Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [98]
There is nothing to do now, but read and wait for the alarms to come in. In the desk drawer there is a book of Ellery Queen mysteries. I start to read it, but my eyes begin to strain at the second paragraph. I replace it in the drawer, reflecting unhappily that my eyes are not as strong as they used to be. I am still a young man, but I am beginning to sense a feeling of agedness and weariness. This is a young man’s job, but it’s making me old. I am thirty-one years old, and at times I feel fifty.
The South Bronx has taught me much about people, about misery and deprivation of all kinds, but I have paid well for the lesson. I live a five-day week, and chalk the other two up for rest and recuperation. The day after my day-tours and the day after my night-tours do not belong to me, but to the South Bronx, to the false alarms and the garbage fires.
I am tired, yet I don’t want to transfer to a middle-class neighborhood, where false alarms are surprising, and garbage is piled neatly in cans. Not yet. I still feel I have something to give where it is most needed. I am a professional firefighter, I know my work, and the South Bronx needs men like me, Royce, Carroll, McCartty, O’Mann, and the rest. We have developed the necessary mixture of moxie, skill, and self-reliance that makes us firefighters, and gives us the responsibility to protect where people are victimized most. It took us years to develop that combination of skills that permits us to challenge the unknown of fire, to crawl breathlessly into a whirling darkness, a deadly nightshade of smoke, knowing all the while that the floor or the ceiling may collapse, yet confident of victory, assured that only we can do the job. We, New York’s front line of defense, will get the job done. Firefighters. New York’s Bravest. Anyone can be President, the nuns taught us that; but they were wrong about firefighters. It takes more than study and hard work to be a firefighter. Sometimes it takes more than anyone has to give.
The bells start to ring. I brace myself attentively, and write the signal in the journal. “Received telegraph alarm, Box 2291. I open the drawer labeled Alarm Assignment Cards, and finger the cards until I come to 2291. The location is Prospect Avenue and 153rd Street. The first alarm assignment reads “Engine 73, Engine 41, Squad 2, Ladder 42, and Ladder 17.” Engine 85 is assigned on the second alarm, and Ladder 31 is assigned on the third. I holler through the apparatus floor, “Okaaay,” and return to my thoughts.
No, I don’t want to transfer from Engine 82. I have grown to love the men I work with as much as any man can love another. We have been through much together—from being caught between an extended fire, huddled on the floor, flames jumping before and behind, and unsure if we would be able to fight our way out, to consoling each other in hospital emergency wards, to drinking hard in the North Bronx bars, hard, like the sun wouldn’t rise again, to picnicking with our families by a calm upstate lake. Between us there is a mutual admiration and concern that can only be found among men whose very lives depend on each other’s quick, competent, and courageous actions. It is a good feeling, this dependency, a proud feeling.
The harsh clang of the bells makes me jump, and I poise for the count—Onetwo onetwothreefourfive one onetwothree. I record the signal in the book as I yell “Get out Eighty-two and Thirty-one. Box 2513. Prospect Avenue and 165th Street.” The telephone rings the three short rings that indicate added information. The dispatcher gives me an address, and I relay the information to Lieutenant Welch.
The troops are already standing on the back step, and I have to hustle to put my gear on. The pumper begins to move out, and I take a running jump to catch it. Knipps and Royce reach out to grab me as I land.
Ladder 31 is behind us as we reach the Prospect Avenue address. Lieutenant Welch runs into the building, as we begin to drag the hose from the pumper-bed. There