Report from Engine Co. 82 (4 page)

We don’t talk about Mike Carr in the firehouse. We think about him often, but we don’t talk about him. Words of sentiment
and emotion do not come easily.

The day following Mike’s death the firehouse was busy with journalists and television news camera crews. Marty Hannon and
Juan Moran were not working, and the television people decided to film an interview with Charlie McCartty, who is the biggest
man in Ladder 31. And he is as tough a fireman as he is big. He is respected around the firehouse, not only because of his
size and his ability as a fireman, but also because he is known to do the right thing—always. Never pretentious, McCartty
is willing to stand up for anything or anyone when he thinks the cause is right.

Charlie applied the mechanical resuscitator to Mike Carr as the ambulance careened its way to the hospital. He stayed with
Mike the whole time the doctors worked on him. He tried to make small talk with the members of Engine 85 at the hospital,
to take their minds off Mike. He tried to console Nick Riso, who was punishing himself because he was driving the apparatus
from which Mike fell. He said, “God Almighty, Nick, how many times did you turn that corner before when nothing ever happened?
The Big Guy upstairs called the shots, that’s all. You gotta look at it that way.” But Nick just sobbed, with his face in
his hands.

Charlie understood what was happening, and he had full control over his own feelings. Now, though, the television people wanted
to film him, and I could see his lips moving in that uncontrollable way a person’s lips do when he is nervous.

“You knew Mike Carr?” The television commentator pushed the microphone to Charlie’s twitching lips.

“Yes, I knew him. I worked with him here for the past three years,” Charlie said, looking directly at the ground.

“What did you think of him, and what do you think of what’s happened?”

“He was a great guy,” Charlie answered, still looking at the ground. “It’s a shame this had to happen, and, and…” Charlie
turned away, his shoulders shaking. He turned back, tears were running from his eyes, and said, “I’m sorry—I just can’t do
this,” and the toughest guy in the firehouse walked away.

I am sitting now, along with eight other men, in the kitchen of the firehouse. It is a long, narrow room at the rear of the
apparatus floor. The walls are tiled brown, and there are four tables set against the side wall, with room enough to seat
twenty-eight men. A soda machine and a refrigerator are set against the opposite wall. A sink, a stove, and another refrigerator
are at the front of the room, at the entrance.

Billy O’Mann is at the stove preparing the night’s meal—tenderloin, boiled potatoes, and cabbage. A couple of men are playing
cards, a few read magazines, and the rest are watching the television, which is sitting on a shelf in the comer.

Charlie McCartty has forgotten about the accident, the funeral, the news telecaster. It is almost time to eat, and he is yelling
over the sound of the T.V.

“Yessir, men, Mrs. O’Mann is cooking Irish footballs tonight, and she requests that you clean off the tables.”

Billy-o hears the remark, and approaches waving a long-pronged fork in his hand. “Listen, Charlie,” he says, “I don’t mind
you calling me Mrs. O’Mann, just as long as you don’t try to touch my body.”

“He doesn’t need you Billy-o,” Jerry Herbert says, “because he can get his own Mrs. McCartty for a deuce anytime he wants.”

Everyone laughs. Charlie makes a motion as if he was pulling a spear from his chest. “Got me,” he says. “But, a deuce is a
lot of money. It doesn’t cost that much, does it?”

“Well, it depends on whether you want coupons or not,” Billy-o says.

“Ahh, got me again.”

Charlie, Billy-o, and Jerry have worked together for the past seven years—in fires and above fires, where it is roughest.
Each has saved the other’s life at one time or another, and they can say anything about each other, or each other’s family,
with impunity.

The laughing over, the men in the kitchen begin to gather empty coffee cups and soda cans from the tables. One man goes to
the sink to wash the cups and the pots Billy-o has finished with. Another sweeps the floor. It is ten minutes after nine,
and we’ll eat early.

There is a list of men on the kitchen blackboard. Twenty-four men are eating tonight, and the price of the meal is seventy-five
cents. I go to the cabinet and count twenty-four plates.

