Chapter Seven

Squad 8’s return to quarters was interrupted by a supply run to Rampart and a quick stop at a local hamburger stand.

The first thing the pair noticed, upon re-entering the station’s rec’ room, was that the kitchen table had been cleared.

Gage grimaced and grabbed the top of his head with both hands, to keep it—and himself—from exploding. It was a full minute before he’d calmed down enough to be able to speak. “I pleaded. I begged. I even said pa-lee-eeze.”

Harlin just gazed innocently back at him. “You told us not to ‘touch’ anything. So…we didn’t.”

The paramedic’s arms dropped back to his sides and he glared down at the empty tabletop. “So, our call slips have suddenly become invisible?”

“Relax, Johnny-Baby,” Harlin calmly continued. “We will salvage your paperwork for you.”

His Dodger watching shiftmates heard his comment and emitted a group groan.

Harlin ignored the groans and motioned for his team of co-conspirators to rise. “Gentlemen, to the rescue!”

Gage was disappointed to see ‘Stoney’ also getting to his feet. “Et tu, Cap?”

Stoner shrugged. “Harlin’s plan required a fourth man for it to succeed. And I wanted this to have a successful outcome.”

Harlin’s four man team surrounded the table and lifted it off the floor. It was then flipped completely upside down and lowered onto the spread out salvage and overhaul tarp that had been concealed beneath it.

On top of the canvas tarp was the paramedics’ inverted paperwork.

Each table flipper latched onto a corner of the tarp, which was then pulled taught and held tightly up against the table’s top as it was carefully re-righted.

Lastly, the salvage cover was painstakingly raised and removed, revealing the paramedics’ untouched paperwork.

Harlin’s accomplices promptly resumed their baseball watching positions, leaving the prank’s mastermind to deal with their impressed, but un-amused, paramedics.

“Hardy-har har,” John mirthlessly muttered, following an exchange of weary eye rolls with his partner.

Harlin snatched a soda from their fridge and went slinking out of the kitchen, smirking triumphantly all the while.

Roy set the brown bags in his hands down on the table and the two paperwork’ers re-took their seats.

John eagerly opened the sack in front of him and began removing its contents. “Who we playing?”

“The Cubs,” Rick replied, “at Chicago.”

“Who’s ahead?”

“We are. 6 to 2. It’s the bottom of the eighth.”

“All right!” Gage exclaimed, around a mouthful of burger. “They win this one, and they’ll be 68 and 16 and I think they’ll have a pretty good shot at the pennant.”

It was Harlin’s turn to roll his eyes. “You said that last year and we never even made it into the playoffs.”

“That was last year. This is this year. I think they can do it this year.”

Harlin swung around in his seat. “You willing to bet on it, Johnny-Baby?

John just stared back at him in disbelief. “You would actually bet against the Dodgers?”

Captain Stoner, Rick and B.J. emitted another group groan.

Harlin turned in the direction of their TV. “What happened?”

“The Cubs’ shortstop just hit a home run with the bases loaded and no outs.”

Harlin swung back around in his seat. “Yes. I would.”

John ignored the fickle Dodgers’ fan and reluctantly returned to their paperwork. “Roy, is downdraft one word or two?”

“Two: Usually. Fatal. I tell yah, whoever invented hang-gliders ought ta be hung.”

John got that call recorded and moved on to the next. “Who would ever think that getting on a trampoline ‘blindfolded’ was a good idea?”

His friend’s frown deepened. “Somebody who doesn’t care if he ever has kids.”

The phone rang just then, putting a temporary halt to Roy’s ranting—er, sarcastic remarks.

Rick was in the middle of a refrigerator raid, so he stepped over to answer it. “Station 8. Fireman Seeger speaking…” A strange look came over Rick’s face. He turned and held the phone out toward the table. “Joanne DeSoto is on the line...”

“Aren’t you going to take it?” John wondered when his friend failed to move a muscle.

“She doesn’t want to talk to Roy,” Rick quickly clarified. “She wants to talk to you.”

