They Ought To Have A License
Chapter 1
It was a warm sunny day, much like any other in L.A. County. The paramedics of County Fire Station 51 had spent the morning responding on various miscellaneous calls. There had been the small structure fire where a young boy had started his parents shed ablaze by experimenting with matches. Johnny and Roy treated the youngster for minor burns, and transported him for minor smoke inhalation.
Next had been a response for a woman down in a shopping center, which turned out to be a slip and fall at the local supermarket. After packaging the victim, Roy and Johnny had left her in the capable hands of the Mayfair EMT's.
The two paramedics had responded on a sprained ankle for a college student who had tripped over a sprinkler head while running through the nearby park. The medics again bandaged up the wounded limb, and turned their patient over to the EMT crew from the responding ambulance.
Next the boys responded to a lonely little old woman who had hyperventilated when her small dog had escaped from her yard. A quick puppy re-capture, and a brown paper sack were employed and again the first responders were free to leave the scene.
Next there was a false alarm which sounded intriguing, something about a woman trapped in a restroom, but it had been canceled before the squad got close enough to even follow up on scene. Subsequently to the cancelation, the medics of 51 were called to a lower income property for a child trapped. Arriving on scene the men found a seven year old boy who had somehow managed to wedge himself between the two rows of washing machines in the complex Laundromat. A little light problem solving and the child had been retrieved unharmed, and again Johnny and Roy were headed back to the station.
As Roy drove the squad in the direction of station 51, Johnny lazily dangled his arm out the passenger's side winder letting the wind blow through his hair as he leaned slightly out the opening. The breeze felt good, and he began to realize the tedium of the routine runs of the morning was dulling his senses. Neither man spoke of the monotonous, but relatively sane pace their morning had offered fearing by speaking of the easy morning they'd somehow anger the mythical fire gods, and the afternoon might turn out to be far more exciting than they'd prefer. The pair simply traveled in companionable silence wishing things would slow down further and allow them some time at the station where hopefully they'd actually get to eat an entire meal undisturbed by the tones and klaxon.
Two fair skinned small eleven year old girls sat sullenly in the shade of a protective tree. The two were prone to sunburn, and having been banished to the outdoors by their foster mother with a dire warning they had better not get sun burned, there was little else for them to do but cower in the meager shade allowed by an old Red Bud tree. It was warm for a Southern California June day, and one of the exceptionally thin girls lamented to the other that she would really like a drink of water. The other child looked at her sister in silence, both knowing they'd have to scamper across the hot sunny yard to the garden hose hoping that Mother wouldn't see them as they ran, or hear the water as it was turned on for what would likely be a warm drink from the garden hose. "I'm not that thirsty." The second child said as she began gathering up the dried beans from under the tree. "Here Anna, lets peel these and pretend we're making them for dinner." She suggested to her twin. The pods from the tree were dried and when cracked open they yielded small black seeds. Though inedible, the children sometimes found them entertaining in the long hours they were often forced to sit under the tree.
"Abby, I'm thirsty." The first child again complained to her sister. "It's hot out here."
"I know Anna." Abby said licking her thin dry lips. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could have some ice water like Mother? She always keeps that glass of water on the kitchen counter, and it looks good, doesn't it?" Abby said wistfully.
Both children knew that their foster Mother kept a tall recycled jelly jar filled with ice water on the kitchen counter next to the sink. They had walked by it often enough on hot days, and both could easily visualize the frosty glass dripping with cool condensation.
Anna licked her lips again. "I drink it sometimes when I go by." She admitted to her twin.
"What?" Abby said, obviously scandalized and horrified. "Anna, do you know what she'd do to you if she caught you?" Abby hadn't even considered tasting the water, no matter how it looked. She knew the brutality of their foster mother, and tried to avoid arousing the woman's anger whenever possible.
Both girls knew they'd be beaten for such an infringement. It wouldn't matter which of them had committed the sin, they would both be assumed guilty and beaten.
