By Ross
The vehicles’ engines were killed, their doors were opened and their occupants began stepping down and out.
The firemen had spent the past several hours battling a blazing propane fire and were now feeling—and looking—the worse for wear.
Stoker climbed stiffly down from his engine and then stood there, staring glumly out the garage’s open portal, at the inclement weather they’d just driven through. “The rain is really picking up again. Just like it did last Saturday…when it put out my barbecue grill…and then washed all the tartar sauce off of the steaks.”
The firemen flashed their glum chum some sooty, sympathetic smiles.
The heavy garage door gradually ground its way back down, blocking the depressing torrential downpour from the engineer’s view.
“Speaking of barbecued,” Chet Kelly came around the front of the engine and then stopped, less than a foot in front of his Captain, to stare up at the bay’s ceiling. “Is my face red?”
Stanley studied Kelly’s concern-filled face carefully. “I dunno. It’s too dirty to really tell.”
Chet swiped his hands over his sweaty face a few times and succeeded in removing some of the soot.
Hank took another gander at his crewman’s grimy countenance. “Looks like you were standing a little too close to the fire, pal.” Seeing that Kelly was dissatisfied with his diagnosis, the Captain summoned his paramedic team over. “John! Roy! You wanna check out Chet’s face,” he ordered more than asked.
The two men had been heading for the washroom. They immediately redirected their course and crossed over to Kelly, to ‘check out’ his face.
The paramedics stared at Kelly’s face for several seconds, looking very intent.
“Yeah. Yeah. That’s a face, all right,” Gage was finally forced to concede.
“And only a mother could love it,” DeSoto contributed, breaking into a broad grin.
The guys all snickered.
Well, everybody but the face’s owner, that is. “C’mon, you guys. This is serious. Is it red? Or isn’t it?”
Gage wiped the grin off of his face and then gave Kelly’s a much closer and more careful examination, tipping it up to the light at various angles. “By golly, it is red, Roy,” he solemnly announced. “And, unless he’s blushing, I’d say he’s suffering from some E.E. to some I.H.. Wouldn’t you?”
DeSoto thought his partner’s cryptic comment over for a few moments, then he pursed his lips and nodded solemnly in agreement.
“I thought so,” Johnny smugly declared. Then he turned around and started heading back toward the washroom.
Kelly directed his extremely anxious gaze toward the remaining paramedic. “What the heck is tha-at?”
“Excessive Exposure to Intense Heat,” Roy obligingly replied. Then he arched an eyebrow and began taking his leave, as well. “I think…”
The red-faced fireman’s friends filed silently past him, also en route to soap bars and sinks.
Captain Stanley stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “I think what they’re tying to say is…you were standing a little too close to the fire, pal.”
Kelly’s mustached face scrunched up a might...and then suddenly turned even redder.
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