By E!lf
"Okay, where d'ya want it?"
"Want what?"
Captain Hank Stanley, trailed by the five members of his A shift at LA fire station 51, came out into the apparatus bay to find four construction workers waiting impatiently. One carried a clipboard and the other three carried a long metal pole over their shoulders.
"A fire pole?! Are you nuts? This is a one-story fire station! What are we going to do with a fire pole?"
"Look, pal," Clipboard guy said around the unlit cigar that dangled from a corner of his mouth, "I don't know from fire stations and fire poles. What I do know from is work orders and I got a work order right here to install a 10-foot fire pole at fire station 51. This is 51, ain't it?"
"Yes, but there's some mistake somewhere. We do NOT need a fire pole!" Cap headed for his office to phone headquarters, but before he took three steps the tones sounded.
"Station 51. Structure fire. 1025 Rosemary. Cross street Elm Crescent. Time out 14:53."
#-#-#-#-
Darkness was falling over Los Angeles as the men of station 51 returned to quarters. Fortunately there had been no injuries at the structure fire and the squad followed the engine into the bay. Six filthy, sweaty men climbed down and gathered to stare at the shiny new fire pole that ran from the ceiling to the floor at the back of the bay, in between where the two vehicles parked.
"They installed a fire pole," Cap said, his voice stunned. "I can't believe they installed a fire pole in a one-story fire station. I mean . . . why? It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't serve any purpose. Why?"
Roy DeSoto, senior paramedic at the station, stood to the back of the group. He leaned over and spoke quietly to engineer Mike Stoker. "I wonder how long it'll be before Johnny and Chet get into a fight over it."
"Why would Johnny and Chet fight over a fire pole?"
Roy shrugged slightly. "They just will. Trust me. I know."
John Gage, Roy's slightly younger partner, climbed the engine. "Maybe it's a new regulation. You know? Every station has to have a fire pole?" Flexing his knees, he leaped the short distance from the top of the engine to the top of the pole and slid down.
"Jeez, Gage!" Firefighter Chet Kelly bristled, his mustache twitching, "could you be any more juvenile?"
"You're just jealous because I got to slide down the new fire pole first!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
Mike Stoker glanced over at Roy. Roy, catching the look, merely pulled a face.
"Anyway, I don't even want to slide down your stupid fire pole," Chet announced.
"Good, 'cause you probably couldn't do it anyway. It's not as easy as it looks, you know."
"Oh, and I suppose you're an expert?"
"Well, yeah. As a matter of fact, I am. We had a fire pole at 10, where I was stationed before I joined the paramedics, and I got to be pretty good at sliding down it, if I do say so myself."
"Oh, ha! Like it's really that hard!" Forgetting his stated disinterest, Chet climbed the engine, then hesitated.
"What'sa matter, Chet? Chicken? Bawk! Bawk! Bagawk!"
Chet glared at Johnny, took a deep breath, then finally jumped off and slid down the pole.
Without a word Marco Lopez, 51's other regular firefighter, climbed the engine, jumped off and slid down the pole.
"See?" Johnny chortled. "It's fun, isn't it?"
Marco grinned. "Well, yeah. It is."
"So who wants to climb up and do it again?"
"I don't believe it!" Cap exclaimed. "I'm in charge of a shift full of kindergarteners! I'm going to go call HQ about getting rid of this thing before one of those twits breaks their neck." He stomped off to his office, leaving Mike and Roy to watch as their three shift mates took turns climbing the engine and sliding down the new fire pole.
After a few minutes Mike drifted off towards the dorm, but Roy lingered, leaning against the squad with his arms crossed watching the other three. Johnny and Chet were still bickering, but pretty soon Johnny turned his attention to his partner instead.
"Boy! This sure is a lot of fun, Roy! You should try it."
Roy only smiled.
"Of course, it'd be a lot *more* fun if my best friend'd come and play with me!" In between pestering Roy, Johnny was tossing out challenges to Chet and Marco. "Slide down in a clockwise spiral! Now do counter-clockwise! Can you slide down with only your left knee and one hand on the pole?" Part of John Gage's appeal was the enthusiastic ten-year-old who lurked just below the surface of the capable young paramedic.
"Roooooy!" he called, drawing the name out into multiple syllables. "Come play with us, Rooooy! It'll be fun, Roooooy!"
Roy's tiny smile grew and finally blossomed into a laugh.
Cap, just hanging up the phone in his office, came out to investigate when he heard Gage lead his cohorts in a wild cheer. He got there just in time to see Roy leap off the engine and slide down the pole.
