" In my 28 years, that's gotta be the worst, the night I thought I might not make it out. That's the memory, that's the one." It was a crisp October morning, sharing conversation,coffee and pancakes,with my friend Al, a Framingham fire figher.

Curiosity had gotten the best of me. I had to ask. Since 9-11, I had wondered what it was that made these guys tick? What goes on in their mind? How can they enter an inferno, a building not even fit for Satan, searching for people, not knowing if they are dead or alive, or if they'll make it out? How do they do it? I had to ask.

"So Al, in the thirty years you've been a firefighter, is there a call that stands out , one that was really something?"

Al seemed surprised by my question. He put his fork down,wiped his mustache with his napkin, and stared at me blankly. He became real quiet and I noticed his eyes lost their twinkle, the light that brightened the room when he smiled, the same sparkle that sent out a radar, signalling he was one of a kind, funny, mischievous, smart, a regular nice guy who loved to laugh and tease.

His hazel eyes looked flat, glazed, like they were covering something. His expression made me feel sorry that I had asked that question. My curiosity had cast a dark shadow over Al, the way cloud cover darkens a Cape Cod beach,on a sunny August afternoon. I had unintentionally resurrected something buried inside my friend, but unlike a phoenix rising from the dark ashes, his memory wasn't beautiful. It was ugly and difficult to look at.

He looked sad, maybe disappointed I had reminded him of that night. He didn't want to go there, to that place, that fire, that hell of a night. Now,I felt guilty. The question became an intruder,rudely invading his personal space, holding a mirror 5 inches away from his nose,and forcing him to stare at a reflection that was no longer familiar. The reflection staring back at him was young Al, the rookie firefighter at station 5. He was a kid, 26 or so, a young dad with a baby at home, and a wife waiting for him. It made him remember.

Sitting quietly, he looked down at his plate of pancakes, deciding. He was deciding if he'd let me know about that night,that horrible night in 1986. The night of a bad snowstorm, when young Al and nine other men were sleeping in their bunks,on the third floor at the Firehouse.They were sleeping until they got the call, the one that made all of them jolt up in bed and race toward the three fire poles in the center of their bunk room. Sliding down three flights, he thought it was bad. He could tell by the dispatcher's voice telling them it was a "Fully involved fire..." As the men hurried to put on their gear, Al's heart was pumping fast. He hardly noticed the humming tones of the station alarm or the echo calling out, "We got a working fire here..."

The men were ready. They boarded the truck, and then the red, shiny vehicle pulled out into the slippery street. As the siren awakened the stillness of midnight, the snow was coming down hard, but it was okay this time. The fire was only one minute away, on the same road as the Firehouse. David had no idea.....

Goliath was waiting.

Al made up his mind. He decided to go back in time and I would follow.

"So...what happened, Al? What about that night? What was it?"

I was hooked, sitting on the edge,wanting to know the ending. I never liked reading mystery novels. I was too impatient. I had to skip to the last chapter, know the ending, just so I could read the book. Al's story was a mystery. I couldn't stand the suspense.

Al took me there, to that fire. He brought me into that burning building, into that inferno. I heard the crackles, the pops, the sounds of soda cans exploding, and glass breaking. I saw the flames filling the air with a black and brown, toxic smoke. The noise coming from the fire trucks diesel engine drowned out the siren screams coming from 4 parked police cruisers. The fire guys went over their jobs. It was organized confusion.

The flames, now filling every window, created a mirage. The snow became a fiery impostor. Shedding it's white skin, it dressed in glistening, golden hues of color. The lights from the fire trucks and police cruisers played with the snow cover on the missing family's front yard. Mixing together, they created a kaleidoscope of colors that cast a supernatural, orange glow. Huddling together, they quickly lined up in straight rows, forming rays of light that pointed north, to the black January sky. The bright beams shot up and tried to touch the moon, but couldn't. Young Al waited for the Lieutenant to say it was time. It was time.

Al walked into the dark black pit, a smoky pit, once recognized as a basement apartment. As I watched my friend descend, I thought to myself, "ET, take me and Al home..."

Shock, that's how Al describes it. Imagine yourself taking four steps into a burning building and you can't see the hand held in front of your face. Automatically, your first thought is,

"OH, SH**! WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE!" You are in complete shock. That's the person, the emotional part of you that is thinking.

But then, the technical thinking begins. You become programmed, like a robot with an important job to do. Emotions get in the way. You have to turn off that switch and plug in the robot. Then, instinctively, you drop to the floor, crouch low, walk like a wild dog on all fours, maybe have to crawl. You listen in the blackness. You listen for anything. You try to tune out all the static noise, the crackles,pops and sirens and you focus. You hope to hear a scream or someone calling for help, a child sobbing or shouting for his mom, a dog whimpering, a cat meowing, or your partner letting you know where he is, "Over here...here now.....Over here now....".

You pray you won't hear an explosion, or the staicase giving up it's fight,and crumbling to the ground. If that happens, you hope you won't hear people upstairs trapped, shouting in a state of hysteria, as more wooden beams pull away from an unrecognizable building structure.