As I arrange the plates on the table I think of how slow it has been since I began duty at six o’clock. We answered three
alarms—a false alarm and two garbage fires burning in comer trash cans. The plates arranged, I go to count the silverware.
I count off twenty-four forks, and begin counting knives when the bells start ringing. I count each gong: two—five—nine—six.
Box

“That’s right up the block,” Jerry says. “Home and Simpson.” The housewatchman begins yelling, “Eighty-two and seven twelve,
get out. Chief goes too.” Men scramble out of the kitchen and run to the apparatus, passing others who are sliding down the
brass poles. The Battalion Chief, who has an office on the top floor of the firehouse, watches as 712’s truck and 82’s .pumper
leave the house. He will respond behind us.

As we leave the firehouse we can see a large crowd of people standing in the middle of Home Street. We pass the intersection
of Simpson Street, but that is as far as we are going to get. The sirens are screaming, but the crowd won’t move. We get off
the rigs and push our way through.

The attraction is a ten-year-old boy lying on the street. He is in great pain, but he is not crying. A handsome boy, with
long, wavy, black hair. His face is tense, and he is biting his teeth together with all his energy. The cause of his pain
is his leg, which is broken and lying under him like a contortionist’s trick. He has been hit by a car.

The Chief sees what the conditions are, and uses his walkie-talkie to tell his aide to call for an ambulance and for the cops
to control the crowd. Chief Niebrock has been around for a long time, almost thirty years, and nothing shakes him. He spent
all his time as a fireman in Harlem, and as a fire officer in the South Bronx. He has seen it all, and if the whole block
were burning he would act as he acts now—with cool and confidence. “Make the kid comfortable,” he says, “but don’t move him.
And try to move this crowd back a bit.” He is not talking to anyone in particular, but we all move to do as he says.

I take off my rubber coat, fold it, and place it under the boy’s head. John Nixon, of Ladder 712, is feeling around his body
for other injuries. The boy is really in pain, and I feel sorry for him, but I can’t help thinking how lucky the boy is that
he seems to have only a broken leg.

There is a lot of hysterical screaming and yelling. A woman is trying to get close to the boy, but she is being restrained
by three men. She is a heavy woman, and the men are finding it difficult to hold her. They are screaming at her in Spanish.
It is the boy’s mother, and she wants to pick her son up. Luckily, the men understand that the boy should not be moved, and
they carry her away.

Soon Spanish passion infects two other women who evidently know the boy, and they, too, are carried from the street by their
neighbors. There are about three hundred people gathered now in the middle of Home Street. The boy seems confused by the crowd
and the noise, but he still doesn’t cry. I lean down close to him, and ask, “Does it hurt anywhere else?”

“No, just my leg,” he replies in a mild Spanish accent.

“Just hold on, son. The ambulance will be here soon.”

John Nixon covers him with a blanket, and starts to say those reassuring words kids need to hear. There is nothing to do now
but wait for the ambulance, so I push my way through to the rim of the crowd.

I put a cigarette between my lips, and I’m about to ask Bill Valenzio, the chauffeur of our pumper, for a light when I hear
an urgent cry: “Hey Dennis. Bill. Here, quick!”

It is our captain, Al Albergray, and he has his arm around a bleeding man. It is the driver of the car that hit the boy. His
eye is closed, and blood drips from his lip. Captain Albergray has managed to get him away from a group of eight men who have
beaten him. The leader of the group reminds me of a Hollywood stereotype of the Mexican bandito. His eyes are close together,
and one is slightly turned. He has a wide, thick mustache on his dark face, and he wears a bandanna around his forehead. He
stands squarely in front of the others, in a flowered wool jacket, yelling “Peeg, peeg,” but I’m not sure at whom.

“These guys are looking to kill this man,” Captain Albergray says. “Put him in the cab of the pumper, and sit in there with
him. And call for police assistance.” As Bill and I hustle the man into the pumper, I can see Captain Albergray trying to
talk to the group of men, but they want nothing to do with him and walk away.

A police car arrives. Bill and I take the man from the pumper and put him in the back seat of the squad car. Captain Albergray
tells the cops what has happened. The eight men have now been joined by others, and there is a crowd of hostile people surrounding
the car. The cops put in a call for additional assistance.