"Roy! Not you too! I thought you were the mature, responsible one!"
Roy shrugged, his face pink, and scratched his right temple with his index finger. "Well, you know what they say, Cap. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Besides," he giggled as his own inner ten-year-old escaped for a second, "it *is* fun."
"Twits!" Cap muttered. "I'm in charge of a station full of twits!" Turning his back on them, he returned to his office and closed the door, leaving his four big, grown-up firefighters to their game.
#-#-#-#-
"Station 51. Structure fire. Granyard Elementary School. 1427 Baltimore Terrace. Cross street Fairmore. Time out 06:45."
The men of station 51 leapt out of bed and into their turnouts, dressing even as they ran for their vehicles. On his way to the passenger door of the squad, Johnny took a quick detour. He jumped up on the back of the engine, leaped off and slid down the fire pole.
"Now THAT'S the way to turn out for a fire!" he said, as he and Roy climbed into the squad.
Roy laughed and rolled his eyes, but made no other reply. Taking the call sheet Cap handed in the window, he passed it over to Johnny and took off.
Granyard Elementary was, fortunately, no longer in use as a school. It was an old, three-story structure; a brick shell with hardwood floors and ancient paneling over a dried-out, termite-ridden frame. A padlocked chain-link fence surrounded the old playground, where broken down, vandalized swing sets huddled dispiritedly on an overgrown lot. The building was heavily involved when they arrived, but no one knew if anyone was inside or not, so Cap reluctantly sent Roy and Johnny in to do a quick sweep for victims while Chet and Marco covered their exit with a hose.
They swept the first floor first, or at least those areas where the fire was not already so fierce that no one could have possibly survived. Finding no one, they climbed on to the second floor, Chet and Marco following with the hose. At the second floor landing Roy looked up the stairs.
"The fire hasn't reached the third floor yet." He lifted his SCBA mask away from his face and shouted over the dull roar of flames from below. "I'm going to go on up and check for victims there while you look down here. That way, if there's no one in here but us, we can get out faster."
Johnny lifted his own mask. "You be careful! Hurry!"
Roy gave him a thumbs up and disappeared up the stairs.
The second floor had a dozen classrooms, six on each side, one utility closet, a teachers' lounge and two restrooms. None of the rooms were locked. The classrooms were empty of furniture, with only cracked and broken blackboards on the walls testifying to their former purpose in life. The closet and lounge were likewise bare and the stalls long gone from the bathrooms. It took less than a minute for Johnny to run down the hall and back and see that there was no one there. It was just as he reached Chet and Marco, at the head of the stairs, that the spray of water from their hose suddenly died.
Chet grabbed the handy talkie. "HT 51 to engine 51. Where's our water?"
"HT 51, what are you talking about?"
"What happened to our water? We don't have any water pressure!"
"Your hose is fully charged," Cap told him.
Marco started back down the stairs, following the hose. In seconds he was back at a run. "There's a wall down! It's buried the hose and blocked the exit. We have to find another way out!"
"I thought I saw a second staircase at the end of the hall downstairs," Chet said. The roar of the fire had intensified and they were shouting now.
"I did too," Johnny agreed, "but there's no opening to another stairwell here. Maybe we can reach it from the third floor."
Without another word, the three men turned and climbed.
On the third floor, Roy was having a harder time of it. Several of the doors were stuck and he had to take time to force them open. He was working on the last one, a large old wooden door at the far end of the hall, when his crewmates reached the landing. Pulling off his glove, he felt the door first and found it warm but not hot. He stepped back and put a boot to it. The door flew open to reveal a narrow stairway, the bottom half already in flames. Fed by fresh oxygen from the newly opened door, the fire shot up and out. Roy fell back and rolled away, escaping the dragon-like breath of flame.
The wall behind him caught fire and flames shot up and raced across the ceiling.
Roy turned and ran back towards his friends. "Out! It's empty! We have to get out!"
They met him in the middle of the hall as fire climbed the first staircase and closed in on them from that side. Looking from one end of the hall to the other, none of them needed to voice their situation. The old school was going up fast, and they were trapped.
Chet was on the HT. "Cap! We need a ladder! We're on the third floor and completely cut off!" They all knew that with just Cap and Mike working on it, getting a ladder to them would take longer than they had. As a group they ran into the nearest classroom, praying that they could hold off the inferno long enough to survive. The rooms up here had been used for storage and there were still odds and end of junk lying around. Roy closed the door behind them and looked for something to pack around the edges while Johnny used part of an old desk to break out the window and knock the glass from the frame.
