GETTING SERIOUS

by ardavenport

- - - Part 2

Whatever Captain Stanley had said, Johnny Gage wasn't talking about it. Roy had casually asked about it and got a mumbled 'oh, nothing' in response. After the potatoes were peeled and boiling on the stove he was gone to sulk on the couch with a manual about ladder techniques. Everyone else had other things to do. The Captain worked in his office, it's was Chet's turn for latrine duty and Stoker was refueling the engine. When Marco came in looking for the newspaper, Johnny just handed it to him without a word. Roy finished with the chicken and gravy and canned beans alone.

It wasn't any of his business what Captain Stanley said to Johnny. But he still wondered about it.

Johnny did help set the table and then moodily ate lunch. Stoker lost the hand of poker afterward for doing the dishes and the rest of them started setting up for the ladder drills in the parking lot behind the station. But the squad got a run before they started. A man fell off a ladder in his living room. He had a history of back problems and a hysterical wife. They transported him on a back board to the hospital.

At the hospital base station Roy caught his partner staring glumly down into the open drug box.

"Syringes."

He didn't move.

Roy held the sealed packets under his nose. "Syringes."

Starting, Johnny pulled his head back before he took them. "Oh." He put them away in their slot.

"Is that it?" He didn't really sound interested.

"Yeah." Roy closed the top of the black box over the white fold-out trays. "Come on." He picked up the box and walked away down the hall toward the emergency entrance. Johnny followed a pace behind.

"We should still be able to get in on the tail end of the ladder drills."

"Oh, yeah. That." Johnny opened the passenger door of the squad and got in with no further comment.

"I thought you would be all fired up to get to those drills. You sure found that manual real interesting."

"Yeah." He just looked out the window at the empty parking space next to them.

Sighing, Roy started up the squad. "Yeah."

He didn't bother with any more attempts at conversation on the drive back to the fire station. It had to have something to do with whatever Captain Stanley had talked to him about. Whatever it was, it would come out sooner or later. Johnny Gage could only stew over something for so long before it boiled over. The question was how long he would have to put up with his partner's moodiness.

Johnny rubbed his forearm where it was bruised, his elbow resting on the car door.

It definitely had to be about the morning run.

Things had gotten a little dangerous when the industrial machine they had been lifting off the victim slipped, almost landing with its full weight on the leg of the man trapped under it. And Johnny's arm. It was a natural reflex, reach in a grab something. Get the job done. Fast. But it probably could have been done without risking breaking Johnny's arm. Or worse.

That had to be it.

Roy drove down the main street toward the station, slowed and then backed into the driveway. Johnny got out of the squad as soon as Roy stopped inside the station apparatus bay. The rear door was wide open, the engine crew still in the back parking lot. Stanley greeted them.

"Just in time."

They went over the elementary stuff. Getting the ladder off the engine as quickly as possible, extending it, standing it up against the building, one climbing, one steadying it. Then they went on to other things with two ladders together and carrying techniques. Each of them one-stepped halfway up the rungs with the other on his back. Everyone else had been through the drill already, so they provided the commentary for the paramedics' performance. Roy could have done without Chet's remarks about how much heavier he was than Johnny when he was twenty feet up off the ground, hanging over his partner's shoulders. But Johnny kept his whole attention on the task while on the ladder, not responding at all to the others' jokes.

Roy thought that Captain Stanley's praise for their performance might break the ice. But Johnny went right back to sulking all the way through dinner. Obviously the Captain didn't think that there was anything serious to worry about. But Johnny was taking it - - whatever it was - - hard.

The station got a run just after 7 PM. A grease fire destroyed a family's kitchen, but they were able to save the house. The father got first and second degree burns on his arms trying to put it out with a garden hose. They were driving back to the station by 9 PM. Johnny remained glum. Again, Roy caught him rubbing the bruise on his arm.

