Storymania - The Fourth Floor Landing by J. Michael Kearney

The Fourth Floor Landing (1)
J. Michael Kearney

The Fourth Floor Landing

“Ah yes. The honored dead.” intoned Captain Anthony J. Malleo as he entered quarters for the first time, on that overcast April Monday in 1988 and gazed upon the wall of honor.
The Captain was a ruddy faced man of medium height, with thinning hair and expansive proportions. The polite term would be stocky. In his right hand he carried a large red nylon bag with FDNY (Fire Dept. City of N. Y.) printed on the side. The kind that unassigned officers use to transport their work duty uniforms from firehouse to firehouse. In his left hand he held a small bronze statuette of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima
“What an asshole!” Walt Gertz muttered in response, just loud enough for me to hear. Walt wasn’t really talking to me, I just happened to be the only other firefighter in housewatch at the time.
The Captain, oblivious to Walt’s remark, still stared at the six plaques hanging on the North wall of Ladder Fifty-Seven’s side of the firehouse. Each one dedicated to a member of the company, who lost his life in the line of duty. On the South wall of the apparatus floor hung 25 Unit Citations, dating as far back as 1967. A dank setting for such a hallowed memorial. On the other side of the housewatch lay Ninety-Eight Engine’s bay, similarly decorated. The Engine’s side had two plaques hanging on its North wall and fourteen Unit Citations on its South.
“That’s what this job’s all about.” Declared Malleo, finally turning his gaze from the plaques.
The apparatus floor was a drab, gray place where it always felt like dusk. The weather, on that April 11th, did nothing to counter this effect. The gray cement floor and the cardboard colored walls delivered all the charm of an overcast winter’s afternoon. The wall tiles were originally a very light yellow, but years of exposure to diesel exhaust had turned them a muddy brown. The covers of the overhead florescent lights were similarly soiled, adding to the cave-like ambiance.
“Yes,” he continued, musing out loud to no one in particular, “no matter what these guys were like in life, they’re heroes forever, now. Even the most obnoxious and overbearing prick alive, is turned “colorful” by death. Once dead, the most despised amongst us, is suddenly sorely missed, especially by those who could barely tolerate him just days, perhaps even hours ago! Here’s your proof,” he declared nodding toward the plaques, “that one act can define your entire life.”
Walt shook his head but said nothing.
“The supreme sacrifice gentlemen,” the Captain went on, addressing us directly for the first time. “That’s what sets this job apart, men willing to put their lives on the line for people they don’t even know.”
Walt Gertz glared at him, but Tony Malleo didn’t seem to notice. I silently nodded my head, not knowing what else to do.
“I’m the new Captain of Ladder 57, Anthony Malleo. I’ve been looking forward to working here for a long time.” He ignored Walt’s wince and continued, “Engine Nine Eight and Ladder Five Seven, South Bronx! Busiest house in the City last year, right?”
“Yeah,” replied Walt, “but you know what they say about statistics and lies...Cap.” straining the words through clenched teeth.
The new Captain hesitated as he looked around once again at the dreary surroundings, perhaps hoping he’d overlooked some charm.
“I heard you guys were expecting Tommy Keating. A good man. He had more points than I did, but hey, downtown owed me a favor. What can I say?” He let his voice trail off. Then spinning around and heading for the stairs he added, “I’ll be down for the start of the start of the tour at 1800. There’ll be a roll call. I like to have roll calls when I work.”
“ROLL CALL!” Walt huffed after the Captain climbed the stairs. “I’ve been here fifteen years and we’ve never had a roll call. This guy’s messed up.”
“Hey, we don’t even know him.” I countered. “In Brooklyn, they have roll calls at the start of every tour. He probably figures it’s the best way to put names to all the new faces. He might be better than you think.”