But more than anything, you don't want to hear silence. No sounds at all, just static, that's bad."

"Why is it bad?"

"It means you won't be saving. You'll be finding bodies."

"I never thought of that. Silence...it's bad in a fire...So what do you do then, after you listen?"

"You don't stop listening, you keep listening, you begin searching, and you look for life or bodies."

Al described how a fireman searches. His description reminded me of an image, the one where the seeing eye dog is leading a blind man. I'll explain.

You keep one gloved hand on a wall, using it like a compass to guide you. The wall becomes the trained dog, pulling the handicapped, preventing the blind person from losing his orientation or location in the dark pit. The fireman's gloved hand holds the wall, the way the leash on the dog is held. The fireman's other arm, reaches out, and sways back and forth, like the blind person's cane, trying to detect what's within reach, in a world of complete darkness. You keep reaching, feeling, searching. Your other senses take over and intensify. Touch, smell, and hearing, they all are heightened.You recognize with the gloved hand,( the part functioning like a cane). The touch tells you it's a little girl's doll, a football, a book, a sneaker, or the sharp edge of a broken plate. You recognize the object is round, so it must be a basketball, You keep searching with your cane, like a kid blindfolded, playing Marco Polo in the pool, wanting to locate his friends, but no one is laughing.

Then Al begins to crawl. I follow him by touching. When I move my cane, it hits his boot, so I know he's there, by touch. I can't see at all, only the black smoke, and darkness. I get rattled for a minute,my heart jumps. One of the men smashed the window with his ax. Shattered glass flying on the other side of the room.I can't see it, I hear it. Some of the toxic smoke is leaving the basement. I know this because I can see some light streaming in.

Young Al tells me to pay attention, know where the door is, incase we need to get out quick. He tells me to always know where my partner is.

Now the other men are up on the roof, banging, creating holes with their axes to let more smoke escape. In 1986, firemen didn't use chain saws.

Al tells me it was different back then. They didn't wear socks that protected their ears and neck from the fire's heat. All they had was a helmet, rubber boots that climbed up to their thighs, and a rubber coat that fell to their knees. Back then, they had frequent fires, more fires than today. Laws and codes were different. Houses didn't have fire alarms. They rode on the outside of the truck, strapped to it with some sort of belt. I had forgotten that. It was so long ago, but I did see it as a kid. Al helped me remember.

Crawling on all fours, using my human cane, and holding the trained dog by his leash, I followed Al. I tried to think like a robot, but was distracted when I heard the father of the three girls, screaming in his driveway. He had only left his three sleeping beauties for less than three minutes. His wife's car wouldnt' start, broken, maybe from the chill of a January winter stormy evening and she had to get to work. Her part time job was just down the street, the same street of their home, the same street where young Al slept when he was working at station 5.

His 3 angels would never know he had left. But the father also didn't know some things. He didn't know the old wires, inside the basement apartment hollow walls, were ticking like a time bomb. Those old wires were not up to code, in the low income urban section of town. They were quietly ticking, just waiting to ignite.

I asked Al one more time, "How do you do it?"

"Just doing my job." he answered. He didn't recognize the value of his service. He smirked at the suggestion he was brave, a true superhero, bigger than Batman or Robin. He just didn't want to hear it.

"Just doing my job." he told me again.

"Yeah...just another 9 to 5 gig. No big deal." I sarcastically shot back.

..

There he was, young Al, crouching low and searching. His partner was in front of him. He knew this because he kept touching his rubber boot, crawling on all fours, in 2 inches of water that flooded a concrete floor. He couldn't see the danger ahead. His fortune teller would have warned him, told him to watch out for electrical wires hanging down from the burning ceiling. Her crystal ball would have predicted the imminent danger. Those wires would trap him, entangle him, control him like a marionette, a wooden puppet pulled by dangerous strings.

Then it happened. The wires hooked my friend, trapped him in a net, like a dolphin in a tuna net. He couldn't move. He couldn't see. He couldn't feel his partner's boot. He was all alone,tangled up in electrical wire. His first thought:

"Oh God, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna be electrocuted. How the hell am I gonna get out of this one." He moved awkwardly back and forth.

Geppetto's puppet had twenty seconds to figure this one out. He only had 10 to 15 minutes of air left in his breathing tank, and he had two choices: #1- Stay tangled in the wire, and die or #2- Think quick. Somehow, remove the air tank,free himself from the wire, and before the toxins steal his very last breath, restore his air tank, get it back on, find his partner, and continue his search.

Al had been in tough situations before. Onetime, he was crawling on the second floor of another apartment building, searching. Then, all of a sudden, the floor ended, it disappeared. The stairs were gone and he couldn't go any further. The fire was in hot pursuit, and Al was stuck on the edge of a cliff without a bungee cord.

Al was lucky this time. His partner managed to pull him down from the edge of the cliff. His partner, making sure he never lost track of Al's location, pulled him to safety on the landing below.

