"An Apple a Day"
Chapter Two
The paramedics were about halfway back to their fire station, when John suddenly spotted a fruit vendor. He pulled their rescue truck up behind the guy's dilapidated old flatbed and parked.
His dozing partner's eyes snapped open and he straightened up in his seat. "Why are we stopping?"
Gage grabbed their HT and threw his door open. "I'm going to get us some apples," he explained and pointed to the makeshift fruit stand that had been set up on the side of the street.
DeSoto exhaled a resigned sigh and reluctantly settled back down in his seat—his hot, stuffy seat.
His partner approached the grey-haired, mustached gentleman who was seated behind the stand. "I'll take two bags."
"No hablo inglés," the old fellow regrettably informed him. (I don't speak English.)
"Dos, por favor," the paramedic repeated and held up two fingers.
The old guy's eyes widened. "¿Solamente dos manzanas?" he incredulously inquired. (Only two apples?)
"No. No," John quickly corrected. "Dos sacos." (No. No. Two sacks.)
The guy grabbed an empty plastic sack. "¿Cuántas libras usted quiere?" (How many pounds do you want?)
"¿Cuánto por libra?" (How much per pound?)
"Puedo dejarle tenerlos para tres libras para cincuenta centavos." (I can let you have them for three pounds for fifty cents.)
John's bottom jaw dropped. "¿Tres libras para cincuenta centavos?" (Three pounds for fifty cents?)
"Bueno. Cuatro libras para cincuenta centavos. Pero ésa es mi mejor oferta." (Okay. Four pounds for fifty cents. But that is my best offer.)
His customer seemed even more amazed. "¿Por qué tan barato?" (Why so cheap?)
The old man swiped the perspiration from his wrinkled brow. "¡Hace mucho calor! Las manzanas están estropeando." (It's too hot! The apples are spoiling."
"¡Que lastima! Eso es barato. Si poseyera un colmado, los compraría todos." (That's too bad! That's a bargain. If I owned a grocery store, I'd buy them all.) John hooked the HT to his belt. Then he dug his wallet out of his back pocket and thumbed through it, looking for a dollar bill. "Ocho libras, por favor." (Eight pounds, please.)
"Le venderé todas las manzanas para un dólar por cada medida de áridos." (I'll sell you the whole truckload for a dollar a bushel.)
John had been only half-listening. "Un dólar. Sí." (A dollar. Yeah.)
The old guy appeared positively delighted. "¿Trato hecho?" (Deal?)
John couldn't find anything smaller than a twenty. "Huh? Oh. Yeah. Si. Si." Eight pounds of apples for just a dollar was a real deal. "Uh-uh…Estaré a la derecha detrás. ¿De acuerdo?" (I'll be right back. Okay?)
"Claro que sí." (Yes. Of course.)
John stepped up to the passenger side of the Squad and leaned against the door.
Roy glared out his open window at him. "Don't tell me. You're waiting for them to ripen. Right?"
John completely ignored his sick friend's sarcasm. "Could I borrow a buck? I don't have anything smaller than a twenty, and I don't want to take all his ones."
Roy sighed and slid out his wallet. The feverish fireman found a dollar bill and passed it to his partner.
"Thanks," John told him and began heading back over to the fruit stand.
By the time Gage got back, the old guy had written up a 'Bill of Sale'. "Firma aquí," he requested and passed the paramedic a pen. (Sign here.)
John stared down at the pen in confusion. "¿Es esto realmente necesario?" (Is this really necessary?)
"Si. Es una escritura de venta." (Yes. It's a 'Bill of Sale'.)
The paramedic was even more confused. 'For eight pounds of apples? Oh well. Maybe the guy just likes to keep good books?' John humored the old man and signed his 'Bill of Sale'.
"¿Dónde te gustaría que se lo entreguemos?" (Where would you like me to deliver them?)
Gage gave the old guy a strange stare. 'O-or, perhaps he's just been standing out in the sun too long?' "No es necesario que se lo entreguemos. Acabo los tomaré conmigo." (You don't have to deliver them. I'll just take them with me.)
The guy glanced at the firetruck and grinned. "¿Cuántas manzanas puede usted llevar adentro eso?" (How many apples can you carry in that?)
Gage gave the guy an even stranger stare. "Estoy bastante seguro de que puede manejar ocho libras." (I'm pretty sure it can handle eight pounds.)
The old guy's grin broadened and he handed the fireman his two bags of apples, along with a copy of the 'Bill of Sale'.
John had no sooner latched onto the apples, when his HT sounded an alarm.
"Squad 51…"
John tossed the vendor his dollar—er, Roy's dollar. Then he turned around and started racing toward their parked truck.
The old guy got up from his lawn chair and went running after him. "¡Oye! ¡Señor! ¡Espera!" (Hey! Mister! Wait!) He watched the firetruck drive off, with its lights flashing and its siren blaring. As it passed by, he took note of the big gold numbers emblazoned on its passenger door. '51'. "¡Qué extraño!" (How strange!) the old man muttered, to no one in particular.
One run, and one hospital follow up later…
Squad 51's paramedics were, once again, headed back to their fire station.
"I can see a pattern developing here," Gage glumly announced, as the pair rode along. "We've already rolled on two attempted suicide calls—and it ain't even noon, yet."
The Squad's coughing passenger refrained from commenting.
"Have you ever noticed how many people try to kill themselves, during a heat wave?"
Roy reached for the Kleenex box that was still resting on the seat between them. For the umpteenth time, he pulled a tissue out and used it to wipe his rubbed raw—and constantly running—nose. "Can't say as I have," he croaked.