“This ain’t Brooklyn and please, ‘the suu-preeem sacra-fyse?’” Walt sneered sarcastically. “That guy can make a tragic death sound like a voluntary act. I’ll bet every one of the almost 750 guys who died on this job had something to do the next day. They had plans. They had lives, that none of’em wanted to sacrifice.”
“Hey Walt! Every one of those plaques uses that very same phrase.” I could see that my devil’s advocate act was grating his nerves. “Take that one at the bottom;

“In memory of Firefighter First Grade
Arthur Blake
who made the supreme sacrifice in the performance of his duties
at Box 22-2758 on March 23rd, 1985.”

“Those damned plaques are part of the problem.” Snarled Walt, “People come in here, see those plaques and imagine fictitious characters...made for TV heroes. They say those plaques immortalize you. The hell they do. Who remembers the guys? What’s immortalized is one tragic event, not the person, just the death.
“Well, I knew Artie Blake.” Walt went on, “He was a great guy and a real good fireman. You could always count on Artie. He was always willing to help out with anything. He was a roofer on the side. He helped put new roofs on the houses of at least thirty guys who’ve worked in this place over the years.
Artie used to smoke like chimney. The one constant thing around here in those days was the red glow of Artie Blake’s cigarette on the way back from every run.
“And Artie had a real temper too.” Walt continued, “He was a hell raiser alright. Couldn’t fight worth a lick but he’d never back down. I’d bet he lost fifty fights around here in his sixteen years. Artie Blake could get into a fight in an empty room.” Walt laughed at over the memory, “Anyway, that’s how I remember Art Blake, as a real person, not some fictitious super-hero.”
I nodded absently, imagining Walt getting along easily with a character like that. The guys around here now call Walt, “Mister hate.”
He paused, as if lost in his own thoughts for a moment. Then suddenly resumed. “You know how he died?” He immediately answered his own question. “He was pulling ceilings on the first floor of a vacant building. They were overhauling, really. The fire was pretty much out, when the floor collapsed underneath him, plunging him down into the cellar. He got caught up in some B/X cable and his neck was snapped. How’s that for a waste of life? A vacant building and the fire, already out. Forty-three years old. A wife and three kids left behind.”
Shaking my head, I got up to leave the housewatch area. I called over my shoulder, “Hey Walt, I’m goin’ back to the kitchen to see if they need a hand in there.”
“Yeah, go ahead.” he rasped “I’m surprised they haven’t been looking for you yet.”
I started back toward the kitchen and passed the plaques again. Working in this house, you pass them at least twenty times a tour. Every time I’ve walked by, I’ve read those six names, to myself. There’s Doug McCaffrey, who died on May 3rd, 1928; Thomas A. Townsend, who died on July 22nd, 1932; Irwin Steltzer, November 17th, 1947; Kevin J. Deegan Jr., October 2nd, 1966; Michael D. Dunphy October 2nd, 1966; and Arthur Blake, March 23rd, 1985. Different men, from different generations and backgrounds, sharing merely, the unified field of common tragedy.

~

Over the nextt four and a half years, Walt Gertz’ dislike for the Captain only intensified, while the rest of the guys in Fifty-Seven Truck came to tolerate him at best. The Captain, a former college football player, with a penchant for fire stories and a flare for embellishment, never passed up an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. Around the firehouse he’d come to be nicknamed “Tony the Tiger.” He was the only one who didn’t seem to realize that it was total sarcasm.
Monday the 23rd of November 1992 had been a torturously slow day. The clock seemed to grind glacially toward the twenty-fourth. A hard driving rain had washed out the afternoon and given way to a cold, blustery, drizzle. Rainy nights are notoriously slow for Fire Departments everywhere.
