On this last morning of the first year of the new century, the sun was trying to crash through the thick clouds blanketing the South Bronx. Inside the five boroughs’ busiest firehouse, Conor Kilcullen was sipping coffee and about to sink his teeth into a bagel when three air horn blasts shattered the silence. The house watchman’s voice thundered over the intercom: “Everybody goes! Truck, engine, and chief! Everybody goes! Get out! Get out! Get out!”
Three more deafening air horn blasts followed, and more than a dozen firefighters leaped from the dayroom’s dining tables. The two giant apparatus doors lifted. The Brothers scrambled to don their boots and turnout gear before vaulting onto their two weathered red rigs. As their sirens roared through the second intersection, the dispatcher reported children possibly trapped.
In the distance, thick, ugly smoke painted the cloudy morning sky with black ink. The Brothers rounded a corner minutes later to flames roaring from a ground floor window.
“We have a 10-75, working fire,” Lieutenant Mitchell transmitted to the dispatcher.
“Ten-four, Ladder 60,” dispatcher 330 responded. “Alert all incoming units. We have a 10-75 in the borough of the Bronx.”
The officer replaced the voice piece, rotated his body, and hammered his fist on the Plexiglas separating him from his crew.
“We’ve got a job!”
Conor slipped his arms through the straps of his self-contained breathing apparatus, fastened the harness to his waist. Although he wasn’t green enough to turn his air on before entering the blazing apartment, last-minute nerves drove of his three fingers to routinely tap his air valve.
The ritual complete, he clutched his tools, sprang from the truck, and raced toward the involved apartment. A roaring tongue of flame from the first-floor window painted the second floor’s brick edifice a coal black. Despite the danger, Conor’s eyes sparked a gleam of recognition, and a slight tremor teased his face.
My parents lived in an apartment just like this. I can find my way around in that room blindfolded.
By the time a line was stretched and the front door forced, Conor calculated that any possible survivors would be lost. He also knew he couldn’t start a search through the window next to the flames. If he broke that glass, the fire would chase the oxygen and fill that void, cutting off any escape.
If he leaped directly through the fire window and hugged the wall, the fire would seek the open window above him, its least resistance. Remembering the dispatcher’s warning that children might be trapped, Conor had an edge and decided to use it. He vaulted the sill, recklessly vanishing into the flames.
“Holy shit, Lieu! Get water on that fire fast!” Pete screamed, his face reflecting red from the blaze. “Conor’s jumped through the fire window!”
The engine lieutenant cursed from the cab. “Jesus Christ, even a fuckin’ probie knows better than to start a search without a charged line in place.” He yelled to his crew. “Stretch a hose! Get me water—fast!”
Snaking their hose lengths toward the building’s entrance, Engine 17 charged into action. The chauffeur hooked the pumper to the nearest hydrant while his boss screamed, “Come on! Come on! Move it. We have a fireman in trouble!”
Not at death’s door but hardly safe, Conor had rolled below the window, and the flames hungering for oxygen were licking and bellowing skyward above him. A blast of radiant heat burnt his ears, driving his chin even farther to the floorboards. He had gambled that his turnout coat would protect him from the intense heat, but he had forgotten to pull down the earflaps lining his helmet.
Crawl left or right? A closet or a bathroom where a child might hide should be opposite the window.
The flashlight attached to his helmet speared a dull beam through the thick smoke. Conor slithered slowly and sightlessly to his right, his gloved hand tapping the wall for guidance. He crawled away from the fire-breathing window, past the closed window, and into the heart of the darkness.
His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he thought his ribs would break. His eyes were pressed shut, maybe because they were useless, or maybe, — like the metaphorical atheist in a foxhole,– he was praying. One thing was certain–,he had better make a fast search and get the hell out of there. If radiant heat blew out that second window, he was fried.
Raining down on him, plaster, shards, and burning hot embers forced his nose ever closer to the floor. Whatever little visibility he had was at ground level. Through the blinding smoke, he could still spot hungry orange rivulets of fire glowing along the ceiling’s length.
Groping slowly, he could almost taste the acrid, black gas through his mask. The wall made a left angle and he gained a splinter of hope. Conor quickened his pace.
I’ve got to glue the pattern of the wood floor planks to my brain. If I get disoriented, at least I’ll know whether I’m crawling parallel or perpendicular to that window.
The flashlight lit a foggy, soft glow into the shadows. Conor’s left hand dragged the wooden hook and the heavy, steel Halligan tool, while his right hand splayed the floor for balance, his elbows inching ahead of his knees, the little muscles in his hands and thighs twitching and dripping sweat.