Was it too soon to ask about it? Had Johnny sulked about it long enough? Roy was all but certain that it wasn't anything serious. Johnny was just taking it seriously. Given enough time, he would work through all the rationalities. Or irrationalities. Roy just wasn't sure which was worse, a moping partner, or all the crazy melodrama that might come out when Johnny finally talked about it.

The station crew was watching a lawyer show when they got back, wooden chairs gathered around the TV set on the shelf at the darkened end of the dayroom. Even though they missed the beginning, it wasn't hard to figure out who was covering up for who and who was guilty. After that they all turned in. There was no bedtime set by the department, but the morning alarm went off a 6 AM, so Captain Stanley tended to turn in around 10 or 11 PM and except for an occasional late night movie session, most of them did the same.

Roy was sound asleep when the alarm went off.

Oooooooeeeeeeee-mmmmaaaaahhhh - BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

"Engine Fifty-One. Rubbish fire behind the clothing factory. Three-Twenty West Longview. Three-Twenty West Longview. Cross street, Tremont. Time out: Twelve Fifty-Four."

Roy and Johnny were up, out of bed with their boots, pants and suspenders pulled up before they realized that the call wasn't for them. The engine crew hurried out to the apparatus bay. The fire engine started up. The garage door rolled up, the siren started and they were gone. Johnny went out to close the garage door.

Roy yawned and waited for Johnny to come back before he flipped the light switch off and went back to bed. Both of them repositioned their boots and pants before climbing back in under the covers. Roy saw Johnny holding his arm up, rubbing it in the light coming in through the frosted window.

"Is that bothering you?" Roy finally gave up on waiting.

"Huh?" Roy couldn't see details in the gloom, but Johnny turned his face toward him.

"Your arm. From this morning. You keep touching it. Is it bothering you?"

"Oh." He laid his arm down over the covers on his chest. "No, no. That's not it."

Roy stared up at the ceiling and hoped that he would not regret this. "So what is bothering you? You've been dragging your feet around all day."

"Oh, it's nothing."

Roy stared up at the ceiling. Plain white, but dark gray in the gloom.

"Except . . . ."

Roy exhaled, waiting for more.

"You think you do a good job. And then all of a sudden. Right when you're not looking. You get . . . . put down for it." Roy could see the silhouette of both his hands gesturing as he talked to the ceiling.

"Is that what the Captain wanted to talk to you about before lunch?" Roy folded his arms over his chest, over the blanket.

"Yeah."

Roy waited again. With no curtains on the window, like he had at home, the dormitory was never really dark. And the station was in an industrial neighborhood; there were a lot of lights around. But it was dark enough for a fire house, where the alarm could go off, getting everyone out of bed at any time.

"The Cap said that I shouldn't have just stuck my arm in to get that guy out. That I should have braced it with the block first."

"Oh. Well. Cap's right."

"Well. . . . . I know that!" Johnny blurted out his frustrated admission in the semi-dark on the other side of the window between their two beds. "I just didn't think. . . . . I just . . . . don't like getting put down for it."

"Captain really chewed you out, then."

"Well, . . . . . . no. Not really. I mean, he wasn't mad or anything. He just said he didn't want to fill out any more accident reports on me."

Roy glanced to his left. Johnny lay in the shadows, aggressively glaring up at the ceiling.

"Well, can you blame him?"

Johnny put his arm behind his head. "No . . . . . . . I guess not." Now he sounded resigned.

"And it's no picnic having to treat you in the field and take you into Rampart, either."

Throwing his arm back down, Johnny lifted his head. "Well. . . . . . same to you!"

Roy chuckled. "Yeah, that's no picnic, either." He wondered if the sulking and drama were over now.

Oooooooeeeeeeee-mmmmaaaaahhhh - BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

"Squad Fifty-One. Assist Engine Fifty-one with burn victim. At the clothing factory. Three-Twenty West Longview. Three-Twenty West Longview. Cross street, Tremont. Time out: One Twenty-Seven."

- - - End Part 2