Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [99]
Billy-o and McCartty are on the fouth floor. Billy-o has his halligan tool wedged between the door and its frame. McCartty is whacking the end of the halligan with the base of his ax-head. The noise has awakened the neighbors, and the building becomes a chorus of excited, questioning people.
Richie Rittman goes through the alleyway to the rear yard. There is a girl, about ten years old, lying on the rough concrete, her face distorted by pain. Richie begins to kneel by her, but he hears screaming from above—the high-pitched desperate screams of children. Richie knows his job is not to comfort this girl. Not now.
There is an iron gate on the fire-escape window on the fourth floor. Next to the fire escape is another window, but it is too far to reach. Three little boys are leaning over the sill, gasping for air, and crying fearfully. Thick smoke is pushing out of their apartment, over their small anguished heads, and between them. “Just stay right where you are boys, I’ll get you out,” Richie yells, over and over.
The fire-escape window is broken, and Richie forces the iron gate open. It takes all his strength before the brackets snap. Behind the gate there is a chest of drawers. Richie kicks it over, and enters the room.
The room is hot, the fire from the adjoining rooms is beginning to sweep in. The boys are in shock, and they don’t want to leave the window. Richie picks two of them up and carries them to the fire escape. As he returns for the third, he can hear me open the nozzle at the front of the apartment—first the air gush, and then the powerful stream of water.
There are three rooms going, and we have to get on our bellies to escape the ever-lowering heat. We push in, Lieutenant Welch saying “Beautiful, we almost got it, just a little more,” all the while, and Royce just behind humping the hose, saying “If you need a blow Dennis, I’m right here.” I can feel the heat sink into my face, like a thousand summer days at the beach. We reach the third room, and the fire is extinguished, defeated, dead. The smoke lifts, and the walls breathe the last breaths of steam.
I am in the street, resting and breathing short, regimented gulps of air. Men pass by and ask how I’m feeling, but I just nod to them. I don’t feel like speaking. I feel like I have climbed a mountain, and although I have given up all of my strength, I will bask in the silent, personal satisfaction of victory. I have done what I have been trained to do, and in the doing I have trained for the next time. My throat is congested, and as I spit the black phlegm of my trade I realize again the price I—all of us—pay for the victory. Is it worth it, this brutal self-flagellation, this constant ingestion of black poison, this exhaustion, this aging? Firefighting is a job. It is not a spiritual vocation. Hundreds of years have passed since medieval ascetics whipped themselves for glory. No, it is not worth it. Garbage men are paid as much as we, prison guards and subway policemen reap the same benefits. We get satisfaction. Yet… yet, this is what we do, what we do well. We could not do anything else with such a great sense of accomplishment.
The ambulance comes, and men pass by me carrying the three boys—three shaken whimpering boys, left alone by their mother in the care of a ten-year-old girl, their sister. Billy-o passes by with the girl in his arms. She was frightened. The fire-escape window was blocked by a chest of drawers and an iron gate, and she jumped from the fourth floor window. What thoughts must have been going through this little girl’s head as she climbed over the sill to jump fifty feet to an almost certain death? With good reason have Christians chosen fire as the metaphor of hell. What could be more fearful than the slow, agonizing crisping of skin, the searing of the lungs until the throat passage closes? If only someone had called us sixty seconds earlier—just one minute sooner, Richie would have been there in time to talk to her. The ambulance hurries away.