by Naomi Niles
“Here, now…” Chet was saying, pulling his gear off the hook. “Watch me and put yours on the same way. Remember: if you’re not dressed, you’re not on board. You need to practice this until you can get dressed on a dead run in under sixty seconds. Well… now… I’ll leave you to it,” he muttered and left the anteroom. It was apparent to me that he wasn’t exactly in favor of my tagging along. I shrugged into the overalls and they were huge. That wasn’t a big surprise, as firemen tended to be bigger guys, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it. It was ridiculous; I couldn’t take a step without tripping. I tried the helmet and it ended somewhere around the tip of my nose. The boots… well, I could have skated inside them. “Damn!” I cursed and held out my arms in disgust. That’s when I heard a chorus of laughter. A handful of guys were peeking around the bay doorway, watching me struggle.
“Sixty seconds!” one of them called out to me in jest.
Dad pushed through the throng, a big grin of pride on his face. He was carrying a set of gear and tossed it at my feet. “There. See if you can keep these on.”
A variety of cat calls came from the gallery as I removed the over-sized clothes and tried on the new ones. Dad watched approvingly. “We sourced a set across town; they had a midget retire.”
“Very funny, Dad.”
He grinned and the cat calls and hoots continued from behind him. I knew this was good natured and actually meant that I’d been accepted by the guys. Sean was still nowhere to be seen.
“Why isn’t Sean finishing my training, Dad?” I asked him and his face instantly grew sober.
“Man has other things to do besides humor a snippet of a girl,” he muttered and walked away. Somewhere I had evidently crossed the line. I couldn’t imagine how Dad might suspect anything; we had been excruciatingly formal at the station. “Gwyne?”
I looked up. Dad had come back. “Stay away from him.”
I just stared at him, not saying a word. I didn’t ask who, and that told him everything he needed to know.
Chapter 12
I pushed open the drapes and looked out to check the weather. We had gotten a heavy snow overnight. Even though I lived in the city, I’d never lost that child’s awe at the first snow. This was one of the few times that New York City was truly clean and pure. The traffic would eventually darken the snow, and that’s how it remained until the spring rains took it away.
It would be Christmas soon. Dad and I had dinner at the Carleton on Thanksgiving. It had been a somber affair, but neither of us were big on cooking and this just seemed much easier. It was a beautiful hotel; a mixture of rich gangsters during Prohibition and a modern, European elegance. Only a place like the Carleton could pull that off. Just going there was more of a treat than the meal.
I had begun taking my laptop to the firehouse with me. Dad said he would let me know when I could do a ride-along; not every call was suitable. He knew what I was after and I trusted him.
I sat in the lunch room and joshed with the guys, but mostly wrote. I spotted Sean from time to time, but he seemed to always choose a route that was circuitous to where I sat. I could tell he was under orders from Dad and I knew what was at stake, so I said nothing.
Nothing is perhaps the most difficult thing there is to say. It can be so misinterpreted, sometimes signifying indifference and yet other times, it meant you had such a huge comment to share that you knew you had to keep it to yourself. The latter was true in this case. It was immensely taxing, particularly for someone who made their living with words.
Just when I was about to give up, the call came. The siren screamed and 9-1-1 was announcing the location and type of fire. The men were scrambling and Chet ran by me, motioning me to come along. I ran for my clothes and made it in the nick of time. They drove more than the main engine, so I knew this one was big. There would be plenty of people standing around. It wasn’t until we were careening down the middle of traffic that I remembered I’d left my notebook behind. At least I had my phone; I could make recordings of interviews and my own comments with that.
The location turned out to be at the outer edge of our district; in fact, the neighboring district had been called in as well. It was an apartment building, set back from the street and in general, filled with low-income residents. There appeared to be a mixture of languages, ages, and ethnicities. As I’d been trained to do, I corralled the residents into one area, isolating them from passersby and the curious. People were screaming, crying… their arms reaching out toward the burning building.
I went from person to person, asking whether their entire family had escaped with them. I saw it become readily apparent which families were whole: they clung together and merely cried as their life’s possessions either turned to ash or were doused by the massive water hoses.
One woman, however, was screaming and pointing to the building. She was shrieking in Spanish and someone was holding her back physically.
“Juan! Juanito! Mi pobrecito!” she shrieked as she fought off the restraining hands. I quickly grabbed her hands and got into her face.
“Someone, translate!” I ordered. “Is there someone left in the building?” I asked.
The man holding her repeated my question in Spanish.
“Sí! Sí! Juanito!”
“How old? What is your apartment number?”
The man translated and I took off with the information to find someone. It was utter havoc: hoses lying over hoses, men shouting and breaking out axes and breathing tanks. Since the building was located so far back from the street, the trucks had to run their extension ladders as far as they’d reach, and then it was a floor-by-floor search. This was the worst situation that could happen. I tripped over a hose and went down and men ran over the top of me. In the darkness that had fallen and the snow that had begun to fall, they didn’t know I was a female and assumed I would get up and head toward the building.
