A House Divided – Chet's Cataclysm
Chapter 4
Roy cast a glance in the direction of his partner as he drove the squad back to the station. He knew Johnny was angry with him about their earlier disagreement regarding their lineman but he couldn't help how he felt about the situation. In his opinion, Johnny was over-reacting and he simply could not go along with him when he tried to pull Roy into some sort of intervention on Chet's behalf. Roy's personal values included a man's right to privacy and until he saw something to make him think that Chet was in trouble, he would not interfere in the lineman's life.
But now that he and Johnny were alone in the squad and their attention was no longer focused on a child's health crisis, he began to feel badly for how he had treated Johnny on this particular morning. He wanted to do or say something to repair the damage he'd done to their friendship.
"Johnny," he began, pulling the squad to a stop at a traffic light. "You really handled that well back there." He hoped the compliment would set a pleasant tone for the conversation leading into an apology.
Johnny pressed his lips together tightly, eyes narrowed into slits as he glared at his partner. He quickly returned his gaze back to the windshield before he spoke. "What's that s'posed to mean?"
"Nothing…just that you really did a good job with Cammie." Roy pushed down the exasperation he was feeling thinking that he really didn't deserve the attitude his partner was throwing back at him.
"Oh, so you're the only one who can handle kids?" Johnny felt the tension building as he spoke. He shifted in his seat until he could see his partner better then splayed an open hand on his chest. "Just 'cause I don't have any kids you think I don't know how to handle them?"
Roy immediately wished he'd kept his mouth shut. It was obvious that Johnny was not willing to accept a compliment, even a genuine one, without assuming that Roy was patronizing him. "Junior, I was just…"
"And that's another thing…I'm not much younger than you and you only have a few weeks more training as a paramedic than me so why the hell do you keep callin' me Junior? I mean, I AM the one who performed the first authorized medical treatment in the field."
"Ok," Roy began through clenched teeth, "it's just a nickname. I apologize for calling you Junior. I will not call you that again, Mr. Gage." Roy immediately regretted his own sarcastic remark.
Johnny ran a hand through his mussed up hair then slapped his knee. "Oh, great…so now I'm Mr. Gage? You're worse than Brice! Why can't I just be Johnny or John or Gage, huh?"
"Well, somehow I've managed to upset you this morning without meaning to and now I'm really trying not to piss you off!" Roy could feel his face reddening.
"Well it's a little late for that…Mr. DeSoto," he spat out as Roy shifted into reverse to back into the station.
"I know, alright? And I'm sorry." Roy looked into his side view mirror to back into the bay, thankful that it gave him an excuse to look away from his angry partner.
The wheels in Johnny's brain turned quickly thinking of a way for Roy to make it up to him. "Sorry enough to help me with Chet?" Johnny asked as the squad slowly came to a stop in its designated place beside the engine.
"Yes, if and when he asks for it. Or if something happens to make me think he's a danger to himself or someone else." Roy's response was spoken more forcefully than he'd intended.
"By then it'll be too late," Johnny mumbled leaning forward slightly waiting for the squad to stop. "Besides, Marco agrees with me…and he's closer to Chet than any of the rest of us."
Roy gulped at the news that someone other than his hyperactive over-reacting partner thought that something might be wrong with Chet. "How do you know?"
"He told me," Johnny said rolling his eyes. "I do have friends, ya know."
Roy shifted into park then looked over at his partner. "Johnny, I know you have friends…I'm one of them; I was just wondering how it came up in conversation and what has Marco seen that makes him think something's wrong?"
Johnny released a sarcastic chuckle with a half-smile that was more of a smirk. "So you'll believe Marco but not me; is that it?"
"No, but…"
Johnny reached for the door handle, hesitating momentarily. "Do me a favor, Roy; if something ever happens to me to make you think I need help…don't even bother." He slammed the door shut; his long strides taking him quickly to the kitchen to finish the chores their call had interrupted.
Roy sighed, leaning over the hood of the squad hanging his head as the echo of Johnny's rapid footfalls faded. He'd never intended to upset his partner and certainly hadn't meant for his efforts at an apology to backfire on him. He was lost in thought when his engineer rounded the front of the engine after completing his dorm chores.
"Hey, Roy; how'd it go with the kid?"
Roy looked up in the direction of Mike's approaching voice. He stood straighter then leaned a hip against the squad. He gave a brief chuckle as he thought of the source of little Cammie's febrile episode.
"Oh, she's fine. The little girl apparently decided to play with the electric blanket controller for her parents' bed just before her mom put her down for her morning nap." He waited for Mike to catch on but when he didn't see recognition on his engineer's face, he decided to continue. "It was on high so her mother thought she had gotten sick suddenly with a high fever."
"Oh no…poor mom," Mike said with a slight snicker, imagining the fear the young woman must have endured.
"Yea, she was really panicky but," he chuckled again softly, "you shoulda seen the look on Johnny's face when he sat down on that bed to examine the toddler. He was like a cat on a hot tin roof."
Mike knitted his eyebrows together in confusion. "Say, where is he anyway?" Mike looked around realizing the man whose antics Roy was describing was nowhere to be seen.
Roy blew out his cheeks before he answered; a gesture Mike thought he understood. "In the kitchen, I guess."
"Something wrong?" Mike had not missed the sarcasm in Roy's voice and facial expressions.
Roy looked around making sure there was no one listening to this conversation. When he returned his eyes back to Mike, he lowered his voice as a precaution. "I don't know. Somehow I managed to infuriate him this morning." Roy didn't expound on the conversation since it involved a fellow crew mate.
