The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 59: A Hero Under the Influence

Episode Date: June 6, 2017

When all is lost and the end is near - why not have a drink... or several.

This is the way I heard it. Like everyone else at Ground Zero, Charlie was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He'd spent all day in the kitchen overseeing a crew of 13 junior bakers, churning out breads and cakes and pies and pastries for a crowd that never seemed to dwindle. Charlie had always dreamed of making a name for himself in a famous kitchen and headed off to New York City with dreams of success. Now, those dreams were coming true as the chief baker in one of the world's premier restaurants. Charlie was practicing the trade he loved and devoted to pleasing his customers.

Now, to be clear, Charlie was drunk on the day in question. There's no doubt about it. His blood alcohol content a few hours after the impact would have confirmed an almost inconceivable rate of consumption. But that's the point. Charlie's drinking did not proceed the impact. It followed it. And really, who could blame him? When the walls and the floor shuddered all around him,

Charlie knew something had slammed into the towering structure, something big. And when he saw the extent of the damage, he didn't panic. He merely retired to the bar in his now empty restaurant to enjoy what he knew would be the last drink of his life. But what exactly does one drink as one ponderes his own mortality and considers his final actions on planet Earth? For Charlie, the options were endless.

From the finest champagnes in France to the very best Italian wines, it was all there for the sampling. So Charlie sampled them all. There was bougele and sherry, brambouy and absinthe, cognac and arminac, endless rows of schnapps and beer from around the world. Mostly, though, there was some very old Irish whiskey. Ah, yes, that was just what the doctor ordered, the perfect elixir to prepare Charlie for the job at hand, the job he believed he was duty bound to execute.

Charlie pounded half the bottle and poured the rest into a large flask. Then he filled a sack with breads and pastries and slowly made his way up to the top floor, to do what must be done. Elevators were not an option. So Charlie took the stairs, encountering along the way dozens of panicked customers, people who just a few hours ago had been sitting in his restaurant,

eating his cakes and pies, luxuriating and five-star elegance. Follow me, he said. I know the way out. On the roof, it was pandemonium. So Charlie did everything he could to call. calm his customers. First, he handed out his pastries. Then he offered shots of courage from his bottomless flask. Then, when it was obvious that the first responders weren't responding,

Charlie did what he thought was best. He began to push his customers over the edge. Understandably, many resisted, but Charlie knew there was no other way out. So he literally grabbed them, one after the next, and heaved them. over the side. And when the opportunity came for him to follow suit, Charlie said no. Instead, he grabbed another customer from the panicked crowd and insisted he go in his place. If you saw the movie, you might recall the dramatic finale. Two lovers standing on the pinnacle of that doomed and crumbling edifice waiting for the inevitable collapse. Well, those lovers weren't really. there in real life. But the chief baker was. Charles Jofen, filled with adrenaline and booze

from around the world, had taken it upon himself to fill multiple lifeboats with dozens of terrified women and children, loathed to leave their husbands and fathers behind. Then, the inebriated baker, defying the laws of gravity and the rules of basic intoxication, crawled over the side, and scampered all the way up to what must have felt like the roof of the world. There, flask in hand, Charlie rode the ruined remains all the way down, waiting until the last possible moment before stepping from his perch into the 28-degree water. He should have died, just like everyone else who didn't make it into a lifeboat. But he didn't.

Instead, he splashed around the North Atlantic for over three hours until the Carpathia finally arrived and plucked him out of the black and icy sea with little more than two swollen feet and a lingering buzz. It was the booze, they said, that kept him alive, thinning his blood to the point where hypothermia was kept at bay. medical professionals might dispute such a claim today, but who knows? Maybe if James Cameron had allowed Leonardo DiCaprio a few slugs of whiskey, he too might have survived that terrible night and grown old with Kate Winslet. Alas, there was no happy ending for Jack and Rose, or for the 1500 real people who perished on their way to New York City. But, thanks, to an open bar. Charles Jaffin was not among them. He was busy, putting his customers first,

and preparing to step into history as the undisputedly inebriated baker, who just happened to be the very last person to abandon the Titanic. Anyway, that's the way I heard it.