A/N: Okay, so this one is more of a movie than a snapshot. It happens. Enjoy.
Chapter 5
Mike: The Harder They Fall
I parked my car in the back lot of L.A. County Fire Department Station 14, and tried to calm myself down. I didn't know why I was so nervous—I was starting the job I'd been trained for. They wouldn't have graduated me from the academy if they didn't think I at least had a shot of succeeding. But I had a bad case of first-day nerves anyhow.
The letter I'd gotten about my first assignment told me to show up here at 0730, on this date, to start my assignment with the B-shift, under Captain Sprague. The station was a six-man unit, with a four-man engine company and a two-man rescue unit. The rescue guys were usually more experienced than the two regular firemen in the engine company, but not always. Some guys got recommended for rescue training right after their probationary period.
I knew the engine company would be made up of the captain, the engineer, a regular firefighter, and me. The engineer and the captain, of course, were guys who had put in a lot of years already. The regular firefighter was the guy who'd be my partner most of the time, and could be anything from a fifteen-year veteran to a guy with a couple solid years under his belt, or anything in between. The captain would be in charge of me, of course, but the other guy would be the one I actually worked with most of the time.
I walked right in to the station, and looked for the captain's office. It wasn't hard to find. The door was slightly ajar, so I knocked on it quietly.
"C'mon in."
I stepped in, trying not to be too hesitant—that was the main thing they got on my case about at the academy, was being tentative. So I did my best just to barge in.
"Mike Stoker, reporting for duty." God, that sounded dumb. Oh well. It was out, and there was nothing I could do about it now.
The captain stuck out his hand and we shook. "Stoker—nice to meet you. Have a seat."
I sat down in the wooden chair in front of his desk. I could see he had my file out, and had been reading it.
"So—you're not the most typical probie."
I gulped.
"Uh, I suppose not, sir."
"Two years at UCLA, before you went to the fire academy. That's pretty unusual."
I had an answer ready for that one. "I always wanted to be a fireman. I did some time at college, because my parents expected it, but I finally mustered up the guts to drop out and do what I really wanted."
"And you were a little older when you started college, too, so you're what, twenty one?"
"Just turned twenty two, actually."
"Most of our probies are eighteen or nineteen, so you're a little older than usual. Though we sometimes get guys who've been in the army for a couple years, too. Not too many college boys, though, so expect to take some shit about that."
He hadn't asked a question, and I didn't have anything to say to that, so I just didn't say anything.
Sprague closed my file, and looked back over at me. "Your final report from the academy said you were smart, and strong, and sensible. Quiet. And really, really well behaved. Maybe to the point that it was a little odd."
I shrank into my chair ever so slightly. "I, uh, don't like trouble. I'm not unfriendly—I mean, I don't think I am—I just, uh, don't like to talk about myself all that much."
Sprague nodded. "Well, that's going to be an interesting change from some of the fellows around here. Just make sure you're not too standoffish, though, all right? We're all going to be pretty much living in each other's pockets one out of every three days, for the foreseeable future, and I'd like us all to get off on the right foot."
"Yessir. I'll do my best."
"I know you will. That was the other thing they said in your report—that you like to do things well. Never sloppy. I like that."
"Yessir."
He studied me for a moment, his eyes boring into me like a soldering iron through an ice cube. "So, Stoker. What else do you think I should know?"
See, that was exactly the kind of question I hated. There were all sorts of things I could tell him, which is probably what he was aiming at, but not a lot that I wanted to. I like my personal life to stay just that way—personal. Not that I had much of one, but they didn't need to know that. But I was ready for him, because I knew he'd ask me something like that. "Well, my uncle inspired me to join the fire department. Frank Stoker—my father's brother. He's retired; lives up near Santa Clarita now. He put in twenty five years, and retired as an engineer."
"Any idea what direction you think you'll be headed in, eventually?"
I shook my head. "I loved the apparatus operations classes, and I can see why Uncle Frank loved being an engineer. But this is my first day. I think I'll try to wait awhile before I form an opinion."
"Good man. That's what I was hoping you'd say." He paused, and I was really hoping he'd be satisfied with my prepared response to his question. He was, apparently. "Anything you want to ask me?"
"Uh, I guess I'd kind of like to know what you think I ought to know."
"Good question." He sat back in his chair, and folded his hands. "Here's a big one. The guy you're replacing—Sellers—everyone liked him. He was really good at his job. But he just got invalided out. He dislocated his shoulder really badly a few years ago, and had it surgically repaired, but it just kept popping back out again. The last time it happened, the docs said that was it. He didn't want to go, but everyone, him included, knew he couldn't do the job any more. So you've got some mighty big boots to fill, son. Everyone knows not to expect you're him. But some people—especially his partner, Merchant, who's your new partner—might not be able to remember that sometimes, if you know what I mean."
