by Damon Suede
“Copy.”
Shouting came from overhead. A pop-pop-pop as a couple windows blew out upstairs from the heat.
“10-45! I got one,” Watson belowed from above; it sounded like the dumbass wasn’t wearing his mask.
There was a low crack above them. A few ceiling tiles fel in a shower of sparks.
“The hel is going on up there?!” Siluski’s voice was hushed inside the mask. “Get low.” The pounding spray of water against the windows faltered. The guttural roar of the fire had changed pitch and the ceiling was hotter, the fire bluer. Footsteps thumped past overhead, and Dante shouted instructions far away.
Something heavy slammed down behind them and punched through to the floor below. A large hole in the ceiling between two beams was sucking air, churning the smoke, and feeding oxygen upwards. Through the impromptu chimney, they could hear Dante shouting instructions up on four loud and clear.
No mask either, fucking idiot.
“The hel was that?” The chief’s grim confusion was palpable.
Flame licked down the wals on the west side of the third floor halway. Plastic rubble popped and fried around them, running in stinking molten rivers that stuck to their boots.
The chief’s voice cracked on the radio. “You boys pul out! It’s too hot and we got a dead hydrant. Get out of there.”
“Lieutenant?” Griff’s gut tingled with certainty. “Hey! Siluski?”
“Copy that. Already on it.” Siluski nodded at Griff and pointed back the way they’d come. They crouched and hustled for the open door.
Outside, the halway was a jumble of paper and sheetrock. The air was starting to cook. Sounds filtered to them from the unreachable stairwel. Breaking glass overhead and someone screaming at Dante and Watson.
Siluski jerked his chin at Griff to hang back.
Navigating the smoky halway was like swimming in scalding mud. Griff’s breath hissed behind the rebreather. Even with the beams on their chests and the flame down the west wal, they were fumbling blind. Siluski tried to tug a toppled wal-sized cabinet out of their way with his haligan bar; it fel with a thud and threw up a cloud of sparks. Its drawers emptied files against the burning wal. No way could they go out the way they’d come.
“B-stairs.” Griff gestured, and they doubled back and headed for the door at the other end, crouched and kicking aside the boxes and charred drywal. Griff used his mass to plow through some of the debris toward that back exit. And then they were taking the stairs down three at a time. The bitch was chasing them and picking up speed.
THE chief was speaking to Siluski very calmly. “… some kinda accelerant. They want to torch TVs for the insurance, I’m not gonna lose good men over that bulshit.”
Without enough water to pour on the conflagration, the engine company was crippled. Briggs and the probie were standing at the back of the rig. The ladder was extended for a hose hanging limp with no water. The stink of scorched plastic clogged everyone’s noses.
Where the hel was Dante?
Siluski spat black at the ground. “Chief, there’s no one to grab! That hot and we’re supposed to go in with a limited crew to rescue cardboard boxes? Fuck that. It’s just overstock bulshit, and you better believe it’s insured.”
Feeling claustrophobic and impotent, Griff puled his own mask off and paced. Sweat ran down his face and throat as he looked up at the glare in the high windows. Dante and Watson were stil working their way down, taking their goddamn time.
Then a shout and Siluski trotted toward the door. Briggs folowed and the chief turned to look.
In the smoky entrance of the store, Watson was dragging someone, bracing the weight on his hip. His shout was muffled til he clawed the oxygen off. “Can I get a hand?” A scorched bum was dead weight against him, beard burned half off.
Relieved, Griff started walking toward him wanting to yel at someone. Dante stil wasn’t visible.
The chief was already caling the 10-45 before Watson even made it outside: fire-related injury.
EMS had their kits out; Tommy was trotting toward Watson to take over.
The homeless man had puked down his own front and one side of Watson.
“I lost Anastagio!” Watson’s eyes were bloodshot under the soot. “Trying to get this genius to the stairwel.” Griff’s heart squeezed. “What do you mean, lost?”
Watson leaned over, bracing himself against the truck. The men gathered into a knot around him. “He was behind me. So fucking hot up there. I was talking to him the whole way. Then nothing. Maybe he made a grab?”
