Chapter 4
Palm flat against the door, Roy pushed the door inward and immediately met solid resistance, as well as a muffled but clearly audible "stop!" He pulled the door with him as he hurriedly backed up and into the bay, then shouldered his way through the opening. Panic flashed across his face as he took in the sight of his partner sprawled on his back and wiping at something red that was dripping from his face and neck and staining his blue shirt.
Taking a fast step forward, DeSoto shuddered in relief as he realized the red liquid wasn't blood; the color and consistency were wrong. He squatted down next to Johnny and looked him over, before posing the question he was sure that he already knew the answer to.
"So what happened? Locker rigged? How'd you end up on the floor?"
"How do you think that I ended up here? Yeah, some joker set my locker up, AGAIN, and Mr. Nice Guy here, who is looking for aspirin for his grumpy partner, got the crap scared out of him, jumped backwards, and of course fell over the bench," Gage paused his sarcastic tirade to tentatively lick at the red substance he was trying to rub off his face. "Popsicle?! Geesh! Why did he have to use cherry flavored? And by the way, your aspirin is over there somewhere."
He waved vaguely in the direction of the sinks and gave up swiping at his face. He laid his head back on the floor and glared up at Roy, who hadn't moved from his position. "Jus' go find the bottle, already! I'm fine, just fine!"
Roy shook his head but did as directed. He could still hear the low mutterings of his partner, discoursing on the choice of flavor used for the sticky trap. He located the runaway bottle under the sinks and shook several aspirin into his hand, then tossed them into his mouth. Using his hand for a cup, he swallowed them down with cold water from the running tap; he shut off the water and dried his hands with a paper towel and peered in the mirror.
Aside from folding his arms behind his head, John appeared not to have moved. He was staring up at the ceiling, ignoring the last few drops of sugary syrup sliding off his face and hitting the cement beneath him. His mouth had thinned to a tight line, and he had stopped his one sided conversation. Roy watched him a moment, wondering if Johnny had cracked the back of his head on the floor when he fell or if it had been his partner's noggin he had inadvertently used as a door stop; he wasn't used to the other man being still unless he was mulling over something serious. He moved over to the narrow bench and dropped down onto it, facing Gage. He reached behind him and accurately set the bottle down in John's locker.
"Thanks for the aspirin."
"Sure, no problem."
There was a long, comfortable silence; each man lost in their own thoughts. Johnny finally uncrossed his arms from behind his head and slowly sat up. Looking at the play of expressions flitting across John's face, Roy mentally compared his colleague's thoughts to a train. The train had obviously switched tracks and was steaming in a different direction from only seconds before judging by the way Johnny was sizing him up.
"Listen Roy," he stopped and winced at his word choice; DeSoto regarded him impassively.
"Why don't you just call JoAnne and talk to her…tell her….tell her you love her or somethin'…" John's words faltered and stopped when his friend's expression didn't change. He dropped his head, shoulders slumping, as he stared at the floor.
Deciding to end the other man's suffering, Roy let a small smile crawl across his face, stood up, and stretched. "That's two good thoughts that you've had today, Junior. Maybe I'll do just that."
"All right then!" A full watt smile lit up Gage's face and he rocketed to his feet, fingers busy unbuttoning his stained shirt. He jumped over the bench, untucking his shirt, and then paused. "Wait a minute. Junior, there's that again. And what exactly do you mean by two good.…?"
Roy smiled at his own wit, ignored the outraged, dangling question, and escaped down the aisle between the lockers, deciding to use the phone in the dorm for a little more privacy. It was time to talk to his wife, and hopefully clear up this misunderstanding. Otherwise, he was going to have to ask Cap to call in a replacement; mentally, he didn't think he was capable of continuing the shift. He paused before entering their sleeping quarters and turned back around.
He poked his head around the corner of the lockers. Johnny was standing, one foot propped up on the bench, untying his shoe. He pulled it off, tossed the shoe down, dropped his leg, and elevated his other foot, preparing to repeat the whole process. He had resumed his monologue, his low voiced mutterings stopping Roy in his forward progress so that he could listen.
"It's gotta be Kelly doing this…wonder how he set that up….two can play games…oh, you just wait Chet….." Gage paused, gazing in disbelief at the snapped shoelace in his hand.
"Johnny?"
"Yeah?" Dropping the lace down in disgust, the dark haired man turned his head and stared at Roy, hands dropping loosely at his sides, one shoed foot still on the bench. Roy's lips curled in amusement at the wet, dark locks on his partner's forehead and around his ears plastered stickily to his skin. Gage was probably going to regret letting his hair grow that long if they got toned out before he hit the shower.
