*GROAN!*

Johnny Gage plopped himself into the first chair that crossed his path as he shuffled through the dayroom of Station 51 with an utterance audible to every man in the room.

"Man, I don’t think I got any sleep last night," Johnny muttered glumly as he laid his face to rest in open hands. Not even the enticing aroma of freshly brewed coffee could lure him across the kitchen floor to snag a cup for himself. Johnny rubbed his face briskly in an effort to wake himself up then slumped back in his chair. "In fact, if I were home right now, I’d take a nice long shower, climb into bed and stay there till noon..." he grumbled to no one in particular.

"You think one shower’s gonna do it, huh?" Chet Kelly scoffed at the complaining paramedic. "Don’t know what you’re griping about anyway...you’re not the only one who was up most of the night, thanks to you and your little case of ‘mistaken identity’!"

"At least you had a nice soft bed to sleep in!" Johnny shot back. "How’d you like to try sleeping in the back of your car?"

"Oh, you mean you slept?" Marco Lopez asked sarcastically. "Seemed to me, you were in the station more than your car...hitting the latrine, banging around in the kitchen, and traipsing through the dorm where the rest of us were trying to sleep..."

Johnny yawned and rubbed one eye with his fingers. "Well, uh, I forgot my pillow...then I needed a blanket...and uh, don’t remember anymore what else...I was so tired I think I was sleeping on my feet."

"Well," Mike Stoker inserted quietly, "that’s more sleep than we got then..."

"MIKE!" Johnny exclaimed as he turned to their engineer. "Well..." he paused, trying to think of a quick comeback, but failing miserably in his sleep-deprived state. "Well, I didn’t exactly drag you into the kitchen this morning, did I?"

"Only because you woke me up...again. I figured I’d never get back to sleep with less than an hour to go before the wake-up tones," Mike countered. A long yawn punctuated the end of his sentence and he covered his mouth out of politeness.

"See, Gage?" Chet smiled triumphantly, "I’m not the only one you kept up. Besides, even when you weren’t there, you were there, if you know what I mean..." He made a point of taking an exaggerated sniff in Johnny’s direction. "Man, I can’t believe you thought..." Chet would have continued his badgering of Johnny, had not Captain Stanley chosen that exact moment to walk into the room.

"Mornin’, men!" Cap addressed the members of his crew who were present. "Where’s Roy this morning?"

"Probably sleeping in the dorm, now that Gage is finally up for the day..." Chet snorted under his breath.

"Did you say something, Kelly?" Cap asked, though he’d heard every word quite clearly.

"Uh, yeah, Cap," Chet lifted his head high and smiled innocently, "I just said, I think Roy’s keeping himself in the dorm..."

"That’s what I thought you said," Cap muttered under his breath, barely loud enough for the others to hear. He hadn’t gotten any more sleep than his men had but it was his job to hold his crew together long enough for their relief to show up in the form of B-shift. One good whiff reminded him that he needed to double check on that appointment he’d made before turning in for the night. He glanced at his watch and prayed for the next hour to pass quickly. Just then, their missing comrade strolled into the room.

Roy DeSoto stopped dead in his tracks when five sets of eyes fell on him.

"What?" Roy asked, quickly checking to make sure he hadn’t missed some vital part of his uniform.

"I didn’t think it was possible, Roy," Chet confessed as he appraised the disheveled paramedic, "but you look worse than Gage this morning."

Johnny smiled, in spite of himself, and let out a half chuckle. His normally well-groomed partner stood before them with his shirt not only half untucked, but mis-buttoned as well. His sandy-colored hair looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in days, and his nametag was visibly upside down.

Roy took one look at his equally unkempt partner as one hand attempted to mask the yawn that threatened to surface. "Oh, I don’t think I look that bad."

Roy’s comment earned a round of laughter from at least four of the men sitting in the dayroom.

"Chet here is just trying to blame me...ME...for keeping us all awake last night," Johnny explained indignantly, in hopes that his partner would defend his honor, while ignoring his last statement.

"Well..." Roy started slowly, then stopped himself after thinking it over for the briefest of seconds.

"WHAT?" Johnny burst out in surprise over Roy’s hesitation. "It wasn’t MY fault!"

"I never said it was, Johnny, but, ah...." Roy regretted not staying in the locker room a few seconds longer. A few more seconds, and he might have avoided this whole inane conversation.

"But, what?" Johnny asked dubiously.

"Just remember to roll down the squad windows if we get a call," Roy said with a sympathetic smile. Deciding he’d said too much already, he leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and hoped for an interruption...of any kind.

"Well, ROY might not be willing to lay blame where blame belongs, but I don’t have a problem with it!" Chet declared. "Geez, Gage, what you thinking last night anyway?"

"It’s NOT my fault, I tell ya’!" Johnny shot back defensively through blood-shot eyes. He grew more and more agitated by the minute.

"Chet’s not trying to lay blame anywhere," Cap interceded before things got ugly. "ARE you Kelly?" The no-nonsense look in Cap’s eyes told Chet, ‘no, he wasn’t’. "In fact, it could have happened to any one of us...I guess..."

"Cap..." Johnny moaned. "Not you too!" One hand swiped at his unruly ‘morning hair’ and dropped to the table with a thud. "I don’t know...maybe it was my fault..." he mumbled in resignation.

"Well, FINALLY! I never thought I’d live to see the day when Gage adm--" Before Chet could finish his sentence, the shrill ring of the station’s telephone sang out, startling Roy in the process. Smiling inside over the perfect timing of the unknown caller, Roy turned to lift the receiver off its hook.

"Station 51, Fireman Roy DeSoto," Roy answered. "Uh-huh...yes...that’s right...30 minutes?...GREAT!...Yeah, if we get a call, just come in the back door by the parking lot...Okay, bye..." Roy hung up the phone and turned to see all eyes peeled on him once again.

"Well?" Cap asked when Roy was not forthcoming with the conversation.

"Oh, sorry..." Roy apologized, "Guess I’m not quite with it yet...lack of sleep..." He smiled sheepishly. "That was Ace Control. They said they’d be here in 30 minutes if not sooner."

"Good...good..." Cap nodded in relief. "Hopefully they’ll be done before B-shift arrives. I’d hate to have to explain why...Well!" He clapped his hands together with a smack. "Anyway. Let’s get on with things...roll caaaaaall..." Cap tried to stifle the yawn that escaped, with no success. "Tell you what, you’re all here, let’s just consider roll call taken. That just leaves..."

Sounds of scrambling feet filled the station house as the men of A-shift hurried to their respective vehicles. Captain Stanley stopped at the mic on the way to the engine to acknowledge the call and jotted down the pertinent information. He passed the white slip of paper through the squad window to Roy, who was already sitting in the driver’s seat. As Roy grabbed the paper and handed it over to Johnny, Cap could hear him tell his partner, "Look, just make SURE next time, okay?"

Cap could hear Johnny’s rebuttal echo throughout the bay as he made his way around the squad to his own seat in the engine.

"I’m tellin’ ya’! It LOOKED like a cat when I started chasing it out of the station! It’s NOT my...."

The roar of engines and the blaring of sirens drowned out the tail end of Johnny’s protest as the vehicles of Station 51 pulled out of the bay, leaving behind the unmistakable, undeniable, pungent scent of skunk....
 
 

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Guest Dispatchers             Stories by Dianne Bay