Part Four – Check Your Own Knots
Evvy was still feeling fragile and out of sorts when she reported for her next shift. She stashed her duffel in her locker, and shook her head at the Bugs Bunny sticker with a bikini drawn over it that someone had placed on the door. The adhesive was tough; the sticker came off in bits and pieces. An inauspicious start to her day, for sure. She ambled to the kitchen and set up a fresh pot of coffee, washed and dried the few dishes left by C Shift, then headed to Cap's office. His door was open, as always, so she knocked on the frame.
Captain Stanley looked up. "Morning, Evvy. Come in."
She stepped inside and fished the folded piece of paper from her back pocket. Holding it out, she said, "Morning, Cap. I'm supposed to give this to you." He took the paper, unfolded it, and nodded with satisfaction. It was the note from the Department counselor, confirming that she had attended a session with him as ordered.
"Okay, thanks," Cap said, placing the note on top of his morning pile of paperwork. He paused, then added, "It isn't anybody's business how often you see the counselor, Evvy, or what you talk about with him. Might help, though." He raised his bushy eyebrows. "With everything."
Evvy wasn't sure what response he was looking for, so she just replied, "Yes, Cap." There was an awkward silence, then she said, "I'll just, uh . . .," pointing over her shoulder with her thumb toward the door.
Cap sighed. "Yeah, dismissed."
Evvy took off like she was escaping a fire.
She was just sitting down at the kitchen table with her cup of coffee when John's voice drifted in. He sounded agitated.
"Every single time, Roy! Doesn't matter what we're talking about, it always comes back around to how many kids she wants to have. Every time. I mean, I like kids, kind of. I like your kids, Roy, they're great." John's voice filled the kitchen as he walked in, tucking his shirt into his trousers. Roy followed silently. "I just — I mean, can you imagine my kids? Me, with kids. They'd be nightmares, every one of 'em! Right?" Roy rolled his eyes toward Evvy, clearly having decided that ignoring the loaded question was better than offending John by agreeing with him. John splashed a few ounces of coffee into his cup and went on, leaning back against the counter. "I mean, I like her, she's really great but –" he sipped and noticed that the coffee had been brewed with a cinnamon stick, "—hey, this coffee's really good, but I feel like she's got marriage on the brain all the time now."
"Mmm," Roy said, noncommittally. John had been see-sawing between his delight at how "incredible" this latest girlfriend was and his fear that he was about to be dragged into a ball and chain situation. Evvy could only imagine how many times Roy had listened to John process this relationship out loud, trapped with his partner out on the streets of Carson for miles at a stretch. John took another sip, then opened his mouth to continue his tirade. He was interrupted by the klaxon.
"Station 51, child trapped. Freeman Industrial Park, 1273 Freeman Boulevard, 1-2-7-3 Freeman Boulevard, time out, eight-fifteen."
Evvy swung herself up on the Engine, trying to shake the image of the last child-involved incident from her mind. "Rule number one," she muttered to herself as the sirens roared to life.
The industrial park was massive, and a motorcycle officer was waiting at the entrance to guide them in. The two apparatus followed him about a quarter mile down an access road and stopped near a row of uneven storage buildings with flat roofs and outside access ladders. The problem wasn't readily apparent, so the officer explained.
"Kids were playing up there on the roof, I guess jumping from building to building. One slipped and slid between those two right there. He's wedged in there pretty good." The firemen looked at the buildings. Both were about two and a half stories high. There was less than a foot of space between them. "I don't know how long he's been in there. His friend," the officer gestured to a boy of about 11 years old who was standing off to the side with another officer, "ran all the way out to the main road and flagged us down. The kid was responding verbally until about five minutes ago."
John and Roy were already loading up with ropes and a leather harness belt. They climbed the metal ladder to the roof of the building. John lay flat on the hot cement surface and peered down into the narrow space. "I can just barely see the top of his head." He snapped on his flashlight. "Aw, man. He's about halfway down. Looks like his arm is jammed up next to his head. Might be caught on something right up under his armpit."
