"So, yeah. Talk about a tough week." Johnny said as he watched Alf grab a handful of popcorn from the bowl on his lap. They were both seated on the couch, watching an episode of Stomach Pump. Alf shoved another handful of popcorn in his mouth and chewed sloppily. Johnny reached his hand into the bowl, but felt nothing but seeds.
"Ugh." he scoffed.
Alf looked down into the bowl and gave Johnny an apologetic look.
"Sorry, I forgot to eat the seeds." he said bluntly. He then put the lip of the bowl to his mouth and tipped it, sending the seeds rolling into the back of his throat. When he had finished the last one off, he burped.
"Well, I'm heading off to the ol' laundry basket." he stated, sliding off the couch and waddling off. Johnny raised his eyebrows.
"Don't you want to watch the rest of the show?" he asked, in a surprised voice.
"No thanks. I already know who Janet's real father is. Besides, the only reason I even agreed to watch it with you, is so I'd get some popcorn." he explained.
"Some popcorn?" Johnny asked.
Alf then turned and headed to the laundry room to get some shut eye. Johnny suddenly felt a pang of guilt that Alf had to sleep on some old bed sheets in a basket instead of having the luxury of a real bed.
"Wait, I have a guest bedroom!" Johnny blurted out.
Alf turned around and perked his ears up. "Do tell." he said excitedly. Johnny then regretted ever mentioning such a thing and he wanted to slap himself around.
"Um, yeah. It's upstairs. It does have a bed in it, but it never gets used and I figured you might want to sleep on something more comfortable than sheets in a laundry basket." he mumbled. Alf quickly bolted upstairs. Johnny sighed and followed him. He was just in time to see the alien swing open the bedroom door and jump on the bed. Alf landed on the bed, and then cringed in disgust.
"What is this? A Romanian orphanage?" he demanded, "Where are the sheets?"
Johnny leaned against the door jam and crossed his arms. "I was going to tell you that the bed didn't have any sheets, but you ran upstairs so fast, I couldn't get a word out." he stated bluntly. Alf slid off the bed and waddled over to the closet.
"There's nothing in here!" he shouted. Johnny rolled his eyes.
"Just be glad I'm letting you stay in my house at all. Once I locate your family, I'm booting you out." he said harshly. Alf looked down at his feet guiltily. Johnny noticed and knew right away that something was up.
"What? What is it?" he asked urgently. Alf shrugged.
"Well, no matter how hard you look, you're not going to be able to find my family."
Johnny blinked. "W-what?" he demanded. Alf didn't look like he wanted to say anymore, but he went on. "That story I told you about my family not wanting me….well, I made it up. I ended up here by mistake." he explained slowly. Johnny frowned. "But everything else was true? Melmac, the cookies and what not?" he asked. Alf nodded. "Yes. But the reason I got here was…there was this kid; named Marty." the alien continued.
"Marty who?"
"Marty McFly. He had this new space-age DeLorean car and I wanted to take it for a spin. It was really nice and so, when he wasn't looking, I got in and took it around the block."
"And you went farther than you intended?" Johnny pressed.
"Not exactly. I was really getting the feel and I wanted to push it faster. Amazingly, I got up to eighty-eight miles per hour. Then I started seeing some real shi-" he was cut off by Johnny.
"Wait, so you're telling me that you stole some poor sap's car and ran away with it?" Johnny asked in disbelief. "No, you didn't let me finish!" Alf spat angrily.
"After I got up to that speed, everything changed; the roads were different, the cars were different, but yet, everything was still the same." he trailed off. Johnny couldn't make sense of what the alien was trying to say. "Sounds to me like you did more than drive a car. Are you sure you didn't take a few swigs of beer?" he said, his voice bubbling with amusement.
Alf didn't look amused, which was a rarity.
"No, I'm telling you, that somehow, I don't know how…I traveled back in time!"
Johnny blinked again and sat down on the sheet-less bed.
"Time travel?" he asked. Alf nodded. "I think so. I looked at all the calendars I could find and they confirmed my beliefs. Just look at the way you're dressed." Alf said pointedly, cringing. Johnny looked offended. "What? This is the latest thing. Everybody's wearing it." he snorted. Alf rolled his eyes.
"Bell bottoms, ridiculously patterned shirts and outlandish hair? You're living in the stone-age, Johnny-baby! Not to mention, unfrosted Pop Tarts!" Alf laughed. Johnny shot him a dirty look and changed the subject.
"You want me to believe that you time traveled from…" he hadn't asked Alf what year he had been living in before. "Nineteen-eighty-six, baby." the alien finished.
"…Back to nineteen seventy-four?" Johnny noted, gesturing to Alf's furry crop of hair sticking up from the top of his head and draping over his forehead. Alf rubbed his paws together, like he was about to bite into a T-bone steak.
"This could prove to be interesting." he said, unable to contain his excitement at meeting somebody from such a primitive year. Johnny looked flustered and confused, which wasn't uncommon for him, but trying to believe that some alien he had never even heard of before, had crash-landed on earth and had traveled back in time with a time-traveling DeLorean, was just too much for him to comprehend.
