Sunday night:<\/p>\n
In a deep sleep. Like I was drowning. I was sleeping over my friend Allison’s, who lives in the Village. We had watched some of The Office on DVD – which is one of the funniest freakin’ things I have ever seen in my life. I felt almost – voracious about it. LIke: I need to see the ENTIRE series RIGHT NOW.<\/p>\n
Then we went to sleep. I was in a deep black pit of sleep the second my head hit the pillow.<\/p>\n
Strangely, like an echo, it was all very unreal … I heard someone screaming. It took a long long time for the screams to reach my consciousness. I have no idea how long they went on, but I do know I fought waking up. Like a maniac. I must have heard the screams for 10, 15 minutes before I finally woke.<\/p>\n
What really woke me up was Allison waking up next to me – she was gasping, “What the hell is going on?” and getting on her knees to look out her window.<\/p>\n
It was a man screaming outside. Screaming over and over and over the same word:<\/p>\n
“OFFICER! OFFICER! OFFICER!”<\/p>\n
Only add to that a New York accent, and his own speech pattern, and it sounded like this:<\/p>\n
“OFF-UH-SUH! OFF-UH-SUH! OFF-UH-SUH!”<\/p>\n
Over and over and over and over again.<\/p>\n
Allison and I, on our knees, groggy, looked out the window and saw, across the street, a massive fire in what was the trash area in front of a building. It was a conflagration. The flames were huge, high, and licking up against the first-story windows of this building.<\/p>\n
It was 3 in the morning. Nobody was up.<\/p>\n
This man – who was screaming “OFF-UH-SUH” over and over – was obviously a nocturnal fringe-dweller type. His clothes were ragged, torn apart … but he was the hero of the night. He woke up the block. He did not stop. He did not give up.<\/p>\n
He dashed up past the flames, and banged on the front door of the building. Screaming at the top of his lungs. He couldn’t bang on the first-story window, because the flames were too high.<\/p>\n
It was terrifying.<\/p>\n
Allison immediately called 911 and reported the fire.<\/p>\n
Mr. “Off-uh-suh” man was a one-man fire department. Allison eventually put on her slippers and ran downstairs to help him.<\/p>\n
There was a Vespa parked at the end of the block, with a little blanket over it. He ran over to it and yanked the covering off – the Vespa crashed into the car behind it – but he didn’t care. He ran back to the flames and tossed the blanket over it. Which did some good, for a second, but then flames erupted forth again.<\/p>\n
This entire time, he never stopped screaming.<\/p>\n
It did the job.<\/p>\n
Finally, from my perch at Allison’s window, I could see sleepy people peeking out of the first-floor apartment.<\/p>\n
Immediately (the rush of adrenaline and survival-instinct is intense) a man in his pajamas (who lived in that apartment) came racing out onto the front steps, with a garbage can filled with water – he poured it onto the flames – and then raced back inside. Another woman who had been awakened ran out onto the front steps in her nightgown, with a cooking pot full of water and dumped THAT onto the flames. The conflagration continued.<\/p>\n
Mr. Garbage-Can Man kept racing in and out of his house, filling up his garbage can, dumping it onto the flames, and running back inside.<\/p>\n
I loved Garbage-Can Man. I was like: Good for you, dude. Get that water, dump it on … keep going … you’re doing GREAT.<\/p>\n
The fire department arrived in, literally, 2 minutes. (Which is comforting. The speed of the response.)<\/p>\n
Must have been a slow night, though, because 3 trucks and 20 firemen showed up. It felt like the entire FDNY was outside my window.<\/p>\n
My God. The vision on the street below was enough to provide me with fireman fantasy-fodder for weeks to come. Allison, who came back upstairs, knelt beside me, and we just watched. It became a people-watching fest, now that we knew the fire would be put out. Nobody hurt.<\/p>\n
A man emerged from his apartment, and watched the whole thing on his steps.<\/p>\n
Allison murmured, “Look at his slippers.”<\/p>\n
I looked, and they were these big fuzzy slippers. He was a grown man, in his 30s, with a robe on, and big fuzzy slippers.<\/p>\n
The vulnerability of people … at night …<\/p>\n
We just LAUGHED with love for the slipper-man across the way.<\/p>\n
And we also fell in love with every fireman. Stomping around, all with their separate jobs, working together, in their big black FDNY ponchos with day-glo yellow stripes …<\/p>\n
The “Off-uh-suh” hero had disappeared.<\/p>\n
But he was definitely the Man of the Hour. In my mind!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sunday night: In a deep sleep. Like I was drowning. I was sleeping over my friend Allison’s, who lives in the Village. We had watched some of The Office on DVD – which is one of the funniest freakin’ things … Continue reading