Cap said, "Marco, Chet, see if you can lower Johnny down." The two men climbed up to stand on the roof next to John and Roy. While the two linemen lifted John up by his shins and maneuvered him down into the narrow space, Cap tried to get a view from the ground up. "Yeah, he's stuck good. If we bring him down, we'll pull his shoulder right out. Wouldn't be surprised if he's got a cracked rib or two, he's in there that tight."
John's voice floated from above, sounding frustrated. "I can just barely touch his hand, it's right up next to his face. He's not responsive at all. I'm not gonna be able to get the belt down around him. Space is too small."
"Is there enough air circulating, do you think?" Cap called up.
"Yeah, but it's hot as blazes," John replied. Roy added, "We could blow some cool air in there, just to be safe." At Cap's nod, Roy scrambled down to jury-rig some gear.
"Evvy," Cap said thoughtfully, eyeing the only crew member as thin as Gage, "you think you can fit in there and shimmy up high enough to get a rope harness around his waist? We could try threading it down from up top."
Evvy ducked her head between the rough walls and looked up. Just a tiny bit of sunlight streamed in. That kid was stuck tight by his shoulder and upturned arm. The bottom of his sneaker was about ten feet up. If she went in with her back against the wall instead of sideways like he was, there might be just enough space. "Yeah," she said.
"Johnny," Cap called up, "let's try a modified Swiss seat. Drop it behind the boy, and Evvy'll get him in it from below."
There was a brief silence. "A'ight, Cap," John said, and Roy scrambled back up the ladder with the additional rope and the O2 tank. It took a few minutes, but soon a knotted nylon rope fell behind the boy's back and landed on the ground. A safety belt for Evvy followed in short order on the front side of him. She looked skyward, and Roy gave her a thumbs up.
Stoker helped her buckle the safety belt. "The guys will give you just enough slack, so take it slow and be careful," Cap advised.
Evvy set down her helmet, then took off her blue uniform shirt and laid it on top. She didn't want her name tag or shield catching or scraping against the rough surface of the building's wall. With silent apologies to her mother for the unhygienic necessity, she stuck the harness between her teeth. Sidling into the space directly below the boy, she placed her right foot into Stoker's interlaced hands and found a tiny toehold for her left foot. She tugged off her gloves and let them fall to the ground. She needed the friction of skin against stone. Using her butt as an anchor and flattening her palms like a salamander's feet, she inched her way up, pausing frequently until she felt the rope she was connected to pull taut. For the first time in her life, she wished her breasts were just a bit smaller. Concentrating, she secured one foot then the other before moving her hands upward.
"Take your time," John said from above.
Within seconds, she was soaked with sweat, despite the cool O2 floating down from the roof. The surface of the wall was unfinished, grooved in weird patterns from years of rain flowing down the side. Her fingertips stung from being jammed into any crevice she could find.
It felt like forever before the bottom of the boy's foot brushed against her hair. She moved up another inch until his leg bent a little and slowly reached up to remove the harness from her mouth. "John," she said, trying to stay as still as possible, "I'm going to try to slide the seat up around him."
"Easy does it," he said, as if she were a skittish horse. Her foot slid a little, and she braced the toes of her boots and her knees against the wall in front of her to give her four points of contact. She maneuvered each loop slowly over the boy's shoes blindly, her arms trembling with the effort.
"Okay, take up his slack." Her voice sounded pained and breathless, even to her own ears.
She could hear John talking, to himself or to Roy, she couldn't tell. He narrated the progress of the knotted rope as it rose up the boy's dangling legs until it hit his hips and groin and couldn't go any farther. Then came the process of incrementally lifting the boy straight up, taking care not to jostle what might very well be a fractured arm or collarbone. The boy moaned a little in pain. Evvy didn't want to move until the boy was out and safe. If he fell, she could at least provide a cushion between him and the ground.
"Here we go, just a little more." Now she could see more light from above, and John dangling like a trapeze artist down the gap. "Got him, pull, pull!" The guys up on the roof lifted and laid John's legs down and pulled him across the roof, one arm wrapped securely around the boy, the other immobilizing his shoulder as much as possible. A full shaft of light fell on her then, and she could hear the scuffling above as the paramedic went to work. Cap's voice, exultant, said, "Nice!"