When finally I did get up, I staggered closer to the entrance, looking desperately for one of Dad’s men. I never realized that in this kind of havoc, everyone looked the same. It was only the insignia on their helmet that marked their district.
I moved closer to the building, thinking that we were the first company there and someone must be inside. Men were running in and out and someone shouted at me to help man the hose. I agreed, thinking at least it kept me up front where I could grab someone I recognized. I knew no one from another district would pay attention to me; they would surely see I was female and think I was impersonating as a joke.
All I could think of was the boy or man trapped inside. They didn’t know he was in there. I didn’t have time for hoses. Dropping my grip, I raced to the doorway of the building and shouted. “13th District! Help! Victim trapped!!”
He came from the only shadows that could possibly still exist in the burning building. I felt him before I saw him, scooping me up and running from the flames. “Gwyne, are you crazy! You could have been killed!”
“Sean! Sean! Put me down! There’s someone trapped inside! His name is Juan, and I’m not sure if he speaks English. A woman among the residents is screaming for him—they’re holding her back.
Sean instantly put me down, then looked over his shoulder and back at me as though torn in decision. He was a fireman, though, and I understood. “Get back to the street and get everyone down the block! This place is ready to go down!” he screamed and tapping his shoulder radio, said something briefly before he commandeered a fire hose and headed back to the building.
I felt caught, in shock, and unsure what to do. Whether it was training or genetics, I snapped into action and made my way hurriedly toward the group of residents, huddling in the snow. “Everyone…” I addressed them with a bullhorn. “I need you to move away immediately. Please follow the direction I’m waving to and move down the street. This building is unstable and could come down at any moment. We’re going to need to pull our trucks into the areas where you’re standing,” I motioned down the street and then made a herding motion wit
h my arm. To my surprise, whether it was my gear or my attitude, people began to move. “Calmly, but quickly, folks. Move down the street.” They followed my direction.
It wasn’t long after they vacated that instead of pulling the trucks into the yard, they backed off, almost as if to shelter the residents. The apartment building began to collapse, each floor slamming into the one below. From amidst the holocaust emerged a figure carrying a limp body. The collapse triggered an explosion and the two were propelled forward by the blast. Firefighters ran to help them, half carrying, half dragging them toward the street.
It was most likely the missing Juan, and the firefighter who had carried him was Sean.
Chapter 13
There is a brotherhood among firefighters. It supersedes even personal lives. Perhaps it’s because they must depend upon one another for survival, or perhaps it’s because of the, “There, but for the grace of God…” feeling. Regardless, the newer recruits were assigned to the majority of station duties while the regulars took turns visiting Sean in the hospital.
Sean had searched the building for Juan and finally found him, collapsed alongside the staircase. He shielded him from the flames with his jacket and passed along his respirator as he had run down the stairs. Juan, also hospitalized, was being treated for smoke inhalation, but Sean’s injuries were more serious.
He had sustained second degree burns over his back and third degree on his arms, having removed his fire clothing to protect Juan. The fire had consumed the oxygen in the building, leaving Sean’s unprotected lungs filled with carbon monoxide. He lay in the ICU in St. Mary’s and the guys from the station were visiting in small shifts. I had been assured that he would recover, but for the shorter term, he was susceptible to infection and needed to be kept under observation. I was torn between wanting to sit in vigil at his bedside and using his hospitalization as proof to my dad that there was nothing between Sean and myself. It was torture.
My dad, having seen the danger in my being at the scene of a fire, decided my career as a firefighting reporter was done. He wouldn’t back down on that—and believe me when I say I used every technique I had in my bag. He was adamant.
I made the most of what I’d witnessed that night, and in true, journalistic style, stretched it into a series. I followed up on Juan, and on his mother. She knew her neighbors and by the time everything was said and done, I’d spun quite a nice series, if I say so myself. Even though Dad heard quite a few compliments on my work, he was firm: I was not permitted on any more firetrucks.
That didn’t, however, preclude my being a bystander.
Dad was used to protecting me. I couldn’t blame him for that. However, he forgot that his daughter could be every bit as stubborn as he. After all… I was his daughter.
* * *
I entered a new chapter of my life. I called St. Mary’s daily until they told me that Sean was no longer a patient there, so I knew he was on the mend. I didn’t dare go by the station, and it wouldn’t have done any good regardless because I knew it would be some time before he was healed enough to return to work. I knew he would be in financial straits as even if he were totally unable to work, his benefits would be roughly four hundred dollars a week. That was nothing in New York City. Once he went back to work, even at minimum of hours, that would drop by half. I ached to reach out and help him, but I knew if Dad caught me, it would mean the end of his job entirely and he’d be off limits to me by his sheer inability to stay in the City.
Once my firefighter series had petered out, I knew it was time to have a talk with John Warner. He was waiting for me.
