It was a beautiful sunny day in Los Angeles on the 5th
of May. After two weeks of weather that varied only from heavy rains to fog and
overcast skies, the relief was almost overwhelming. The men of the A-shift
hurried through their chores for the day, each of them with a little lift in his
step and his mood. Springtime in Southern California was a time to be cherished
when it wasn’t raining. Everything was new and green. The rain had washed away
the smog and the air smelled fresh from the mixture of sweet pollens and ozone.
Flowers popped up in all kinds of places, including the cracks in the sidewalk
that circled the station. Soon, the drought of summer would set in and the lawns
and hillsides would turn brown with parched grass. And then, of course, would
come the brush fires. But not today, today was just about perfect.
As the morning wore on without a call, each fireman found a reason for staying
in the bay, near the large doors which had been left open, eventually drifting
outside.
“You know, guys,” Marco began as he found just the right patch of lawn to plop
down on, “what we need around here is a good Cinco De Mayo celebration.”
“That’s five of something, right?” Cap asked, feeling somewhat embarrassed that
after all this time working in Los Angeles, and stationed with a fireman fluent
in Spanish, that all he could do was count to 10.
“Five of salad dressing, right Marco?” Chet giggled, finding more humor in his
own joke than the other men who just groaned.
Marco ignored the bad play on words. “It’s the fifth of May. It’s a big holiday
in some parts of Mexico, something about some battle with the French. I never
was too good at the history part of it, but we always had a great time, lots of
great food and fun teasing the white kids in the neighborhood who could never
figure out why we were celebrating. Once in a while someone would ask and we’d
answer with a 10 year old’s sense of humor. That’s for us to know and you to
find out.’ We thought that was a pretty impressive come back at the time.”
The men all laughed, both at the thought of a ten year old Marco trying to be
cool and at their own memories of the things that mattered at the age of 10.
They agreed that next year they would need to plan a Cinco de Mayo party, then
all fell silent, enjoying the memories that a beautiful spring day can elicit.
It was Roy who broke the silence.”You know, it was a day just like today that
Joanne proposed to me.” It was said so quietly and so matter of factly that it
took the men a few moments to realize what they had just heard. Joanne
proposed to Roy?
Roy looked at his colleagues and smiled. The story that had
been a source of great embarrassment when he was younger, had become a favorite
tale in later years. Roy looked at Johnny who was leaning against the wall,
grinning, anticipating the reaction of his crew mates when they heard the whole
story.
“We were only 18, still seniors in high school. We were walking down near the
river. Man, it was a gorgeous day, just like today. We stopped to throw some
peanuts to the ducks. You know, Joanne just looked so pretty. I wrapped my arms
around her and kissed her with shameless adolescent passion. When we finally
stopped, she looked me in the eye and said, 'Will you marry me, Roy DeSoto?'”
Roy was turning red, surprised to find that he was embarrassed telling the story
here, despite having told it many times in other settings. But, he continued. “I
was so shocked, I just let her go....dropped her right into the river! I didn t
know she was leaning back against my arms. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, for a
minute I just stared at her before I came to my senses and pulled her back out.”
Mike laughed, picturing the scene. “So, what happened, Roy, did she take back
her proposal or did she just push you in?”
“Oh yeah, Mike,” Chet spoke up, "she took back her proposal and that’s why they
never got married! Of course she didn’t take back her proposal. They do have two
kids you know.”
“Yeah, well, I know Joanne and I bet she didn’t just laugh it off.”
Roy was just shaking his head, remembering the moment. “You’ve got that right,
Mike. Boy, was she mad. You know, smoke coming out of her ears kind of mad. She
pushed me away from her and said, 'If you didn’ t want to marry me, you could
have just said no. You didn’t have to push me into the river.’ I tried to
explain that it had been an accident, but you know how Joanne can get. She was
so angry. And I was angry.”
“You were angry? What did you have to be angry about?” Chet wanted to know.
“Well, see, I had spent the whole morning trying to get up the nerve to pop the
question. I had the ring and everything. I had the whole thing planned. The
morning ride on the Ferris wheel, the lunch at the outdoor café, the walk by the
river. I even had planned where on the river I would stop and kiss her then take
out the ring, get down on one knee and propose. What I didn’t plan on was her
beating me to the punch. So, I stammered about for a few minutes, then I made
the perfect save. I just got down on my knee, pulled out the ring, offered it to
her, and said, 'Yes, I would be honored to marry you.’ Once she saw the ring and
realized that I had been planning to propose she forgot all about the river. Or
I thought she had. She let me put the ring on her finger, told me she loved me,
grabbed me and kissed me, then pushed me into the river. She said that if she
had to walk home looking like a wet fish, so did I.”