Gage splayed a hand across his chest. “Me-e?”

Seeger nodded.

John shoved his chair back and stepped over to accept the phone’s extended handset. He had intended to say ‘Hi’, but Joanne was already speaking. His face suddenly filled with confusion. “Hello Darling?”

B.J. snapped bolt upright in his recliner, and Harlin spit his cream soda clear across the rec’ room.

Seeger turned to witness DeSoto’s reaction to his partner’s little ‘term of endearment’.

Joanne’s husband seemed to be taking it in stride. In fact, Roy was laughing.

John didn’t say another word for a full two minutes and thirty-five seconds. He just stood there, wincing…and grimacing…and gritting his teeth. “No. No-o. I’ve never heard that before,” he assured the record player, once the assault on his right ear had ended. ‘And I never want to hear it again,’ he silently added. The claxons sounded just then and saved him from having to comment further. “Thanks for sharing that with me, Joanne. Look, we just got a run. I gotta go….I will. Bye.”

“Station 8…”

“Your wife says ‘Hi’,” John dutifully forwarded as he joined his partner in the Squad, tugging Waring’s turnout coat on along the way. “Do you tell Joanne everything?”

Roy took the call slip from Captain Stoner and passed it on to his slightly miffed amigo. “Nahhh. Just the stuff I think she’ll find interesting.”

John donned Waring’s helmet and snugged up its chin strap. He gave his grinning buddy an ‘oh brother’ look and then glanced down at the run address. “This is just a couple a’ miles from here. Hang a right.”

DeSoto did.

At the ‘car versus pedestrians accident’ less than two miles from Station 8…

DeSoto pulled their rescue truck right up behind two police squad cars and parked.

The paramedics piled out, yanked their equipment cases from the truck’s side compartments and went to work.

B.J. parked Engine 8 right in back of the Squad.

The engine crew climbed down and went to work as well.

John looked up from one of the three badly mangled pedestrians. “Better request some backup.”

Roy nodded and pulled their hand-held radio from his coat pocket.

“L.A., Squad 8 available. Returning to quarters,” John informed dispatch, upon completion of their latest hospital follow up.

“10-4,” L.A. acknowledged. “Squad 8 available.”

John replaced their dash-mounted radio’s mic’ and draped his left arm across the back of the seat.

Roy was sitting there, looking amused to no end.

“What’s so funny?” John finally inquired.

“The way you looked when Joanne put that record on. It was like someone had turned on a dentist’s drill and was trying to shove it into your ear.”

“It felt like someone was trying to shove a dentist’s drill in my ear. Did you put her up to that?”

Roy shook his head. “It was all her idea. She couldn’t believe that you had never heard of Conway Twitty, or ‘Hello Darling’.” The engine crews’ reaction to the song’s title caused John’s chum to begin chuckling anew.

“Yeah…well…I’m glad ‘one’ of us found it entertaining,” Gage griped, but then was forced to grin, as his glum comment caused his friend to laugh even harder.

Upon returning to quarters, the paramedics found Engine 8’s crew watching the Late News, hoping to hear the final score of the game they’d been watching.

Stoner’s head swung in the direction of the new arrivals. “How’s the streak holding up?”

“Kirk Mallory…Shelly Christopher…and Gerald Drake,” Roy disbelievingly responded.

The rest of the firemen’s faces also filled with disbelief.

It was well after 3:00 am and Station 8’s crew still hadn’t gotten to bed.

The firemen returned from a malicious false alarm and trudged wearily up the stairs to the dorm, where they proceeded to collapse, face first and fully clothed, onto their bunks. Captain Stoner and his men were simply too fatigued to care about whether or not they looked ‘frumpy’.

Less than three minutes later, the station’s tones re-sounded.

It was like Gage had said. Firemen never get any sleep on weekends.

In the day room, just a half hour before the shift change…

The sleep-deprived crew was seated around their kitchen table, sipping coffee…and working on log books.