“Without his mask.” Griff’s voice was hushed in his own ears.
“Dante, position?” Siluski asked his walkie and got no response. “Watson, fourth floor?”
“Ladder! Fourth floor.” The chief looked up at the smoking windows. “Shit stil burning up there?” The other guys around the rig were only a couple yards away from Griff, but they seemed like they were on Mars. The emergency lights strobed over the smoky faces, red-blue-red-blue. Siluski looked so pissed he had to be terrified.
“Anastagio!” Siluski shouted into his radio again. “Quick jerking off up there!”
“Anastagio!” Siluski shouted into his radio again. “Quick jerking off up there!”
Griff felt a weird holow torn in his gut. Something took a bite deep inside him, leaving a shredded space. A shark, it felt like, maybe; the whole world was underwater.
Mask off, Watson was shaking his head and spitting. No response on the walkie.
Time slowed down til Griff could hear his heartbeat as two completely separate and distinct sounds.
- Lub… dub…. -
The crew was staring at the chief. For what seemed like an hour, they waited for the chief to give an order.
- Lub… dub…. -
Griff did not. He didn’t know what happened, realy. He didn’t even think; he just saw it happen because he was somewhere else with a view. Suddenly, the legs under him were moving, fast, but they were somebody else’s legs. With the detachment of a hawk, he watched some big pale stranger in his gear sprinting through that burning door, headed back for the B-stairs he’d just left.
- Lub… dub…. -
Someone else’s breath whooshed in ears that didn’t feel like his. He felt the stolen legs underneath the gear pump as they pushed toward his best friend suffocating upstairs, or worse. Like the air wasn’t hot, gray-orange soup. Like rancid smoke didn’t curl in front of the mask.
- Lub… dub…. -
Only when he was alone did Griff force himself into his own skin, into the fire. Everything moved slowly around him. Think, idiot. They’d been up on four when Watson made the grab. He climbed the steps into the inferno. Cinders floated in the air around him.
Upstairs, he stayed low and made his way down the smoking halway.
Please.
“Dante?” Under the mutter of the fire, he listened for Dante’s radio. “C’mon, you fucking idiot.” There was only the hum of the fire turned loose on al that cardboard and plastic, the prefab furniture popping and buckling, glass breaking. Metal beams growning overhead. Dante wasn’t anywhere.
Griff’s panic rose in him, paralyzing him as he spun in place, straining for a sign, a sound, a clue in the roaring dark.
- Lub… dub…. -
Finaly, at the north end, he heard an electronic squawk on the other side of the wal. He put his hand against the baking sheetrock, straining to listen.
Siluski’s voice was faint and staticky, but nearby. “Anastagio!”
Griff didn’t hesitate. He hefted his axe and hacked a man-sized gap between the struts. The hot air slammed into his face, scorching his lashes. He swung his hooligan hard and tore his way inside, ramming in with his shoulders. Football in Hell. The heat roled out, broiling the air in his lungs. Hunting for Dante, it was September 11th al over again.
Mask. He felt stupid for not having it on, but he wasn’t going to waste time now. Dante wasn’t wearing his either, which was worse. Inside the
room, a table had flipped. Dante’s helmet was flipped on the floor, and he scooped it up. He was walking on broken plastic and charred cardboard. He heard Siluski saying Dante’s name on the radio again and flung the table behind him.
There! Against the wal, a reflective strip caught the beam from his chest and bounced it back. —STAGIO. He’d never been happier to see the fluorescent tail of that jacket.
Dante’s pop had once told him that their family name, Anastagio, meant “divine” or “reborn.” In this scalding room, seeing the reflective letters crumpled together protecting his friend, that sounded just about right.
Better than 9/11; at least we’re here together.
Griff dropped the helmet and crossed the blazing room.
I’d rather die with him. He won’t be alone this time.
Against the wal, Dante was crumpled half-buried under masonry and part of the ceiling, snug against a pile of huge corrugated boxes. A beam had clipped him and stunned him long enough to fil his lungs with the suffocating smoke. His scalp was bleeding pretty badly, but he didn’t seem burned or broken. His nose was crusty with toasted insulation and soot, but his breath was steady if shalow. Alive.