“That’s a great story, Roy. How come you never told us about that before?” Hank
asked.
“I don’t know. It’s just something about the day that reminded me.”
The morning continued with no calls and the men regaled each other with tales of
young romance, remembering what it was like to be a teenager, involved in the
springtime ritual of finding a mate. In some ways, they agreed, people were not
all that different from other animals. In the spring, young men like to puff up
their feathers and strut around young women, hoping to impress them with their
manhood. It was Johnny who pointed out that the young women did a fair amount of
puffing and strutting themselves.
Lunch had just finished when the tones sounded for the first time of the day.
"Station 51, unknown type rescue, 225 Maitland Drive, cross street, Adams.”
As the engine and the squad pulled up to the address, there was no sign of a
problem, no crowd gathered, no one waiting on the street to wave them in, no one
waving frantically from a door.
“Man, I hate it when you don’t know what’ s going on,” Johnny said to his
partner as they grabbed the oxygen and the trauma box. They could send one of
the guys back for the other equipment if it was needed.
Whatever anxiety Johnny might have been feeling about the possible unknown
elements of the rescue, they were quickly forgotten when the doorbell was
answered. There before him was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
She was truly stunning, tall with long, loose auburn curls and nicely rounded
out in all the right places. She was dressed in short shorts and a tube top that
proudly displayed what they all would later agree was a very fine physique.
It took a moment for the six men of station 51 to come to their senses. And
then, slowly and subtly, the puffing and the strutting began.
“Uh, hi, we’re uh with the Los Angeles fire department. Did you, uh call for a
paramedic?” Oh, real swift Gage. That’s impressive.
The woman looked terribly embarrassed. "Oh my. I didn’t mean
for them to send out so many of you.”
Though Hank was in awe of the woman before him, he was also annoyed at being
summoned to what was apparently not a real problem. “Miss, did you hang up on
the 911 operator before she got a chance to ask you what the problem was?”
“Oh, I guess I probably did. So they sent all of you thinking that maybe there
was a fire or something like that?”
“Something like that. What is the problem, Miss?”
“Katie, I’m Katie Palmer. My roommate, Carla, fell and hurt her ankle. That’s
why I called 911. She was trying to get into the attic. There’s something alive
in there. Say, since you all are here anyway...."
“Where is your roommate now?” Roy interrupted, hoping to move this along.
A voice from inside the house called out, “I’m in here.”
“Roy, John, why don’t the two of you go help the injured woman and we’ll see if
there isn’t something we can do to help Miss Palmer with the attic situation.”
Johnny had found his tongue again. “You know, Cap, if it’s just an injured
ankle, Roy can probably handle it and I can help Katie here. You guys can head
back to the station.”
If looks could kill, Chet’s would have dropped Johnny there and then. Roy had
moved off to find Carla and attend to the legitimate reason they had been called
to the scene. From the living room, where he found the injured woman with her
foot up on the couch, he could hear all that was happening in the entryway.
Chet decided to take matters into his own hands before Gage manipulated him out
of his opportunity with the woman of his dreams. ”You said something was in your
attic. Do you know what it is?”
“Well, all we know for sure is that it’s alive. It’s scratching and running up
there. I just don’ t know what to do. Carla, she’s the brave one. She got a
ladder and was going to go up there. But she fell off the ladder and hurt her
ankle.”
“Miss,” Hank would have liked to help, but there had to be limits, “it’s most
likely a squirrel or a bird that got in and got trapped. You might want to try
calling animal control, but it’s really not the kind of thing we can take care
of for you.”
“Oh, but please. I called animal control earlier today and they said I’d have to
call an exterminator, but I just can’t afford that. I don’t know what I’ll do if
I have to spend a night knowing that something is crawling around in my house.”
Johnny saw great potential here. He could push for them to help her, Cap would
say no, the engine crew would leave, and he would be left here with Roy, a hero
for trying. “Come on, Cap. We get cats out of trees, don’ t we? We can get a
little squirrel out of an attic.”
Before Hank could point out that they really didn’t get cats out of trees, Marco
jumped in. “Yeah, Cap. It’s not like things have been busy today. You could even
call in and make us available from here, right? Then we could help unless we got
another call. It shouldn’t take long to get rid of a squirrel.”
Although he was a married man, even Mike had to speak up on this one. “Miss, do
you know how long the animal has been in your attic?”
“Well, we’ve been away for a week. We just got back yesterday. We started
hearing it last night.” Katie turned to Captain Stanley and let loose with every
pheromone in her body. “Please Captain? I know that with women’s lib and all
that we should be able to handle this on our own, but what if it’s not a
squirrel? What if it’s a mouse, or worse, a rat? Well, I would just pass out
right then and God only knows what I’d break. Helping me now could save the
paramedics another run later. Please, you wouldn’t want to abandon a damsel in
distress, would you?”