"What's wrong with cherry flavor?"
"What's wrong with cherry flavor?" John parroted back, his voice rising slightly. "What…where'd THAT come from?" His expression mirrored the disbelief in his tone, implying that a question about the red, melted sweet treat shouldn't have stopped Roy in his solitary trek towards the instrument of his doom or salvation.
Roy shrugged, a bit sheepishly. "Just popped in my head, that's all." He didn't add that the random question had probably jumped into his head because it meant delaying the phone call he knew he had to make; his partner, strangely perceptive for this never ending shift, seemed to have figured that one out.
Both men paused in their conversation as they heard the voice of their captain over the speaker, making the engine available. Gage waved a hand, as if acknowledging the whereabouts of their invisible crewmates, before proceeding with his explanation.
"Oh, well, you remember about a month or so ago, before Captain Stanley came on? I got that radiation poisoning and spent a couple of nights in Rampart?" At Roy's nod, the younger man continued, his questioning tone changing to one laced with revulsion. "Let's just say that after about four hours of those sweet nurses feeding me cherry Jell-O, cherry popsicles and all that other liquid garbage, and I spewing it all up as fast as they poured it down me, I find it hard to be in the same room with it! I was glad to see that IV they finally put in me!"
Johnny shook his head and rubbed absently at his left arm where the IV had been inserted. He dropped his foot from the bench and kicked off the remaining shoe, before dropping his hands to his belt and yanking at the buckle.
Roy grimaced, recalling John's aversion to needles and thinking that if he welcomed the IV, then he must have been in desperate straits indeed with the vomiting. He vividly recalled that night and the extra hit of radiation Johnny had taken trying to untangle the victim from the shard of metal imbedded in his pant leg. He had been able to go home, having received less than a quarter of the roentgens his partner had, but Johnny had lost a good seven or eight pounds of his body weight before he finally stabilized. Even then, Johnny had told him later, he hadn't been able to eat for another two days.
Noticing his partner had stopped in his undressing and was now swallowing convulsively, hand going up to his mouth and skin paling, Roy abruptly backed up and disappeared back around the corner, beating a hasty retreat. Apparently his careless question had triggered a reflexive reaction; he had inadvertently stirred up the cherry flavored memory that Johnny wanted no part of. And that, to be honest, he wanted no part of, either. Feeling a twinge of remorse, Roy hesitated in the doorway of the dorm, trying to pick up on what was going on behind him. Not hearing the door slam on the little room where the toilet resided but instead hearing the clang of John's metal belt buckle hitting the floor, he sighed in relief; he sincerely hoped his younger counterpart hadn't eaten much breakfast, just in case.
Pushing the distracting thoughts away and trying to focus on the task ahead of him, he trudged, head down, into the dorm like a guilty man headed for his day of reckoning. He sighed as he sat down in the chair by the small desk, and laid his hand on the black receiver. He paused to look over at the clock on the wall, trying to calculate his wife's daily routine and wondering if she would even be home. Finally admitting to himself that she would probably be, and that he really needed to quit stalling, he dialed the number and listened intently. On the fourth ring he heard the telltale click, and then the cautious voice of the only woman that he had ever loved.
After her second hello, Roy finally pulled himself together and squeaked out her name. "JoAnne….."
There was a hesitant pause in which Roy felt himself hold his breath, then his wife said his name in a whisper, causing him to release the air in an explosive sigh. "It's me…just wanted to call you, see if you were….all right…"
"I'm fine. I just feel rather stupid, and sorry for the things I said earlier. I didn't mean those things, Roy, it was just the heat of the moment," came the soft apology.
"I'm just as guilty, Jo," Roy quickly volunteered, feeling the blood pounding in his veins begin to slow down as he realized his wife meant to make up. He propped up an elbow on the desk and leaned his forehead on the palm of his hand, listening intently to his wife's words, and responding quietly. The conversation ended with a promise to call her when his shift ended in the morning; the neighbor would come over and watch the kids while Jo met Roy for breakfast at their favorite little restaurant. He smiled at her parting words.
"I'll wait for your call, Roy, for as long as it takes."
Gently placing the phone back in its cradle, the paramedic lifted his head and stared at the piece of notebook paper under his elbow, unnoticed until now. In a slanting but well written cursive handwriting were the words to the poem that their captain had been reciting over the phone with one of his kids. Curious, DeSoto picked up the slightly tattered paper and began reading. He was pretty sure that he had memorized this poem years ago, probably an assignment for one of his classes; his reading was interrupted by memories of reciting the poetry with his girlfriend, now his wife, curled up together on a flowery patterned couch in front of a silent, black and white television.