Gage yawned his way over to their coffeemaker. “Thirty minutes and counting.”

Harlin swung around in his seat. “You’re forgetting, Johnny-Baby. We always get a run just before the shift changes. It’s tradition.”

“And, rather than break with tradition,” B.J. joined in, “Harlin would go out and place a call in himself, if he had to.”

The group exchanged weary grins.

“No need,” Harlin assured them. “We’ll get a call. Just wait. You’ll see.”

Ten minutes later…

The engine crew’s drooping eyes remained fixed upon the kitchen’s wall clock.

“The other shift’ll be arriving in about five more minutes,” Rick warned.

Harlin didn’t seem the least bit concerned.

Three minutes later, the Station’s tones sounded.

“Station 8…”

Harlin gave the guys a smug smile and they all began heading for the garage.

“Grass fire…411 South Court Drive…Cross streets 4th and Preston…Four-one-one South Court Drive…Time out: 07:47.”

Station 8 arrived on scene.

The grassfire was in a neighborhood of spacious homes and sprawling lawns.

A smoky haze dulled the brilliant blue sky, and one of the sprawling lawns had been scorched black.

Some neighbors had grabbed rakes and shovels and formed a grassfire brigade. The volunteers had the bulk of the fire already contained.

Some fire had followed the tall, dead grass along a fence line, like a lit fuse cord, and a column of smoke was rising up from a small grove of trees toward the back of the property.

“Thompson! Seeger! Grab an inch and a half and go see what’s burning back there!”

Seeing as how he and his engineer, and a half dozen able-bodied neighbors, had the grassfire covered, Stoner turned to his paramedics. “You two can head back to the station…if you want.”

Gage and DeSoto held an unspoken conference and came to an equally silent agreement.

Six would make it back to the barn faster than four.

DeSoto raised their HT to his lips and thumbed its mic’, “L.A., Squad 8 is available on scene.”

“10-4…Squad 8 available on scene.”

Roy passed the radio on to his partner and began flushing the ash and soot out of some of the civilian grassfire fighters’ red, watering eyes.

Johnny pocketed the HT. Then he grabbed a hose roll from the back of the engine, a gated Y valve and a nozzle from a side compartment, and followed the limp hose line that snaked off in the direction of that half-hidden smoke column.

Several hundred yards of hiking later, a fully-engulfed red metal shed appeared.

“Why anybody would put a storage shed in such an out of the way place,” Gage grouched, “is beyond me.” He dropped the items in his arms onto the ground and fished the radio from his coat pocket. “Engine 8 from Squad 8,”

“Stoner here. Go ahead, Gage…”

“Cap, we have a 10’x12’ single-story wood frame metal storage shed fully-engulfed. No exposures. Standby…”

Thompson and Seeger completed the gated Y valve connections and gave him two thumbs up.

John waited until the guys had firm grips on their hoses’ nozzles before re-keying his radio’s mic. “Engine 8, send us some water.”

“10-4. Charging the line…”

The limp hoses jerked and stiffened, and the nozzles spit and sputtered as the air was bled from the lines.

The water began dousing the flames.

The fire began hissing, as it was extinguished and cooled.

“Does make one wonder what’s in there,” Rick belatedly agreed.

John donned his gloves and started striding toward the mystery building. “Let’s find out.”

The shed’s door was locked.

John busted its blackened window out, reached a gloved hand in and unlocked it. He pulled the portal open but the interior was too smoke-filled to see anything. He held his breath and was just about to step inside, when Harlin placed an arm across his chest. “Hold it! You forgetting air-pac protocols? No one is to enter a structure fire unless they are on air.”

“Yeah. But—”

“—This is a structure, isn’t it…”

“Yeah. But—”

“—and it’s on fire, isn’t it…”

“Yeah. But—” John didn’t bother to say another word. He just turned and went jogging off in the direction of his air-pac.

Rick and Harlin exchanged grins.

Station 8’s engineer watched in amusement, as John jerked the Squad’s air-pac compartment open.