Great. "Okay. Any advice, on that front?"
Sprague sighed. "I'm gonna be straight with you, Stoker. Merchant's gonna be tough to work with. I asked the department not to send us a probie, not yet, but in the end I didn't have a choice. Nothing against you personally, but I just didn't think it was a good idea. And I think the reason they sent you specifically, is because you're a little bit older, and a lot smarter, and a lot more level-headed, than most of the other guys in your class. So I'm sorry, but in your case, being a little bit better means you're going to have it a little bit worse."
I nodded minutely. "All right. Thanks for the warning."
"Don't get me wrong—he's a great guy. But he and Sellers were really close, and he took it real hard when his best buddy got his retirement papers about fifteen years before he should've. They were a solid team—everyone called them the Vending Machine—get it? Merchant, and Sellers?"
I nodded.
"Anyhow, he's gonna be tough on you. Which he should be—it's part of his job. But he also will probably take an instant dislike to you, which is not part of his job. I've made it clear that he needs to stay professional, and I think he will. And I know you're not a mama's boy who's gonna want to come crying to me with every little problem, but I need to know you'll tell me if he crosses any lines. And I think you're the kind of guy who'll know if he does." He looked at me with his soldering-iron eyes again. "Are you?"
I nodded again, reluctantly. "I can be, I think. I'll try."
"Good man. Now, go pick a locker—and let me give you some advice on that one. The second one in the middle row—that one belonged to Sellers. Don't pick it."
"Thanks. I won't."
"Your gear's on your rack. I suspect you'll be able to recognize it by the orange helmet."
"I think I'll find it, thanks," I said dryly, but not sarcastically.
Sprague laughed. "All right—now scoot. See you at roll call."
"Yessir. And thanks for the advice." I ducked out of the office, and made my way across the apparatus bay to the locker room. I took what looked like the least desirable of the four empty lockers, all the way in the back corner, farthest from the sink and shower area. I scavenged a slip of paper from the day room, wrote my name on it, and slipped it into the slot on the locker where all the other ones had a black plastic name plate. I loaded my stuff into the locker. I didn't need to change—I was already in my Class B uniform.
As I exited the row, I nearly ran right into a mountain of a man. I knew instantly that this was my new partner.
"So. You're the probie," he said.
I nodded.
"Mike Stoker." We shook hands. I'm not exactly a small guy, but his huge paw dwarfed mine.
At the academy, I'd started to notice that firemen seemed to fall into three basic physical types. I privately called them Hydrants, Ladders, and Engines. The Hydrants were the shorter, stockier guys. There weren't enough short skinny guys for me to make up a name for that group—they just didn't have the heft you needed to handle a charged line. If you were short, you had to be sturdy.
The Ladders were guys like me, and Captain Sprague. Lean guys, taller than average—but no real skinny beanpoles, because again, you had to have the heft. But we Ladders could get away with being skinnier than the shorter Hydrants.
The Engines were the really huge guys—over six feet, and with some serious gym time visible on their frames. This guy was definitely an Engine. He stood about six five, maybe even six feet six. Probably tipped about 250 on the scales. None of it was flab, either.
"John Merchant."
"Nice to meet you," I said.
He stared down at me—something I'm not used to, being six one myself. But like I said, I'm a Ladder, and this guy was an Engine, so he looked awfully big to me.
"Let's get one thing straight, Probie. I didn't want you here. Cap probably already told you that. And he probably told you why. Right?"
I didn't see any point in evasion. "Right."
"And I hear you're a college boy. Don't get uppity. You're no better than the rest of us."
I didn't bother to tell him I was a dropout—it wouldn't make any difference. "I know. I'm the dumbest one in the station, and I will be until I leave, or until someone else does and someone dumber than me comes in."
He nodded. "Right answer, Probie. We're gonna work your ass, and we're gonna bust your chops, and you're gonna take it like a man."
"Fine." I knew I'd get the dirty work, and I knew I'd get hazed. It seemed like a stupid system to me, but I did kind of sign up for it. Just seemed like a waste of time and energy, though. Why not put all that energy into doing something useful?
