Saturday, November 20:

Johnny's Place

Johnny pulled into his parking spot at the apartment a little past eight o'clock. Detours due to a new road construction project had made the trip home longer than usual. Since he had not slept at all at 127s, he was planning to crash in the solitude of his own apartment. Weary of the never-ending stream of thoughts parading through his head, he wanted nothing more than to escape the accusatory voices for a while in the silence of sleep.

Heading up the stairs, he nodded politely to his landlady. The elderly woman tended to be quite garrulous and today he just wasn't in the mood to humor her. However, the landlady had other plans. "Mr. Gage? I'm wondering if you could help me with a little project this morning?"

Keeping his irritation to himself, he responded, "Sure, Mrs. Carter. Let me just put these things away and I'll be right back." Mrs. Carter was a genteel, old-fashioned woman who looked like she had been transplanted from the previous century. Her hair was always neatly coiffed in a chignon and even her clothing was timelessly classic. She also didn't charge as much rent as she could have for his apartment, a favor which he usually returned by assisting with her little projects whenever she asked.

When he arrived at her apartment, Mrs. Carter explained what she had in mind. She was making hanging shelves out of ropes and wood. She had already sanded and varnished several pieces of wood. To finish the project, holes needed to be drilled in the wood, the ropes had to be measured, cut, knotted and inserted, and hooks would have to be anchored to the ceiling. Johnny figured the job would take a couple of hours, based on his past experience with her exacting standards and her proclivity for small talk.

Mrs. Carter brought him a cup of coffee and a plate of cookies as she chatted about the goings on of the various tenants in the building and people in the neighborhood. He ate just one cookie to satisfy the demands of politeness. Johnny didn't do much to keep up his end of the conversation, but the woman took no notice as she talked about everything from the weather to the atrocious clothing young people seemed to favor these days.

The eleven o'clock hour had just passed by the time Johnny got the shelves precisely hung to his landlady's satisfaction. "Oh, that's exactly what I wanted, Mr. Gage! You've done a marvelous job!" Mrs. Carter beamed at her tenant.

"You're welcome." Johnny managed a real smile.

"Oh my! Look at the time! I had no idea it was so late! Would you like to stay for lunch?"

"No, thank you. We had a busy shift yesterday and I need to get some sleep."

"Oh, dear!" she fussed. "I didn't mean to keep you. Why didn't you say something?"

"I wasn't tired earlier," he lied, not wanting to hurt the woman's feelings. "I was happy to do it for you." This part was true. Making the shelves, accompanied by the landlady's stream-of-consciousness chatter, had afforded an excellent distraction from his roiling self-talk.

"Well then, have a good nap, Mr. Gage. And thank you again for my beautiful shelves!" Mrs. Carter waved good-bye from the doorway to her apartment.

Johnny trudged up the stairs to his apartment and fumbled with the key in the lock for a minute before finally getting the door open. "Flippin' thing always sticks after it rains," he grumbled to himself. He momentarily considered trying to fix it, but discarded the idea as a bone-weary fatigue began to settle on him. Feeling as though he might be able to sleep, he headed for the bedroom and lay down. Half an hour later, when his mind refused to shut up even though the rest of him wanted desperately to be asleep, he decided to give up and wandered into the kitchen for something to eat.

As he foraged in the cabinets for something easy to make, he came across an unopened bottle of whiskey that someone had given him for Christmas last year. He pulled it out thoughtfully. This just might be his ticket to slumber. He hadn't intended to drink more than a shot or two, but after the initial fire, the welcome numbness increased with each swallow and he found himself downing several more. He left the bottle on the kitchen counter and was just crossing over to the sofa to lie down when a knock sounded at the door. "Now what?" he said aloud, glaring at the door. He traversed the distance a bit unsteadily and opened the door to find Roy standing there. Although Roy was his best friend, he was just about the last person he wanted to see. He knew he wasn't ready to discuss the events that had transpired with any degree of rationality. Or, with any degree of irrationality, for that matter. All he really wanted to do was to finish drinking himself asleep. He didn't want any witnesses to such behavior. Not even Roy.

The two men stared at each other for a moment. When Johnny didn't say anything, Roy held up a paper sack. "I, uh, didn't know if you had lunch yet. I got some burgers and fries."

Johnny looked at the bag and swayed a little to one side of the doorway. "D'ya wanna come in?" His speech was not quite as precise as usual.

Roy set the sack on the table, and began pulling the food out. Johnny carefully crossed over to the cupboard and grabbed a couple of plates. He set them on the table and then returned to the refrigerator for some ketchup. "You want a beer?" he asked over his shoulder, grabbing one for himself.

"Sure."