The paramedic donned the apparatus. Then he snatched an axe and a pike pole and went trotting off, grumbling all the while.

Stoner followed the fire’s blackened path back to the point of ignition.

Some careless smoker had tossed a lit cigarette out of a car window.

The Captain returned to Roy’s ‘rehab’ station. “Anybody know who resides at 411 South Court Drive?”

One of the soot-covered neighbors nodded. “The Sandovals. But, they’re not home.”

Another nodded. “They spend every Sunday morning over at the Sportsman’s Club, skeet shooting.”

“Yeah. Those two are crazy about guns. Milt even loads his own shells.”

The two firemen exchanged looks of alarm as a possible reason for the shed’s inconvenient location suddenly occurred to them.

Stoner whipped the radio from his coat pocket and keyed its mic’. “John, that shed could be filled with gunpowder! Clear the area! Repeat, clear the area! Edwards, sound EVAC!”

Gage’s face filled with alarm. He dropped his helmet and the overhaul tools and went racing toward his fellow firefighters screaming, “GUNPOWDER!!! GET BACK!!! IT’S GONNA BLOW!!!” over and over, at the top of his burning lungs.

The pressurized jet of water from the nozzles was dampening more than just the fire. The sound of the spray striking the shed’s metal walls also prevented the hose handlers from hearing the shouted warning.

The steady blast from Engine 8’s air-horn caught the two men’s attention, though. They immediately flung their hoses and turned to flee.

The messenger was about eighty feet from the shed when it exploded.

The violent blast produced a shock wave that went radiating outward at super-sonic speed, blowing windows out for blocks around.

That rapidly expanding wall of air slammed into all three firefighters.

The primary blast instantly emulsified Seeger and Thompson’s lungs. The secondary blast propelled hunks of wood and metal into and through their bodies with ballistic speed and force.

The third fireman’s right eardrum was ruptured and he was thrown about fifteen feet through the air. John landed on his back on his air-pac. His already breathless lungs were left even more breathless, as the ‘wind’ was knocked out of him.

His traumatized diaphragm gradually recovered. The first gasped inhalation was expelled with a groan.

He lay there for a few more moments, staring dazedly up at the sky.

There was an annoying, high-pitched ringing in both ears and he was extremely disoriented. He gave his woozy head a quick shake, but couldn’t dispel the annoying sound or the dizziness. Slowly, he rolled off his back and began crawling toward the blast crater…and his two non-moving friends.

Rick was…dead.

There was just no way he could be anything but dead.

The paramedic moved over to where Harlin’s equally mangled body lay.

John just knelt there, recalling an article from one of his Paramedic journals.

‘Explosion protocols: Explosions can cause a variety of intrathoracic injuries including pulmonary contusion, pneumothorax, pneumomediastinum, air emboli, hemothorax, and subcutaneous emphysema. The pressure differential between the inside and outside of the body induced by the blast wave produces injuries. The pressure differentials that develop at the interface between media of different densities tear the alveolar walls, disrupt the alveolar–capillary interface, and cause the emphysematous spaces to fill with blood, resulting in primary blast injury to the lung (blast lung) significant blast wave impacts the chest wall, there is little time for pressure equilibration. When blast lung occurs in patients, it has high associated morbidity.’

DeSoto, Stoner and Edwards came running up, equipment cases in hand.

Captain Stoner and his engineer stopped dead in their tracks and then stood there, looking like they were going to be sick.

Roy quickly checked Rick and Harlin for signs of life.

None were expected, or detected.

Both men had sustained ‘injuries incompatible with life.’

His partner was kneeling over Harlin’s body gazing disbelievingly down at all the carnage.

Hunks of Harlin’s torso had been blown away, exposing muscle, bone and cartilage.

‘Grass fires aren’t lethal,’ John silently reminded himself. ‘Firemen don’t die fighting a grass fire. A guy doesn’t get married one weekend and buried the next.’

“Johnny, we need to get your gear off.”