Her parent's house, he recalled, in the rec room the couple spent many hours in, carefully, cautiously exploring their building relationship. Even knowing that her parents were only steps away, as well as her noisy siblings, it was here that Roy and JoAnne started on the hopefully, never ending, path of their lives together. He smiled, vividly recalling the feel of her silky, auburn hued hair, long then, running through his fingers, the comforting weight of her leaning back against him, trusting him and putting her faith in him….it had been at that exact moment that he had realized he wanted to spend the rest of his life with the vibrant, beautiful, both inside and out, woman encircled in his arms.
Leaning back in the chair, still holding the words over the desk, Roy closed his eyes; he let the image flood over him and wash away the bitter fight from that morning. Could it be that easy, he wondered? To erase those angry insults and the memory of it? Probably not, but it was a start. They really did have time, and marital experience, on their side after all. He could ask Cap if he could have the poem, or borrow it or something, or go to the bookstore and buy it. Thoughts of reading the poetry with Joanne, sitting on their own plaid couch in front of the fireplace, and rekindling their marriage was definitely lifting his mood; his face flushed as his musings wandered farther.
The long, drawn out blare of the tones disturbed and effectively ended his anticipation. He leapt to his feet and trotted into the apparatus bay. As he rounded the back of the truck, he saw Johnny sliding to a halt in front of the radio, a wet paper towel clutched in his hand. As his partner acknowledged the call, Roy opened his door but stopped as Gage hooked the mike, glanced hurriedly at the wall map, then started for the passenger side of the squad.
"Johnny….." Roy slid a hand over his mouth to hide his smile as he pointed with his free hand towards the other man's shoeless feet, curiously reminiscent of Johnny's actions that morning with the very articulate wife. Gage looked down and conveyed his feelings with a very effective one word squawk of profanity, before running back into the locker room and grabbing his shoes. Starting up the engine, the older medic patiently waited while his disheveled friend sprinted back across the bay, grabbed his blue jacket that was draped over the mirror, jumped into the cab, and pulled on the jacket to cover up his stained shirt. He shoved his feet into his boots and breathlessly gave Roy directions, his head bobbing up to check for traffic then disappearing again as he tried to re-lace his boot with the shorter piece. Finally appeased with his repair job, he sat fully up in the seat and focused on the damp square still clutched in his hand.
Out of the corner of his eye, DeSoto caught glimpses of Johnny scrubbing with the wet paper towel at the sugary trails down his face, his helmet pushed back on his head as he tried to erase the barely visible ant bait. Roy's humor disappeared as fast as it had arrived as he recalled his treatment of and attitude towards John for most of the day. He still wasn't sure why he had directed his unreasonable anger and bitterness towards his counterpart, especially when the younger man was not only his partner, but his friend. An apology was definitely in order, even if John seemed to have wiped the day's events from his memory. Roy wished he could be as forgetful and forgiving.
He tapped the steering wheel impatiently, waiting for the clueless traffic to clear out of the intersection before proceeding forward. He didn't need any further directions to reach the scene; the plumes of black smoke had the attention of both men as they approached the site of the terrifying but mesmerizing tendrils of fire beckoning them forward. Located back from the street in an older, industrial cluster of buildings, the flames were hungrily devouring at least two of the wooden structures, and seemed destined to consume the additional four buildings that sat abandoned about two hundred yards away.
Head slightly cocked to hear the radio chatter, DeSoto parked the squad as directed while also noting that the incident had advanced to a second alarm. Their own engine crew had been called in, and was less than three minutes away. He grabbed his turnout coat from the compartment and shrugged into it, fastening it before reaching in once again and latching on to his scba gear. His partner's hand appeared beside his own and they simultaneously dragged the heavy cylinders out and yanked them on, fastening the straps and testing the air masks in smooth, well-practiced motions.
"Ready?" Roy asked, turning to look at Gage as he dropped his mask and pulled his helmet back on his head. Johnny looked up and flashed him a tight smile as he wiggled his shoulders to settle the gear. Roy noticed that, as usual, the chin strap of the other man's helmet was clinging on for dear life at the edge of John's chin.
"I was born ready!" Came his partner's cocky reply, adrenaline already coursing through both firemen as they abandoned the safety of their truck and headed for the battalion chief.