Walter D. Gertz, a wiry, six foot four inch, one hundred and eighty two pound, fifteen-year veteran, was “the Irons Man” in Ladder 57 that night. I had “the Can.” Captain Malleo, Walt and I made up Fifty Seven's “Inside Team” for this tour. The Captain would bring his officer’s tool, a mini-halligan, and a dry cell flashlight with him. Walt would take “the irons,” an axe and a halligan tool (a 3' long piece of steel with a pike and an ads or flat blade at the top and a beveled fork at the bottom) used to force open doors. I’d take a two and a half gallon fire extinguisher (the “can”) and a wooden, six-foot hook to the door of a fire apartment, should we be called to do so.
Kevin and Rod made up “the Outside Team.” Kevin Keaton, burly and tattooed, had the OV or outside vent. He’s nicknamed “Tiny,” in the way that bikers call the biggest, meanest one among them “Tiny.” In fact, Kevin was a biker. He often rode his chrome plated Harley to work. The OV would check the rear of the building and then take the fire escape to the fire apartment’s window.
Rod Haynes, reed thin, as calm as a monk and coffee complexioned, had the Roof. He’d be responsible for opening up the bulkhead door or roof scuttle to relieve the smoke and heat inside. Both the Roof and OV carried metal six-foot hooks for opening up ceilings and walls, as well as a halligan tool for breaking locks. The “old man,” John McCarney, Ladder 57's chauffeur for the tour, would prepare to ladder the building as necessary and then assist the Outside team.
The crew was a fraternity of Catholic schoolboys, typical of the FDNY. John went to Cardinal Hayes. Both Keaton and Gertz are Bishop Loughlin alums. I went to Mssg. Farrell and Rod attended to St. Nicholas of Tolentine.
Walt had been in a foul, “I hate everybody” mood since the start of the tour at 1800 hours. The Captain had been getting on his nerves since he came in that evening. At 1808, Captain Malleo held his usual roll call and read out the nights riding positions in his best Marine Corps drill instructors voice. He stood, as was his custom, underneath the six plaques that hang off the North wall. Upon dismissing us, the Captain added his usual,
“Remember these guys were called upon to make the supreme sacrifice. Any one of us might be called upon to do the same.”
“These guys.” It makes you wonder if, after almost five years here, he even knows their names. If he does, he’s never let on. I do, and I know that Walt does too.
As we begin to break up, he turns abruptly and calls out,
“Oh! There’ll be a drill at 1930 hours in the kitchen gents. It’ll be on roof operations. Don’t be late.”
Then quoting from an engraved church pew, he claimed still hung off a wall, in the quarters of Ladder 15 in Harlem, where he worked as a fireman, he reverently intoned,
“Remember gentlemen, Lost opportunities never return.”
When we assembled for drill, the Captain spoke, standing near his favorite statuette. The one he brought with him that first day, depicting the Marines hoisting the U.S. flag on Mount Sirrabachi at Iwo Jima. “The Captain’s Holy Grail.” Whispered Keaton, to a chorus of snorts and snickers.
The Captain spun around red faced, veins bulging, demanding to know “What’s so God damned funny?”
In response, “Nothing’s” were murmured all around.
As he turned back to the diagram for the drill, Walt muttered, “When Tony looks in the mirror, he sees John Wayne, everybody else sees the Pillsbury dough boy.”
More laughter prompted a vexed Tony Malleo to glare around the kitchen. The Captain had no sense of humor when it came to Anthony J. Malleo, a/k/a “Tony the Tiger.”
“Look gents, roof operations are critical. Now, in order of most preferable to least, what are the routes to the roof that the roof-man should consider in accessing the roof of he fire building?”
No one volunteered an answer. Malleo’s face reddened and he quickly snapped, “Who’s the junior man?”
With my hand still on the table, I point to the ceiling. He nods in my direction and says “OK, tell us.”
“First an adjoining building or wing, the next choice is an aerial ladder and the last is a fire escape that goes to the roof.”
The Captain snapped back “Adjoining building or WING? Where did you get that from? That’s not in the books.”
Walt saw his opportunity to one up Tony the Tiger. “Cap, you’ve been in the Bronx for what, almost five years? In H-types we take the adjoining stairways most of the time. Goddamn! You should know that by now.”
