Never Ending
By Audrey W.
“I’m tellin’ ya, Roy,” John Gage said as he closed his locker door at Station 51. “Dating life is really starting to eat into my paycheck. Between the gas to get there an’ back, the dinner,” he added as he pulled down a finger on his spread out left hand with each mention, “maybe a movie, sometimes a bouquet of flowers or box a' candy. . .”
Roy DeSoto was about to make a comment when their shiftmate Chet Kelly entered the room from the dorm area.
“Did I hear right, Gage? Money is kinda tight?”
The dark-haired paramedic rolled his eyes.
“Figures you were eavesdropping.”
“Not eavesdropping. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And you know why I say that?”
John shot a glance at Roy, who looked like he was as doubtful he wanted to hear the rest as his partner was. With a sigh, the former conceded, “Okay, I’m sure I’m gonna regret this, but why?”
Chet smirked. “Because I have the perfect solution to your problem. You know how girls love a guy who has a puppy or a baby in a stroller? Well, that ain’t nothin’ compared to how they love a guy who helps an old lady onto a bus and drives old geezers around town so they can get out and enjoy life.”
“Especially when you refer to them as old geezers,” Roy snarked.
Chet ignored his comment, his attention on Gage as he put a hand on the paramedic’s right shoulder.
“Listen, Johnny baby. You get girls and the extra money to spend on them.” He waggled his eyebrows to emphasize the point as being good.
“I knew I was gonna regret askin’,” he said as he pushed the curly-haired fireman’s hand off his shoulder with his left hand. “Sorry, Chet. Not interested.”
The other shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said as he turned and headed for the doorway that led to the apparatus bay. “But if you change your mind, I can fill you in more.”
The two paramedics watched the swinging door close behind him.
“He’s just messin’ with me. Don’tcha think?”
Roy motioned for Gage to follow him where Chet had just gone out. “Well, I’d say the job is real. Just how many girls you get might be an exaggeration. But you don’t want a whole string of them anyway, you just said you’re having trouble affording one.”
John hesitantly nodded, Roy not seeing because he was already ahead of him in steps. He also missed the puzzled expression on Gage’s face as the younger man wondered since when would he not want a line of chics to choose from to go out with. . .
~*~*~
After the 8:00 a.m. roll call, the men of Station 51’s A-shift did their assigned chores. The three engine crew members consisting of Chet, Mike Stoker and Marco Lopez were in the back lot on hose rack duty. John and Roy were assigned basic clean up of the dayroom and dorm area once they inventoried supplies in their squad. Their captain Hank Stanley had some paper work to go over in his office.
John stopped sweeping the dayroom floor, his mind back on what Chet had said earlier.
“Do you really think Chet makes decent money at that job he was talking about?”
Roy rolled his eyes. This was clearly going to be the topic for the next twenty-plus hours.
“If you’re really curious, why don’t you ask him? I only know as much as you.”
Gage shook his head. “Nah. I don’t wanna give him the idea I’m interested.”
“Aren’t you though?”
He didn’t answer, but instead returned to sweeping. He wasn’t sure if he was or not.
~*~*~
Nearly ninety minutes into the shift, the paramedics were dispatched out for a woman down. John had put the broom he’d been using in a closet just outside the dayroom in the apparatus bay when the claxons sounded.
Roy trotted out of the dorm room, along the front of the engine, toward the driver’s side of the squad. His partner quickly acknowledged the call at the podium, then wrote the information on a call slip. He then joined DeSoto in the truck cab on the passenger side as Captain Stanley saw them off.
~*~*~
“It’s not far from here,” Gage said, his gaze on the address he’d jotted down. “Just take a left at the second light down and it should be up a few blocks from there.”
“Okay.”
~*~*~
When the paramedics arrived on scene, they were quickly escorted around the outside of the home at the address to the back yard by a grandfatherly man. It was there that the elderly female victim had taken a misstep off her patio and fallen to the flagstone walkway at the edge of it. A plastic pitcher was nearby on the ground, along with birdseed scattered everywhere around it. The woman was in a thin robe that loosely covered her flower print pajamas, slippers on her feet. She lay on her back, unable to move due to pain after initially turning from her right side prior to their arrival.
The men set the equipment from the squad compartments down on the ground, then kneeled on each side of the downed woman. Several birds in a nearby tree chirped incessantly in the background as they waited for an opportunity to eat the spilled seed once the humans left.
“I feel. . . so . . .so stupid,” she said, pain in her voice.
