Street Corner Firebox

Enoch Peter Gamoian

PART 1

Once in a while I get the unmistakable impression that I have learned an important lesson, yet I don't have a clue as to exactly what it is. Such was a lesson that began in 1965 with some long-forgotten technology, an impressive portion of the fire department and a big blob of glow-in-the-dark goop. I thought it concluded a few years ago in an antique store, but a discovery I made last night indicated the lesson is far from over.

Long before the advent of cell phones and 911, fire boxes were strategically placed on street corners. Such a mysterious and fascinating box sat on a pole on the street corner where I lived as a little boy.

Cast iron, painted with the brightest red paint imaginable, it was about the size of a car battery and shaped like a one-room schoolhouse. Embossed on the front of the little schoolhouse, just below the roof was the word "FIRE." Below this--where the door to the schoolhouse normally would be--was a white trapdoor that was hinged at the bottom. In the middle of the trapdoor was a little porthole-shaped window about an inch in diameter.

Through the little porthole I could see a large switch. The process was obvious enough: pull down the trapdoor, pull down the switch, and wait for the fire department to show up.

It was an amazing and almost irresistible concept for a seven year-old and it was an endless source of fascination.

The fire department certainly must have been aware of this because the switch was covered with a slimy green globule that would get on the fingers of anybody who touched it. Legend was, this stuff glowed in the dark making it easy to find a naughty little switch-pulling boy,lock him up in jail, and throw away the key.

This only added to the mystique of the device. What processes and marvels of modern science translated the pulling of a simple switch into the hasty arrival of the fire department? Did a distress flare shoot out of the top of the little red schoolhouse? Did it signal one of the neighbors who would then make a phone call? Maybe there was a nerve center in the bowels of downtown Fresno’s architecture where all of the wires from all of the call boxes met. I imagined a room that looked like the inside of the submarine on "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea:" Dark and compact with dials and indicators wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling.

For at least two years, that box quietly stood sentry on its white pole on the corner of McKenzie and Eighth. The temptation never got the better of me. More than the fear of getting in serious trouble, I just couldn't stand the idea of getting even the tiniest amount of that disgusting green snot on my hands.

I should also mention that my father was a policeman, so I was all too cognizant of a special misery that would rain down on me as the eldest son of a police officer if I ever did such a stupid thing.

As I walked by one day, I saw that the trapdoor was open and I heard sirens in the distance. I was transfixed, feeling as if I had suddenly and unexpectedly tripped into an alternate universe. I didn't even think of running out of fear of being wrongfully accused.

I thought there might actually be a fire. Besides, the box was actually working--one of my neighbors was now walking around with stool pigeon guano on his fingers, and I didn't want to miss anything that happened next.

True to legend, two fire trucks and at least half-a-dozen firemen showed up. I was asked if I saw who had triggered the alarm. I told them the truth, which they believed without hesitation. I wasn't considered a suspect for even a moment. I guess they figured that only the iciest eight year-old sociopath could commit such a crime and then just stand there.

As it turned out, there was no fire. Temptation had gotten the better of another boy in the neighborhood. He pulled the switch, ran home and frantically washed his hands. But obvious signs of the switch-goo remained.

Crying and blubbering, he confessed to his parents and the fire department. I heard that it took two weeks of washing before the last signs of call box snot went away. I imagined him lying in bed, fingers glowing in the dark: The Hester Pryne of City services.

For my part, it was better than the best science fiction movie I had ever seen in my short life. I got to see the red box in action, I got to talk to real firemen, and one of my peers was really gonna get it.

I guess this is why I have had no trouble understanding the genetically imprinted human trait that requires us to slow down to look at traffic accidents.

Jump ahead thirty years, almost to the day.

So one warm Saturday afternoon, I wandered into an antique store. I'm fascinated by old technology, so I tend to gravitate toward old phonographs, cameras, telephones and typewriters. I like the memories that they trigger.

Sitting in a dark corner behind a stack of Look magazines, I caught a glimpse of something that looked familiar. It was cast iron, painted with the brightest red paint imaginable and shaped like a one-room schoolhouse.

© 2026 Enoch Peter Gamoian