Evvy decided the only way out of the tight space was to crab-crawl back down the wall. Roy was her anchor, and she asked him for some slack. That worked for about a foot and a half, until the sole of her boot slipped and she lost her tenuous grip completely, sliding sideways, her face making contact with the wall the whole way. There was a struggle from above to control her descent, as she no longer had any brakes. She landed with a jolt and let out a few, succinct, colourful-but-G-rated expletives. Squeezing out into the sunlight, she was relieved to find that neither ankle seemed broken.
She felt unsteady and raised a hand to wipe the sweat from her eye. Stoker grabbed her wrist, and held it away from her face, which shocked her into stillness. Then she saw why. That wasn't sweat, it was blood stinging her eye. "Hey, Cap?" Stoker said, a degree above his normal mild tone. The expression on Cap's face released her brain, and suddenly the right side of her face felt like it was on fire. Firm but gentle hands guided her over to sit on the running board of the Squad. The trauma box was up on the roof with the paramedics, but Stoker pulled the first aid kit out from the Engine and handed her a few 4x4s to press against her temple and cheek.
"Well, done," Cap said in a glass-half-full voice. Her face must look as bad as it felt, she thought.
The ambulance swung into the lot, stirring up dust, just as John carried the boy down the ladder. The kid was awake now, and crying. Evvy could hear the cop speaking to his dispatcher, trying to determine if the kid's parents had been found so that the paramedics could start the IV that Rampart wanted. She sat silently with her head down, clenching her whole body against the burning pain of her scraped face.
After a few moments, two dusty black boots appeared in her teary vision. She looked up to see Roy, holding her shirt and helmet. "Here, let me take a look," he said kindly. She lowered the bloody gauze and watched his face soften with sympathy. He turned aside and a second later, came back with a saline-soaked gauze pad. She flinched when he touched her and hissed a breath in. "Don't be a baby," Roy said, but his tone was teasing. She tried not to pout. "Hey, Cap," Roy said, "I need to run her in to Rampart. It's a pretty good scrape and there's a lot of grit in there. They're gonna need to irrigate it pretty good."
Cap leaned in to examine, then said, "Yeah." He patted her knee "Good job, Ev."
That was the day Evvy met Dr. Morton, the black resident with the meticulously shaped Afro, who didn't seem nearly as mean as the guys had described him. After cleaning the scrape thoroughly, applying a topical anesthetic, and asking about her last tetanus shot, he cheerfully handed her a mirror and informed her that she'd managed to scrape off the whole first layer of skin in a patch from her eyebrow to her chin. "Lost a bit of melanin, there," he chuckled.
"I guess you can rub the black off if you try hard enough," she responded, turning her face to see the reflection of the pink mottled skin. It felt good to share the wildly inappropriate joke with someone who could relate, and on her own terms. The assisting nurse looked scandalized, though, as she handed a smiling Dr. Morton the sterile bandage and tape.
Dr. Morton advised her to keep the bandage clean and dry for two days, and then let the scrape heal uncovered. "Nice meeting you," he said, and took off to deal with his next case.
Roy and John were waiting for her at the base station. "Well," Dixie said, assessing Evvy. "I guess you've just been inducted into the Station 51 injury club."
"Doesn't count," John said, the current holder of the hospitalization record, "they're not keeping her overnight." Dixie gave a silent, "Ah."
"How's the kid?" Evvy asked.
"He's got a broken collarbone, but he'll be okay. They finally got hold of his mother, so he could get some pain meds," Roy informed her.
"Speaking of pain meds," Dixie said, "here." She handed Evvy three more packets of anesthetic gel. "No suffering in silence."
"No, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am," Evvy said, and Dixie rolled her eyes.
"You two are already a bad influence on her, I can tell," she said, and turned away to answer an incoming transmission.
John opened his mouth to protest, but Roy forestalled him. "Squad 51, available," he said into the HT, picked up the box of supplies they'd collected, and walked away.
"Come on, Gumby," John said.
