Gageisms

Who Got What?

Roy pulled his car to a stop in his driveway and got out. He quickly rounded the front of the Porsche, determined to help Johnny get out before the younger man injured himself again. Both men still had silly grins on their faces as they remembered the 'tramp on the pole' story.

Johnny blushed, thinking back to another event that involved a smaller 'pole'. He decided not to mention it in the hopes that Roy had forgotten. They both needed a break from the laughter, but he should have known he would not be so lucky.

Unbeknownst to Johnny, Roy was thinking about the same run. However, he decided to wait until after dinner to mention it. He walked behind Johnny up the steps to the front door of the DeSoto residence, where the door suddenly opened without either man touching it.

"Johnny, how are you feeling?" A familiar feminine voice called out.

Johnny gave Joanne a one-armed sideways hug then followed the smell of food into their kitchen. Everyone, especially Joanne DeSoto, knew how much he loathed the food at Rampart. She also knew how much he enjoyed her cooking, and she cherished all the compliments he usually gave her when she prepared a meal for him.

"Sore… but I think I'll feel better soon, now that I'm out of the hospital." He inhaled deeply. "Is that your fabulous lasagna I smell?" He asked, slowly making his way to the kitchen and seating himself at the table.

"You bet. I know how much you like it, and I also know how nasty that hospital food can be." She patted him on his uninjured shoulder, then busied herself in the kitchen preparing him a plate.

"Aw, man. It was just awful, Jo…worse than ever," he groaned, playing it up to garnish even more of Joanne's sympathetic attention.

Joanne gave him a playful wink, in response.

"You want a glass of milk?" Roy asked.

"Yea, that'd be great, Roy." Johnny watched as Joanne scooped a heaping mound of lasagna onto his plate, then set the steaming plate on the table. The aroma wafted upwards causing his mouth to water. He didn't want to be impolite by eating ahead of his hosts. So, as he waited for them to prepare their own plates and join him. As soon as they were all seated, he tested the food and found it to be a bit too hot to eat. He spread it around on the plate to allow it to cool.

Roy had planned to wait until after dinner to tell the story, but as they all sat around waiting for their dinners to cool enough to eat, he decided to go ahead and start the story. He smirked when he saw his partner's bashful grin as he began.

"Ya know, Johnny, that trampoline and the flag pole wasn't the only time we had something funny happen involving a certain part of the male anatomy. Remember little Caleb and his dog Maggie?"

Johnny groaned, leaning back in his chair and turning red, leaving Joanne with a bewildered look on her face.

"Have I heard this one?" She asked.

"I don't remember, honey, but it's certainly worth repeating," he chuckled.

Johnny rolled his eyes, but did it with a smile. "Did Roy ever tell you about the babysitter we had to go rescue because the three boys she was babysitting were hellions who caused her to hyperventilate? It was the same rescue as when that dumb dog ran right into the glass door."

"Yes," Joanne laughed as she took a seat beside her husband. "I seem to recall the boys put the BP cuff around the dog's neck."

Johnny snickered, testing the temperature of his food before continuing. "Haha, yea that's the one." He took a tentative bite then stared at his partner. "Go ahead, Roy."

"Well, on this rescue," Roy began, "The boys were even worse."

.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.

The klaxons sounded with the call that every fighter dreads.

"Station 51 – child trapped -…"

Johnny and Roy exchanged worried looks as they got inside the squad. As soon as Hank dropped the call slip into Roy's hands, the squad emerged from the station followed closely by her bigger sister.

In less than five minutes, both vehicles pulled to a stop in front of a suburban, ranch-style home with a very large fenced in back yard. Shouts and screams could be heard coming from the back yard, so the men of 51's rushed through the gate, very concerned about what they would find.

The scene that awaited them was one of carnage and total destruction.

"What the hell happened?" Chet asked his lineman partner.

"Looks like a Tonka factory exploded," Marco surmised, his eyes slowly scanning the scene. Broken toys lay scattered around the back yard. Pieces of trucks and bicycles, a flattened football, a gym set with the swings hanging unevenly and the sliding board twisted, various other articles and pieces of toys lay haphazardly around the space. It truly looked like a scene from the Island of Misfit Toys.

Finally, a teenaged girl of about seventeen noticed the firefighters and hurriedly went over to them. "Hi, I'm so glad you're here. The older boys locked Caleb in the dog pen. When I got the key to try to get him out, the key broke off in the lock. He's been in there with Maggie for the last twenty minutes."

Johnny looked around, his mouth agape. There, inside the small chain-link fence dog kennel, sat a sniffling, red-faced, blonde-haired toddler with a bouncing rat terrier mixed breed dog climbing all over him. "Um, where's Maggie?"

"Right there," the teenager said. "Maggie is the dog."

"Cry-baby," the older boy teased.

"Yea, he's just a little puppy," laughed another.

The third boy was not as quick to taunt his younger brother. "I really didn't mean to lock him in forever, mister," he whispered to Roy, sounding as if he was about to walk the plank. "Dad's gonna smack me for sure."

Roy patted the sorrowful young man on the head. "Well, I'm sure it was just an accident. We'll have him out in no time."

"Ya will? And ya won't tell my Dad?"

"I won't," Roy said, emphasizing himself. "But, I bet SHE will," he offered, his finger pointing towards the obviously smitten babysitter.

"Ah, Miss? What's his name?" Johnny asked, then did a double take at the flirtatious stare the teenager was giving him.

"Who?" She asked, batting her eyelashes and twirling her red hair around her finger.

"Da, um, th-the kid… i-in the, ah, dog pen."

"Oh, that's Caleb. My name's Georgette."