I met the other three guys at roll call. Lou Foster, the engineer, barely acknowledged me. I guessed that meant either he was on Merchant's team, angry about Sellers' being invalided out, or that he just couldn't be bothered with a probie. The two rescue guys seemed a little easier to deal with, right off the bat. Rick Abbott turned out to be one of those rare short skinny guys; apparently his specialties were squeezing into tight places, and high-angle rope rescues. He could keep those specialties, as far as I was concerned. And Bert Saunders, a Ladder like me, was friendly right away. He'd been in the business for ten years, and described himself as a jack of all trades.
I just about puked when the tones dropped for my first real run ever. It turned out to be a false alarm, which meant I got to nearly puke again later for a run that did actually turn out to be something. Even if it was just a trash fire, it was still my first real fire. It was completely routine, and the whole thing literally could've happened at the academy's training area, but I knew I'd always remember it. Luckily, I didn't screw anything up. Unluckily, I got to do all the grunt work of cleaning up afterwards. I figured that was just how it was going to be.
They didn't make me cook my first shift, which was a good thing. I mean, I've been living on my own for four years, so it's not like I can't boil an egg, but applying one-person apartment cuisine, if you can call it that, to cooking for six people, was something I hadn't tried before. Abbott was the chef of the day, and luckily, he didn't give me much to live up to.
Merchant tried to pull a fast one on me that evening. He demanded that I fetch him the hose stretcher when we were loading hose after another small run. I knew perfectly well there was no such thing, but I hadn't thought any further than that.
"Uh, I would, but there's no such thing."
He happened to be standing over the hose bed when he made his demand, so he looked like an absolute giant from where I was on the side running board.
"I warned you, don't get uppity with me, Probie!" he bellowed. Everyone stopped what they were doing.
I realized I was in a bad situation. Nobody had heard his request, and my answer was probably quiet enough that nobody had heard that, either. If I'd pretended to fall for the prank, I would've looked stupid. But my honest, quiet answer gave him an opportunity to make me look like a smart-ass.
I was smart enough not to try to talk my way out of the situation.
"Sorry," I said, loudly enough to be heard by the other men. "Didn't mean to." I went back to passing the hose up to him. "Coupling," I shouted, as I passed the end of the hose up top, much louder than I needed to, but I didn't need him to blame me for not warning him it was coming.
At lights out, I got my next prank, when I opened my locker and was showered with styrofoam packing peanuts. I quietly cleaned them up and took them out to the dumpster before heading to bed. Which had been short-sheeted. I sighed and made it up again properly, as quietly as I could.
It was going to be a long year.
~!~!~!~
I was never quite sure how, but things slowly, steadily degenerated where Merchant was concerned. He was getting meaner and meaner, but never quite crossed that line I was watching for. I overheard Saunders telling him that his constant bellowing at me was getting old, but Merchant just bellowed right back at Saunders that I was his probie (not technically true; I was Cap's) and that he could do whatever the hell he wanted.
There were little things, not pranks, but things that just made more work for me. Like one time I had washed the engine down after a particularly muddy run. I knew I'd gotten it spotless—as a neat freak you don't mistake these things—but Merchant dragged me out of the kitchen while I was working on dinner, and chewed me out loudly for missing a spot. Sure enough, there was a large patch of mud on the driver's side, which both he and I knew perfectly well hadn't been there five minutes beforehand. I apologized for "missing" it, cleaned it off, and got back to work in the kitchen.
Then another time, I made chili for dinner, and it turned out to be so spicy it was practically inedible. The thing was, I don't use pre-mixed chili powder in my recipe. And I only used a tiny pinch of red pepper, so as not to disturb anyone's palate too much. Merchant bitched and moaned about how I'd obviously used too much chili powder. All I could say was that I didn't mean for it to come out so hot, which was the absolute truth.
I made mistakes in the real work—of course I did. I was new. All the other guys could correct me without being total asses about it, but not Merchant. He delighted in every opportunity to set me straight about something, particularly when he could do it in front of bystanders.
About three months in, I realized I wasn't giving him what he wanted. He wanted me to break down, to get mad, to pick a fight—to show in any way that he was getting to me. Well, of course he was getting to me. And I had a long battle with myself over whether it would be better to simply give him what he wanted, and purposely react more noticeably to his behavior. But that would be pretending to be someone I'm not, which never sits well with me. So I just quietly took it.
Until that one day. Which, in retrospect, I should've known would eventually come.
The shift had started out really shitty. I was late—actually late—because I got a flat on the way in to the station. I even called the station from a pay phone when I stopped to put the spare on, so Cap would know I was going to be late. I didn't get in too bad trouble, because of that. But I'd slept really badly the night before, so I was already cranky, and getting the flat and being late just made it all that much worse. I forgot to open my locker from the side, and got hit right in the face with a water bomb. I also got a quick heads-up from Saunders that for reasons nobody knew, Merchant was in a dirty, foul mood.
