JOKESTER
~)51(~
The sound of loud frying was coming out of the open Rec Room door, and Hank was talking to himself as he cooked a very delicious smelling dinner. Everyone knew that it was best to not pay any attention to him when he was talking to himself. It was better to let him mutter all he liked and keep quiet while he conversed openly with himself. His odd muttering meant headquarters was giving him a hard time—or more accurately Carl Phillips was giving him hell about his paper work and mercilessly demanding him to copy things over.
'BAM!' Hank slammed a cupboard door shut. Everyone also knew that when the Captain was slamming things, that it was best to tread very lightly and look busy. His occasional slamming of plates and drawers had caused every man on the crew to seek out a task that would make him look busy.
A metal pan crashed loudly and Hank growled something about lunatics and weasels, and after a moment, he actually answered his own comment. Everyone was extremely well aware that when Hank was slamming things 'and' actually arguing with himself, it was best to simply hide altogether, and also proceed to do work while staying out of sight. That way if Hank came along and spotted a hiding man who was busy, he would not end up picking fleas off the dog with a pair of tweezers.
Mike was polishing the Engine's already very shiny silver fenders with a rag that was barely finding any dirt. It was not a great chore, but the grouchy Captain wouldn't invent something for him to do. Mike didn't like the idea of having to help Chet polish doorknobs and scrub trashcans. There really wasn't anything for Chet to complain about though. He was not being punished. Hank was angry enough to keep him busy, but not mad enough to make him do anything horrible. Marko was in the bathroom now taking his turn cleaning the latrine after all.
"You gonna tell me about her?" Mike paused in mid-polish to lean around the engine. He saw that it was Roy who'd spoken. Johnny was by the squad; sitting on his heals in front of one of the medical boxes, sorting bandages. The younger man looked up at his standing partner, and questioned, "I'm forgiven?"
"No." Roy sat down on the Squad's running board with the logbook open on his lap. Like Johnny and Mike, he was hiding out and pretending to be busy. "What's your sister's name?"
Johnny's paused a moment, and he cleared his throat before enunciating, "Enakowahanahai."
Mike let the sound of the name wash over him. He wished he could say it as easily as Johnny could, but he didn't even comprehend it. Roy fumbled the name badly, "Ekohaha who high?"
Johnny laughed delighted. "Nakee. You can call her Nakee."
"Nakee Gage?"
"Yep."
Roy laughed at this. "That is a really cute name."
Mike felt a jolt of anger. Nakee was a cute name and if he could have, he would have kept it locked up in a safe so no one else could listen to it. Mad now, he needed someone to glare at and looked down the bay at Chet who'd been sweeping the same space of clean floor for the last ten minutes, but it was in a part of the bay least visible from the Rec room. Hank probably would not care if Chet stood there all night and swept that spot just so long as he didn't pull any more pranks. Mike thought, if it hadn't been for Chet he might have gotten a date with Nakee. He was still mad at him for the water catapult from that morning. The conversation about Nakee drew him to listen to the two paramedics.
"She's a nurse?" Roy asked sounding surprised.
"Yeah." Johnny answered.
"At Rampart?"
"Yeah."
"Seriously?"
"Very."
"Oh! So she's the one that made the coffee at Rampart earlier today, didn't she?"
"Yeah."
"All right! I wanna hear this. From the beginning. When did all this happen, or start to happen with yer sister?"
"Oh...uh...well, when she was born..."
"Don't be a wise guy! You know what I mean!" Roy punctuated the remark by lightly slapping the top of Johnny's head.
Johnny laughed and rubbed his cuffed head. Mike made no attempt to hide the fact he was listening in. They knew Chet was listening too because he was sweeping his way toward them. Mike wondered what the paramedic was going to say to his partner about Nakee visiting his place. "Remember last week I looked after Mike?"
"Yeah."
"I called home from there. Figured I should let my Aunt and Uncle know where I was in case they tried to call. But my sister answers the phone and she tells me she's done with school, got her nursing license, and is going to Rampart to put in her application. So, I asked her to go to my apartment and get me some clothes and bring them by, and come over and talk. A while later she shows up and tells me that it was Dixie McCall who handed her the application form, and got her hired before she was half-done filling things out."
"Well, all right!" Roy cried out delighted. "It helps to have a big brother in good with them."