“Gertrude went out to fill the bird feeder,” her husband explained, “I heard her yelling, came out and here she was. I keep trying to tell her it’s not stupid,” he continued as John gathered vitals, jotting them down on a notepad as he did.
“He’s right,” Gage assured her. He gently secured a BP cuff on her left arm still covered by the pajama sleeve after pushing up her robe sleeve to reveal it. “Accidents happen. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“But I feed the birds. . .every morning. And now. . .this,” she groaned.
“Sometimes we’re so comfortable in our daily routines, things just happen,” Roy explained. "Did you fall on your back? Hit your head at all?"
She shook her head slightly. "Right side. My hip. . .hurts bad."
DeSoto gently palpated her right hip, noting her grimace as he did.
"Oh, it's awful. . ." she groaned.
"Probable fracture." He noticed her right hand was scraped a bit from when she must've put it out to end her fall after letting go of the pitcher. But there was no swelling nor bruising apparent on the wrist. "Any pain here?" He asked as he checked her wrist to be sure.
She shook her head 'no'.
Having gotten her vital signs recorded, Gage set up the biophone, then contacted the hospital. “Rampart, Squad 51.”
“This is Rampart, go ahead 51,” Doctor Brackett responded.
“Rampart, we have a female victim approximately. . .” He glanced at her, not wanting to over estimate her age if he could help it.
“Seventy-two,” her husband supplied for her.
“Seventy-Two,” John continued. He went on to explain the situation, including that she had severe pain and bruising already apparent with her right hip.
He transmitted her vital signs, then listened as the doctor gave instructions. Soon they had her set up with an IV and secured on a gurney, then into the waiting ambulance in front of the home. Roy climbed up inside with her, the drug box and biophone on the floor.
“See you at Rampart,” John said before closing the doors. Once they were secured, he gave them two slaps. The ambulance pulled away.
“That’s pretty remarkable work you do,” the husband stated. “We’d heard about the fire department having paramedics the past few years, but never have seen any of you in action.”
“There were a few bugs to work out of the system at first,” John explained. “But it’s only improved over time.”
“I’m glad you were here for Gertrude. I know she was, too. You and your partner put her at ease right away.”
The paramedic smiled. “We do our best.”
He stepped over to the squad on the side of the street, then climbed in on the driver's side while the man headed for his car in the driveway.
~*~*~
With Roy apparently still in a treatment room with Gertrude and Doctor Brackett, John stepped up to the desk at Rampart General’s base station. Head Nurse Dixie McCall had just finished a phone call behind it and came over as he approached.
“If you’re looking for your partner, he’s in Three,” she stated with a hand motion toward the room down the corridor.
The dark-haired paramedic shook his head.
“Actually, Dix, I’d kinda like to get your input on somethin’ I’ve been thinkin’ about.”
Her curiosity piqued, she took a seat on a stool.
“Okay, shoot.”
Both Roy and John often liked to discuss their personal problems or challenges with her. But Gage’s were often amusing, though he wouldn’t agree with that notion.
“I’m thinkin’ about picking up a job on the side. . .You know, for extra money and stuff.”
“Sounds interesting so far.”
“Well, it’s kinda in our field anyway. Public service. Except I’d get to drive more,” he wryly stated.
Usually Roy would drive the squad when they were dispatched out on a run. Gage only got the opportunity on occasion.
“Still have my attention,” she assured.
“I’m wonderin’ what you’d think of. . .if you. ..” he shifted on his feet, figuring he’d better get the question out before he lost his one nurse audience. But he didn’t want to let his partial motivation for the job slip out at the same time. “Uh. . .what you think of a guy who’d take on a job where he drives a bus of sorts to take old pe—“ he cut himself off, replacing the term he was about to use with a better sounding one. “Er, senior citizens. . . to get out and enjoy life.”
“Enjoy life how?”
He shrugged. “I don’ know. Whatever old people do to have fun . . .but not that kinda fun,” he added when she looked like she was about to teasingly ask the inevitable question.
“Well,” she began with a warm smile. “I’d say that would be a very noble job for him to take on. Are you by chance the ‘him’ we are talking about?”
“Maybe. Chet Kelly’s doin’ it now and said I should give it a try. I sure hate to give him the label of being noble, though.”
“Getting another opinion on the bus job?” Roy questioned as he approached.
John shifted his attention to the new arrival. “How’s Gertrude doing?”
“Good, considering. X-ray just went in now. She’s definitely a tough lady.”
Gage nodded in agreement. “She sure is.”
Roy looked at Dixie. “So did he tell you much about it?”
“What’s ta tell?” John shrugged. “I don’t even know much about it yet.”