“That’s not in the books Walt”
“Cap, we do things that are not in the books all the time,” replied Walt, “and you know it.”
“This is drill Mr. Gertz,” said the Captain, seeing his way out, “only by-the-book answers are acceptable in drill.”
With that the P.A. blared, “Truck officer Department phone! Truck officer Department phone!”
As the Captain got up to answer the phone, Walt announced “Saved by the bell.”
Immediately after drill, the meal was dished out. Engine Ninety-Eight was interrupted three times during dinner, while Ladder Fifty-Seven suffered only one interruption.
Ninety-Eight Engine, Ladder Fifty-Seven and the Twenty-Fifth Battalion shared this firehouse, located at 1243 Grant Avenue. Grant Avenue was a veritable prairie in the middle of the blighted Morrisannia section of the Bronx. There were only four buildings standing along the two-block area between 167th and 169th streets. Two at the corner of one six seven and Grant and two more at the corner of one six nine and Grant.
The next block East, Morris Avenue was only marginally better off. The buildings lining that block were shabby at best and no less than four vacant lots dot the landscape. The empty lots stood out like missing teeth.
So far, this chilly, drizzly November 23rd had been slow. Only three runs since six PM and not a worker in the bunch. As the clock took us into Tuesday morning, I took over the housewatch duties. I had the dreaded “Bomb,” or the midnight to three AM watch. So called, because whoever had “the Bomb” was usually expected to take the watch all the way through until the following morning.
Just past midnight, 0011 hours to be exact, the first run of Tuesday, November 24th, 1992, gave me a welcome reprieve from the boredom of housewatch duties. The tone alarm blared its piercing “binnnng-bonnng” throughout the firehouse. I pressed the “Alarm Lights” button, bathing every room in the building, in bright florescent light.
I read the teleprinter’s message aloud, over the house P.A. system, as the paper scrolled from the top of the computer.
“Both companies first due. Telephone alarm, Box 2472, 1049 Sheridan Avenue. Fire, apartment 5-B. Get out! Everybody goes, first due!” I rang out a quick succession of bells on the firehouse “still alarm,” signaling “everybody goes.”
Guys scrambled to the apparatus floor from all corners of the firehouse. Half of them slid the poles from the second floor bunk room, the rest piled out from either the kitchen or the TV room. We grabbed our nomex turnout coats and jumped on the rig.
In seconds, both Engine Ninety-Eight’s and Ladder Fifty-Seven’s diesel engines shrieked, then gurgled, before finally rumbling to life. Plumes of black diesel exhaust spewed forth from both rigs like great gobs of phlegm.
Before we were out of quarters, the dispatcher notified the incoming units, “We’re receiving numerous calls on this box. Indications of a working fire at that address. Fire is reported to be on the fourth floor. Callers in apartments 5-B, 3-D, 2-B and 2-C.”
We made a quick right out of quarters onto Grant Avenue and went one block south, before turning right onto 167th street.
The dispatcher added “You’re getting three and two and rescue number three on this box.”
The rig shuddered west along 167th street, toward Sherman Avenue and a whirling collage of storefronts and apartment buildings. That last transmission by the dispatcher told us that three Engine Companies (98, 51 and 66), two Ladders (57 and 21), the 25th Battalion as well as Rescue Three, were all responding to this box.
We could smell the smoke before we passed the corner of one six seven and Sherman and began fastening snaps and sliding our arms through the straps of our Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus’ (SCBA’s). One block later, we made a left onto Sheridan Avenue. Speeding down the block, we glimpsed a crowd of people in front of 1049 Sheridan Avenue, pointing up.
As we got off the rig, we could see thick black smoke puffing from two windows on the fourth floor of a six story, H-type multiple dwelling. I grabbed the can and my wooden, six-foot hook and chased Walter and the Captain into the building.