"Dang it all to heck, Alf! Are you lying? Time travel isn't possible!" he shouted, his stress level mounting to an all-time high. Alf shrugged.
"Man, Marty's gonna be really ticked off." he said, nodding his head up and down. Johnny's shoulders went rigid and he put his hands on the side of his face.
"Oh Lord, this isn't happening!" he moaned, sliding his hands over his eyes and leaning his elbows on his knees. Alf sidled up next to the paramedic and patted him on the back. "It's okay. I had a hard time believing that I was dumb, too. Until the Tanners told me, anyway." he said aloud, with no sympathy whatsoever. Johnny stood up and left the room. Alf watched him go and jumped on the bare bed.
"What a luxury." Alf stated proudly. He sneezed and saw dust fly up from the mattress. "Ugh. The next time he cleans his house, maybe he'll take one step closer to the vacuum cleaner."
Downstairs, Johnny was in the kitchen, popping open a bottle of whiskey and pouring some into a glass. "I never thought it would come to this." he murmured. "If only I had listened to my parents and finished my police training, none of this would of happened." he said sadly.
Suddenly, the phone rang on the kitchen counter. He turned in his chair and reached for it. When he picked it up he grunted, "Hello?" on the other end, was Roy DeSoto.
"Um, are you coming to work tomorrow?" he asked. "You've been taking a lot of days off and Captain Stanley is thinking about transferring you." he said. Johnny scowled.
"That would be a saving grace." he spat, "Out of this stupid town and somewhere far away…maybe in South Africa. There, I can live my life free of extraterrestrials of any kind and I can say whatever I want without having somebody combat it with some wise remark." Roy was speechless.
"I take it that Alf is giving you trouble?" he asked wryly. Johnny sniffed and looked down into his whiskey glass. "Yeah."
Roy sighed. "Don't worry. I have an idea. We'll take Alf out on runs with us tomorrow, and he can pose as our mascot!" Johnny cringed. "Roy, are you feeling alright? That idea sounds pretty out of sight." Roy nodded. "Yeah, I know. It's really far out. But, I think it will work. We just have to get permission from the board to have a mascot come with us on our runs and then everything will be okay! You can foster an alien and keep your job!" he said happily. Johnny didn't bother thinking about it anymore. He was very dismissive of Roy at times and it usually led to trouble. "Yeah, yeah, alright. Whatever. See you tomorrow." Johnny grumbled. He then slammed the phone down on the receiver and put his bottle of whiskey back in the cabinet above the sink. As he looked closer in the cabinet, he saw that his whole bag of chips had been opened. Out of curiosity, Johnny reached for the bag. When he pulled it out, chips came pouring out of the bottom of the bag. Several fell on the floor, in the sink and on Johnny's head. He scowled; there was no doubt that Alf was the mastermind of ultimate pranks. Johnny wished that had remembered to remind Alf not to mess with any of the food in the cabinets while he was at work. What a stupid thing to forget. Alf should have known. This was the consequence for the poor fireman's forgetfulness. There was also the lingering possibility that his neglect had caused the loss of many a chip. Barbecue, in fact. What a waste. He hoped that the rest of his food hadn't been tampered with, but with Alf, anything was possible.
"Sooooo…." Captain Stanley started, rubbing his chin as he looked down at the furry three-foot tall mascot with a long zipper down the front of his chest. "He's going with you on runs to observe the work of paramedics?" the captain said doubtfully, casting a glance at Johnny, who was fidgeting next to Roy. "Um, yes." Johnny replied.
"All I can say is that you better keep him in line. And make sure he doesn't get sweaty in that ridiculous outfit." Captain Stanley warned. Alf looked like he wanted to make a snappy remark, but Johnny gave him a "you better not" look. Captain Stanley brightened.
"Oh, yes." he continued, "He'll have to wear a fire hat, to let people know that he's with you. Although I sure as hell wouldn't want to be caught dead with some midget dressed like that." he said coolly. Alf scowled. "Well, aren't you friendly? But, let me tell you something; I sure as heck wouldn't want to be caught dead with an ugly thing like you." Captain Stanley's eyes widened. Johnny winced and Roy's jaw dropped open; nobody dared talk to the captain like that. Not ever. Alf steadily held the captain's gaze, a triumphant gleam in his black eyes. Captain Stanley said nothing, but turned on his heel and stormed back into his office. When Johnny was sure the captain was gone, he turned and faced the alien.
"ALF!" he screeched in a whisper. "What did you do that for? You could've gotten into some real trouble!" Alf held his chin up in defiance. "He insulted me."
Johnny frowned. "You better not make cracks like that when you go out on runs with us."
Alf cocked his head. "Well in that case, I'll be running so hard, I won't be able to make any insults." Roy looked at Johnny and mouthed the words: "How dumb is he?" Johnny glanced back at Alf and crouched down to be level with him.