No response. Gage was either shell-shocked or he’d been deafened by the blast.

Roy swallowed hard and rested a hand on his friend’s slumped shoulder.

John finally realized his partner was kneeling at his right side. “None of this is real. It can’t be real. Nobody would ever really be stupid enough to pack a shed full of explosives and not post a WARNING. This is just a nightmare. Right Roy?”

Roy failed to validate his wishful thinking.

John inhaled sharply and sat back on his haunches.

Roy pulled the notepad from his front pocket and began writing.

“I don’t need to lie down. I am perfectly fine.”

John swiped absently at his right earlobe. Sure enough! His fingers came away smeared with bright red blood. Reluctantly, he allowed Roy to remove his air-pac and turnout coat.

A gurney rolled up a short time later.

“No sirens,” Roy requested.

The attendants nodded.

John tried to stand, but was hit with a tsunami of dizziness.

Stoner ordered Gage to get on the gurney.

The paramedic even more reluctantly complied with his Captain’s order.

But, not all of him climbed onto that stretcher.

A big part of him remained behind…with his fallen brothers.

John could tell, by the ceiling tiles, that he’d been brought to Treatment Room Three. There was an excruciating pain in his right ear. His left ear felt like it was filled with fluid and that damn, incessant high-pitched ringing was driving him to distraction. The grief and exhaustion was overwhelming. His chest was so tight, he could barely breathe. He was about two seconds away from screaming, when his breathtaking view of the ceiling tiles was suddenly obstructed by a handwritten note.

The note was lowered.

Mister Gage gazed up at the ‘last name also a first name’ ear doctor and nodded, numbly.

Another note appeared, just a few minutes later.

‘So, I ruptured my right eardrum and I have an earache,’ the patient impatiently, and silently, summarized.

More writing.

TM ruptures and temporary threshold shifts are very common injuries following blast exposure. Most tympanic membrane perforations heal spontaneously. Inferior perforations, which is what you have, are the most likely to heal spontaneously. Unfortunately, we cannot rule out traumatic brain injury (TBI), at this time. I am recommending that you be admitted.

“I have to stay?”

Dr. Perry nodded and began writing anew.

John managed another glum, numb nod.

There wasn’t an ‘analgesic’ in the entire hospital that would take away the pain he was currently experiencing.

A whole host of firefighters rose to their feet as Kel Brackett entered the Doctor’s Lounge.

Two of the men belonged to Station 8’s B-shift, five were members of Station 51’s A-shift, and the remaining three were LACFD Chiefs.

Kel motioned for the men to retake their seats and then poured himself some coffee. The physician took several tentative sips of his beverage before beginning his briefing. “As you may already be aware, John has experienced a ‘blast-explosive acoustic trauma’. A small tear in the tympanic membrane of his right ear. A ruptured eardrum. John’s tear was not substantial enough to require surgical intervention. In fact the tear should be completely healed in about two weeks. The loss of hearing in both ears is being caused by a temporary threshold shift. A temporary threshold shift is just that. A temporary shift in the ear’s auditory threshold. We also suspect that he suffered a mild concussion.”

Captain Stanley exchanged an anxious glance with John’s partner and then asked the question. “Will his hearing ever return to normal?”

“Dr. Perry is extremely optimistic.” Brackett took a few more swallows of caffeine before continuing. “In the interim, he will have to cope with a sensitivity to loud sounds, sound distortion, dizziness, nausea, tinnitus and the mother of all earaches.” The doctor stared into his coffee cup for a few somber moments. “He is also suffering from grief—over the loss of his fellow firefighters, and exhaustion—from coming off a double shift.”

Roy shook his head. “They weren’t just his fellow firefighters, Doc. Johnny and Rick went through the Fire Academy together. They’ve been close friends ever since. Johnny subs for Rick at 8’s when he has to bring his wife to medical appointments. And Harlin…Johnny was an alternate groomsman at Harlin’s wedding last weekend. He’s got a lot of…grief…to process.”