The three of us raced up the A-wing, while Rod Haynes started for the stairs on the opposite side of the building, or the B-wing. The building’s isolated stairs allowed him smoke free access to the roof. Kevin Keaton had already dropped the front fire escape’s drop ladder and begun his ascent toward the fire escape window of the stricken apartment.
On my way to the second floor, the smell of burning wood and plaster stung my eyes and scratched my throat, it only got worse from there. By the time we reached the third floor landing, the air was thick and dark. My eyes and nose were leaking faucets and my throat felt like it was stuffed with steel wool.
Suddenly, half blind, I bumped into the back of Walt’s, then the Captain’s Nomex coats. They were both stopped, one third of the way up to the fourth floor landing. Ahead of us, at the top of the stairs, swayed a large shape. I strained my watery eyes to make out a man...a very big man. At least as tall as Walt, but much heavier. Something in his right hand glistened through the smoke.
“He’s got a machete!” Whispered Captain Malleo, an octave higher than calm.
“Yeah, I can see that.” Muttered Walt moving a step forward.
“I’ll handle this!” Asserted the Captain, grabbing Walt’s left shoulder. Gertz turned to me shaking his head and raising his eyebrows, as the Captain ascended a couple of steps forward.
“Alright now, we’re the New York City Fire Department.” Bellowed the Captain, summoning up every ounce of his false bravado. “Everything’s gonna be alright. You can come down now.”
The hulking form weaved back and forth, as bilious clouds of dark poison swirled from the door behind him. He then raised his right arm menacingly and slurred,
“Yu nat comeen up heeer. Go’way!”
“Sir, we can’t go away.” Explained Captain Malleo, as if addressing a class of school children. “We’re here to put that fire out. Now get down here immediately and let us do our job.”
The unsteady figure stared at “Tony the Tiger” doubtfully for a few seconds, then spit out,
“Fack off! Yur nah comeeen up heeeya mudda farkas!”
The Engine Company began bunching up behind us with the hose line.
“What’s the friggin’ problem? Let’s GO!”
Captain Malleo turned and answered with one word, actually just three letters, “EDP.” (Emotionally Disturbed Person). As he clicked the Mic of his handie-talkie, Walt grabbed my hook with a flippant,
“Lemme see this a second.”
He slid by Malleo and confronted the machete man near the top of the stairs.
“Go’way mudda fak!” Shouted the hulk, raising the machete. “I mean it!”
Walt kept inching forward, “Whoah! Easy now partner.”
The Captain radioed to Tom McCarney, “Five Seven to Five Seven chauffeur. Transmit a 10-47. We’re gonna need PD for harassment. We have an armed civilian up here.”
Walt kept moving toward machete man, using the hook as a spear to back him up, all the time soothing him with a calm voice and sweet lies.
“Hey buddy, we’ve got no problem with you. Everything’s gonna be OK.”
Walt held the business end of the hook in his hand, so that the long wooden handle was between him and the behemoth.
He was on the fourth floor landing now, but machete man was tired of backing up. A few feet from his door, he screamed.
“Geddoudda heeeya! You wanna die?...You wanna die rye now?...I’m gonna cutchu up.”
With that he raised the machete and charged Walt.
Awaiting the hulks advance, Walter Gertz grabbed the hook with both hands. The far end of the hook now lay on the floor, in a gesture that looked like resignation or surrender. But as soon as the big man lumbered forward, Walt brought the hook’s wooden handle up between the man’s legs with a sudden violent motion. The wood found its mark with a sickening “THWACK!” The machete dropped from the giant’s right hand and he pitched forward with all the force of a felled tree. The entire event, which seemed to take forever, was actually over in less than thirty seconds.
As Ladder 21 moved past us to search the floors above the fire, I couldn’t help observing, “Son-offa-bitch Walt, Nice shot!”
Captain Malleo was not as pleased.
“Godammit Walt! You coulda got killed! The police are on the way. At least...at least we could have rushed him...all at once.”

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