Stanley threw his hands up in resignation. “Okay, you all win. I’ll call us in
as available. Johnny, make sure Roy is all set before you join this safari.
Chet, Marco, and Mike, round yourselves up a rodent and get it out of this
house.”
“Oh my. Thank you so much. Come on, boys. The hatch to the attic is in my
bedroom.”
The men stumbled over each other as they started up the stairs, pushing at each
other to get a clear view of Katie from behind as she climbed. Even the captain
just stared in admiration for a moment before grabbing Johnny who was ascending
the staircase.
"Gage, your partner is with your victim in the other room. Remember?”
“Aw, Cap..." Johnny moaned.
“Business before pleasure, pal.”
As it turned out, Carla’s ankle was not much of a distraction. Roy assured
Johnny and the Captain that he had everything under control. The last thing he
needed was to spend the rest of the day, or even week, listening to Johnny
complain that he had been kept from the woman who would have otherwise become
his future bride. Johnny found the others in Katie’s bedroom, just in time to
see Chet at the top of a step ladder, holding a flashlight and trying to open a
ceiling hatch that led to the attic. They could all hear the scratching above.
At that very moment, each of the men of station 51 was swelling with macho
pride, knowing they were about to become heroes in the eyes of the gorgeous
woman standing next to them. They may have stopped to revel in that belief for a
bit longer had they had any hint of the way things were about to unfold.
Chet pushed up the hatch into the attic, took a step up to the top of the
ladder, and found himself face to face with a squirrel. The squirrel hissed at
Chet who stepped back, right off the ladder and onto Marco’s face.
“Madre Dios, muy estupido!!! Get off me, you fool,” Marco yelled at Chet as both
landed on the floor, Chet sitting on Marco’s face.
Johnny ran to aid his friends as Mike jumped up the ladder to try and close the
hatch. But he was too late. Not one, but two squirrels jumped out of the attic.
The first landed on Katie’s bed and quickly found its way under her covers. The
second landed directly on Mike’s head. Mike screamed as the squirrel tried to
get a foothold by digging its claws into Mike’s scalp. Unsuccessful, the
squirrel fell to the floor and ran under the bed, taking a significant amount of
Mike’s hair and scalp with him.
Downstairs Roy had just finished wrapping Carla’s ankle when he heard all hell
break loose above him. Carla cringed and Roy just shook his head when they heard
someone fall to the floor and Marco scream at Chet. It was Mike’s screams that
sent Roy running upstairs. But as Roy was running up, he tripped over the
squirrel that was running down, landing flat on his face on the stairs and
serving as an obstacle that Captain Stanley did not quite manage to avoid as he
chased the squirrel down the stairs.
Katie stopped at the top of the stairs, looking down at the two firemen who were
now prone on her stairs. She did notice that the squirrel had escaped through
the still open door. “Oh my, are you two okay?”
As Roy and Hank pushed themselves to their feet, Katie heard angry hissing from
her bedroom, followed by something crashing and a string of swears. She rushed
back into her room, forgetting about the men on the stairs for the moment.
The first thing Katie saw was her bed. Her comforter was now on the floor and
her sheets, mattress and pillows were in shreds. There were feathers flying
everywhere. Her bedside lamp was shattered on the floor, and she would later
wonder just how there ended up being claw marks on the wallpaper. The angry
squirrel chattered and hissed from under her bed.
Roy had left Captain Stanley nursing his injuries downstairs and came to join
the others. He quickly took in the scene. Mike was holding a wash cloth to his
head. Marco and Chet were on the floor trying to use coat hangers to coax the
squirrel out of its hiding place. Johnny was trying to tell Chet and Marco to
stop until he figured out what to do next. They finally heard the reasoning of
what he was saying and stopped.
“Okay, look, if we can get it out from under the bed, maybe we can force it down
the stairs. If we open the door it should run outside like the other one.”
The men pushed the bed slowly over next to the open bedroom door. They then
formed a barrier around the bed, blocking all exits except the door. Marco and
Chet again began pushing with the coat hangers. As predicted, the squirrel ran
for the bedroom door and down the stairs.
Everyone sighed with relief as the squirrel ran for the open door. But just as
he was about to pass through, a car outside backfired, causing the squirrel to
change direction 90 degrees and run instead into the living room.
Roy headed quickly, but carefully back down the stairs, expecting his co-workers
to follow, but the men upstairs found themselves trapped in the bedroom with the
queen size bed between them and the bedroom door. All four and Katie decided at
the same time to try to scramble over the bed to get to the door. This time it
was Chet who ended up with a foot in his eye, although it was never completely
clear whose foot it was or if it was entirely an accident.