Johnny laughed. "I guess it does. Anyway, she visited for half the day. She said the reason she was applying to Rampart was to get in a program that pays off her student loan after she's worked their for two years. And she got a Bachelor's degree in nursing, and lived off campus, so she's got a hefty bill to pay. She starts tomorrow."
"Mike and Dixie knew about your sister since last week? Am I the only one that didn't know about her?" Roy grumbled this with a scowl.
Johnny's voice was high with objection. "I told you! I wanted you to meet her in person and introduce you."
"Why didn't you just bring her by my place?" Roy demanded.
Johnny found a length of gauze had come unwound and began to fix it as he carried on a civilized tone, "Last week she didn't stay. She only just got to town officially yesterday, and you weren't around now were you? We were at my place all day sorting things out and I called your house at least ten times. I was gonna fish for an invite to dinner and..."
Roy huffed and did a double take. "She's living with you in that tiny apartment?"
Johnny fumbled. "Well...you know...she's not gonna stay there forever. Besides, she doesn't have anywhere else to go! She's flat broke."
"Just hope things don't go as badly for her as they did for me when I stayed with you a few weeks ago."
"Oh that's different and you know it!" Johnny griped. "I came up with a solution for us anyway. We cleaned out my living room closet. You saw how big that is. Got a window in there and an outlet, and those shelves that are built into the back and..."
"She's not living in your closet is she?" Roy objected.
"NO! She's not living in the closet! Just her stuff! God! Why do you wanna irritate me so bad?"
"Cause you deserve it!"
"Oh be quiet." Johnny tucked away the now wound up roll of gauze, and fiddled with some small boxes. He bent his head down in a sulky manner.
Roy interrupted his partner's pouting by asking, "So where's she sleeping? I hope not on that pull out thing that you have the nerve to call a bed."
Johnny looked up. "No, Nakee's not sleeping on..." Something clattered from the Rec Room. Johnny looked up, owl eyed with nervousness. Mike was prepared to suddenly look as if he was trying to kill himself to make the engine spotless. "...on the pullout bed. She sleeps on the couch. Anyway, while I'm here on duty she's got the place to herself. She'll sleep in the bed tonight."
"You must've gotten lost trying to clean out all that junk you had in that closet."
Johnny laughed hollowly. "Yeah. I had a lot of junk in there all right. Everything I didn't want anymore I just threw in there. When I first moved in to that building, people saw I hardly had anything and they gave me stuff they didn't want anymore. And you know I been living there for the last four years, and I the junk multiplies when I'm not home or something. Me and Nakee pulled out all that stuff and looked it all over. Both of us were wondering what the heck to do with it all. You know, stuff like curtains that don't fit the windows, and dishes that I don't need. I had these two big shallow pitcher things with little platters stuck on the bottom and even Nakee had no clue what they were for. She said to me that she emptied out her old apartment by selling everything to a second hand store and some of those places will send a truck."
Roy nodded as he clipped papers to the back cover of the log's binder. Mike listened to the pleasant meaningless banter while cleaning a part of the engine that was actually a bit dirty.
Johnny looked up at his partner, "By the way, she tried to sleep on that pull out bed last night and," he sighed heavily. "She said it was the worst thing she'd ever had to sleep on in her life and that I should get rid of it before it ate someone."
Mike had to laugh along with Roy who nearly bust a gut over this bit of news. Even Chet shyly snickered from a safe distance, and they heard Marko chuckle too. He was listening with the latrine door open while he cleaned. Johnny rolled his eyes and blushed and then laughed along with the guys. Mike polished his way around the engine, looking for an excuse to get closer to the talk. Another clatter of noise shot out of the kitchen, and everyone warily froze, waiting for Cap to emerge looking like an angry demon on the hunt. Anyone not busy doing something would end up picking fleas off Boot. But nothing happened. They heard only the sound of a heavy hunk of meat being turned over in a pan and hissing loudly as it fried.
"Anyway," Johnny pushed some bandage boxes into their proper order. "She called a second hand store. You know that really big one that's up on Canary Street?"
"Uh...? Oh yeah!" Roy nodded. "My wife shops there, but I don't remember the name."
"I know the place," Mike seated himself on one side of the engine, polishing rag in hand. "The Used Barn."
"Yeah, that's it." Johnny wagged a finger at Mike, and nodded. "These two big barrel chested guys came in with boxes and moving gear and cleaned out all that junk in less than twenty minutes." At a brows-up look from Roy, he said pointedly, "And the stupid fold up bed went too."
