January Surprise: Chapter 3

.

At 6 p.m. sharp, the DeSotos' doorbell rang. Normally, one of the children would have rushed to the front door to usher in one of their beloved "uncles" from Station 51, but tonight, Joanne and Roy had arranged for them to have dinner with friends. It wouldn't be fair to poor Mike to invite him over to see something so truly spectacular, and then make him wait until after the kids' bedtime to see it.

Joanne opened the door, and Mike handed her a bottle of wine.

"Thought this might go better with dinner than the eye bleach," he said.

Joanne laughed, and ushered Mike in.

"Hey, Mike," Roy said.

"So. Question of the day: what the heck is going on?" Mike asked.

"Honey, let's not make him wait," Joanne said. "We have to show him now. But let's go to the living room, because, really, Mike, you'll want to be sitting down for this."

"O … kay," Mike said, but he sat in the chair offered to him.

Roy started pulling the calendar out of the cardboard tube, into which he and Joanne had replaced it, so they could hide it from the kids without damaging it.

"This," Roy said, "is going to make your day. It's a little ammo you can use, for some revenge for having to change your uniform three times last shift."

"I can get three or four more copies for sure," Joanne added, as Roy finally pulled the item from the tube.

Roy didn't waste any time—he smoothed the calendar out on the coffee table, and flipped immediately to the January page.

Mike leaned toward the table, and his eyes bugged out of his head. He moved closer to the picture, as if to double-check that he was seeing what—or rather, who—he thought he was seeing, and then swiftly retreated. He rubbed his eyes, in a caricature of someone who wasn't sure of what he'd seen, and looked again.

"Whoa," he said, as he sat back in his chair, looking slightly drained. "I see what you mean about eye bleach. Or … a brain eraser. Or something."

"Ammunition, though, wouldn't you say?" Roy said.

"Unquestionably. It also backs up something a guy told me about when I was subbing at another station, though," Mike said, gesturing at the calendar, as if there were any doubt what he was talking about. "I mean, I didn't actually believe the guy at the time, but boy, now I do."

"What's that?" Roy said.

"Well, you know how Kelly has these phases? Where he's heavily into something for a little while, and drives the rest of us completely bats?"

"Uh huh," Roy said, "and I think I see where you're going with this."

"Yep. The guy at … huh, I think it was 47s, but I'm not sure—anyhow, he asked me if Kelly was still at our station, and was he still so heavily into the bodybuilding thing," Mike said.

"Which you knew nothing about," Roy finished for him.

"Right. So I just kind of, you know, played along politely, and said I hadn't heard about that. And the guy—you know, I think he was at the station where Chet did his probie year, because we also talked about how Chet got to be such a joker. Anyhow, he launched into this whole story about how when he knew Kelly, he was crazy into this Mr. Olympia bodybuilding program," Mike continued.

Joanne chimed in. "Wow, that's like, what's-his-name, that Austrian guy, right? Arnold something?"

"And you know this … why?" Roy asked, eyebrows raised.

"Well, I … pay attention," Joanne said vaguely. "But—go on, Mike—then what?"

"I was sure the guy had Kelly mixed up with someone else, but now? I actually believe him," Mike said. "And the funny thing is, I told that guy about how Chet had gotten into vitamins, and yoga, and skiing, and I don't think he believed me."

"Kelly does have a way of kind of going all-out on his latest interest," Roy said.

"And I can see how if you're, I don't know, maybe not the tallest guy in your high school class … that you could kind of want to … compensate. You know?" Mike said.

Roy nodded. "Well, we know he played football in high school, so maybe that's how he got into that stuff. But … I don't know—it's kind of not like him to stick with something long enough to … get results."

"Plus," Mike said, and paused. "Never mind."

"No, what?" Joanne said. "You can't say 'plus' in that tone and then not go on."

"She's got a point, there, Stoker," Roy said.

Mike sighed. "Plus," he said dramatically, "he had to have put an awful lot of effort into shaving his chest."

There was a moment of silence as everyone in the room contemplated what Mike said.

"See, now I wish I hadn't made you say it," Roy said.

A bell rang in the kitchen.

"On that note, dinner's ready," Joanne said. "Everyone … just shake it off."

"Our job at dinner is going to be to figure out the best way to fire this ammunition," Roy said.

Mike nodded, as they went to the dining room.

"I kind of have some ideas about that," he said.

TBC

A/N: Don't worry, Chet fans; he'll come out of this juuuuuuuust fine.