“Tell ’em about your call,” Fred said. “The one you did with Tom Spencer.”
And everyone around the table looked at me. I looked at Fred, stunned that he was asking me to speak.
“Go on,” he said. “You were the stud. Tell it.”
“Okay, I guess.” I knew I was blushing, but I saw people looking at me now with interest, plus Carrie was sitting there with her girlfriends, and I saw the way she was looking at me like she really was interested, or curious at least to hear me.
“Not much to tell,” I said. “Me and Tom, my partner, were driving down Collins Street in 453 after leaving Saint Fran. I saw something that didn’t look right, so I said, ’Hold it a minute. Shit. There’s smoke coming out of the window. The building’s on fire.’ Tom called it in on the radio and I got out and started shouting at people to get out of the building. The front door was open so I ran in, went up and down the halls banging on doors, shouting, ‘Get out, get out, the building’s on fire!’ I went upstairs, and that’s where it was smoky. I’d been in the building before, so I knew how the hall hooked to the right once you got on the second floor. I was just shouting and banging, and people were yelling back, but once they heard what I was saying, they all came out, and went out and got in the front yard. I helped one lady with her kids, and when we got outside, Fire was just pulling up, and I looked up and I could see flames flying off the roof.”
“Flying,” Fred said. “The place was completely engulfed. I was there by then and I saw him come out holding that little girl. You’re one crazy fucking dude, I’ll tell you, to go charging up the second floor of a building smoking like that. He saved that family’s life, not to mention everybody else in the building, a bunch of fucking drugged-out, liquored-up, lazy-ass welfare families, but still he saved their lives. I won’t be surprised if he gets a medal for it. You done well there. And I take full credit for bringing you into the trade. Raise our glasses. Tim, my brother, you’re the man tonight!”
They raised their glasses and toasted me, and said kind things, and I didn’t tell any of them that immediately afterwards I had hidden in the back of the ambulance and cried because I had been scared, knowing how easily I could have died, running through that building with the smoke suddenly so thick, I could hardly see my feet, and it got so hot in there, and hearing the woman cry, and banging into her and feeling the girl, and lifting her up into my arms, and then I whacked my head so hard I almost dropped her, and my head still hurt and rang from it, and then being so thankful to see the stairs again, and making it back out alive, watching the mother crying as she took the girl from me and held her. I knew I never would have done it if I had known what it would have been like. I had only done it because I hadn’t known better. My heroism was, in fact, a fraud.
A little while later, when the news came on, it was the lead story. “Firefighters rescue city dwellers as building burns. Four Hartford families were lucky to be alive tonight as emergency personnel’s quick response helped evacuate the building…” And a TV news crew happened to be driving by as well, and they filmed me coming out with the girl in my arms, looking dazed.
A cheer went up and they saluted me again.
Later, Carrie came over and introduced herself to me, asking if she could sit down next to me. “My name’s Carrie,” she said.
“I know, I’ve seen you around. I’m Tim.”
“Hi, Tim. What you did was great.”
“I just happened to be driving by. I didn’t know it was going to go up so fast; I don’t know if I’d have gone in there otherwise.”
“They’re lucky you did.”
“It worked out, I guess.”
We talked some small talk. She said she worked as a secretary in a real estate firm in Windsor Locks. She was a year older than me, and said she had just broken up with her boyfriend, and wasn’t seeing anyone, just hanging out with her girlfriends.
“Would you like to go out sometime?” I impressed myself with my ability to keep cool while my heart was racing. Maybe it was the beer I’d been drinking to make my headache go away.
“A date?”
“Well, yeah,” I said.
“Sure.” And she gave me her number.
When she left with her friends, she turned back and waved. I waved back.
That night I slept with her number pressed against my heart.