TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, NOON — " The Back Bay right now is almost a ghost town, " Channel 7 reporter Gary Armstrong declared a few minutes before noon from a Copley Square sidewalk.

" No, we’re here, " said Chris, a fireman with boyish good looks, speaking to the television. " We’re two blocks down, at the firehouse. "

With the horrific photos of the World Trade Center’s charred skeleton starting to trickle into mainstream media outlets late Tuesday afternoon, one figure present in most images of the aftermath is the firefighter. But before noon on Tuesday — before the location of Flight 175 has been determined, before Boston officials know whether the city will face anything even remotely as catastrophic as New York — 10 firefighters of Ladder 15, Engine 33 pace around their Boylston Street quarters, listening to televised news updates and wondering whether today is a day they’ll be called out.

In a small room adjacent to the garage, four men sit around watching a television airing MSNBC. They’re preoccupied with the on-screen horror, but invite me, a curious passer-by trying to gauge the public’s reaction, to join. We sit in silence for a few minutes, until I ask: Do you all think this is an act of war?

Chris: " Oh, definitely. "

Ed (a sunburned, middle-aged man): " We should bomb the shit out of somebody. "

John (a flat-topped fella with a neatly trimmed mustache): " What about that bin Laden guy? "

Sean (a baby-faced Irish guy from Southie): " If it’s him, we should fucking get him. "

Ed: " You can put that in there. Write that some firefighters say, ‘Fuck ’em.’ "

John: " They’re estimating that 10,000 were in each tower, so at least 20,000 people were ... " He stops his sentence short as MSNBC begins to flip through more footage of the World Trade Center in flames. Then John declares what many angry Americans are probably thinking: " We should hunt that towel-headed son-of-a-bitch down and put a cruise missile in his ... "

I can’t make out just where John suggests the US put that cruise missile, because a middle-aged woman, her blond hair tucked beneath a San Francisco 49ers hat, marches in and interrupts our conversation, panting heavily. " What’s the story with the city? " she asks. Nobody answers. Nobody seems to know what to say. Ed points at the images of destruction on the screen.

" My son is a student at Berklee and he refuses to leave the city with me, " she says in exasperation, squeezing her Nokia cell phone in her left hand. " He doesn’t get it. " And she waits — hoping the black-booted, blue-shirted men will tell her that the city is in a state of emergency or some such thing that will make her son see that this is a serious matter. But no one says anything. So she leaves.

And her exit prompts the question: Are you guys concerned about anything else happening in Boston today?

Chris: " Anything’s possible, but I don’t think it will. Besides, I’m like the fire department bad-luck charm. When I’m around, nothing happens. "

You’re bad luck because you never get called to fires?

" Yeah. I never get fires. "

You probably wouldn’t want to deal with the situation in NYC.

" No, I’d love it. "

You’d love it?

" Yeah. Don’t get me wrong: I feel bad that those lives are lost. But this is what we do. We fight fires and try to save people. "

If you had an opportunity to fight the fires in NYC — knowing now that the buildings would collapse and you could’ve died — would you have gone inside?

" Oh, yeah. I’d go right in. "

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Issue Date: September 11, 2001