SOMETIMES, YOU LOSE SOME
by ardavenport
- - - Part 1
"¿Dónde hacen daño a usted?"
"Uuuuh, Donde ah-sen dan-yo uuuh usted?" Roy looked intently back at Marco Lopez as he repeated the question.
"No, 'a usted'."
"Aah usted."
Marco's lip curled but he turned to Johnny. "Okay, now you try."
He straightened in the wooden chair. "Aaaaaah, Donde ha-cen da-ño aah usted." Then he frowned when Marco rolled his eyes.
"How's it going?" Captain Stanley strolled into the day room of the station, papers in hand.
Johnny answered first. "Oh great, Cap. It's going pretty well." But his grin dimmed a little at Marco's expression.
"Needs some more work, Cap." Marco shook his head, elbow on the edge of the kitchen table.
Johnny scowled back. "That wasn't so bad."
"Speak for yourself." Arms on the table, Roy slouched forward. He was not ashamed to admit that he was out of his depth. Johnny had the advantage of two years of high school Spanish, though he hardly remembered it any better than Roy recalled his high school German.
"Well, keep at it." Captain Stanley went to the station bulletin board. "You don't want any more rescues like that one you had last shift." He tacked up a light blue sheet.
"Noooo way." Johnny shook his head. Roy sighed and straightened, ready to start again. No they did not want another call with an old man, obviously having chest pains, but still able to jab a shovel and shout outraged Spanish at them. The neighbor who had called them didn't speak Spanish either. Only the victim's daughters, coming home from the grocery store, saved the situation.
Oooooooeeeeeeee-mmmmaaaaahhhh – BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
"Squad Fifty-One – Man down – Three-three-two-seven Cresent Place - Three-three-two-seven Cresent Place - Cross Street Greenbelt Boulevard - Time Out, Ten-forty-one."
Johnny got to the door into the apparatus room first along with Roy. Captain Stanley went to the radio alcove.
"Squad Fifty-One, Kay-Em-Gee-Three-Six-Five."
Stanley handed Roy a piece of paper with the address on it and Roy passed it on to Johnny as he put his fire helmet on. Roy started the engine. Johnny clicked on the lights and siren, and the squad rolled out, down the short driveway. Traffic on the five-lane street was light; a few cars slowed, letting the Squad out. Roy turned left.
Familiar gray buildings went by, cars slowing and pulling over for their siren. But at two intersections, they were blocked by traffic at the lights, forcing Roy to slow down, into the lanes of the oncoming traffic, to go around them.
They left concrete and telephone pole wire commercial area and headed toward greener, more residential streets. The address was on the edge of their area. Looking up from the map from the glove compartment, Johnny wasn't sure about Cresent Place, but he knew where Greenbelt Boulevard was. He pointed.
"Turn right up here."
After two more turns they were on Cresent Place. Johnny looked at the numbers on the houses. Twenty-eight-hundred. Twenty-nine-hundred. . . .
Three-three-two-seven Cresent Place was a modest single-story house with a poorly watered front lawn and tree in front. Roy stopped the squad in the driveway. Twelve minutes. They left their helmets in the front seat and went to the right side compartment for their equipment.
A woman in a flowered dress and white sweater. ran out the front door.
"Oh help, please! My father, he's having a hear attack! He's stopped breathing!"
Biophone, drug box, oxygen, defibrillator. Loaded up, they ran up the front steps and into the house after her. The victim was on his back on the carpet in the living room, next to a worn green sofa. Wearing black and white striped pajamas, the old man was pale, his cheeks hollow, his mouth open, his hands clutched to his chest. If he wasn't breathing when she called. . . .
Roy got to him first. "He's not breathing. No pulse."
Johnny tore open his shirt – he was so thin, his ribs stood out, his skin bloodlessly pale – and started CPR. He could hear dogs barking in another room of the house. One-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two, one-thousand-and-three . . . .
"Ma'am, does your father have a heart condition? Any health problems?" Roy took out the defibrillator paddles as he spoke.
"No, no, no. He's fine." Her voice rose hysterically, standing behind him. "He's fine, he's fine! Just do something!"
One-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two, one-thousand-and-three . . . .