The early winter cold is penetrating my sweatshirt, and I silently wish that the ambulance would get there so I could get
my coat back. Many of the men around the car have cans of beer in their hands, and they are screaming for the man sitting
in the back seat. Their words fly into the night in English and Spanish. I can understand only the English. “Give ’im to us,
man, he needs a lesson, give ’im to us,” they are saying.

Suddenly, the man in the flowered wool jacket jerks open the rear door and begins to swing wildly at the man in the back seat.
The two cops struggle with him, and the crowd surges toward the car on all sides. Captain Albergray and I are pressed against
the rear door on the other side of the car, and people are trying to push us away so they can get at him. But we stand firm.
As long as the punches don’t fly at us, it is a little like playing tug of war.

The man in the back seat is crying, but his tears come more from fear than pain. Just a few minutes before he was speeding
happily through the streets of the South Bronx in a souped-up Chevy sedan, and now he sits in the back of a police car, looking
out at a panorama of hating eyes. He came close to killing a boy who doesn’t cry, and now he sobs because he is not sure if
a few cops and firemen can hold off the crowd that wants to kill him.

It is not very long before two more squad cars arrive at the scene. The noise of their screaming sirens alarms the crowd,
and they back off. The newly arrived cops clear a path between the people, and the beleaguered squad car backs out of the
street carrying the sobbing driver to safety. The disappointed crowd returns to mill around the boy.

The ambulance finally appears. It has been thirty minutes since the Chiefs aide called for it. The attendant pulls out a stretcher
and hands it to Benny Carroll, one of the men in my company. John Nixon, two other firemen, and I carefully lift the boy as
Benny shoves the stretcher beneath him. The boy cries out in agony as he feels his leg being moved. “It’s all right, Joseph,”
John says. “In a little while it will be all over, and all the kids on the block will want to sign their names on the big
white cast the doctor will fix you up with.” The boy feels reassured, and he holds John’s hand as we lift him into the ambulance.

Our job is done as we watch the ambulance carry little Joseph Mendez away. Captain Albergray will make an entry in the company
journal:
“Assisted injured civilian, rendered first aid, 35 minutes.”

Most of the people have re-entered the buildings now, and the street is near normal as we drive up toward Southern Boulevard.
On the way back to the firehouse, Benny Carroll says to me, “A lady back there told me why they were trying to do that guy
in. It seems that he’s the neighborhood hot-rodder. Drives up and down the street like a maniac. They warned him a couple
of times that they were going to break his ass if he didn’t slow down, and tonight was his night.”

“You can’t blame them, I guess,” I say.

“Hell no,” Benny replies. “If that was my kid I’d make sure I had a piece of him, especially after he was warned and everything.”

We have backed into the firehouse, and are taking off our rubber gear at the rear of the apparatus floor when the bells start.
Box 2596, again, Home and Simpson streets. In ten seconds we are out the door.

I had forgotten about the souped-up Chevy, but I can see it now completely engulfed in flames. In his haste to leave the scene,
the driver forgot about it, and the police who are now questioning him evidently figured it would be safe double-parked on
Home Street.

There is no crowd now in the middle of the street, except for a small group involved in a crap game at the corner. The car
burns, and few watch as we pull the hose off and extinguish the fire. All the windows are broken, and all the tires are flat.

It was a good-looking car, deep violet, and well cared for. All the chrome was removed, in hot-rod fashion, and the rear end
set lower than the front. It was probably the most valuable thing the driver ever owned, and now it is destroyed. As we roll
up the hose, I think about how much longer this will hurt him than the beating he took tonight.

As we turn the corner at Simpson Street, the men playing dice stop to watch us pass. The man with the close eyes and the flowered
wool jacket is there, and he waves to us, and smiles, in that ironic way that means he knows more than we do.

It is now after 10:00
P.M.
as we back again into the firehousc. The men of Engine 85 and Ladder 31 have already eaten the Irish footballs, and are now
washing their dishes and cleaning up. Billy-o sees us coming and begins to cut the meat for us. McCartty already has a big
pot on the table, and he is forking cabbage quarters onto each plate.

I have taken only one bite of tenderloin when the bells come in again: two—seven—three—seven. That’s a lucky break for us.
The housewatchman yells, “Get out, Engine 85 and Ladder 712. Chief goes too. Vyse Avenue and 172nd Street.”