Dante groaned and shifted; his hands flexed. Spine was sound, thank Christ.
“Dante?” Griff crouched under the smoke and roled the body, puling off one glove to check him—no cuts, strong pulse. Head wound of some kind, but no time for a colar or a flatboard. They had to get the hel out of the heat that was baking the room around them before they both suffocated.
Flecks of burning paper floated down onto the two of them like angry moths. Griff fumbled for his rebreather and held the sweet, metalic air over Dante’s nose and mouth for a moment. Griff kept low to the ground beside him, their faces about three inches apart. He saw Dante’s eye move under the delicate lid.
Across the room, Griff heard a window explode with the heat. His own lungs were scorched. Down in the street, sirens and people shouting. He took another lungful of canned oxygen and then strapped his mask onto his friend’s bloody face. Déjà vu watching Dante near death; he’d done this before.
Time to go.
Griffin shook his head. “Hang on, buddy.” On autopilot he leaned down, put a shoulder low, and scooped Dante up, bracing his powerful legs against the weight.
Not dead weight. Not dead weight.
With a shout, Griff hefted Dante into a tight cradle and strode for the gap he’d made in the wal, kicking and shouldering his way through.
- Lub…. -
He turned for the fire door and tried not to inhale.
- Dub…. -
His chest cramped and his arms burned with Dante’s weight.
Please-please-please, God. I’ll do anything.
Things were easier in the stairwel; with gravity on his side, he was able to brace against the wal a couple times as he stumbled his way back down to the street. Fire was starting to seep down the wals.
- Lub…. -
As Griff picked his way down the steps, trying not to drop his precious burden, a memory came to him: the two of them getting trashed on Jägermeister shots the summer before they’d started at the fire academy on Randal Island. They’d been “watching” the Anastagios’ house, and Dante had gotten wasted with three girls and had a couple hours of weird sex while Griff passed out on the couch.
For reasons Dante never could explain, he had let the trio scribble al over his long body with paint pens before passing out. When he woke up the paint had dried, blue and red gibberish on every square inch of his body that wouldn’t come off without scrubbing.
In the morning, without thinking twice, Griff had stripped down, picked up Dante, and climbed into the shower with a hard brush and literaly scoured his best friend head to toe, both of them laughing, so they could make it to church for some cousin’s christening. That was the only other time in their lives he’d carried Dante.
- Dub…. -
I could never do that now. Carry him naked. Then again, Dante would never do that now. Would he?
Griff could see the bottom of the stairs, could taste the first hint of cold air. His eyelashes were burning. With the last strength he had, he squeezed Dante to his chest and slammed out the door.
Then they were in the street and he could breathe and everyone was yeling at him. He was nearly blind with the smoke, and the whole world was a stinging blur. His nose was caked with ash and his eyebrows were singed.
“Down! Put him down!” The EMTs peeled his grip loose and lifted Dante onto the gurney. Tommy leaned over him, checking pulse and giving low instructions to the other paramedics. A beefy black woman was suctioning his airways and muttering.
Dante took a loud gasping breath. Reborn. And Griff knew the exact music of his breath. Thank you, God.
Griff tried to see him but went to his knees, hacking and retching. The blackened spit ran from his mouth in long, poisonous ribbons on the pavement.
Now I know what broiled television tastes like.
More windows burst high above them, and an enormous chunk of ceiling gave on one of the upper floors, sending a bilion cinders spiraling into the air. A colossal whoomp of flame licked at the sky .
That could have been him.
“What in the hel were you doing, Muir?” Someone was beside him, yeling down. Briggs. “Almost got your fat ass broiled.” Fuck you. Griff spat again. He couldn’t get the taste out of his throat, or the sight of Dante crumpled against the wal. What the hel had Dante been doing?
Umm, his job? He’s a fireman too.
Dante hacked and coughed as Tommy put an oxygen line under his nose and made him breathe, checking for damage with gentle hands.
Thank you, Tommy.