"I always fill it back with water to the same level it was before I had some. She'll just figure the ice melted is all, if she even notices the difference." Anna said. She was unrepentant. Anna didn't understand why the twins were consigned to drink warm water from the bathroom sink or sneak water from the outside hose when other's in the house could have ice water from the refrigerator. Anna figured what Mother didn't know wouldn't hurt anyone.
"Anna, she's gonna catch you some day, and she'll beat us both." Abby lamented.
Both scrawny children sat in sullen silence for a while, small gnats and flies buzzing around them in the mid day heat. As time dragged on Abby decided to again attempt to interest her sister in the bean game and hopefully occupy them and make time pass more quickly. Maybe Mother would call them in for some lunch soon and she'd give them something to drink with their meal.
"Here Anna" Abby said handing her sister a hand full of dried pods. "Let's see who can peel the biggest pile of beans before Mother calls us in for lunch."
"You know she'll be mad if she catches us doing this, right?" the other little girl said accepting the beans from her twin.
"Well, we can just drop them along the fence when we are done. She'll never know. We have to do something while we are sitting out here." Abby said as she began to disassemble the bean pods.
In a while the two girls heard their foster mother screaming for them through the kitchen window. Both girls hurriedly dropped the evidence of their game along the fence line behind the shed where they had been hiding in the shade, and ran for the house before the woman became enraged at them for taking too long to respond to her summons.
After a rather tedious but steady morning of calls, the paramedics of station 51 arrived in quarters just in time for lunch. It was a hot day, and both were eager to embrace the cool air conditioned comfort of the day room while they enjoyed their noon meal. Johnny strolled into the kitchen sniffing the air appreciatively. "Mmmmm, what smells so wonderful?" he inquired of the chef de jour Marco Lopez.
Marco tuned his gaze from the counter where he was putting the final preparations on lunch. "Hey amigo, lunch is almost ready. I've made a nice gazpacho soup and smoked tuna salad sandwiches for lunch. Fix you and Roy some iced tea and have a seat. I'm about ready to dish everything up." He said.
Johnny stepped over to the kitchen counter to examine the tuna salad Marco was preparing. "Oooooh Marco, is that some of the tuna you and your brother caught on your day off?" He inquired.
"Si, we caught it and smoked it ourselves. I thought you guys might enjoy some." Marco replied as he wiped the counter top where he had been slicing vegetables.
Johnny rubbed his hands together with anticipatory glee and turned as if to head for the cupboard to withdraw glasses to pour the tea as suggested by Marco.
Roy, who had come into the kitchen just behind Johnny, said "I'll get that partner, you have a seat." And taking the glasses from the cabinet, he strolled over to the refrigerator and filled two glasses with ice and tea bringing them back to the kitchen table where he handed one to Johnny.
"Thanks Pally." Johnny said gratefully accepting the frosty glass, and taking a long blissfully cool drink of the refreshing liquid. "Aaaahhhh…that's so good." He said flicking his tongue across his lips to rescue any stray droplets of the cooling beverage.
Soon the other men of the company joined their paramedics at the table and a delicious lunch was served and consumed along with copious amounts of refreshing iced tea. Mercifully, the fire Gods were kind to the crew of station 51, and lunch passed undisturbed.
Scrambling into the kitchen from outside, Anna and Abby quietly slipped into their places at the kitchen table. Mother had prepared Vienna sausage sandwiches for them on white bread with mustard. Each girl received half the can of room temperature sausage sliced on their sandwich and each plate held half a small can of shoestring potatoes chips. There were 12 ounce tumblers of iced Hawaiian punch at each plate, and the girls eagerly dug into their noon meal.
The children ate at the table alone with the adult towering over them sipping her glass of ice water at the kitchen counter. She rarely ate at the table with these two unless her husband was around preferring to have her lunch alone after she'd sent them away. She watched as the pathetic creatures gobbled up the food she'd given them, even stopping to lick their little fingers and dab at every crumb on the plates. With a disgusted expression she sneered at the two girls screaming "stop eating like animals" and she grabbed the blade of the case knife she'd used to spread mustard and whacked the handle of the instrument onto the nearest child's unsuspecting skull.
"You're done!" she screamed at the girls. "Get out of my sight! Go to your room, and I'd better not hear you fighting." She threatened menacingly as the two girls tried desperately to swallow every drop of their Hawaiian punch and ice, while fleeing from the table before another blow could fall on one of them.
The men of station 51 settled themselves comfortably in the day room to chat and read magazines after a cool and deliciously satisfying lunch. Chet, who had drawn kitchen cleanup for the day set about clearing the lunch dishes from the table. Comfortable conversation drifted between the firemen as they awaited their next call.
The first call to come was again for the paramedics. They were sent out to a child down call. The men dashed to the squad and sped into a warm early summer afternoon toward an address that turned out to be a day care center. Upon arriving on scene Johnny and Roy found they would be dealing with a child who had slipped from the top of the monkey bars and fallen to the gravel below. The child had sustained a scalp laceration, and a probable broken wrist. Vitals were taken, the wrist splinted, and the head wound was bandaged. The day care called the child's mother, and the paramedics departed for Rampart with their charge in tow assured that a parent would meet them at the Emergency Room.
Johnny rode in the ambulance with the young girl they had rescued. She was a small thing, with big brown eyes. They'd had to immobilize her on a backboard with a cervical collar as a precaution, and the miserable and terrified child stared up at the paramedic with frightened big brown eyes. His heart melted, and he comforted the little girl as the ambulance hurtled toward Rampart. Johnny spent time holding her little hand, and telling her stories until he had her smiling shyly at him. By the time the ambulance backed into Rampart, the child was much more interactive, and though still somewhat worried, she seemed to have calmed significantly.
"We're going to take you on a little ride now." Johnny soothed as he hopped from the back of the ambulance and began to slide the gurney out after him.
"Where are we going Johnny?" the sweet little voice asked timidly from the backboard.
Johnny smiled down at the child saying "there's a really good Doctor inside here, and he's gonna make you feel better." And he patted her little hand comfortingly.
Johnny continued to talk to the child as they wheeled her into the exam room. When Dr. Early entered the room Johnny introduced the child to him, and after the child seemed comfortable Johnny left the room. In the hallway Roy could be seen speaking calmly with a woman Johnny was certain was the child's mother.
After getting the mother situated in the waiting room the two paramedics found themselves at the nurses' station sipping coffee. They re-stocked their drug box, and as Dixie signed them out the conversation turned to their young patient.
"What a sweet kid." Johnny remarked. He told Dixie and Roy of the journey in with the child, and speculated on her probable prognosis.
"Well, she'll be just fine." Dr. Early said as he stepped up to the nurse's station near the end of Johnny's remarks. "She has a broken wrist, a mild concussion, and I put six stitches in that scalp laceration. But, she's going to completely recover, and her Mother is with her now."
"Well all right!" Johnny said with obvious pleasure. He really loved it when it felt like he was able to offer some small comfort to a patient, especially when that patient happened to be a frightened child. So often, and Johnny knew from experience, children would end up hurt with little comfort to be found in their own little worlds or private hells as the case sometimes could be. Today's run was one to put in the win column as far as Johnny was concerned, and he took a moment to revel in the triumph.
Roy could see the satisfied glee in his partner's eyes. Somehow, when their runs dealt with injured children, Johnny always seemed to feel more strongly. Roy too was glad this run with this child was one of those times they could both walk away knowing they'd helped ease suffering for at least this one frightened injured child. Slapping his partner happily on the back Roy said "Good deal!" Then turning to Dr. Early and Dixie he said "We gotta go guys. Keep us updated on her progress?"
The medical professionals nodded their agreement, and wished the paramedics a good afternoon as the two uniformed men strode lightly out of the Emergency Department.