Emergency Drills, Centre Avenue Elementary School, East Rockaway, N.Y. 1958
alan catlin
Primary school teachers lead their charges in
orderly lines through the drab grey painted
hallways, the fire bells clanging, everyone must
remain calm and silent climbing down the black
wrought iron fire escape slats, “Lives are endangered
in times of emergency. No one may talk now. Listen
for instructions. Obey all orders.” The youngest
are holding hands in alphabetical pairs outside
Centre Avenue Elementary School, watching the bricks
not melting down during the imagined conflagaration,
waiting for the all clear sounds, three short bells
and the familiar doors swing open, admitting the
uninjured,ending playtime, confirming an understanding:
“It could never happen here, Disaster. Not to us.
It will always happen somewhere else. Somewhere
where they play games for real.” Inside, later
in the term, nuclear war is discussed in terms
of fire drills: “Avoid high windows. Duck under
your desks, arms over your eyes, wood will protect
your body from broken, flying glass.” In the hallways,
a new kind of drill is conducted, is the crouching
down exercises against walls, hands over the head,
silently breathing in stale air, the fact of Bomb
ignited, ground zero is their eyes, the flesh of
children stripped cleanly from bone. After
the hoarse whining of air raid sirens signals
all clear; the unscathed children rise, thinking:
“This too we can survive.”