The Coffin-Maker

by Mike Newall

The coffins were Bresnan's idea.

It was the night Mayor Nutter announced his $108 million budget cuts. There was a protest outside the Engine 6 Firehouse in Fishtown. As part of the cuts, Engine 6 will be eliminated Jan. 1, 2009, along with six other city engine and ladder truck companies. Fishtown residents aren't happy about losing their Engine 6, and a good number of people waved signs in anger and urged drivers of passing cars to honk in agreement.

Fire Lt. Mike Bresnan, treasurer of the Local 22 Fire Fighters' Union, stood next to Fire Lt. Brian McBride, union president. Bresnan is a big guy with wide shoulders and a military haircut who likes to be in the center of these types of fights. His wife is constantly yelling at him to just keep his mouth shut.

"We oughta make some coffins," Bresnan said to McBride. "Drive home the life factor."

"You a carpenter?" asked McBride.

"I can get it done."

The following Sunday, Bresnan told his wife he was going to Home Depot.

Bresnan's wife smiled and asked if he was going to hang the last of the shelves in the linen closet.

"Coffins!" she screamed, storming up the stairs. "You and that f**king fire department."

Bresnan laid the pine boards in his driveway and used the back of his pickup as a worktable. He built one adult-size coffin, one child-size.

"I wanted to make sure they weren't heavy but still realistic enough that a body could fit in them," he explained. "I measured the wood for the adult-size coffin against my own torso, then cut a thin piece of plywood for the back and used the thicker pine boards for the sides and top."

For the handles, Bresnan used kernmantle rope, a polyester blend that frays unless cut with a heated knife. Bresnan was cutting the rope when his wife threw open the front door.

"Are you at least getting paid for your time?" she asked.

Bresnan did not answer and distractedly folded up the hot knife, blistering his left index finger.

"Your daughter needs her diaper changed," Bresnan's wife said as she slammed the door.

Bresnan brought the coffins to Engine 1's protest at Broad and Fitzwater. "The white paint's still wet on the kid coffin," complained a fellow firefighter.

"Ah, lick it off, it's latex, not lead," said Bresnan.

The coffins were carried to the Broad Street median. Passing cars honked, but this time only about 50 people showed up, mostly firefighters. An Inquirer photographer snapped a photo of the coffins, but it never made its way into the newspaper.

The next morning the coffins were brought to the protest at Engine 14 in Frankford. Again, there was a paltry crowd, and little media.

"I'll get the media out here," said one neighbor, dialing Channel 6 news and filing a false report that people were turning cars over in the streets in response to the closings. Still, nobody showed up.

"The mayor knew what he was doing, lumping the fire closings in with the libraries and the pools," Bresnan complained over lunch at Byrne's Tavern in Port Richmond. "People have too much on their plate right now and can't concentrate on one thing. Christ, the gay marriage protests at City Hall the other day got more coverage than we did."

Bresnan has a point. Truth is, the city can probably safely handle one or two of the proposed seven fire closings (though a steadfast union man like Bresnan wouldn't admit this). However, the city has long rejected the fire union's pleas for an independent impact study of proposed closings. The internal study the department released this week is vague and incomplete, and reads like a strained justification of the mayor's agenda. In one glaring example, the department justifies the closing of Engine 39 in Roxborough by explaining that Engine 37 is just a short trip over the Bells Mills Road Bridge. The report doesn't mention the bridge's weight restriction prohibiting fire apparatuses to cross.

Inside Byrne's Tavern, Bresnan's cell phone rang. It was Joey Two Chairs, a fellow firefighter coming to grab the coffins out of Bresnan's pickup for yet another protest. Joey Two Chairs takes everything Bresnan says seriously.

"Make sure them coffins are OK before you come in [to the bar]," Bresnan said. "There's a lot of undertakers in this neighborhood."

"You got it," said Joey Two Chairs.

Dispatch is filed from all corners of Philadelphia. E-mail mike.newall@citypaper.net.