Conor’s stomach seemed to be jarred loose, his heart rattling inside his ribs. The eerie silence made him think his ears had failed him until he heard the measured sounds of his own breathing. Then out of the tomb-like silence, he perceived a voice, almost like an open-mouthed statue laughing at his recklessness. No sound, just a voice taunting him that he had overplayed his hand.
He inched farther and farther, absolutely convinced he was about to die until he stumbled upon a miracle. The tip of his nose almost smacked into a small metal wheel. A wooden leg seemed to climb from it.
Was he lucky enough to have found a crib?
Shimmying the wood, his gloved hand probed between the slats and felt a bump in the bedding. He stood, held his breath, and lifted his facepiece.
Holy shit! A baby.
He let his tools slide to the floor, unclipped his turnout coat, and wrapped the infant inside. Any second now, the engine company would burst through the front door, open their hose, and turn the living room into white-hot punishing steam. The silent voice from the darkness reminded him that, if the blistering heat blew out that second window, both he and the child would be memories.
It’s gonna be a crapshoot to get out of here. Stay calm, Conor.
The atmosphere had become so toxic that his eyes were useless, but he knew that if he cut vertically across the horizontal pattern of the wood floor, he should find his way out.
Waving like a blind man, Conor could hear the crackling and slavering of the hungry flames devouring what was left of the room’s oxygen. With his left forearm cradling the baby and the fingers of that forearm clutching the tools, he probed the darkness with his right hand and tiptoed gingerly, almost glacially, until a shrill alarm shattered the silence. His heart rose to his mouth, a throbbing pulse pounding at his throat.
Shit, only a few minutes of air left. You got this, Conor. Don’t panic. Slow your breathing. Drop back to the floor. Tap above your head at window level.
He let his knees collapse, hugged the limp baby tighter to his chest, and began crawling and tapping, crawling and tapping.
If I don’t find this window fast, we’re screwed. Is this poor little thing dead already? Should I risk a few precious seconds to stick my mouth over its face?
He kept inching and feeling, scrabbling and sensing.
The hell with it. Maybe I should just stand, make a run for it, and just pray that I don’t trip over the furniture. If that window breaks, we’re dead, anyway.
When the wall turned again, he chanced it. He thumped the corner and sprang, his gait morphing into long quick strides. After three, his gloved hand struck gold.
Thank God, the windowsill.
Even though the glass was black, soft, and weak, Conor was left-handed and wasn’t sure his right hand had the strength to take out the entire pane. With the fire still roaring from the adjacent window, he had to bail out fast but couldn’t expose the child to more gases.
His right hand weakly swung the steel Halligan bar: nothing.
I might have to risk placing the baby on the ground.
Summoning strength he didn’t know he had, the glass burst mercifully into the street on his second swing. He ignored the pain of his singed ears and frantically pushed and pulled the heavy crowbar-like tool, knocking large shards of glass from the corners of the window frame.
A firefighter in the street ran to the hail of the broken glass, his six-foot hook gripping the window’s casement, the iron tip yanking again and again until the entire frame blew outwards. As dense smoke poured from the room, the yellow stars and blue circles of a child’s wallpaper materialized by the baseboard. He reached under his turnout coat and gently placed its precious contents into his comrade’s eager hands.
Garbled voices from the doorway caught his ear. The truck had forced the door, and the engine’s inch-and-three-quarter canvas line would soon advance, its heavy bolt of water ripping and churning into the guts of the fire, crashing, splashing, and carving a path through the thick smoke, pushing the boiling steam out of the living room window and into the crisp Bronx morning.
Conor jumped the sill and hit the pavement. He ripped off the facepiece of his spent air tank, collapsed onto the concrete, and hurled black phlegm from his mouth. Spread on all fours, the sidewalk a foot from his face, his heaving chest felt like shards of glass might have punctured his lungs. He puked the tar-colored poison into a pool of his own spittle.
Minutes later, his chin rose to the sound of the chauffeur’s voice.
“Nice grab, Conor. The kid’ s gonna make it.”
His blood surged to Jack’s welcome words, invigorating and intoxicating. The fast charge of adrenalin flew like an electric shock through him, sweeter than any rush he had ever felt from gambling, drugs, or sports.
Conor would not trade the thrill of that rescue to be the CEO of Goldman Sachs. In that one jubilant instant he understood, once again, why men chose this profession. He would chase this powerful, addictive dragon for the rest of his career.
