it. I’m still sweeping floors.…”
The conversation is interrupted by the sudden bells. Box 2743. That’s us. Charlotte and 170th. Eighty-two and thirty-one. We get up and go. Slide the brass pole. Into our boots. Rubber coats. Helmets. RRHHHHEEEWW. Up Intervale Avenue. Up Wilkins Avenue. Up 170th Street to Charlotte. It’s a rubbish fire in a vacant lot. The lot has been fenced recently, but a large hole has been cut into it. Benny grabs the booster nozzle, and squeezes through the hole. I look around at the drab, overcrowded tenements. Little kids sitting on window sills, old ladies peering from behind plastic draperies. Someone has painted a large sign on the bricks of the comer building. It says: “TEN DOLLARS REWARD FOR THE SUPER OF THIS HOUSE.” We have troubles, I think. But there is a way out of ours. The people of that building can’t find the man who is supposed to clean the halls, tend the boiler, and collect the garbage. There is no union for them to turn to. They can only paint a sign on the weathered bricks of their dirty building.
We are back in the firehouse now, and it is almost eleven o’clock. Benny Carroll and Artie Merritt are collaborating on the day’s meal. Hamburgers. Artie will go to the butcher for the meat, and the bodega for the rolls. Benny will cook. Like all the other times we have had hamburgers I will take only one bite, and throw the rest away. I do not like hamburgers. When I was a child we ate hamburgers three or four times a week. My mother would occasionally mold them into meatballs or a meat-loaf,