Literally the second I was in uniform, we got a call. And I made my biggest foul-up so far.
I still don't know exactly how it happened. I was supposed to put a ladder to a second floor window—a simple task. But there was a bush in exactly the wrong place for laddering that window. Plus, the ground where I ended up having to put the butt of the ladder was uneven with roots from a tree. Those are just observations—not excuses—because I still should have been able to get the ladder up, safely and correctly, on the first try. But instead, I somehow ended up putting the ladder through the window, instead of to the window, and thus inadvertently ventilated that room before it should've been ventilated. It was a stupid, stupid mistake.
Luckily, the error didn't cost lives, or cause injuries, or even much additional property damage, but it could have. I reported the inadvertent ventilation to the incident commander—the captain from the engine company that got there before us—right away, but it wasn't a mistake that could be fixed. I couldn't go un-break that window, and remove the air that had entered the structure.
Merchant watched impassively while Cap "debriefed" me about the mistake once we were back at the station. Cap chewed me out, as well he should have. He also made sure I learned from it, though. I demonstrated that I fully understood the second it happened what problems the error could have caused. I was able to give an explanation of what I could have done differently, given the difficult geometry of the location, to prevent the problem. Cap was satisfied with my response to the incident. But I still felt terrible—partly because I knew I'd screwed up, and partly because I'd disappointed Captain Sprague.
But Merchant wasn't satisfied. He gave me my own private debriefing, telling me in no uncertain terms what a fuck-up he thought I was, and how if I couldn't do a simple thing like that right, how could he trust me to be his partner, et cetera, et cetera. I was just so tired, and so downhearted, that I finally gave him what he wanted.
"Jesus Christ, Merchant! I know I fucked up. Cap already chewed me out. You were there. I get what I did wrong, and it won't happen again. What the fuck do you want from me?" I was face-to-chin with him, quivering with tension, and waiting to see what would happen next.
"Such a whining crybaby. Remember, on your first day, I told you to take it like a man? And the first time you make a big mistake—a doozy of a mistake, let me tell you—you freak out because your partner is pissed?" He shook his head. "Wow. What a girl."
I couldn't win. If I walked away, I lost. If I talked back, I lost. I didn't need to win—I just needed to get the hell out of the conversation.
Naturally, since talking back and walking away were options that wouldn't get me anywhere, I did both.
I got right in his face. "Fuck you, Merchant. Just leave me the fuck alone, all right?" I turned to walk away.
He grabbed me by my shoulder and spun me around, slamming me into the rescue vehicle with a resounding "whang." He held me pressed up against the side compartments without any apparent effort at all.
"Listen up, Probie," he said, right in my ear. "Someday, you may be a barely adequate fireman, but not today. And from here on out, you'd better be in top form, because I'm gonna do everything I can to wash you out of this department. Starting today."
As he walked away, he let go of me so fast that I stumbled forwards and fell flat on my face.
"Clumsy bitch," he said, as he walked away. "You oughta just quit now, and run back home to your mommy. I don't want you here. You don't belong here. I don't wanna see your stupid face for the rest of the day, unless we're at a call." He turned around and shouted at me one more time before he retreated into the bunk room. "You don't belong here," he repeated.
I learned the next day that his old partner, Sellers, had attempted suicide the previous night.
~!~!~!~
The entire next month, save for one shift when Merchant was mercifully absent with a cold, was horrible. The pranks continued, and were more mean-spirited. Water bombs were one thing, because you could just let things dry. But when the bombs were no longer just water, I didn't make it through a single shift without having to change uniforms at least once, which meant I had laundry every day.
Merchant continued to berate me for every little thing he could think of. In public, he ignored me completely, unless he was yelling at me. In private, he started making constant jabs at me, and making constant veiled threats. I couldn't say anything without it being thrown back at me later, in private. He started pestering me relentlessly about my personal life, making a point about how someone who was so quiet must have something to hide.
He never got one more single reaction out of me. But by the end of that month, I was starting to wonder how the hell I was going to make it through my probie period. You were expected to make mistakes in your probie year. That's why you had the orange helmet—so people who didn't know you would immediately know you were new. And like I said, I was expecting the grunt work, and I was expecting the hazing. But what was coming from Merchant was different—it wasn't just hazing, it was hatred. No, resentment. Anger. It was unfair, unjust, that his partner, who was also his best friend, couldn't do the job any more, and Merchant was angry, and I took the brunt of it.
