The Boy [mxb]

4

The blaring of air horns and wail of the Q-sirens ring shrill as I pull onto the scene of the biggest barbecue in New York history.

A conglomerate of red vehicles with gold and white stripes and emblazoned on the side, lights sending off bright shocks of red and yellow in the evening darkness.

NYPD, EMS, FDNY, even the FBI are here.

I make out heavy fire through the roof, twenty foot flames.

"Fair warning," I gruff to my terrified probie. "You might see your first-ever fatality today."

I jump out of the car. As soon as I hit the ground, I'm flanked by emergency personnel who start filling me in as I put on gear. Ken is among them.

"We have three L/S/O, Primaries on the fire floor are complete and negative, command channel has been established, fire is DWH..."

"Class," I ask as I shrug into black, neon-green-striped jacket with ROMANO emblazoned on the bottom.

"One," Ken supplies, marching briskly to keep pace with me.

"Attack stairway?"

"We've got standpipe on stair A," another answers.

"Firetower-"

"Evacuation stair B-"

"Access stairs?"

"Seven, eight. Retail first floor."

"Chief fire marshal ETA?"

"Now."

I nod.

In the distance, I spot senior firefighter Hayes, Lieutenant's right hand man, communicating orders over the PA. The battalion chief is lifting the crime scene tape for the firefighters to pass under. A large crowd has gathered on the scene, held back by the crime scene tape. Some of them are being interviewed by the PD. Normally when there's a minor fire and we're out there manning the fire hydrant, people are on their phones recording us and whistling about New York's finest. Today, every face in the crowd is somber.

News anchors are set up just off the scene, reporting on the horrific accident into their microphones.

Extraction equipment and EDBAs are handed out. I am in full hazmat with a face mask and two compressed air cylinders now.

Inside, I turn my helmet light on and assess my surroundings. The smell is like blood and oil tank and of, course, thick smoke, even through my BA. It's dark with thick plumes of smoke, save for the beams of light emanating from my helmet.

It was a deadly struggle for this one. The gruesome state of the body is difficult to convey in words. I look for identification on the victim, finding a wallet.

My heart and my muscles ache as I help carry the body from the wreckage to the road via backboard. It's about forty-five feet. I'm meet with screaming and crying. The body is handed off to the JP to declare DOA.

Then we head back inside to continue. Ken's dark brow is slick with sweat when he looks at me. We're a brotherhood. We've got each other's backs and that keeps us moving on ahead through this high-stress operation. We've got to get everyone out, dead or alive, in under an hour or our air runs out.

We're pulling the tenth dead body out and the atmosphere is dark and dreary, clouds piling in, the promise of thunder potent and crackling in the air, fire still blazing despite our efforts, people screaming and panicking. I have about ten minutes of air left, and now I'm being told this place is going to blow. They want us to evacuate all personnel from the building. But I know I've heard calls from help over the din.