“So? What now, kid?” He was leaning back in his old, wooden desk chair, the seat of which had long been polished by the fabric of his pants. The ever-present cigar was clutched in his mouth. I pondered whether his lips would ever again be capable of closing entirely – or, whether, like orthodontics, the cigar had re-shaped his mouth. “You did a damned fine job on that series – drove circulation up by five percent. You’re not lookin’ for a raise, are you?” his voice was filled with suspicion as he sat forward suddenly and peered at me over the stacks of unread papers upon his desk.
“No, no raise. I do have a proposal for you, though. I think I found my niche, Mr. Warner.” I always used his last name as it was not only respectful, but generally derived a better outcome.
“Oh, what’s that?”
“I’d like to write human-interest stories on a regular basis. There is more to be written on the firefighters, but also the police, ambulance drivers, medical professionals in general, people who run homeless shelters, you get the idea.”
“You don’t have a dad who happens to be a cop and an ambulance driver, do you?”
I laughed: a symbol of cheer in the dismal world that I wanted to explore. “No, only the one dad, but it did teach me that there’s a way to get to the real stories that turn hearts into mush. I look at it as the opposite pole to the Internet and its unprincipled, socially-correct world that’s impossible to maintain.” I knew this would get to him – if there was anything John Warner hated, it was the Internet. It had turned pimply-faced eight-year-olds in South Korea into blogging reporters and on-the-scene, live eyes. It had seriously dented the idea of the true journalistic ideals that had kept the profession sanctified over the centuries.
He responded just as I’d hoped he would. “Think you can get to the grit?” he stared at me, and had this been my first time at the John Warner circus, I might have been intimidated.
“I know I can,” I affirmed. There was nothing wishy-washy about me when I had my mind made up.
He considered me a few seconds and then nodded. “Go for it.” With that, he motioned me out and returned to his papers.
I gave Martha a grin as I glided out of the office. I had all the enthusiasm of the child who had been excused from school to clean up the candy store.
Chapter 14
After my brush with disaster at the fire, I decided that the police department was probably not the best move for my next assignment. I decided to begin the next series at the homeless shelters around the city. These were easy to find and although there certainly was an element of danger to be found there, it was less than being shot at in a drive-by in gang territory.
I spent a few days at the library researching anything that pre-dated the Internet in print. I wanted to know all the regulations that covered the shelters and how they had come to be. New York City had long had a segment of its population that simply had run out of luck and had nowhere to go.
It took a Danish immigrant to begin documenting the city’s homeless, at that time restricted to what was known as the Bowery – hence the first Bowery Mission. Then came The Great Depression and the Hoovervilles, which appeared to fill Central Park. The Bowery claimed the long-term reputation – although many people, primarily men, ended up in the police stations for the night. Therefore, the people in shelters were a mixed bag. Some were simply down on their luck, while others had criminal pasts, and yet others weren’t entirely sane. It was not a preferred place to be. Which is exactly why I decided to spend the night in one.
* * *
I allowed a few days to get ready for my “investigative fact-finding” as I referred to my next series when calling into the office. They had no clue what was on the way, but John Warner seemed conservatively impressed enough to let me do as I wished. I quit bathing, letting my hair become oily. I didn’t brush it and worked up a good sweat a few times a day to add to the authenticity. This was December in New York City, and sweating came at a price. I chose to work out in the bay of my firehouse. I found an old sweatshirt and jeans that had non-designer holes in them, working out and rolling around in whatever greasy coating still remained on the concrete floor. I methodically shagged the ends of my strawberry-blonde hair, formerly waist-length and now somewhere down the middle of my back in an irregular fringe. I found a store that specialized in actors’ makeup, and although I meticulously removed all my make-up, I gave myse
lf some dark circles below my eyes. I was already fairly thin and found a backpack at a Goodwill. Underwear that was ill-fitting and suitably worn, and a crumpled Dodgers cap completed my outfit. I couldn’t carry my phone and certainly no money, so this was truly to be an adventure of guts.
The day had arrived. I’d been staking out my mission of choice for a few days, observing the regulars and overhearing what was asked of them as they entered. Everyone was frisked and some appeared totally out of it. I had decided that I would be mute – saving myself the laborious task of explaining everything. I carried a pencil and a torn flap from a cardboard box and wrote my communications there, careful to misspell words. Just before I left the station, I knew Dad would have a fit if he caught me doing this.
I sat outside the mission on a bench for some time. It was approaching the time they opened the doors, and like crows gathering on a phone wire, the homeless began to appear from between building shadows. Some looked like everyone else you saw on the busy sidewalks during the day. They tended to look nervous, their eyes darting around as if they were about to be robbed, or worse. Some herded children, particularly the women. I guessed many of these were abused women. I knew the shelter wouldn’t permit children – they’d be sent to a special facility, which meant mother and children would be separated. That could cause a woman the terror of deciding whether to allow her children to be handed over to strangers, or to try and protect them on the street this cold, December night. Although I wasn’t a mother, I could identify with that torturous decision. Not only did the mission provide a cot out of the cold, but hot food. No mother could deny her child food, or they would be removed from her permanently by child protective services.