Just as dinner ended that evening, the station was called, along with Engine 10 and Battalion 116, to a restaurant fire. As they rolled up, Evvy's heart sank. There were two stories of apartments above the restaurant, and the fire had spread. She would bet that grease was fueling the fire, and that the walls and ceiling were saturated with years of residue. She hopped off the Engine and fastened her turnout. Cap sent her with Chet to knock down the flames crowding the front entrance. Roy and John would need a clearer path to get to the upstairs apartments if there was anybody injured up there.
It turned out, it was even worse than Evvy expected. The kitchen was out of control, and the flames, fueled by oil, were moving quickly up the walls. "Evvy, you and Chet take an inch-and-a-half up those stairs to the second floor. Be careful, I can tell from here that the ventilation isn't up to code. That kitchen grease is gonna be all up through the place."
"Got it, Cap," Chet said as he and Evvy shrugged into their SCBAs and tested their air regulators. He looked at Evvy with serious blue eyes. "Stay with me." She nodded.
Chet knew what he was doing. As they advanced into the smoky stairwell, Evvy kept her left hand on his back and stabilized the hose with her right arm and shoulder. He was careful but quick, moving side to side with the nozzle. Reaching the landing, he indicated the apartment door and pulled the hose to the next staircase. Evvy felt the door with her ungloved hand, then pushed it open.
The room was moderately smoky, but there were no flames apparent. She almost missed the form sitting in the brown recliner facing away from the door. The large man sitting in the chair was awake, eyes open. He stared at her as she bent near, projecting her voice through the mask. "Sir, we need to get out of here. Follow me." He didn't move. Okay, she thought, reaching for his arm, maybe shock? "Sir, can you hear me? Are you hurt anywhere?"
He looked at her with eyelids at half-mast. "Go away."
"Sir," Evvy said loudly through her mask, "I'm with the Fire Department. You have to come with me. This whole place is … it's too dangerous for you to stay here." She took hold of his right arm to help him out of the chair. He did not budge. She continued to coax him verbally, while she placed her foot against the base of the chair for leverage and pulled harder. With a roar, the man grabbed hold of her turnout and pushed her forcefully across the room. She barely kept her balance as he began to yell at her.
"I ain't leaving! I wanna die in my own home!"
"Sir, you are not going to die. But I need you to come with me."
"Just let me die here!"
Evvy seriously considered ruining her unbroken streak of not beating anyone unconscious with her SCBA. She staggered to the door–and found that the fire was now consuming the stairwell. There was no sign of Kelly. She slammed the door and checked around the jamb.
The man was still yelling incoherently. Evvy knew that if she didn't come out, Cap would send men after her, probably Gage and DeSoto, with diminishing chances that any of them would get out alive. She could hear the fire advancing, eating the material in the walls. She went to the window and broke the pane with her helmet. Below, two linemen were saturating a dumpster that had been showered with embers from the roof. "Hey," she called down, raising her mask away from her mouth, "Wayfair, 51. I need some assistance with a civilian. He won't leave."
"Well, you need to get him out of there," a voice floated up. He sounded weirdly unconcerned.
"Yeah, he won't leave. Says he wants to die here." Evvy looked behind her. "Stairwell exit is involved. Gonna need to come out the window."
One of the men turned to talk to someone around the corner of the building. "Hey, your girl's up on the second floor. Says she can't get a civilian out." The third man came dashing into view. It was Kelly. He looked up and then back at the other two men, confusion evident on his face even from Evvy's height. He said something she could not hear to the other two, and disappeared from view. Great, fantastic.
The civilian was really worked up now, hurling invective at her in between his increasing coughs. The room was beginning to fill up with thick smoke. Evvy started to worry. She headed over to the civilian and grabbed his wrists. She knew she couldn't throw him over her shoulder–he had to weigh 300 pounds, at least–but if she could get him out of the damned chair, momentum might get him close to the window.
A set of ladder hooks appeared over the sill, followed shortly by a 51 helmet. She had never been more relieved to see Chet's blue eyes. He cleared away the remaining window shards and climbed over the sill. "What's going on?" he asked, taking in the scene.