"Um, when we say runs, we mean emergency calls. People call in to the 911 dispatch center and then the dispatcher assigns a station or copter to the emergency, and sometimes, we get called out. We receive the address over the station's radio and if it's a small medical emergency or something two paramedics can deal with, Roy and I get called out. If it's a big fire or something really bad, the engine and the squad get called out. It just really depends. But, we call medical emergencies, runs. It all makes sense if you think about it."
Alf mulled all this over and nodded. "Way to confuse a guy, Johnny-boy." he said curtly. Johnny stood up straight and sighed. "Sorry. I'll speak in English from now on." he said sarcastically. Suddenly, fireman Chet Kelly came into the garage, eating an apple.
"Who is the guy in the anteater suit?" he asked through a mouthful of apple.
Roy got in front of Johnny, to make sure his partner didn't say anything stupid.
"Oh, him?" he asked innocently. "He's just an observer, advertising for some fire hose company!" he explained quickly. Chet looked down skeptically at Alf and raised an eyebrow. "Gordon Shumway's the name, hoses are my game!" Alf said in a salesman voice. Chet grunted and took another bite of his apple. "Aren't you gonna get hot in that dumb-looking suit? You know, Los Angeles weather can be brutal in the summer. Our temperatures reach over a hundred and two degrees. You'll be dead, right when you step out of this air conditioning." he said scornfully. Alf looked up at the fireman and nodded.
"Well, I'm sure it's nothing I can't handle. Where I come from, the summers reach over four-thousand degrees!" he bragged. Johnny and Roy winced at Alf's words and Chet stopped midway in biting into his apple and froze, looking down at Alf. Johnny held his breath and Roy forced a grin. Chet then shook his head. "Looks like the heat's already gotten to him." he said sadly. He then turned and walked away. Johnny let his breath out and Roy relaxed his shoulders and let his smile fade. They both looked down expectantly at Alf. Alf totally ignored them and waddled over to the fire engine. "How much water does this thing hold?" the alien asked, looking at the complicated water pressure controls on the side of the massive vehicle. Johnny leaned up against it.
"Quite a beauty ain't she?" he asked. "I'd say she can hold at least a thousand gallons, taken she's not exactly a tanker. Now a tanker, can hold over two-thousand gallons." he explained. Alf nodded, carefully looking at his reflection in the truck's paint.
"Interesting." he murmured. Johnny thought he detected a mischievous look cross Alf's face. "What?" the alien asked when he noticed Johnny staring at him like he had two heads or something. Suddenly, the alarm sounded, and the dispatcher's voice came on.
"Squad Fifty-one…" the dispatcher started. Johnny jerked his head up and motioned for Alf to come along. "That's us!" he said quickly. Captain Stanley came out of his office and listened to the address and statement the dispatcher gave. He shook his head as he wrote the address down and murmured, "Good heavens, another heart patient."
Johnny opened the squad car's passenger door and waited for Alf to climb in. Alf grabbed the seat and hoisted himself up. He grunted as he tried to pull himself in all the way, but his legs swung wildly in midair. Johnny sighed in exasperation and gave Alf a shove in the rear. Alf tumbled in and then sat up in the middle seat. Roy was already in the driver's seat, his fire hat strapped on and his expression portraying his usual unflappable-ness. Johnny got in and squeezed next to Alf. He slammed the passenger's door shut and reached behind him, grabbing his fire hat. He strapped it around his narrow chin and then reached down under the middle seat for Alf's fire hat. He shoved it on Alf's short head and tightened the strap around the alien's throat. Johnny resisted the temptation to tighten the strap until Alf couldn't breathe, the thought making him grin.
Roy jerked the car forward as the garage door lifted. Roy then flicked the sirens on. Alf shouted with excitement and Roy laughed.
"That was my reaction on my first time." he chuckled, his gaze locked on the road. Cars in front of them pulled off to the side of the road to let the emergency vehicle pass.
Johnny rested his arm on the open window sill and sighed with annoyance as Alf's fur made his left arm itch. Alf got excited when he saw the window open and he clapped his hands together. "Oooo! Can I stick my head out the window? Please, please?" he begged. Roy glanced quickly at Johnny. Alf turned to Johnny, with a pleading expression. Johnny scoffed in disgust and slid over to the middle seat as Alf crossed his lap. Johnny grunted loudly when he felt Alf's heavy weight. When the alien got to the passenger's seat, he took off his fire hat and stuck his head out the window. His crop of hair waved behind him and he opened his mouth, letting his tongue slop over his jaw like a dog. Johnny cringed and looked away.
Alf laughed and he sounded like somebody whose tongue was being held down to the ground with a stick.
"Is is un!" he shouted happily. Johnny glanced briefly at the window crank and grinned. He reached over to it slowly and clenched it. Roy saw this at the corner of his vision and kicked Johnny in the leg with his shoe. Johnny grimaced in pain and let go of the window crank. Alf finally stuck his head back in and rolled the window up.
"I like this job!" he exclaimed.