Mike thought back to his conversation with Chet in the latrine while the paramedics were on their run. "Wonder what's going on with him? Seems he made Chet pretty mad before roll call." He tossed a glance back in the direction of the latrine where he knew Chet was still cleaning up.
"He talked to you about it?"
"Who, Chet or Johnny?" Mike asked, a bit puzzled by Roy's question.
"Chet. I've already talked to Johnny about what he thinks is going on with Kelly and that's when I pissed Gage off." Roy realized he was talking about the situation whether he wanted to or not.
"He mentioned Johnny talking to Cap about him earlier today." Mike leaned an elbow on the hood of the squad. "Says Johnny thinks he has some kind of a problem or something but he insists he's just tired from working for his landlady."
Roy nodded in agreement; his eyes drifting down on the shiny red hood as his mind wandered back to his initial conversation with Johnny while they were doing their morning equipment checks. "What do you think, Mike?"
Mike hesitated searching for the right answer. "Makes sense to me, I guess. If I spent my off days scraping and painting the eaves of my building I'd be tired too. What do you think?"
Roy quickly lifted and lowered his eyebrows before he answered. "I told Johnny that I thought he was over-reacting; he was jumping to conclusions which he does do sometimes but," he stopped to take a breath, staring back down at the hood. "But on the way back to the station he said something that has me second guessing myself now."
"What'd he say?" Mike was also looking for an answer to the nagging suspicion floating around in his brain. Something Chet had said was weighing on him as being not quite right but he just couldn't figure it out.
"He said that Marco agreed with him…and none of the rest of us is as close to him as Lopez."
Mike released a low whistle. "Yea…I just hope whatever it is it gets resolved before anything bad happens," he said standing back up and lightly slapping the hood. "I need a cup of coffee."
"Me too," Roy responded in agreement to both of Mike's comments.
E!
Johnny's heart rate was still elevated from his exchange with Roy on the way back from their run. He hurried into the kitchen to finish the dishes he had left soaking when they were toned out. Standing in front of the sink, he stared into the clean stainless basin. "Huh?"
He then removed the dish towel from over the dish drain and realized that the cups that had been left drying were back in their proper places in the cabinet. "How the…," he began quizzically, turning to face Marco who was sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper. "Marco?"
"Yes," the older man answered folding up the newspaper.
"Did you, uh…" Johnny arched an eyebrow in the lineman's direction.
Marco's chuckle at Johnny's confused expression caused the paramedic to relax a little. "Yes."
"Aww, thanks man," Johnny said, his shoulders relaxing. He stepped over to the refrigerator and cabinets to ensure he had all the ingredients needed for the tuna casserole he was going to make for dinner. "You didn't have to do my chores but I really appreciate it."
"No problem. The dayroom was pretty much in order so I figured I'd finish what you started. It's been quiet for us," he said looking in Johnny's direction while gently massaging Henry's long ears.
Johnny opened his mouth to say more just as Mike pushed open the kitchen door and halted midway between the bay and the kitchen. Johnny cringed as he heard Chet calling Roy's name and felt a slight sense of relief when his partner turned to follow Chet back into the latrine. At least he wouldn't have to worry about a continuation of their earlier unproductive conversations.
E!
Chet swore under his breath as he emptied out the mop bucket. His injured foot was throbbing and he knew he needed to clean and bandage it properly. He pushed open the door of the latrine to return the mop bucket to the janitor's closet just as Mike entered the kitchen. He noted that Roy was only a couple of steps behind the engineer. Quickly, he called out to the paramedic he had overheard defending him a couple of hours earlier.
"Hey, DeSoto?"
Mike and Roy both turned in unison as Roy responded to the sound of his name.
"Yea."
"I need a medical opinion on something please." Chet didn't want anyone else to know about his foot and even though he felt like Mike could be trusted, he also knew that he was within hearing range of Johnny and Marco.
Roy flashed a smile at the perspiring young man. "Then maybe you should call a doctor."
"C'mon, man. It's just a quick question, alright?"
Roy turned back to Mike who was standing in the open doorway. "Go ahead, I'll be right back, Mike."
Roy followed Chet into the locker room noting a slight limp in the shorter man's gait. "What's going on?"
Chet sat down on the bench in front of the paramedics' lockers wondering briefly if he was about to do the right thing. The last thing he needed was to do anything that might change Roy's mind about him. He turned to the side raising his right leg onto the bench just as the tones sounded.
"Station 51, commercial fire alarm at 4723, East 221st street, that's 4-7-2-3, East 221st street, cross street Grace Ave. Time out, 1058 hours."
Hank acknowledged dispatch as his crew assembled from opposite sides of the station. "KMG-365."
Hank tore off the slip of paper, passing it to Roy as they passed each other on the driver's side of the squad. Johnny tightened his chin strap then reached over for the address slip Roy was handing him; neither man spoke to the other as they watched the bay door rise.
Mike donned his turnout coat then climbed into the driver's seat of the engine. He watched Hank make long strides in front of the engine on his way to the officer's seat. He glanced briefly into the side view mirror noting Marco leaping into his seat then turned looking over his shoulder waiting for the only remaining crew member not yet on board. The four of them usually mounted the engine in a well- choreographed routine. Normally, Hank was the last to climb in just as Roy pulled the squad out of the bay but today Chet's boarding took a few beats longer than usual.
Maybe Johnny's on to something, Mike thought to himself as he accelerated into yielding traffic closing the unusually long distance between the squad and engine as the crew from Station 51 rushed to the scene of the blaze.