"Well, Georgette," Hank interrupted. "Suppose you get those other boys and take them inside while we get young Caleb out of his predicament." Hank had seen too many energetic young boys get in the way of rescues.

"Yea, c'mon boys. Let us firemen take care of this. You just go back inside and be good boys," Chet began, waving his arms in a bit of a shooing manner.

"I ain't goin' nowhere and you can't make me. You ain't my Dad…Curly-top!" the oldest mouthed off.

Instinctively, Hank placed a hand against Chet's chest, halting the younger man's advancement. He felt his own blood pressure rising at the disrespectful youngster and knew that Chet was about to blow his cool.

"Let me at 'im, Cap," Chet whispered through gritted teeth, unaware that Georgette had overheard him.

"Be my guest, Mister," she said, turning back to ogle the dark-haired paramedic.

"Oh far out! A real fire truck!" yelled the second boy, running through the gate. His brothers and four firefighters followed closely behind him, trying to intercept fleeing boy.

"Stay off that engine!" Mike yelled; the action caused both paramedics to temporarily forget their victim inside the dog kennel. They had never heard their engineer yell before.

Finally remembering the reason for the call, Roy turned back around to the dog kennel. "I'll go get the bolt cutters," he suggested, a slight smirk crossing his ruddy face as he realized that Johnny was about to be left alone with the enamored teen.

"Uh, um, yea… Yea, I thi-think that'll, uh, work," Johnny stuttered, one hand on his hip while the other ran across his upper lip. Desperate to deter Georgette, he turned his attention to the young boy and the dog. "Hey there, buddy. We're gonna have you outta there in just a minute, a'right?"

"O-kay," the child whimpered, still trying to keep the hyperactive canine off of him.

A few minutes later, Roy returned with a huge smile lighting up his face. Johnny noticed the grin and arched an eyebrow in his partner's direction.

"The little smarta- um, smarty-mouth is learning a lesson in spinal precautions."

Johnny looked back towards the street where the emergency vehicles were parked. "No way… And Cap's lettin' 'em do it?" He asked, amazed that Hank Stanley would allow a child to be strapped to a backboard, unnecessarily.

"Letting them? He's the one doing it," Roy chuckled. "Mike's too busy guarding the door of the engine while Chet and Marco are chasing the other two boys to keep them out of the street. Oh, and you won't believe what Cap told the oldest one that I was gonna do with these bolt cutters. You should've seen the look on his face when I walked by him clicking these together and looking down at his pants."

Johnny cackled out loud. "Oh, man. I gotta see this," he began standing, but was interrupted by a shrill cry.

"Gemme ou', don' weave me, gemme ou', peeaass!"

Johnny and Roy returned their attention to their wailing victim.

"Oh, yea… here we go buddy. Now, stay back away from this lock, okay? Yea, that's it," Johnny directed, constantly turning his back to Georgette who was still trying to get close to him.

At the exact moment that Roy cut through the lock, chaos ensued. Mike sounded the air horn, sending two of the boys running back inside the back yard – the oldest was obviously still restrained, based on the high-pitched squealing sounds that could be heard from the front yard. Two year old Caleb and his dog Maggie charged for the chain link kennel gate at the same time, Caleb tripping and rolling over the dog. Maggie let out a yelp as the toddler fell on her, then spied her favorite toy – Caleb's very worn-out stick horse. The dog grabbed it up between her teeth, and darted around the yard as if playing keep away from all the humans. Caleb began to scream at the top of his lungs.

"Maggot got my dick hose! Maggot got my dick hose!"

Johnny, still trying to distance himself from Georgette, heard the toddler's cries and assumed the worst. He immediately rushed to the place where Caleb had fallen, and quickly jerked the youngster's pants down, relived to find the toddler's tiny manhood still intact.

"Hahaha, no, Johnny. He said 'Maggie got his stick horse,'" Georgette interpreted, amid belly heaving laughs. ',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

"Oh, oh my goodness, Johnny. That is too funny," Joanne laughed, tears streaming down her face.

"Yea well, Caleb didn't think so. I felt like some kind of pervert," Johnny said, waving his uninjured hand.

"It wasn't quite so funny when the boys' father called the station that night. Cap had to explain to him why the fire department had gone to his house, cut through his lock and strapped his oldest to a backboard while bare-assing his youngest son to the world." Roy was struggling to keep a straight face.

"That's what Cap gets paid the big bucks for," Johnny snickered.

"I just wish you could've seen the look on your face when you thought the dog had bitten Caleb's…"

"I know, I know, Roy," Johnny interrupted. "But I swear, I thought the dog had bit him… you know, there. I mean, what did you think the kid said?"

"I've raised two toddlers, Junior, and I speak their language very well. I knew exactly what he said."

"Oh man, that was one helluva run," Johnny laughed, wiping his mouth and dropping his napkin onto the table. He still had not gotten his appetite back, even with Joanne's cooking enticing him. He had only eaten about half the plateful. "Jo, that was wonderful, but if you folks don't mind, I think I'll turn in now."

"Let me help you get your clothes changed," Roy suggested, standing and helping his partner out of his seat. "I remember how your medication makes you feel a little flushed and warm, so I set up a fan in the guest room."

"That's right," Joanne piped in, clearing the dinner table. "After this whole ordeal you've had, you need a comfortable bed in a cool room, so you can rest."

Both men looked at each other. Johnny groaned while Roy giggled, again.

"Let me guess," Joanne said, standing with a dirty dish in each hand. "You're thinking of another story aren't you?"

E!

A/N: As always, this was based on a real event (the toddler's response, at least) and as long as my grandson keeps visiting me, this story may never be completed. I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter.