By Wanda Hargrove

“What’s the matter, Junior?”

“Well, it’s this address it doesn’t jive with the map. The location for this man down is at the Bayside Marina.”

“Well you know they do have people living there on houseboats.”

The dark haired paramedic sighed. “I happen to know that, Roy. But it would give a slip number where the boat was docked. This just gives us an address, plus there’s not a name of the boat.”

“We’ll find out when we get there.”

Johnny slumped down in his seat, still not quite as satisfied as his partner. His mind was still on the movie that Chet just had to watch. It was a bit of an eerie one, what with a behemoth running around New York City. But what really had his nerves jangled was when the monster had got his jaws on the policeman in the street. What if they ran into something like that? How would he react? Would he run or would he stand there waiting to get eaten?

‘Chet and his dumb movies,’ Johnny thought as they got closer to the location. ‘One of these days I’d like to get him to sit through a good western just once. The man has a twisted sense of reality.’

As they pulled up to the address, he saw a scantily clad woman come running up to the squad. “I’m so glad you made it here. It’s my boyfriend, he’s had some kind of accident.”

Roy climbed out and tried to calm her down. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“Well, we were having a nice time on the deck of his boat when we both smelled this terrible smell, it was like rotting fish. He told me to get a flashlight so he could see what it might be. When I got back with the flashlight I found him lying on the deck. I don’t know what could have happened, but the smell was gone.”

Johnny shuddered as he listened to her story. ‘Could this be Chet’s movie coming to life?’ He grabbed the oxygen and the drug box from their compartments and followed his partner and the woman past the other boats tied up at the dock. They reached a boat called, and to him it must have been fate, The Black Lagoon. “Ma’am, just one question why did he name it The Black Lagoon?”

“He just loves that movie, cause it was in 3-D. See he’s one of these film students over at UCLA and he’s become completely enamored with 3-D and horror films. “

Johnny turned his head so he could roll his eyes without being seen. ‘Another Chet,’ he thought.

Roy caught his partner’s look and shot his younger partner a questioning look. ‘Must be another hang up.’ Roy went about checking out the victim’s pulse and other vitals as Johnny began to set up the biophone. When he finished he sat back on his heels and looked up at the woman. “Are you sure there’s something wrong here?”

“Are you calling me a liar?” the woman asked as she glared at the paramedic.

“No, ma’am, I’m not. But I can’t find a thing wrong with him. In fact he should be standing up, not lying here.” He winked at Johnny.

Johnny gave a knowing look and knew what was going to happen as he watched the senior partner grab an amonia capsule and break it between his fingers.

The younger paramedic didn’t really know what happened next, cause suddenly the woman went into a fit of hysterics and a fishy hand appeared on the railing of the boat.

Both paramedics jumped backwards and Johnny grabbed the woman and pulled her back with him as they were confronted by the Creature from the Black Lagoon. They heard an audible clap followed by the words, “cut and print, that’s a wrap boys.”

The woman quit screaming and the guy on the deck got up from his prone position. The Creature began gesturing for some help to get his head off. Johnny and Roy looked at each other both seething. Johnny spoke for both of them. “You mean this was for a movie.”

“Yeah, man, sorry for having to trick you guys to come out here. But we’re just film students and we tried to get the fire department to help, but they said they couldn’t do it.”

Roy could see his partner was becoming irate. “The thing is that you called us away from our station when a serious emergency could have been happening. This stunt of yours could have caused someone to lose their life.”

“Well, we did try, so don’t get uppity with us.” As an afterthought the man shoved a couple of papers to get the two medics to sign. “These are waivers so you can’t sue us for using you in our picture.”

All the way back to squad Johnny complained about the stunt the film students had played. All the way back to the station he continued with the rant. Then at the station he relayed what happened to his shift mates.

*******************************************

Three days passed when the phone rang in Stanley’s office. “Roy, John, could you two come in here please?”

Although the two paramedics knew they hadn’t done anything wrong they had no idea why they might be in trouble. They went into their captain’s office. “John, close the door behind you.”

Johnny closed the door and both men took a seat as Stanley searched for the best words to use. “You know that phoney run the two of you went on the other night. Well, the chief just called me and said the film students cut your part out of the movie.”

“Good,” was Roy’s response.

“Why, Cap?”

Stanley knew the tirade would come. “They said that the two of you weren’t actor material.”

“That’s great, Cap!” Roy was relieved, and glad that the chief was so understanding.

Johnny’s mouth dropped open. “Not actor material?”

“It’s okay, junior,” Roy chuckled. “I guess the ladies just aren’t ready for Johnny Gage to hit the silver screen. 

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