“I think I can help with that. The constant high-pitched ringing can be debilitating. ‘They’ claim it caused Van Gogh to cut his ears off. Blast related tinnitus can last anywhere from 48 hours to 4 weeks. I’ve been debating whether or not to keep him sedated until the worst of it passes, generally within a few days. You just provided me with sound grounds for the sedation.”

Roy gave Brackett a grateful nod but, postponing the grieving process until his partner was well-rested was just delaying the pain.

With, or without, the delay, John Gage was gonna be in for a whole lot a’ hurt.

Three days of heavy sedation later, Roy stopped by to offer his bed-ridden buddy some reassurance and comfort…and support.

DeSoto just stood there in the doorway to 283, staring.

His friend’s haggard face was filled with anguish. Johnny was in so much pain it practically emanated from his pores.

Roy blinked his stinging eyes and stepped into the room. “Does that thing pick up any radio stations?”

Some of the sadness left John’s eyes. “The, uh, threshold shift is dulling my hearing. And, since I have to avoid loud noises, I can’t have people shouting at me. So, this thing is the solution.” John motioned to the hearing aid in his left ear. “Dr. Perry says it’s only temporary, though.”

Roy pulled a chair up and took a seat at his pained partner’s bedside.

The two friends just sat there in silence for several minutes.

Finally, Johnny cleared his tightened throat and spoke. “I ran as fast as I could.”

“I’ve never seen you run faster,” Roy reassuringly replied, his own throat threatening to close up on him. He hoped his hurting friend was finding some comfort in his presence, because he sure as hell couldn’t come up with anything comforting to say.

Grief was keeping a vice-like grip on John Gage’s chest. He felt it lessen its hold just a bit.

After about an hour, it had relaxed enough to allow him to sleep—without the aid of sedatives.

When John woke a few hours later, Rick and Harlin’s widows were standing beside his hospital bed. “I’m sorry…I am soooo sorry. I wish I could have helped them…I so desperately wanted to help them…but there was nothing I could do…nothing anybody could do.”

The women could see the pain in John’s eyes and they heard it in his voice. It broke their hearts to see him hurting so and they took turns hugging the stuffings out of him.

“Oh, Johnny!” Cindy choked out. “We can still love them…remember them. The doctors told us how…severely…they’d been injured. You mustn’t think of them that way. Remember them the way they were before the blast. Just a couple of goofy, fun-loving guys.”

“Yeah,” Jan Seeger joined in, choking back a sob herself. “And, whenever something strikes you as being particularly funny, enjoy a good laugh for them, too.”

The vice-like grip on John’s chest was back and it was several minutes before his throat opened enough to allow him to speak. “They…sent me back for an air-pac…ended up…saving my life.”

Cindy cleared her throat. “If Rick and Harlin could see the three of us right now, we’d be on the receiving end of a couple of good, swift kicks in the a—backside. They would never want to see us so sad.”

“Yeah,” Jan joined in again. “So we got ourselves something. This one is yours.” She picked a tissue wrapped package up from the medicine stand and passed it on to their husbands’ grief-stricken friend.

John obligingly tore the tissue away.

Their group gift turned out to be a wooden plaque with a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson. Over a flame red image of a broken heart, there was the silhouette of a firefighter on bent knees, his hands clasped together and his helmeted head bowed in grief. Right beneath the picture, there was an inscription.

—Robert Louis Stevenson—

Chet Kelly tapped on the doorframe to 283. He didn’t particularly care if John wanted to see him, he wanted to see John. Besides, he was a man on a mission.

The nurses had asked him to encourage John to start eating, so he could get rid of his IV.

John saw Chet staring down at his untouched food tray. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”

“Can’t say as I blame yah,” Kelly admitted, as he stepped into the room. “The few times I’ve been a guest at this establishment, the dining experience left much to be desired. I mean, let’s face it. Hospital food sucks!”

So much for his mission.