John shot his sick partner a concerned glance. "Man! Is that the only way they can think of to escape the heat?"
"I doubt it's the 'heat' they're trying to escape from. In fact, if you were to ask that girl why she just jumped out of that moving car, I bet 'heat' wouldn't even be on the list."
"Then why do suicide rates seem to rise and fall with the mercury? I'm tellin' yah, 'heat' must have something to do with it."
"Maybe it just makes them more desperate?"
"Maybe."
They reached Station 51 and Gage began backing the Squad into its spot in the parking bay.
Their Captain, and his engine crew, came out into the garage, to greet them.
Chet Kelly strolled clear up to the driver's door. "Well, well, well…If it isn't our very own 'Johnny Appleseed'…in the flesh."
Gage glanced glumly in his partner's direction. "I think I liked it better when he called me 'John-boy'."
"I want my two-hundred-and-fifty bucks," Kelly announced, when the Squad's driver's head finally swung back in his direction.
"What two-hundred-and-fifty bucks?"
"Just be grateful we're not charging you labor," Kelly continued. "Believe me, it's no fun carting apples around in this heat."
John's look of confusion suddenly quadrupled. "Carting apples? What apples?"
Stoker nudged Kelly in the back. "I told you he didn't buy those apples."
Chet suddenly looked somewhat panic-stricken. "Did you—or did you not—buy some apples from a little old Mexican guy this morning?"
Both paramedics seemed astonished by Kelly's question. How on earth could Chet possibly know anything about that?
"Yea-eah." John reached down and picked the two plastic bags up from the seat beside him. "They're right here." He hefted his apples up for a few seconds and frowned. "Only, I don't think they're all here." The sacks' contents felt a lot lighter than eight pounds.
"You're right," Hank Stanley agreed. "They're not all there. He brought the rest of them over, while you two were out on that last run."
"That was nice of him. Where are they?"
"Out in the parking lot," Marco replied.
John was now more bewildered than ever. "The parking lot?"
His Captain nodded. "All two-hundred-and-fifty bushel of them."
John's bottom jaw dropped for the second time that shift. The paramedic pulled his copy of the 'Bill of Sale' out of his front shirt pocket and stared down at it in both shock and horror. "Marco, what does 'medida de áridos' mean?" he numbly inquired.
"Bushel," Lopez obligingly translated.
John exited the Squad and started striding toward the Station's back door.
His fellow firefighters followed him out into the parking lot.
The dark-haired paramedic just stood there, staring off across the pavement.
Between their parked cars and the lot's east brick wall, there were several rows of wooden crates, stacked five high, filled with apples—two-hundred-and-fifty bushels of apples.
Gage emitted a pitiful moan and quickly closed his eyes. "Why me? Why do things like this always seem to happen to me?" When he opened his eyes, the apples were still there. He groaned, again, and turned to Kelly. "You actually paid for these apples?"
Chet nodded. "I recognized your signature on the 'Bill of Sale', and he explained how you had to leave on a call, before you could pay him. It seemed perfectly legit."
"Didn't you think it was a little strange? I mean, what would I possibly want with two-hundred-and-fifty bushels of apples?"
"Yeah," Kelly confessed. "I thought it was a little strange, all right. But it didn't seem like such an abnormal thing for you to do. I mean, a buck a bushel. I don't claim to know anything about apples, but that's gotta be a great price. Right?"
Hank Stanley had to struggle, desperately, to keep a straight face. "So…John…how did you happen to become the unwilling owner of two-hundred-and-fifty bushels of apples?"
Gage gazed glumly down at his 'Bill of Sale'. "I was hungry. I saw this sign: Apples for Sale. So, I stopped. I was only gonna buy six pounds—three for me and three for Roy. But they were only fifty cents for four pounds, so I bought eight pounds, instead. While I was going through my wallet, looking for a dollar, the guy was talking. I wasn't really paying too much attention. But I thought he was talking about the weather—about it being so dry." He turned to Marco. "'Árido' does mean 'dry'. Doesn't it?"
Lopez grinned and nodded.
John reluctantly continued his narrative. "And then he asked me if I thought I was getting a deal…and I said, 'Yeah. It was a deal'. And when he wanted me to sign a 'Bill of Sale' for a buck's worth of apples, I just assumed he must like to keep good books. And when he offered to deliver my eight pounds of apples, I just figured the old guy had been standing out in the sun too long." He exhaled a gasp of complete exasperation and glared disbelievingly at his 'helpful' friend. "You actually paid for these apples?"
"Hey, babe, I thought I was doing you a favor," Chet stated in his defense.
Gage gazed glumly at 'his' apples. "You did me a favor, all right. What am I gonna do with all these apples? They're gonna spoil in this heat…"
Kelly re-extended his right hand. "I want my two-hundred-and-fifty bucks."
The glum paramedic's countenance momentarily brightened. "You paid for them. That makes them your apples."
"Oh-oh no-o," Chet protested. "You signed the 'Bill of Sale'. That makes them your apples."
John's eyes narrowed into shrewd slits. "Well, if you expect to get your two-hundred-and-fifty bucks back, you'd better help me think of a 'profitable' way to get rid of OUR apples."
The grin their Captain had been trying so hard to contain finally escaped. "THEY say: Two heads are better than one."
The rest of the guys glanced at one another, looking highly amused.
THEY obviously didn't have Gage and Kelly in mind, when THEY said that.
TBC