Chapter One
Well, anyway. I thought I'd transcribe some stuff here between jobs. One of the guys thinks I ought to write a book. "Yeah," I told him. "A book about what? My love life? Two chapters long and mostly blank." He thought that was pretty funny. Bastard. He thinks everything's funny as long as it's not on him.
I suppose this is the part where I tell you about who I am and what I do. My name is John Sullivan. I'm a firefighter. There. Is that enough? I suppose not. I really ought to give you a little more background, maybe the standard opening paragraphs about being a kid in Cleveland, about the family, about my hopes, dreams, what drove me to become a firefighter.
Nah. You don't want to hear that. So what I will tell you about is what happened last December on Buckeye Road.
We were putting out a warehouse fire. Since the Buckeye neighborhood went downhill, what you have is a lot of empty warehouses, factories and storage facilities on the outskirts of a residential area. It used to be a pretty profitable business district, and the residential area was filled with people who worked in these buildings or in the steel mills down in the Flats. Now it's pretty much abandoned. Nobody lives here who doesn't have to. You have elderly homeowners, out-of-work tenants, Section 8 tenants and people who somehow get by without jobs or welfare, mostly running numbers or other petty racketeering, though there are a few drug dealers. Something for everybody. The neighborhood used to be mostly Polish, but now it's a few older Polish, mostly poor people, white and black, and a few Asians. Asians are the new black in this neighborhood.
Anyway. We get the call to go to this old metal stamping plant off Buckeye over by 55th. We get there, it's about 2 a.m. on a nasty, chilly, raw night, the kind only Cleveland can produce in December. There's a standpipe for the pump hookup but no way to tell if it's patent; that is, if it's clear. There's a hydrant on the street, too, but obviously the standpipe, being closer to the building, would make this easier. We're in no hurry -- there hasn't been anyone inside this building for ten years -- at least not anyone who's supposed to be.
We're not supposed to go inside an abandoned building, particularly factories or warehouses, because they can collapse in an instant, killing an entire crew. It's not like an apartment building where you have to go crawling around making sure there are no kids hiding in closets, elderly people passed out, so forth. So we assume we're not going in. We are going to hook up, get a couple nozzles inside, break open the roof so there's no implosion, get the bastard under control, see what we've got, maybe then go in if there's still a hot spot. This is not urgent work, but we have to do it, and if we're lucky, this standpipe is clear and it won't take us long to get this under control, take up and get out of there.
So we have Cullen, one of the cadets, jump off the truck -- cadets are probationary firefighters, and we usually graciously assign them the shit detail -- we say it's so they'll learn, which is partly true, but also because everyone has to pay their dues and so the pain in the ass stuff falls to the last hired. It's also least hazardous, so there are tradeoffs. The cadet grabs a wrench, goes over to check out the standpipe, and shouts, "Chief! There's somebody in the building!"
Jesus Christ. This is not good news, because we can tell by the way this is burning that it's probably arson and probably burning pretty hot and that it is probably not the ideal place to be, either for anyone inside or for us. It is also an older building, mostly lathe and plaster, wood joists and beams with a brick front, and it is going to go quickly.
Anyway -- Well, goddammit, do you believe that? There goes the callbox. I gotta go. I'll finish this when we get back. Hope this isn't a long one, because I haven't eaten yet. More later.
I suppose this is the part where I tell you about who I am and what I do. My name is John Sullivan. I'm a firefighter. There. Is that enough? I suppose not. I really ought to give you a little more background, maybe the standard opening paragraphs about being a kid in Cleveland, about the family, about my hopes, dreams, what drove me to become a firefighter.
Nah. You don't want to hear that. So what I will tell you about is what happened last December on Buckeye Road.
We were putting out a warehouse fire. Since the Buckeye neighborhood went downhill, what you have is a lot of empty warehouses, factories and storage facilities on the outskirts of a residential area. It used to be a pretty profitable business district, and the residential area was filled with people who worked in these buildings or in the steel mills down in the Flats. Now it's pretty much abandoned. Nobody lives here who doesn't have to. You have elderly homeowners, out-of-work tenants, Section 8 tenants and people who somehow get by without jobs or welfare, mostly running numbers or other petty racketeering, though there are a few drug dealers. Something for everybody. The neighborhood used to be mostly Polish, but now it's a few older Polish, mostly poor people, white and black, and a few Asians. Asians are the new black in this neighborhood.
Anyway. We get the call to go to this old metal stamping plant off Buckeye over by 55th. We get there, it's about 2 a.m. on a nasty, chilly, raw night, the kind only Cleveland can produce in December. There's a standpipe for the pump hookup but no way to tell if it's patent; that is, if it's clear. There's a hydrant on the street, too, but obviously the standpipe, being closer to the building, would make this easier. We're in no hurry -- there hasn't been anyone inside this building for ten years -- at least not anyone who's supposed to be.
We're not supposed to go inside an abandoned building, particularly factories or warehouses, because they can collapse in an instant, killing an entire crew. It's not like an apartment building where you have to go crawling around making sure there are no kids hiding in closets, elderly people passed out, so forth. So we assume we're not going in. We are going to hook up, get a couple nozzles inside, break open the roof so there's no implosion, get the bastard under control, see what we've got, maybe then go in if there's still a hot spot. This is not urgent work, but we have to do it, and if we're lucky, this standpipe is clear and it won't take us long to get this under control, take up and get out of there.
So we have Cullen, one of the cadets, jump off the truck -- cadets are probationary firefighters, and we usually graciously assign them the shit detail -- we say it's so they'll learn, which is partly true, but also because everyone has to pay their dues and so the pain in the ass stuff falls to the last hired. It's also least hazardous, so there are tradeoffs. The cadet grabs a wrench, goes over to check out the standpipe, and shouts, "Chief! There's somebody in the building!"
Jesus Christ. This is not good news, because we can tell by the way this is burning that it's probably arson and probably burning pretty hot and that it is probably not the ideal place to be, either for anyone inside or for us. It is also an older building, mostly lathe and plaster, wood joists and beams with a brick front, and it is going to go quickly.
Anyway -- Well, goddammit, do you believe that? There goes the callbox. I gotta go. I'll finish this when we get back. Hope this isn't a long one, because I haven't eaten yet. More later.
posted by CB | 1:34 AM
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