He couldn't leave it at poking fun at my greenness, either. The more he learned about me, the more personal he got. Like when my sister, who's twelve years older than me, was visiting from the East Coast and came to see the station (even though I'd begged her not to), afterwards, he pointed out that I must have been an accident to be that much younger than my siblings. Never mind that I'd always assumed the same thing—I just didn't need him crowing about it. And I realized along the way that Merchant was extremely perceptive about human nature, and that I'd have to be really, really careful to keep a tight lid on anything that I didn't want him to come down on me like a ton of bricks for.
The other guys saw what was happening. I just politely asked them to stay out of it; that anything they did to try to help would probably just make it worse. They knew I was right. Cap called me into his office one day after overhearing a particularly nasty barrage of abuse from Merchant.
"Don't you think he's crossed that line, son? The one you said you'd tell me if he crossed?"
I sighed. "Yeah, Cap. He has. He's gotten personal, now. But honestly? I think anything you say to him is just going to make it worse. Because he'll assume I complained. It's just a couple more months at this point—and then I'll ask for a transfer once I get my black helmet. Because he won't quit then, and I know it."
Captain Sprague studied me. "Personally, I'm more inclined to transfer him than you," he said, after a minute. "Whoever replaced you would just get the same shit. What happened to Sellers was just life. What he did to himself after that—well, I can understand where he was coming from, just a little bit. And I hear he's starting to get his head back on straight, and get on with life. But I don't think Merchant is ever going to be able to let anyone take his place."
I didn't say anything. I'd worked that out long ago, but of course it wasn't my place to say anything like that to Cap.
"You really wanna stick it out, Stoker?" he said, finally.
I nodded. "Doesn't look good on your resume if you transfer during your probie period. And, like I said, it's only a couple more months."
He looked at me oddly. "I meant, Mike, do you want me to transfer him now?"
"Oh," I said, dumbly. "I … don't know. I wish you hadn't asked me, to be honest—I don't want to be responsible for that kind of decision."
Captain Sprague sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry; I shouldn't have asked. It has to happen at some point. But I'll leave you out of it, as I should have in the first place."
"Okay," I said. "Thanks."
"By the way, Mike. You're doing a great job. You're the third probie I've had since becoming a captain, and I've honestly never had less trouble. Sure, you make mistakes, but you usually know what they are as soon as you make them, and you learn from them and move on. I just wish things could've been different for you here."
My heart swelled in my chest—just a little, but enough that I knew for sure I could make it through whatever the next few months would bring. "Thanks, Cap."
~!~!~!~
I didn't think there was any possible way to change the dynamic between me and Merchant, so I stopped even thinking about it as a possibility. I could understand his anger—I really could. There were certainly times that I was so angry about certain things that the universe had dealt me, personally, that I wanted to behave just like he did. But that was the difference between us. I didn't do it. I just accepted the cards I'd been dealt, and left it at that.
I was so sure there was no way to change the dynamic that when it happened, I didn't even recognize it at first.
It was at one of those fires where you know—you just know—something's going to go wrong. It was one of those grand old houses that had been split up into apartments. Those were the worst—you never knew what was behind the walls. There were ways to split a building up that left paths for fire to follow—almost like an invitation to the flames: "Go here! Follow this space!" But you couldn't tell from looking. Maybe someday someone would invent a way to look through a wall to see where there was heat on the inside, but we didn't have it yet.
So when Merchant and I were doing a search in a smoke-filled second floor room, and the ceiling suddenly gave way, I was shocked, but not surprised, if that makes any sense. The fire was supposedly only on the first floor, but had obviously traveled up through air spaces in the walls, up to a nasty space between the second-floor ceiling and the rafters above. Obviously, I couldn't see the details of the structure at that point, but I heard later that it was a ceiling collapse waiting to happen.
As soon as the sounds of the collapse stopped, I could hear Merchant. He groaned, and then was silent.
I crawled over to where I thought I'd heard Merchant. I couldn't see a thing, not even right down on the floor where the air was as good as it could be, because the collapse had stirred up the thermal layering in the room, and the better air, down low, had gotten mixed up with the terrible air by the ceiling.
I found him, and miraculously, the coat pocket where he had our team's HT was accessible. I grabbed the radio, and called command, while feeling for what the situation was with my other hand.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday. Merchant is down, hit by debris from a ceiling collapse, middle room on the Charlie side, second floor."