Bam! "What's going on here!"
Johnny didn't look up at the sound of the loud, angry male voice entering.
One-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two, one-thousand-and-three . . . .
"Get out of here you parasite! You murdered him!" Something breakable crashed Roy reached across the man's chest with the paddles and Johnny pulled back for a few seconds, looking toward the small screen on the defibrillator. Flat line - -
"What do you people think you're doing?"
"Sir, this man is sick, we're – "
One-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two - - -
"Aaaaaaaauuuucccckkkkkk!"
Johnny grabbed onto the meaty forearm suddenly around his neck and lifting him up. His feet kicked the air.
"Hey!"
"Aaaaaauuuuggghhhhh!"
He dug his fingers in, but it felt as if he had no strength at all compared with the tightening grip on his neck. His attacker swung him away; his feet still couldn't touch the floor. He saw the squad, bright red next to green grass and bushes, through the living room window, then a flash of blue from Roy's uniform. But his partner could hardly move the arm. The woman yelled.
"You crazy bastard! I'm calling the police!"
"Aaaaaaauuuugggghhhh!"
He could get air. But a pounding pressure built up in his head, rapidly rising in volume. Blackness closed in on either side of him. The living room curtain, the wall, Roy, all turned gray. Fading into a black tunnel . . . .
. . . . . something wet touched his face.
He batted at it.
Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
It was a puppy. Two. Three puppies. Light gold fur, dark eyes, tails wagging furiously. They snuffled him, their noses to the carpet he was lying on. A full grown dog that looked like a golden retriever nosed around the pups. The stifling pressure faded out of his head.
What?
Seeing movement, he lifted his head, pushed himself up and blinked away the dizziness. A broad-shouldered man in a green and white striped shirt that fit tightly over his chest reached down with a forearm as big around as his leg.
"Hey!"
The man's big fist grabbed his collar and lifted him up. The man looked maybe 30, with a broad square jaw and military-short haircut. He didn't look angry. But those blue eyes were determined.
"Hey! Let go of me! What do you think you're doing? We're here to help!"
Where was the victim? Johnny saw the old man lying where they'd found him, their equipment still on the floor along with a dark brown puppy. Where was Roy?
He struggled and tried to squirm away. But this man was an unstoppable human tank. That big forearm wrapped around his neck again and dragged him backwards. Johnny's foot connected with a puppy on the floor and it yelped. The dog barked. The man dragged him out of the living room into the hall, the pressure on his neck increasing. His peripheral vision turned to gray again. . . .
. . . . . " - - ohnny? Johnny?"
He saw darkness and a straight vertical crack of light. Reviving all at once, Johnny realized that he was partially standing, his body pressed up against another, his cheek leaning next to cloth with moving muscle and bone under that.
"Johnny? Come on."
His partner's voice was right above his head, Roy's arms under his armpits and wrapped around him, shaking him.
"Hnnnuuuhh?" He tried to jump away, but something jabbed him in the back and something heavy fell on the floor behind his feet. Suddenly dizzy and nauseous, he lost his balance and started to fall, but there wasn't any room to fall in, between a short bit of wall, cardboard boxes and heavy hanging cloth. He dislodged more things, paper sounds, things thumping into more things. Then Roy's weight fell on him and Johnny briefly felt the impression of a name tag on his forehead. Something heavy and round rolled on Johnny's toe and he jerked his foot away.
"Ow, ow, ow!"
They were all arms and legs jabbing each other and bumping into things in the dark confined space. Johnny's elbow hit something hard and wooden right on the nerve. Paper fluttering; a book hit his shoulder. Then Roy pushed himself back and Johnny felt his partner's arm under his armpit again, pulling him up. But something long and bulky had fallen between them. Johnny's hand felt parts of it as he tried to push it away. Curved handle. Heavy cloth on a crosspiece. Electrical cord.
A vacuum cleaner?
Where were they?
"Roy? What-what happened?" He rubbed the sore spot on his shoulder where the book had gotten him. Taking deep breaths the nausea went down, the dizziness fading, though the air was hardly fresh. The upright vacuum cleaner handle fell back against them.
"That guy put us in the hall closet."
"What?" His eyes adjusting to the light, Johnny could now see the outline of the door where light came in through the cracks at the edges. And the closet seemed to be full with heavy cloth coats and boxes limiting them to the space by the door. Johnny wrinkled his nose from a faint scent of old paper, ammonia and moth balls.
"Are you okay?" Roy grabbed his arm, his pen light coming on and Johnny shut his eyes away from the sudden brightness. But Roy put his hand firmly on his shoulder and there wasn't any place to go. "You were out for about half a minute." Roy's fingers touched his neck. "Are you having any trouble breathing?"
Johnny touched his neck, too. "No, I could still breathe after he grabbed me. Everything just went black." Even though he no longer felt shaky or sick, he let Roy check his eyes with the pen light.
"Hmm, he must have cut the circulation off." The light lowered. Johnny saw it pass over Roy's wrist watch. Eleven o'clock. Putting the pen light away, Roy looked up and pressed his hands to the door. "This door's pretty solid." The doorknob rattled; it was locked. "I couldn't move it even before that guy shoved you in here, too." In the gloom, Roy turned around and put his back to it.
Circulation . . . .
"Roy! The victim!"
They rolled at ten-forty-one. Twelve minutes to get there. And the victim wasn't breathing. He looked bad.
Pushing the vacuum cleaner back, Johnny put his shoulder to the door, but even with both of them pushing the door didn't move.
"Man this door is solid. There's not enough room in here to get a running start on it." Johnny pushed as the piles of boxes, among the wall of heavy coats, to make more room, but he just heard things falling down. The boxes by their feet wouldn't budge.
"Wait." Roy put his ear to the door. "I can hear them."
Doing the same, Johnny heard the woman angrily shrieking. And dogs barking. He couldn't make out most of it other then a distinct 'You killed him!' along with some significant cussing. The man cussed right back at her along with a 'greedy bitch!' Their voices faded out. They were going to another part of the house.
Bam! Bam! Bam! "Hey! Let us out! Hey! Hey!"
Roy joined him. "Come on! Let us out!" Bam! Bam! Bam!
The woman's voice rose in shrill outrage, matched by a masculine 'Nooooo, you don't!" along with 'you never cared about him' and 'all you want is the house!' fragments. The shouting moved away again.
Johnny pounded again, harder. Bam! Bam! Bam! "Hey! Come back here and let us out! Hey!" They strained at the door again. They traded places and Johnny put his boot on the lock, but he only had a few inches to kick with. It just wasn't enough. What crazy person needed to lock a closet like Fort Knox?
He looked at his watch, the hands fluorescent in the dark. Eleven-oh-two. Maybe oh-three. He slumped against the door.
"Man, Roy, that guy's dead." Even if the man had only stopped breathing just before they got there (which he seriously doubted), he was already well into the 'brain damage very likely' range.
Roy sighed, leaning against the door, too. "Yeah. I know." His eyes adjusted to the darkness, Johnny could just make out a faint outline of his face, the defeat in his eyes. "I think the lady called the cops. She ran for the phone when that guy came in and grabbed you. I guess it was in the back of the house; that's when the dogs got out."
"Well, what else happened?"
"After he dropped you, he grabbed me, shoved me in here and locked the door. A couple minutes later he shoved you in here, too, and locked the door again."
"You couldn't stop him?
"Hey, I don't know if you got a good look at him, but that guy had at least eighty pounds on me; he was built like a mountain. I didn't have a chance."
"Yeah. . . . I guess so." Johnny rubbed his neck. "I sure didn't get anywhere with him." He sneezed. From the smell in the closet he was pretty sure that some of the puppies had been in there. He turned around, his face hitting the shoulder of a wool coat. The vacuum cleaner handle fell down against him again. Frustrated, he pushed it back hard, to get it out of the way.
"Maybe we can use something here to get out with?" Johnny reached between the coats but found only cardboard boxes. They were stacked high, filling the whole back of the closet. He felt up on a top shelf above their heads, but it was stacked with shoe boxes. A cloth hat fell on him.
"Hey." Roy pressed his ear to the door again. "I think I hear a siren."
- - - End Part 1