Gage’s eyes got a glint of amusement in them. “What d’yah say we test that statement out,” he proposed and pressed his call button.

“Could you bring us about a dozen more straws and four more cartons of milk, please?” he requested of the candy-striper who responded to his room.

The girl didn’t question the weird request. She was just glad to see the patient showing an interest in food.

The straws and milk arrived and the two ‘statement testers’ proceeded to ‘suck’ up the contents of John’s food tray.

Their straws kept collapsing and milk had to be added to the already ‘sucky’ mashed potatoes, to make them even suckier.

Their little test turned out to be a noisy endeavor. The Jell-O, in particular, caused quite a commotion.

“What is going on in here?” RN Mavis Mitchell demanded, when she came to investigate the cause for the racket. “We can hear you clear down at the Nurses’ Station.” The woman saw what they’d been up to and fought back a grin. “Aren’t you two a little old to be playing with your food?”

“We are not playing,” her unrepentant patient quickly corrected. “We are conducting an experiment.”

“Yeah. To see if hospital food really sucks.”

“It does.”

“Literally.”

“Yeah? Well, aspiration pneumonia, from inhaling hunks of Jell-O into your lungs, sucks, too. So, stop pla—experimenting with your food, and do what I do…order some take-out. Trust me, it’s safer…all the way around.” The RN’s wry smile escaped and her relief escalated as both fire guys—er, boys grinned back.

The day for Rick and Harlin’s funeral arrived.

Kel would only allow John to leave the hospital if he agreed to medical supervision.

Dixie volunteered to ‘supervise’ him. She even replaced John’s bandage with an eye patch, so he could wear his dress cap at the funeral.

John was ‘officially’ released two days following the funeral and Roy offered to give him a ride over to pick up his car.

DeSoto pulled his Porsche into the parking lot behind Station 8. “Captain Stoner said the stuff in your locker is now in your car.”

“Thanks for the ride and…the support.”

“Anytime,” Roy assured him.

The two friends exchanged some sad smiles.

John climbed out of his buddy’s car and into his own. He flicked the ignition and headlights on and pulled forward.

A horrible loud rattling and clanking noise came from the rear of the Rover and he quickly killed its engine.

Roy saw John’s brake lights come on and rolled his Porsche’s window down, “What’s wrong?”

John threw his door open. “I dunno. Sounds like my muffler’s dragging.” He snatched a flashlight from the glove compartment and both men got out to take a look.

They stepped up to the rear of the Rover and found several strings of tin cans and an old fireman’s boot fastened to the vehicle’s back bumper.

There was a white board wired above the strings. Printed across it, in big, bold, black letters was a JUST MARRIED sign. Between JUST and MARRIED, someone had scribbled the word ‘ABOUT’ on an angle, so that the sign now read JUST ABOUT MARRIED.

John gazed blurrily down at the prank and managed a mirthless smile. “Looks like the last hardy-har har…is on me.” That said, he raised his blurry gaze to the station’s back door and tried to picture Rick and Harlin standing there, doubled over in laughter. His attempt at an amused gasp came out sounding more like a sob. It was, after all, an ill business, and it was going to take a great deal of practice.

Roy didn’t say a word. He just rested a hand on his hurting friend’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

‘A great deal a’ practice…and a whole lot a’ support.’

___

After two weeks, John’s TM showed complete healing of the perforation and a normal hearing level—except for high (4kHz) frequencies. [The frequency range between 1.0 and 4.0 kHz are most susceptible to extensive damage following explosive acoustic trauma.*]

Dr. Perry prescribed spending some time in a quiet place and continued avoidance of any loud sounds.

So John loaded his fishing gear into his Rover and headed up to the San Gabriels for a couple of weeks of quiet time.

Milton Sandoval was charged with illegal purchase, possession, and storage of explosives, and two counts of criminal negligence and reckless endangerment resulting in death. If convicted on all charges, Sandoval could face up to fifteen years in federal prison.

_______________________________

* info gleaned from the web

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April Picture 2007             Stories by Ross