By the time the men and Katie got downstairs, the damage had begun. The squirrel
had tried to get to safety by climbing up the drapes on the picture window. The
drapes were now half off the window and torn. A vase was in pieces on the floor
with water and flowers scattered about on the white carpet. Carla was sitting on
the couch with her hands over her face, not wanting to look at the damage. The
squirrel had made his way into the kitchen and was trapped on a shelf above the
stove. Broken plates and glasses were scattered about. Johnny slowly approached
Roy who was standing in front of the stove.
“Okay, enough is enough,” Roy said, maybe to Johnny, maybe to the squirrel.
“Let’s just open the kitchen door to the outside, close the door that leads to
the rest of the house, and leave the kitchen. Once he’s not scared, he’ll take
advantage of the open door and leave.”
But Johnny was not convinced. “Maybe, maybe not, Roy. Look at all the food in
here. He may decide to just hang out and munch for a while first and think of
what damage he could do.” Then he whispered, “I don’ t think we can afford to
pay for what he’s already damaged, never mind anything else.”
If anyone else had an opinion, they didn’t get a chance to express it. The
squirrel had already made up his mind that his best defense was a good offense.
He jumped from the shelf, hitting the stove and turning on a gas burner on his
way down. He landed at Johnny’s feet. Johnny tried to kick him toward the door.
Not liking that one bit, the squirrel ran back up Johnny’s leg and jumped back
onto the stove, landing right next to the now lit burner. Feeling the flames, he
jumped again, this time landing on Johnny’s chest where he tried to grab hold.
Johnny screamed in pain at the impact of the squirrel’s claws not even noticing
that the squirrel’s tail had caught fire from the stove and now his shirt was on
fire as well. It was Katie who grabbed the fire extinguisher and aimed it at
Johnny and his flaming shirt. As Katie was not used to handling the contraption,
the foam went everywhere, covering the kitchen, the firemen, and quite by
chance, putting out the flames on Johnny’s shirt.
And then, for the first time in half an hour, everything was quiet. Katie looked
around and thought about crying, but then slowly, inexplicably, began to laugh.
“Oh my,” she mumbled, “this is quite a situation isn’t it? I am so sorry I asked
you all to help me. Believe me, I am really sorry. Very sorry!”
Once they had made sure there was no more risk of fire, Katie and Carla had
escorted the men out of the house, promising to call a carpenter to find out how
the squirrels had gotten in and promising not to call 911 the next time they
needed help. Katie had found a secure box and was bringing the unconscious but
still breathing squirrel to the vet when they left. Carla chose to pass on a
transport to the hospital, saying that she would be safer going to her own
doctor.
Captain Stanley had had no choice but to stand the station down and was now in a
foul mood after having had to explain to the Chief exactly why it was that they
needed to go out of service for a period of time. He had taken the full brunt of
the chief's anger and had taken full responsibility for their actions. He knew
he would pay a price which was being extracted beginning now.
Having shown up at Rampart en masse, they were shuttled into treatment room 6,
an ER room designed to hold four people but Dixie had felt sure that Kel
Brackett would want to hear about this one from all of them together.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, it was a slow
day in the ER so Brackett, Early, and Morton all joined Dixie with the men of
51.
Brackett surveyed the room. Roy DeSoto had what looked like rug burns on his
face and Marco Lopez had a black eye. Captain Stanley seemed to be nursing his
shoulder and ankle. Chet Kelly had a black eye and a swollen knee. Mike Stoker
was holding a bandage to his head. And then there was Johnny. He was sitting on
the table in tattered, bloodied, burnt clothes, arguing with Roy who was telling
him to take off his shirt.
Brackett stepped up to Johnny and told him, “Do what your partner told you. Take
off the shirt.” Seeing quickly that the injuries, whatever they may be, were
already bandaged and not currently bleeding, Brackett stepped back, folded his
arms across his chest, and spoke to the group.
“Okay, whatever happened here, nobody called it in, so do you all want to
explain what exactly happened?”
Six sets of eyes looked at the ceiling, the floor, each other, anywhere but at
Brackett and the other medical staff in the room. It was Johnny who finally
spoke.
“Doc, have you ever met a woman who was so drop dead gorgeous you would have
done anything she asked?”
Brackett’s eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding. All of this is the result of
flirting? I hope one of you at least got a date out of it.”
Johnny’s whole face lit up in a wicked, crooked grin. “Well, not exactly, Doc,
but Marco, Chet, Mike and I did all get to be in bed with her at the same time.”
“Now this, I have to hear,” Brackett said, leaning up against a wall to get
comfortable. “Gentlemen, whenever you’re ready, I’m all ears.”
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Guest Dispatchers Stories by Whisper