Evvy grunted as she struggled. "He refuses to leave. He says he wants to die here." Chet moved in and grabbed the other arm. Together, they pulled, and the civilian added kicking out with his bare feet to his repertoire. He was really out of control now, and throwing punches. Time was running out.
A cracking sound came from overhead, near the door, and the two firefighters instinctively ducked, seconds before the corner of the ceiling caved in, bringing with it the burning beams and embers from the floor above. Before Evvy could resume her struggle with the civilian, the man pushed both of them out of the way and stood. He nearly trampled Chet as he went for the window. The lineman's reflexes were on point, though, and he took the civilian down from behind before the man could dive headfirst out of the window. "Hey, hey, man, calm down. We'll get you down the ladder safe and sound, but you've got to stay calm."
"You have to get me out of here!" the civilian screamed, now as panicked as he had been angry just thirty seconds before.
Between the two of them, Evvy and Chet manhandled him so that he could step backward out the window and find the rung with his foot. The carpet was now igniting, and the flames spread quickly across the floor, but Evvy waited for Chet's signal to start down the ladder. "Okay, go," he said, with a nod. She climbed down as if it were a timed drill at the Academy, aware that it would be a race between Chet and the fire. Reaching the bottom, she stepped off the ladder immediately, and grabbed hold of a rung to hold it steady as Chet hustled down. Her adrenaline-fueled imagination heard the fire laughing as it devoured the cheap nylon curtains framing the window they had just fled through.
Chet handed the coughing, trembling civilian off to Evvy to escort to the paramedics, then rounded on the two firemen. "What the hell, man?" he demanded.
Evvy didn't look back, but heard the response. "She can't do the job, man, and it's gonna get somebody killed." She kept walking.
By the time cleanup was done, everyone was wrung out. The station was quiet as the 51 crew washed up and changed clothes. It wasn't that late, but everybody set up their turnouts, and settled in to unwind in front of a sitcom or two. Evvy sidled up to Chet in the kitchen as he poured himself a nightcap glass of milk. "Hey, Chet, thanks," she said quietly. His usually amiable face was troubled as he responded, "Sure, no problem," and ducked behind the refrigerator door to replace the milk carton. Evvy slunk away and headed off to bed.
On her next shift, Evvy showed up thirty minutes early, as usual. She headed for the locker room, but was pulled up short by Cap's voice. "Evvy, can I see you in my office, please?" He sounded serious. She took the offered seat across the desk from him and waited. He seemed to wince at the uncovered raw scrape on her face, took a moment to gather his thoughts–which made her more nervous–then began. "Evvy, I've received a complaint about your performance. It has to do with the restaurant fire last shift. Before I give you any details about the complaint, I'd like to hear what happened from you."
Evvy felt her hands go numb. A complaint? She knew that, as the only black woman firefighter, she did not have room for disciplinary action or even the hint of scandal. She had to be near-perfect, or she was out, and it would be years before the door was opened again. She drew a breath and said, "I went in with Chet to clear the two apartments over the restaurant. He took the third floor, and I took the second." As clearly and dispassionately as she could, she described her struggle with the occupant, his odd fixation on death, his refusal to vacate. Cap's eyebrows went up when she recounted her request for assistance and the linemen's response. She told him how the occupant had had a sudden and decisive change of heart when the ceiling began to go, and how she and Chet had manhandled the guy down the ladder.
"What station were the linemen from?" Cap wanted to know.
She had her suspicions, but didn't want to say anything she wasn't positive about. "Couldn't really tell, with all the ash on their helmets. And it was dark."
Cap pressed his mouth into a thin line of yeah-okay-I'll-let-that-one-go and handed her a pink sheet of paper. She scanned the typewritten text, only three paragraphs, but her mind snagged on the words, "Inability to perform duty competently." Her breath left her and she looked up. "You talked to anyone about what happened?" Cap asked, checking his watch and rising.
"No, sir." Evvy's voice sounded faint to her own ears.
"Good. Keep this to yourself until I tell you otherwise. Roll call." He gestured her out the door.
