On my way back from an errand in the South Bronx I’m met with a sudden cloud of white smoke. At first it appears to be coming from a car parked at the intersection; but the car pulls away and the smoke remains, and now seems to be coming from a row of buildings on the opposite side of the street. A man stops next to me on the sidewalk and removes his ear buds: ‘Was there an accident?’ he asks. I tell him I don’t know, and we both walk slowly down the sidewalk in the direction of the smoke. It’s unclear, as we’re walking, how far either of us intends to go, or whether, in taking this detour together, we are thereby engaged in some kind of implicit compact. But the further we walk, the more the smoke seems to disperse, which relaxes whatever pressure I feel to form a team with the man. Soon the man changes directions, and I cross the street to get a better view. There are several people standing in the middle of the next intersection directing traffic. An older man approaches me from the direction of the fire, casting sidelong glances over his shoulder. ‘Is something on fire over there?’ I ask him. ‘A bus is on fire,’ he replies, ‘a city bus.’ I crane my neck to see: sure enough, visible just under an overpass I can make out the rear end of a bus with flames shooting out of the sides. For a moment I hesitate, wondering whether I should see if I can offer any assistance; then I think better of it, imagining the crowd of rubberneckers that will doubtlessly be hovering around an accident that has already happened some time ago. As I’m walking back up toward the train I see a fire truck barreling down the street headed toward the fire, and I flash on another fire truck I saw the day before somewhere downtown, that had the word ‘Bravest’ emblazoned on the front windshield. ‘That’s not me,’ I think, as I head down the stairs into the safety of the subway entrance.