Johnny looked out the window and a smile lit his face. Three feet away, an old flagpole stood beside the building.
"Whoo hoo! Hey, guys! Here's our way down!"
"You're nuts, Gage!" Chet yelled. "That thing'll never hold us!"
"Oh, you're just jealous because I get to be the first one to slide down the pole!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
Johnny stuck his tongue out, pushed off the windowsill and caught himself on the flagpole. It rocked a bit on its base, but held and he slid down safely to the ground.
Chet, next in line, hovered uncertainly in the window.
"What'sa matter, Chet?" Johnny hollered. "Chicken? Bawk! Bawk! Bagawk!"
Chet scowled at him, made a face, then leapt from the window and slid down the pole.
Without a word, Marco followed. Safely on the ground, the three men watched the window anxiously.
"Roy!" Johnny called. "Roooooy! Come on Roooooy!"
Cap and Mike, carrying their longest ladder, rounded the building and came up against the locked chain link fence as Johnny led his cohorts in a loud cheer. They were just in time to see Roy jump from the window and slide down the flagpole. The fire followed him out the window and caught the back of his turnout coat. The wind fanned the flame and by the time he reached the ground he stood in a pillar of fire.
Johnny, Chet and Marco tackled him and rolled him in the dirt to extinguish the flame, then helped get him out of the charred, smoking coat.
"I'm all right," he told them.
"Are you all right, man?" Johnny asked him anxiously. "Are you all right?"
"I'm all right."
Other engines were arriving on scene now. Cap and Mike dropped the ladder. Cap stepped back to direct operations while Mike ran for bolt cutters, to free his station mates from the old playground. Roy and Johnny and Chet and Marco slouched in the grass and looked up at the flames shooting from the window they had just left.
"So," Johnny said, "who wants to go up and slide down again?"
#-#-#-#-
In spite of his insistence that he was fine, Roy found himself dragged off to Rampart.
"It's a sort of an unwritten rule we have," Dr. Kelly Brackett told him. "Any time you actually catch on fire you have to come in for a checkup afterwards."
Roy, sitting on the exam table while the doctor treated a few burns he hadn't thought worth mentioning, glared at his partner. Johnny, standing beside him with his arms crossed, tipped his head back slightly so he could look down his nose at his best friend and glared back.
"You know," he said, "if the situation was reversed and I was the one doing the human torch impression, you would have hauled my butt in here so fast it would have made my head spin."
"Yeah, but that'd be different."
"Different how?"
"Because that'd be you. But this is me. It's different."
"How is it different?"
"I don't know how it's different. It just is, that's all."
Listening to them, Brackett allowed a small grin to turn up the corner of his mouth. "Now, listen, fellas. You'd better play nice or the captain's apt to take away your fire pole."
#-#-#-#-
Roy pulled the squad in next to the engine and he and Johnny went to stand and stare in dismay at the empty spot in the bay where the fire pole had stood. All that remained now were four lighter grey spots in the floor, where fresh concrete had been used to fill the boltholes. Cap came out to meet them and Johnny gave him a stricken look.
"We were playing nice, Cap!"
Cap rolled his eyes. "You twit!"
The rest of the shift came out to join them. Chet and Marco looked almost as sad as Johnny. Mike patted Johnny on the back, but his sympathy seemed heavily tinted with amusement.
"I told you it was a mistake," Cap said. "They came and got it while we were at the school fire. Someone got their numbers mixed up. They were supposed to install a new 15-foot fire pole at station 10, but instead they installed a new 10-foot fire pole at station 51. It was a clerical error. That's all."
Johnny sighed and Roy clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, well," the senior paramedic said, "it was fun while it lasted."
They all trooped into the kitchen, headed for the coffee pot, but they were interrupted by a banging on the back door. Cap went to get it and they all followed him out into the back lot.
"Where you guys want this thing?"
Four men stood there in construction gear. One carried a clipboard and the other three were wrestling with . . .
"A merry-go-round?! This is a fire station! We don't need a merry-go-round!"
Clipboard guy spoke around the unlit cigar that dangled from a corner of his mouth. "Look, I don't know from fire stations. What I know from is work orders, and I got a work order here telling me to install this merry-go-round at 2049 E. 223rd Street. That's this address, ain't it?"
"Well, yes. But there's some mistake somewhere. We don't need a merry-go-round!" Cap headed for his office to call HQ, but before he'd taken three steps the tones sounded . . . .
The End
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