The line-up in the apparatus bay took two minutes, with Cap assigning shift chores and reminding the crew of what was left on the Station's inspection roster. There was a weird, tense atmosphere. Evvy walked off without saying anything to anyone, which caused a concerned glance between Roy and John. The concern rose even more when Cap said, "Kelly, my office." Roy shrugged, and John gestured toward the locker room with his chin, indicating that he would check on Evvy.
He slid around the corner to find her staring in horror at an object on the floor. She seemed frozen. He bent down and picked it up. It was a small stuffed doll, made of dark brown cloth. Its face had the classic, awful exaggerated features of a Sambo: round white-rimmed eyes, thick red lips. A tiny red plastic fireman's hat, clearly from a different toy, was fastened with gift wrapping tape to the black yarn on the doll's head. The doll was wearing a grass skirt.
John's eyes flew to Evvy's face. She looked devastated. "What the hell?" he murmured.
She reached into the locker, pulled out a small book, and handed it to him without a word. Pages with neat, almost calligraphic writing had been ripped out and stuffed back inside, haphazardly crumpled. Black letters were sloppily scrawled across the cover: IF YOU CAN'T HACK IT QUIT. He looked at her quizzically.
"It's a journal I keep. Kept."
"Aw, man," was all he could manage. She snatched it back and threw it into her locker with the doll and slammed the door shut. Starting to turn away, she snapped back and vigorously removed a piece of tape that said, "AUNT JEMIMA," with her thumbnail. She looked like she wanted to kill someone, and maybe cry while she was doing it. She kicked the wooden bench with the bottom of her foot, then kicked it again.
John stepped in her way, preventing further assault on the furniture. "Now, hey, hey, hey, you need to calm down. It'll be okay."
"It's not okay," she said fiercely, "and I am calm. Every single shift with this BS and I'm calm, because it's obviously my fault that I'm not the right colour and I'm not the right sex, and it's okay to leave me in burning building–" She stopped, took a breath. and then added quietly, "It doesn't matter, I'm probably fired anyway." Closing her eyes, she added, "I hate this day already."
"What d'you mean, leave you in a burning building?" He watched her expression go flat, as she pulled a mental curtain across her emotions. He knew that look. He'd used that look. It meant that she was closing off, and all the progress that he and the guys had made over the past half year was in danger of crumbling into dust. "Why don't you just, uh, just have a seat and we can talk about this?"
"I'm not one of your patients, John," she snapped, "and I do not want to talk about this with you. I can't, anyway."
"Well, if not me, then who?" She didn't answer. "Look, I get it. I do. I know exactly what this feels like, at least being the only not-white guy in the place part, anyway." She sank to the bench and stared stonily at the floor. He sighed and put his foot up, resting his forearm on his knee. He really, really didn't want to go back there, even in his mind, but there was no help for it. "Feathers," he said in a low voice. She looked up. "Guys would pull feathers from birds and leave them in my locker or on my bunk. Once there was a whole headdress, a fake one, like you'd get at a costume store." To anyone else, it might sound silly, but he could see from her expression that she was appalled. "Fire axe dressed up like a hatchet."
"To 'bury the hatchet'?" she guessed.
"Yeah, and a 'peace pipe' offered as a gag gift." She pressed her lips together in a flat line and shook her head. "Then there was my favorite of all time." He paused, and swallowed. "Someone left the fresh skin of a dead raccoon on the back seat of my car. You know, as in . . . scalped."
"For God's sake," Evvy said, her voice heavy with disgust.
He gestured to the sticky piece of tape in her hand. "And the names. 'Injun Joe,' 'Tonto.' 'Chief Put'em Out Fire.' The requests to do a rain dance during brush fire season." He huffed and shook his head. "White people, they're so creative."
She sat silently. John thought about his conversation with Cap that first day. He'd promised to keep an eye out, but she'd seemed like she was settling in okay. She hadn't said anything about being put in actual danger.
"I can't do this, John." She sounded completely defeated.