I got nothing back. I felt the radio, and realized the antenna was just plain gone. I shoved the HT in my pocket, for no good reason. I continued to try to get a feel for what kind of debris Merchant was entangled in. I could hear the crackle of flames above me, and behind me, and I knew I had maybe a minute to get us out of that room. Maybe less.
"Fuck!" I swore. "Merchant?"
I felt up and down his body, and finally realized that there was a second miracle—he wasn't entrapped at all. I could tell he was still alive, from the hiss of the regulator at every slow breath. He must have been knocked out cold to be breathing like that—I was panting at triple his rate. And to make things worse, my low air alarm started going off.
Whoever designed that thing was a genius. The alarm actually vibrates your mask, so there's no way you can miss it. I got the message—two minutes, at the rate I was breathing, and I'd be out of air. Out of life.
I didn't have time to think. The room was getting hotter and hotter, so that even down on the floor, I could feel the intensity of the heat. I made a mental picture of the room we were in, and took the one chance I'd have to get us out of there. If I was wrong about where the door was, that'd be it. I undid the waist strap of Merchant's air pack, and sent the strap between his legs to make a harness so I wouldn't pull the pack off him when I dragged him by its shoulder straps. I lengthened the waist strap all the way, and was just barely able to refasten it. I grabbed Merchant by the shoulder strap of his air pack, and dragged him to where I hoped, prayed, the door was.
It was there.
I manhandled over three hundred pounds of man and gear out the door, and slammed it shut. I was breathing so hard I knew I'd run out of air soon—I was burning through the air double time now.
I dragged him over to where I hoped the stairs still were. They were still there—at least the top stair was. I dragged him down, step by step, till I found a landing. It was a tight space—I struggled to turn Merchant so that I could keep dragging him down. The vibrating of my face piece was stopping between breaths now—that meant the air that powered the vibration was running out.
At the bottom of the stairs, I dug through my spatial memory of what the first floor looked like, and started dragging my partner to where I thought we'd come in. I found a charged hose on the floor, leading me either towards the door, if I went the right way, or towards the fire, if I chose wrong. And as I was trying to think, my mask stopped vibrating. No more positive pressure. I had an empty bottle. It felt like the bottle was sucking the air out of me, instead of the other way around.
They'd taught us not to panic—your instinct is to rip the mask off your face, and breathe whatever shit is out there, rather than suck your mask against your face at every breath. One breath of the heated, toxic air might not kill me right away, but it would in a couple minutes, when my burned airway swelled up, and my scorched lungs filled with fluid. So I kept sucking that mask against my face at every useless, reflexive inhalation, and not getting one more molecule of air.
I listened to my surroundings—I thought I could hear an engine to my right. So I hauled, knowing my life depended on it. I hauled again—I moved him a foot or two more. I felt the world starting to fade away, as I hauled one more time. If I'd been able to see, my vision would've been closing in on the edges. But I couldn't see. I could only hear, a rush of static. I could only feel, hands and feet going numb. But I kept my hand on the strap, and kept my feet on the floor, and hauled one more time.
Then, I wasn't sure if I was really falling, or if I was asphyxiating. Maybe passing out from lack of oxygen just felt like falling. But it felt like my feet came out from under me, and a huge weight pressed me to the ground. And that was all I knew anymore.
~!~!~!~
My teeth were buzzing, and my head was filled with static. I could see again, but wasn't sure what I was seeing. My chest hurt, my legs hurt, and my right arm felt like somebody had tried to rip it off. Somebody was holding something against my face—now I remembered! I was suffocating, out of air! I pushed frantically at whatever was on my face, trying to get it away so I could breathe again.
I panicked as my hands were restrained, and fought back as hard as I could.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Mike, you're all right—you're out of the building, you're safe, this is just oxygen!"
The tunnel that was obstructing my vision slowly opened up, and the buzzing in my teeth faded, and the static cleared from my ears. I breathed in the oxygen, savoring the metallic taste imparted by the canister, and slowly came back to myself, and recognized Abbott in front of me.
As I suddenly remembered, really remembered, what had just happened, I ripped the mask off my face.
"Merchant!" I shouted. It came out as a croak.
"He's right here. Look," said Abbott, pointing to my left, where Saunders was finishing pressing a gauze bandage onto a gash on Merchant's forehead. He had an oxygen mask over his face, which meant he probably wasn't dead. Plus, he was still bleeding—another good sign. "The ambulance is on its way," Abbott said.
I cleared my throat, and tried to explain that I didn't need to go to the hospital.
"No arguing," Abbott said, even though I knew hadn't said anything intelligible.
Another figure appeared in front of me. White stripe on his helmet. Was it my Cap, or someone else's?