The admonition generated laughter all around the station, and Johnny rolled his eyes. "They filled up their whole truck. I thought they'd give me twenty bucks at the most if they were feeling generous. But they said eighty bucks cash, or a hundred and sixty in store credit. I took the store credit and let Nakee have it all. And I thought she'd go and get herself a bunch of new clothes, I mean..." he twitched his head and shoulder. "I...uh, know you guys had to see her dress was kind of...ah...little threadbare." he cleared his throat and didn't look up at anyone. "And she did get some stuff, but she went into the home department and bought curtains and all these little shelves and lamps and some goofy looking rugs. I don't even know what half of it was, or why she wanted it, but I did let her have the run of that money. I know better than to argue with her about it when she wants things her way. She would probably let herself die from oxygen deprivation rather than stop arguing before she's gotten her way and..."
Roy broke in with a jovial comment, "She's a Gage all right!" Chet and Mike laughed, and Marko could be heard chuckling in the locker room. Johnny had to laugh as well, and then he exhaled a heavy breath.
"So why is it that in three years you never mentioned her?" Roy asked. "And don't give me any bull about how it just never came up in conversation."
The question hung in the air, and Johnny stuffed a wad of bandages into a corner of the supply box. "Well...you know!" his reply was shrill and he rubbed his neck and shot an innocent smile at his partner. As he looked up he realized Mike was looking at him, Roy was glaring, Chet had stopped sweeping, and Marko was leaning out the locker room door. Even Hank wasn't slamming or muttering at the moment. "Just...I guess...I dunno! I just..." he shrugged frustrated. "I Just Never Mentioned her!" he yelled as he twitched, and changed the subject. "You know, she made five trips back and forth to that store just yesterday? Now my place is a bigger wreck than it was before we started to clean! What the heck she wants all that stuff for is beyond me."
Mike and Roy exchanged glances with each other over the subject change. They both knew they would have to nag to get the answer out of Johnny about why he'd never mentioned his sister. In the meantime they would let him have his tangent. Johnny went on talking about all the shelves and fake flowers his sister had dragged home. Roy exhaled and laughed at his partner. "I know what all that stuff is for," he pointed at his partner. "I know what she's doing."
"What?" Johnny asked, and he seriously seemed clueless.
"You'll see." Roy was smirking.
"See what?"
"I'm not telling."
Johnny's eyes went large and round. "Not telling me what?"
"I'm not telling you anything," Roy smiled broadly, enjoying himself and his partner's bafflement. It was great revenge.
"Well, fine!" Johnny slammed the supply box shut and latched it. "Fine! I don't even know what you're talking about anyway! So its fine!" He got to his feet and dumped the box back into the squad. "Fine!" he cleared his throat and glared at Roy. "I really don't know what you're talking about anyway! So it's fine!"
Roy gave him a shrug, a smirk and then turned to walk away from him. Johnny put up a hand in a 'wait-a-minute' gesture and opened his mouth to speak, but Hank hollered loudly from the kitchen in such a way that no one would dare to ignore it, "Dinner is done! Get in here and eat!"
The four men in the bay all blinked in the direction of the Rec room, unsure if they wanted to go in there, no matter how delicious the food smelled.
"We're coming!" Johnny called before Hank got more impatient than he was already. He motioned at Roy to go in first.
"Why me?" Roy whispered.
"You don't need to pick out an ambassador! All of you get in here and eat!" Hank roared.
The three men between the vehicles nearly fell over one another to hurry along. Marko ran across the bay with wet hands, and Chet put away his broom but peaked hesitantly around the corner of the open door, unsure of how welcome he was going to be at the table.
"Chet, come and eat before it gets cold." Hank invited in a calm but not entirely forgiving tone.
He stepped in and took his place at the table with his work family for dinner. As he cut into his steak, he thought, Cap can't be too mad at me or he'd have made me a baloney sandwich instead of steak. But who is doing this to me?
Johnny lifted his head up and saw Chet glaring at him, and also spotted Mike glaring sidewise at Chet. He knew exactly what Mike's problem was—he was jealous because Nakee was obviously charmed by Chet's antics. That explained why Mike glared at Chet for most of the shift. He wondered to himself, 'Why is Chet glaring at me though?' Johnny did what Roy was doing. He put his head down over his food and did not look at anyone.
More To Come...