Johnny brought the ketchup and the beer to table, opened his beer, then plopped down gracelessly in the chair.

They ate and drank in an uneasy silence, not quite making eye contact.

"I don't want to talk about it." Johnny was pushing the food around on his plate, having taken only a few bites.

"Okay."

Both men sipped their respective beverages in silence. A few more minutes ticked by. Johnny started talking. "I don't know most of the guys over at 127's. Only Keith Roberts." Johnny paused, considering the members of A shift at 127's. "Ever hear of a guy named Toby Barnes?"

Roy shook his head no.

"Well, he's a real pain to work with. Don't know what's the matter with him. He's got a chip on his shoulder the size of New York."

Roy shrugged. "Is Walker still the captain?"

"Yeah. He's all right. Remember that crazy shift we had with him a couple of years ago when the Santa Ana's were really blowing?" The corners of Johnny's mouth quirked drunkenly upwards at the memory. The Santa Ana winds always made people crazy. Nobody knew exactly why.

Roy smiled in return. "Yeah, I do."

Johnny frowned down at his beer. "This Barnes guy, though." He took another swallow of his beer. "Glad we don't have anyone like that at our … uh, at 51's." He had deliberately begun to distance himself from a life that might not exist for him any more.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Huh?"

"You started to say 'our station' and then changed it to '51's.' What's that supposed to mean?" Roy demanded somewhat angrily.

"Uh, I don't think I'll be coming back to 51's."

"Why not?"

"Think about it, Roy." He gripped the beer tightly, fingers making slight indentations in the can. "If I couldn't pass the exam the first time, what makes you think I could pass it six months from now? Or even six months after that?"

"You can always study …"

"I did study!" He banged the empty can on the table for emphasis. "It's not like I didn't study at all, you know!" Johnny rested his forehead against the heel of his hand.

"Don't you think you should think about this a little?" Roy's voice sounded harsh.

Johnny stood up abruptly, angry again. He took a breath as the room lurched around him. "I did think about it. I thought about it all night." He tossed the can at the rubbish bin. It bounced off the rim and landed on the floor. "I've thought about it every second since Cap told me I didn't pass the damned exam!" He nudged the can with his shoe as he staggered over to the refrigerator. "Wanna 'nother beer?" His words slurred as he asked Roy over his shoulder while reaching in for another can. Johnny was definitely intoxicated.

Roy's expression was puzzled. "Uh, no. Don't you think you've had enough?"

"I need it to sleep," he replied, his expression defying Roy to say more.

"Okay." Roy decided to back down and take a different tack. "You don't mind if I make some coffee, do you?"

"Go ahead. Knock yourself out. It's up there." Leaning against the refrigerator, he waved his hand in the general vicinity of the cupboards. Odd that there seemed to be twice as many of them as usual right now. He sensed that he was just about ready to pass out, coffee or no coffee. The alcohol, combined with the lack of food and sleep over the past thirty hours, was finally producing the desired effect.

Roy had seen the bottle on the counter as he began to make the coffee. That would explain why Johnny was so drunk after just two beers. Noticing the stuporous expression on Johnny's face, Roy came up beside him, grasping him by the elbow, and said, "Let's go to the living room." He put the opened beer can that was in Johnny's hand on the floor and got his friend settled on the sofa. He then sat in a nearby chair. The room was silent for a few minutes.

"Roy?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't know what to do."

Roy looked away, unable to face the soul-deep pain that dwelt behind the statement. He had no answers, no easy balm with which to soothe his partner's spirit. When he finally looked back over to Johnny, he had already fallen asleep. With a sigh, he went into the bedroom and retrieved a blanket, which he tucked around the sleeping form, watching the lines on Johnny's face relax as he sunk into alcohol-induced unconsciousness.

Roy didn't know what to do, either. He'd never seen his partner like this before. So hurt. So devastated. So lost. He felt vaguely responsible for Johnny's not passing the exam. Perhaps if he had agreed to go camping in the mountains that weekend, things might have turned out differently. As he turned to leave, he spotted the remains of the fast food meal on the table in the kitchen. He gathered them up and threw them into the rubbish bin. This small act of caring was the least he could do for his partner.

After checking on Johnny again, Roy left the apartment, making sure the door locked behind him.

About an hour after Roy left, Johnny suddenly woke up. His feet tangled with the blanket in his haste to reach the bathroom. He made it in time however, and spent the next unpleasant hour purging his system of the poison he had consumed. Rinsing his mouth out, he caught his reflection in the mirror. He looked like crap. Felt like it, too. He thought about taking a shower, but it was too much effort. Wandering back into the living room, he collapsed on the sofa once more, waiting for sleep to overtake him.