"Stoker," he said. Yep, my Cap.
I mimed the ceiling coming down on top of us.
"Ceiling came down, huh?"
I nodded. I coughed, and tried to say something, but nothing came out.
"You call for help when that happens next time, all right?" Cap said. "We saw the second floor rooms start to flash over, and nobody knew what room you two were in."
I searched for my coat—it was on the ground next to me. Right on top of my SCBA with the completely empty air bottle. I pulled out the antenna-less HT, and handed it to him.
"Shit," he said.
I nodded. I looked back over at Merchant, who was starting to stir. Saunders dug his knuckles into Merchant's chest, and shouted his name, trying to get a response. Merchant groaned, and weakly tried to shove Saunders away. That was good enough, apparently, because Saunders let him be.
Cap looked back at me. "You guys landed in a heap at the bottom of those steps, there," he said, pointing to the eight concrete steps that led to the front door. "Only way we could tell who was the victim and who was the rescuer was by how you had him packaged up, 'cause you were both out cold. Now think hard, Mike—did you pass out from running out of air, or did you knock your head on the way down?"
I tapped the air bottle next to me, and made a swiping motion across my throat.
"Okay. That's what I thought, considering your face and eyes look like a giant squid tried to suck them right off your head."
That was a comforting thought. That's about what it felt like, though.
I turned to look at Merchant again. He was trying to sit up, and Saunders was trying to hold him down.
"The probie! Get the probie out!" Merchant yelled.
"He's out, Merchant. He's out! Everyone's fine," said Saunders.
Merchant grabbed his head. "Fuck," he said. "Just—fuck. What the hell happened? I have no idea."
"Ceiling came down on you, John," Cap said.
"No, it didn't," Merchant said. "I'd remember that. Plus, we never went up to the second floor."
I was too tired to participate in this debate. I decided to just lie back, and let Cap take care of it.
"You did, John. You radioed in that you and Stoker were searching the second floor, and you called in again to say you were moving to the back of the building."
Merchant stared at Cap. "I don't remember," he said dully.
"I saw the second floor rooms starting to flash over," said Cap, "and we couldn't get you guys on the radio. I was just getting Abbott and Saunders packed up to go look for you guys when the two of you tumbled down the stairs by the front door."
"I don't remember," Merchant said again. "Is that how I got knocked out?"
"No," Cap said calmly. "You were out cold already."
"But—" I could hear confusion and disbelief in Merchant's voice. "But how did I get the probie out if I was out cold?" he asked.
I laughed—or at least, I tried to, but I ended up gagging instead.
"And what's the matter with him?" Merchant demanded, looking at me. He was starting to sound more like himself.
"Near as I can tell from how he had you packaged up," Cap said patiently, "he dragged you out, all the way from the second floor, while he was breathing nothing out of an empty air bottle. He wasn't breathing at all, when Abbott finally got you off him and pried the mask off his face."
I gulped. I'd missed that part.
"But—"
"But nothing, John. Now just lie down, and rest. The ambulance is here, and you two have a free ticket to Rampart."
I remembered getting put on the gurney, but then that was it. Even though I could never sleep in the car when I was a kid, I guess an ambulance was a different story, because the next thing I knew, I wasn't moving any more, and somebody was saying my name.
"Mike?" the deep voice repeated.
I opened my eyes, and discovered that in my mental absence, I'd been stripped, and somehow got an IV in my arm. I hated hospitals, but it didn't seem like there was any doubt where I was. I still had an oxygen mask on my face, but I didn't try to fight it this time.
"I'm Dr. Benson. You're at Rampart, in the Emergency Room. You're going to be fine, all right?"
I nodded. My throat felt tight and heavy, and I knew I still wouldn't be able to make a sound.
"You had a really close call. Do you know what happened?"
I nodded again, and then made a shrugging gesture and pointed to my throat.
"You can't talk because your vocal cords are swollen. You were trying so hard to suck air out of that empty bottle that you sucked fluid into your tissues. But all that will pass soon. We're going to keep you here overnight, just to make sure you don't have any more airway swelling, and that you don't develop any fluid in your lungs. Okay?"
I nodded. There was no point in arguing. Plus, I felt like shit.
"Your partner is fine, too. In fact, he's better off than you, since he didn't quite run out of air. He has a nasty concussion, and needed a couple of stitches in his hard head, but he's fine." Benson looked down at me. "You're quite the hero, right now, from what I hear from the guys in the lobby."
I shook my head. That was ridiculous. You don't leave people behind. You just don't.
