You knew it, Sally-Boy, you knew it all those years ago, and you said it into the hot, black Brooklyn night on the fire escape we loved, the fire escape that reeked of rust and iron and our own sweat from wrestling on it, drinking on it, pumping iron on it. You knew it then, before everything changed, before the last boosted beer was drunk that night, before I left you and you left us all. You always seemed to know so much and you knew it then, and you said it, Sally, as we swigged the last can of Schaefer we shared:      

     “Remember this night, Mikey,” you said, mysterious Brooklyn noises swelling around us like a concert of benevolent memories, “remember it because it won’t ever be like this again, never—too much going on, too much is, like, confused and gettin worse. So, my cousin, my brother, take it from me, take it for what it’s worth and sip that beer real real slow…’cause Mikey, it ain’t never gonna be like this again…never, not ever ’cause everythin changes…it just does.”

     In my head, I see him sip, burp, smile. I know what is coming next, and I hear myself saying, Don’t say it, Sally. You scream it out, it means ‘fire,’ and the lights go on all over the neighborhood.

     I hear his laugh, his voice rising: What the hell, do I know, Mikey? I am just Salvatore Fuoco!!! Fuck-a-you! Salvatore fuck-a-you!!! Salvatore Fuocooooo!!!  Lights flick on. People shout, “Is there a fire? What’s goin on, for crissake? Shut the hell up!”Then I laugh and say, “You always do it…”but when I turn to see him, Sally-Boy is gone. The neighborhood slowly turns dark again.

     Still, every dawn, the thought of Sally-Boy leads me to my Fire Escape Confession:

      I committed a crime, but I know it was right.  

      I went too far, and then I stopped short.  

      I failed to speak, when words were needed.

      I spoke, when words meant nothing.  

     I let people disappear, because confusion overwhelmed me.  

      And now all these years later, I still talk to you, Sally-Boy. You, who gave me fear and courage; you, who somehow knew when everything had changed for you, when nothing would ever be the same; you, who disappeared. And now I know when everything changed for me…and nothing has ever been the same…

     For me, the changes began in January of 1968, the second semester of my sophomore year at Sinclair College. I can now see how the new me emerged as I left the old me behind, a time and a change that I could not have predicted…but that’s how it happens, right, Sally-Boy?

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Ten-year old Mike Burns remembers at the beginning of THE FIRE ESCAPE BELONGS IN BROOKLYN...the fear...the questions...decision about whether to take that next step. He looks down the fire escape, through the mysterious gap between him and the sidewalk below. One step is all it takes to move from one question to...what?

Dangling from the last rung of the fire escape, staring down at the short drop to the scruffy Brooklyn sidewalk below, afraid

to let go, my ten-year-old brain raising fears in the night (Suppose I slip when my feet hit? Suppose it’s further down than it

looks? Suppose I land on my face?), my twin cousin, Sally-Boy, calling to me from below (“Come on, Mikey, I done it, so you

can do it! It’s easy! You just gotta let go, you drop, you land. Let go, Mikey! Let go!”), so I finally do it, I reluctantly release my

fingers, I feel the brief emptiness of space and summer’s suddenly cool air, I fight back a brief gasp when I fear the sidewalk

has disappeared, and then my sneakers absorb the impact of the concrete, my knees bend slightly, I hold my balance, and

Sally’s laughter echoes, “Hahahaha! Mikey, we did it, Mikey, we did it! We made it all the way down! Hahahahaha! I knew we

could do it, I knew it!” and I laugh with him as we punch each other lightly, and then the haunting blackness of the street

hovers except for a few flickering lights in the tenements surrounding us and a distant street lamp shining its yellow-tinged

glow, so I sit on the warm sidewalk with him, doing nothing, talking the idle chatter of two ten-year-olds enjoying the rush of

having broken yet another rule, and I look up at the fire escape lining the outside of the apartments, all the way to the top

and beyond into the starry sky, and suddenly I think, but I do not ask, “Where do we go now, Sally-Boy?” 

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copyright: chuck cascio; all rights reserved