Al pulled it off, the magic trick, the stunt. He copied Houdini. Like the famous, blindfolded magician, Al escaped death, got out of the water tank before drowning. He survived.

But this fire was different. He couldn't move. He was caught , held hostage by electrical wires, wearing rubber boots, crawling in water. He didn't have to major in math to quickly compute the deadly equation:

"2 inches of water + concrete floor+ rubber boots+ electrical wire= I'm done! I'm gonna be toast. I can't believe this..."

But like a soldier in battle, he refocused again. No time for that kind of thinking, Think like a robot, be technical, and you can get out of this. You can do it.

Then, not really knowing exactly how he managed it, he was able to untangle himself. He got free, found his partner, and continued searching.

In his heart, he knew the ending of the story. Every fire has a story. He heart sent out a sad pang signal. He knew he was searching for bodies.

"Why do you do it Al? You could have been killed. I don't think I could do it. I know I couldn't do your job."

"It's my job. You risk alot to save alot. I remember someone, some man I had rescued from another fire, coming into the station, months later to thank me. He was still looking bad, scarred, lost his ears, but there he was, smiling at me, thanking me. That's why I do it. That keeps me going, doing what I do."

"So Al, what happened then? Did you find anyone? Any bodies?"

Al got quiet again. This time his eyes watered. The memory drew out buried emotions from years past, still raw, still painful.

"Well, my partner and I kept calling to one another. That's what we do, so we don't lose track of each other. You can't see. You hold one arm out, and feel around the wall, crawling, searching. We take turns letting each other know where we are."

"What do you say?"

"He might say 'Over here' and I'd say "here". We just need to make sure we know where the other one is. We're there to rescue, but we might have to rescue our partner. That's why we go in, always in twos, just in case."

"Then what happened Al?"

"Well....I was crawling, searching and I bumped into something. I recognized it to be a mattress, a bed. I could tell because I could feel the springs coming out of it. Then the smoke started clearing. All the windows we broke, let enough smoke out in the basement. The fire now was climbing up the hollow walls, inside the walls, rising to the roof. I could hear the guys on the roof, using axes to make holes in the roof, to let more smoke out."

"So, when the smoke cleared, what did you see?"

Al filled up remembering. I heard the Lieutenant. say "Oh Jesus" and then I realized. I was on them. I was crawling on their bodies, but I didn't know it until the smoke cleared.

"Oh my God, that must have been awful!"

"Yeah, when I heard my Lieutenant react the way he did, with alot of emotion, ... I knew it was okay to let down my guard. I didn't have to be the tough, macho, fire guy. It was okay to show emotion because when the smoke cleared, the scene was....well.... incredibly sad."

"I'm a dad, and seeing the three girls, huddled together like that, in the center of the bed, cuddling, in fetal positions, That hit me. It made me think of my son. He's 26 now, married, but on that night, he was only two, sleeping in his crib, in the same fetal position. I thought of him. Then I heard the dad pull in. He was yelling, crying, screaming in anguish. Cops were trying to hold him back. I'm a dad. I felt it."

"So then what ?".

"At that point, I had to focus, and finish up. I had a job to do. I was handed body bags through the window, and I had to put the three little girls in separate bags. They were unrecognizable, I didn't know their sex until later, after the dad started calling for them. They were charred like burnt chicken in a barbecue pit. It was horrible."

"Do you think they suffered? Do you think they were awake when it happened?"

"No...They were sleeping... they never moved. They died before the fire got to them... from smoke inhalation." Al held back tears, thinking about those little girls, who today would be in their late thirties or early forties.

"The worst part, was when I tried to remove the first little girl from the mattress. Her arm stuck to it like superglue. I pulled the body again and then her arm came off, just dangling skin. That freaked me out."

"Oh my God", and I put one hand over my eyes, not wanting to see it.

Next, Al read me the last chapter of his fire story. It was the ending, the final act , the part where I could  put the story back up on the shelf. I was ready to close the pages of this horrible memory.

Al read to me:

" When we finished removing the bodies, we helped the other guys up on the roof. We must have fought that fire for another hour or so, before guys from another station showed. They were doing the clean up. After the truck got there, we went back to the station. "

"Did you talk to each other in the truck? What did you say on the way back to the station?"

"Nothing...it was quiet. No one wanted to talk. It was too sad."

"When you got to the station, could you sleep?"

"No...I sat in the kitchen of the firehouse, had some coffee. I couldn't sleep after that, after what I saw, those three little girls, it was just too tragic."

"Wow,"

I sat quietly, taking it all in. I was speechless for a minute, but then had to ask another question.

" ...just a job huh?"

"Yep.... just what I do..."

Then Old Al, the 2009 model came back to me. He poked at his cold pancakes, and flashed me one of his million dollar smiles. The twinkle in his baby blue-hazel eyes returned. He stuffed a big forkful of cake into his mouth, chomping with a grin, that award winning, wise-guy grin.

My friend was back. It felt good.

I never wanted to re-visit Concord St. again.