The fire escape was the balcony of the poor. The rich had terraces with potted trees. The poor had iron grating with a pigeon. The fire escape was never meant for sitting. The fire escape was meant for escaping fires. Nobody escaped a fire on the fire escape. Everybody sat on the fire escape. The city said do not sit on the fire escape. The city had never lived in a four-hundred-square-foot apartment in August with no air conditioning and one window that faced a brick wall.

The fire escape was the living room that happened to be outside. Families ate dinner on the fire escape. Couples argued on the fire escape. Children did homework on the fire escape. Old men smoked on the fire escape. The fire escape was the porch that the tenement did not have because the tenement was built by a man who did not believe the poor deserved porches.

The fire escape had a sound. The iron creaked when you stepped on it. The iron creaked differently depending on the weight. A child made a high creak. A man made a low creak. A woman carrying groceries made a creak that started high and ended low as the bags settled. You could tell who was on the fire escape without looking. The fire escape announced its visitors the way a screen door announces its visitors. The sound was the doorbell.

In the summer the fire escapes were full from the second floor to the sixth floor and every floor could hear every other floor. The man on three was playing a radio. The woman on four was yelling at her kids. The couple on five was not yelling but you could hear the silence between them which was louder than yelling. The kid on six was bouncing a rubber ball against the iron railing and the ball made a ping that sounded like a submarine. Six floors of fire escapes and each one a stage. The building was a theater and every floor was a different show and you could not change the channel.

I played guitar on the sidewalk and the fire escapes were my audience. Six floors of people sitting on iron grating looking down at a man with a guitar looking up. The sound went up and their faces looked down and somewhere in the middle the music met the listeners and the fire escape was the best venue I ever played. No cover charge. No bouncer. No set list. Just a man on the sidewalk and six floors of people who could not escape the music any more than they could escape the fire the fire escape was built for.