John rubbed his eye with his fingertips. "Look, Evvy, I can't tell you what to do. Nobody can. But I do know that you're real good at your job, and you're gonna get even better with more time and experience. This," he gestured toward the locker, "will get better, too, but it's never gonna be good. But these same guys who leave stuff like this, or make you feel small 'cuz it makes them feel big, these same guys will pull on those turnouts and helmets and stand side by side with you on the line, fighting the same fire you are."
She looked doubtful. "Can you really say, when you're dangling by your ankles over a cliff, or climbing a sixty-foot tower, or running into an inferno, and you're depending on these very same guys from 99s or 10s or 36s, that you can trust them with your life?"
John paused again. The question deserved serious consideration, and an honest answer. "Yeah, I do. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't look at some of those faces from time to time and think, 'are you 'Raccoon Skin Guy?'" He dropped his foot to the floor and straightened. "You know, it's a good rule of thumb for people like us: always check your own knots." He nodded at her, unsmiling, and left the room.
Evvy was hiding out in the dorm when Stoker stuck his head in. "Cap wants you in his office," he said. Evvy thought, Here it comes, and trudged across the bay with leaden feet.
When she got there, Chet was seated across the desk from Cap. They both looked grim. While Evvy took her seat, Cap said, "Chet, can you repeat for Evvy what you just told me?"
Chet looked uncomfortably at Evvy and swallowed, then described how he'd discovered a woman and two kids hiding out in the bathtub in the third floor apartment over the restaurant and had them follow him out. While looking for Evvy outside, one of the guys from 10s had yelled over to him that his 'girl' was upstairs and couldn't get her civilian out. Chet had ended up pulling a ladder. "The guy was tripping, Cap, really combative, and wouldn't budge."
Cap interrupted, "I've seen you deadlift unconscious linebackers, Kelly. Are you telling me you couldn't move this guy?"
"Believe me, Cap, I tried–we both did," Chet said. "If that ceiling hadn't collapsed, I think he'd still be sitting there in that chair. That changed his mind really quick–we barely kept him from flying out that window like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz."
"Evvy," Cap said, "do you think the civilian's resistance had anything to do with your being a female?"
Evvy gave that some thought, running the scene over in her mind. "He had a pretty extensive vocabulary, for sure, but he never once called me a 'bitch' or anything like that," Cap winced, "so, no, I don't think so. I had my whole kit on. I don't think he even noticed I was different."
Cap seemed to think that over. He turned his back to them, snatched up the pink form, and slid it into the typewriter with the blank side facing out. His typing was of the hunt and peck variety, with the force of those two fingers drilling the keys practically into the desk. Evvy could feel Chet's gaze on the side of her head as she studied the toes of her boots. The crazy civilian might not have noticed her sex, but the two linemen certainly had. She thought about those long moments before Chet had appeared with the ladder egress. Would those guys really have let her burn?
The angry tapping stopped, and Cap ripped the sheet of paper out, perused it briefly, and scratched his signature on it. He looked at both of them sternly and handed the page to Evvy. Chet leaned over to read.
Cap's response was short and to the point. "After investigation, it is my considered opinion that Firefighter Wayfair dispatched her duties as diligently as possible under the circumstances, contrary to the report submitted. Based on the skills, integrity, and explanations of the two members of the Station 51 crew involved in the incident, I conclude that the complaint lacks merit. Captain Henry Stanley, Station 51."
When Evvy looked up, Cap snatched the paper with two fingers and placed it on top of his pile. "Dismissed." Chet beat her to the door. "Uh, Evvy," Cap said. She pulled up short and turned around slowly. Was she getting fired anyway? "Evvy, you need assistance on the job, you ask for it. Don't let this whole thing make you think you can't. We are a team, and none of us can do this job alone." She thought about the Sambo doll, the nickname stickers, and the myriad different indignities Cap didn't know about. Always check your own knots, John had advised.
"Ten-four, Cap," Evvy said, and turned to go.
Chet was already halfway through the story by the time Evvy reached the kitchen. He clocked her entry but finished up the tale dramatically. All eyes were on her, but it was John's face that stood out to Evvy–drawn, set, and ready to go to battle.
These were her crew, her shift, her team. They would check her knots.