“Well, did you tell her about the prospect of getting dates from it?”
Dixie’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Aren’t the ladies going to be a bit too old for you?”
“No, no. Not to date them, Dix. It’s not about them.” He shot an aggravated look at his partner for bringing it up. “Chet just said that chics dig a guy who ushers around--”
“Old geezers,” Roy interrupted.
“He calls ‘um that, not me.” John then eyed their nurse friend. “I guess this kinda diminishes a little of the nobleness.”
She nodded slightly in agreement. “A little. But it sounds like a win win situation for you and them. . .the ‘old geezers’, that is.”
John got a puzzled expression on his face as he tried to figure out if Dixie had just subtly insulted him by specifically mentioning the seniors and leaving out that the girls he might date benefited as well. But it didn’t really matter, as long as it wasn’t Chet getting by with it. He shrugged as his mouth spread into a lopsided grin at her approval at least still lasting.
“I sure hope so. If I decide to go with it.”
Roy sighed. “That means I only have to listen to him debate himself on this another,” he looked at his watch. “Way longer than I care to mention.”
“Ha ha,” Gage said. “C’mon, we’d better get back to the station.”
He didn’t want to let on he was anxious to talk more with Chet. But he suspected Roy probably would have that figured out soon enough.
~*~*~
After purposely waiting awhile before talking to Chet about the job again so as not to make it obvious that was why he wanted to get back to the station, Gage was finding out more details from the curly haired fireman.
The two men were in the back parking lot playing catch with a baseball as they discussed the side job.
“Are you kiddin’ me?” John exclaimed at the latest bit of information.
Chet threw the ball back to him as he shook his head. “No, not kidding. You get to go into all these places with the old timers and eat for free, see plays and movies for free. It’s like part of your pay, man. And all ya gotta do is pick them up at a couple of the local nursing homes, and make sure they return safely and on time.”
“So lemme get this straight,” he said, the baseball still in the grip of his right hand. He used it as emphasis as he rattled off, “I get paid, I get free entertainment and meals, and I impress the chics?”
“That’s right, Johnny baby. Now toss the ball.”
He did just that, a lopsided grin once again on his face. Dixie had been wrong about it being a win win situation. It was more like a win win win one.
“How do I *not* do it, he thought to himself. That was it. He had to go for the easy extra money and benefits.
~*~*~
Three months later. . .
Roy walked into the locker room in search of his partner after getting some surprising news from Chet. When he didn’t see him there, he tried the dorm room, then the dayroom next.
There was John, seated at the table in the kitchen end, his attention on a newspaper in front of him.
Roy pulled out a chair and sat next to him. “Chet told me you quit the driving job.”
His gaze still on the paper, he responded, “That’s right. I sure did. Two days ago was my last time.”
The older man shook his head. What had happened with the ‘best deal ever’ Gage was still so enthused about just weeks earlier?
“What happened to impressing the girls, free meals, plays and movies? I thought it was going well for you.”
“It was.” John finally looked away from the paper and at DeSoto. “It was workin’ out real well.”
“Then why’d you quit?”
He sat back, his arms folded across his chest. “Remember when we missed the end of that Adam Twelve episode and it was drivin’ me crazy not knowing how it ended?”
How could he forget, Roy thought to himself. His partner had about driven him crazy with his obsession to finding out how the show ended when they had to go out on a run while it was on TV. Then after annoying him for hours, the younger man had suddenly decided it was better to wait for the summer rerun to find out after all.
“Yes, I do recall that.”
“Well, apparently I’m one of those people who just can’t do without an ending. I mean the dinners are okay, the dinners are fine. But I never get to see how a play or movie ends because I hafta either go get the bus from a parking lot an’ drive it around to the front of the building where I dropped them off first, or at least have it running and ready for curbside service if it’s already there. It’s so everything is set for the old people as soon as the show ends.” He pointed to his own chest as he stated, “I just can’t take it anymore, Roy.”
“What about asking the seniors who you take how things ended?”
John pursed his lips, his eyes narrowed. “’Cause by the time they get outta the building, somehow they remember it how they want, or they fell asleep and just make it up. . .maybe both. . . either way, I get at least three different versions. I don’t know which one to believe. Which is even worse than not knowing at all!”
Having heard enough of Gage’s reasoning, Roy pushed back his chair and stood as he stated, “The end.”
Gage groaned. “Ha ha ha. Very funny.”
This was inspired by my husband with his current job. He never gets to see how a play ends. But he doesn’t even ask the seniors. He just never finds out. lol