A freckled paramedic held his eyelid up and ran a penlight over the pupil, muttering something to the others. Tommy nodded and looked at Griff… and nodded. It would be okay.
Next round at the Pipe Room is on me.
Briggs was pissed. “Fuckwit, we had a ladder on the way. You couldn’t wait three goddamn minutes for your fucking girlfriend?” Like that, Griff was on his feet, fist raised to pound Brigg’s face into pulp right there in the street when Siluski caught hold of his arm and yanked him back like a Rottweiler.
The chief stepped in front of Briggs, holding up a hand. “Leave it, Briggs! It’s his brother.”
“If you say—” Briggs took another step, and Watson put a hand on his chest.
“I just did. That’s why I’m wearing the white shirt, dipshit.” The chief stepped forward. “That’s why I got officer bars on my chest. Cool off.” Griff knew he was breathing too fast and tried to slow his gasping so he didn’t hyperventilate and pass out. As the medicos cut Dante out of his turnout gear, Griff could see the block letters on Dante’s navy T-shirt: “KEEP 200 FEET BACK.”
Try and make me.
Siluski put a hand on his arm, snapping him back to the sidewalk in front of the smoking building. “C’mon, kid. They got him.” Griff looked down at the hand on his sleeve, feeling like his massive arm didn’t belong to him. The muscles were stil shaking and cramped. “Yessir.” Griff let some volunteer ambulance chick steer him to the side of the EMS van and administer pointless first aid to him, just so he didn’t murder and mutilate Briggs in a public place.
After they’d finished playing doctor, Griff walked on robot feet to the truck. He needed to cal Dante’s parents. Above them, the building smoldered under the one good hose.
Fucking city. Fucking Republicans. Fucking budget cuts.
The chief handed him Dante’s helmet. “Gidwitz found this.”
“Thanks.” Griff gathered it against his chest like an infant.
“The hel were you doing?!”
“It wasn’t me realy. I mean, I didn’t think.” Griff coughed. God, it stank. “I didn’t….” He felt powerless, mad for no reason. He wanted to crush Briggs’s skul for caling Dante his girlfriend, for picking that moment to be an asshole, for trying to shame him.
“No.
You did good. He could’ve died up there.” Chief nodded. “I’m stil writing you up, but off the record? That was a good thing.” Griff cradled the helmet and breathed. Blinking felt weird; he realized his eyelashes had been singed short and blunt.
The ambulance carrying Dante puled away at high speed and Griff felt his heart go with it, unspooling-unspooling from his chest like a long thread that wouldn’t break.
THE Slick Wilie’s fire gave in after about three hours. Finaly, Engine 361 showed up from the other Red Hook house, thank Christ, and they hammered at the bitch til she gave in. They tapped another hydrant that wasn’t vandalized, and the other men went back in. The engine soaked the facade with water, then ran another line inside to hose the hotspots.
After getting his ass chewed, Griff sat the rest out, staying down on the street trying to get air into his scalded lungs. Everyone could fuck off. Not one thing he would have done differently. The medics told him that if he’d been a smoker, he probably would have suffocated. For the milionth time, he was glad Dante hated tobacco in his house.
When the blaze had died down, the other guys went back up to do a floor-by-floor in the soupy ash and charred appliances and smoldering cardboard.
Once they’d given an al clear, everyone was more than ready to ditch this shitbox.
In the end there were no “roasts” at al; no one had died in the building. The fire marshal would do a walkthrough in the morning because “multiple points of origin” was pretty much a flashing “insurance fraud” sign. Evil idiots.
Dante wound up being the only serious medical situation, and it was his own damn fault. Tommy was pretty sure he had a head injury, but he was responsive, so Griff didn’t have a good excuse to go with them to the hospital.
On the rig the guys were silent. They’d been lucky and Griff had been stupid. ’Nuff said. No one was going to blame him for saving a life, especialy one of theirs.
Jostled by the pitted road and riding backward, Griff checked the other faces. Was anyone looking at him weird? Had they paid attention to Briggs’s bulshit?
No. Everyone knew that he was an honorary Anastagio. They were letting him panic in peace.
Where was Dante now?