"He'd be over three hundred pounds, with all his gear. You apparently pulled him quite a long way. You should expect to be fairly sore from that."
I believed him on that count. I already could hardly move my right arm, and my legs felt like I'd run a marathon. I was too tired to try to ask him any questions, so I just closed my eyes again.
~!~!~!~
A hand shook my shoulder gently, and I tried to shrink away and just go back to sleep.
"Jesus, lady. Do you have to wake him up again?"
"Sorry, Mr. Merchant, I do. I have orders to wake the both of you up, every hour, to make sure you're still okay in the brains department," said a strong feminine voice. "Mr. Stoker?"
Was my dad here? Last I heard, he didn't want much to do with me. Or maybe it was Uncle Frank?
I opened my eyes to check.
Oh. She meant me.
"Yep," I croaked.
"Do you know where you are?"
"Hospital. No air. Fine, though. Jus' lemme sleep, all right?"
"See?" said Merchant. "He's fine. Can you let him rest?"
I felt cool hands on my arm, where something was sticking out of it unnaturally. Oh yeah, the IV. I didn't care. I closed my eyes again.
~!~!~!~
The next time I woke up—unless I'd missed a few times, which was possible—food was being brought into the room. Eggs, it smelled like. Breakfast?
I opened my eyes, and there was a woman in the room, swinging a table over Merchant's bed.
"Look, he's awake," Merchant said.
So I was, it seemed. I took a quick inventory—my throat didn't seem nearly as tight and heavy, but my right arm felt like it was frozen, or on fire, or maybe both. In any case, I decided not to move it.
"How are you feeling this morning, Mr. Stoker?"
I coughed experimentally, and tried to fire up the old voice box. "Better," I said. Sound came out adequately this time.
"Do you think you can eat some breakfast?"
I had a dilemma.
"Uh, I gotta … um …"
"Do you need to get to the bathroom?"
I nodded.
"Okay. I'm going to help you sit up, and then you can stand up and see if you feel steady."
I managed—though my legs felt like they'd hardly hold me up.
"Good. I'll just disconnect this IV, and I'll wait for you. Pull the cord if you need help. No macho bullshit, either." I appreciated women who could swear.
I made it to the bathroom, and did what I needed to do. At the sink, I nearly fell backwards when I saw my reflection. The whites of both of my eyes were completely red. My face had splotchy red dots all over it. With my blue irises blazing out from a sea of blood, I looked like some kind of alien. I remembered what Cap had said about my looking like a giant squid had tried to suck my face off. That seemed just about right.
I finished in the bathroom, feeling much better, and made it back to the bed. I cleared my throat, and asked the obvious question. "What's with the eyes?"
"Blood vessels rupture in the covering of your eyeball when you're asphyxiating," she said simply. "Plus, you were sucking your face mask onto your face when you were inhaling. That probably made it worse."
"Oh."
"It'll go away soon. But Halloween's right around the corner—you can have some fun with it then."
"Great."
The nurse swung a table over my legs, too, and left me and Merchant to our breakfasts.
We ate in silence for a minute or two. I had no idea what to say to Merchant, and he clearly had no idea what to say to me. But he got there first.
"How the hell did you even do it, Stoker?"
It was the first time he'd ever called me by my name. "I don't know. I just did."
He stared at me. "Thanks, man."
"Any time," I said. And I meant it.
~!~!~!~
I didn't need an apology from Merchant.
I got one, anyhow. Just not the kind you say with words.
When we were back to work, two shifts later for him, four for me, it was like all of a sudden he was a different person. Not really—I mean, he still cussed a blue streak, and stalked around the station like a lion on steroids, and generally made it impossible for people to ignore him. But suddenly, he wasn't the enemy any more.
There were no more pranks, and no more purposely-created dirty jobs. I still got the grunt work, but that was the way it was supposed to be. And, more to the point, whenever there was something going on that I hadn't seen before, Merchant explained it, and showed me what to do.
About a week after I was back, Cap called Merchant into his office, and they were in there for a long time. There were no raised voices, which was the exception rather than the rule for that combination behind closed doors.
Cap called me in later, and said he'd discussed things with Merchant, and that he wasn't going to require him to transfer, but that I would be granted a transfer when my probationary period was over in six weeks if I wanted that. I said no thanks.
Even though I still had six weeks to go as a probie, I had my name back, at least partly. Merchant and Cap didn't call me "Probie" any more. Foster still did, always, and the other guys alternated between "Probie" and "kid" and occasionally "Mike."
But to Merchant, I was now "Stoker." Except when he called me "Partner."