“A Work In Progress” - Part 8
John’s ‘walk’ had terminated in the second-floor’s East stairwell.
He sat there on the landing’s top step, staring blurrily off into space, looking lost in thought.
From the first moment John met Catherine Lyn Saunders, he was smitten with her.
A drunk driver had clipped her brand new Mercedes at an intersection, and Station 51 had responded to the call. The young woman had been wearing her seatbelt. So she was shaken up, but otherwise uninjured.
Cathy was pretty…and witty…and kind—and, according to Kelly, ‘completely out of his league’.
That is when fate, in the form of an L.A. TV Station, stepped in.
The TV station had recently provided each member of Station 51’s A-Shift with two free tickets to the opera. Those two tickets provided the paramedic with the perfect opportunity to play in Miss Saunder’s ‘league’—even if it might only be for one evening.
When he mentioned the tickets to Miss Saunders, she told him she already had a date for Saturday.
Fate intervened again, however, when the young lady’s date backed out on her.
Cathy called the fire station Saturday morning, just as John came on duty, and asked him if he was serious about his opera tickets offer.
John learned that it took a whole lot of phone calls, fast-talking and bribing to get somebody to work a split shift for you. He finally managed to finagle Gregg Garnett into taking over for him.
He also learned that it wasn’t exactly easy to rent a tux’ on such short notice, and that ‘opera glasses’ were not things that were used for guzzling champagne—or seeing things in 3-D.
In short, he learned that Kelly was absolutely right about him being out of Miss Saunder’s league.
But John wasn’t about to let a little thing like that deter him. Not when he was already ‘smitten’!
John Gage opened his eyes and found himself staring up at the ceiling of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. “Oh-oh no-o,” he groaned. He didn’t—. He couldn’t really have fallen aslee-eep! The first-time opera-goer panicked and instantly sat straight up in his plush, velvet-upholstered seat. He was all by his lonesome.
Everybody had left the auditorium—including his date!
His date! “Cathy!” he despairedly exclaimed, his voice echoing in the opera hall’s huge ‘empty’ chamber. John jumped to his feet and went racing out of the building.
The fireman found his date waiting for him out on the sidewalk.
To say that the young woman was ‘fuming’, would not have been an adequate description of the degree of her raging fury. “Did you have a nice nap?” Miss Saunders icily inquired.
John winced and then just stood there in his tuxedo, feeling tremendously embarrassed and looking extremely apologetic. “I’m sorry. Really, I am. I tried soooo hard not to be bored. Honest. But I just couldn’t find anything interesting about a bunch a’ people screaming at each other—for two-and-a-half hours—in some language I couldn’t even understand. I’m sorry,” he repeated and hung his head in shame. “Chet’s right. I’m just not the ‘opera’ type…” he quietly confessed, his sad words trailing off.
“What ‘type’ are you?” Cathy wondered, ‘most’ of the annoyance now gone from her voice.
Gage glanced sheepishly up at the forgiving girl and shrugged. The forlorn fireman finally chanced a bashful smile, which broadened into a grin upon noting that the no longer furious with him young woman was forced to return it. “You really wanna know the ‘type’ a’ guy I am?”
Cathy nodded.
John pulled his vehicle’s valet pass from his tux’s right front pocket and passed it to a parking attendant.
“Where are we going?” Cathy asked, when the attendant returned with his Rover.
John took her by the elbow, ushered her up to his vehicle, and pulled its passenger door open for her. “Bowling.”
Cathy balked. “You’re joking, of course…” she stated sounding hopeful.
The bowler shook his head.
His date looked astonished. “Wha—dressed like this?”
John nodded.
“But…we can’t go bowling dressed like this!”
“Sure we can,” he assured her and practically shoved her into her bucket seat.
“Why can’t we just go out to dinner?” the woman wondered, as she pulled the vehicle’s seatbelt across her evening-gowned lap. “Which is where most ‘normal’ people normally go after the opera.”
John slipped in behind the wheel and closed his car door. “Oh. You’re hungry, huh. We can order a pizza at the bowling alley.” He saw that his date wasn’t too thrilled with the idea and turned to face her. “Look, THEY may be doing what’s ‘normal’ and ‘proper’. But, I guarantee yah, we’re gonna have more fun.” The fireman buckled his tuxedo’d self in. He unfastened and removed his tie and then undid the top three or four buttons on his frilly, downright silly, white dress shirt. Gage gasped in relief and glanced at the girl, who was still sitting there, all ‘prim’ and ‘proper’ like—and looking terribly ‘stuffy’. “C’mon!” he urged with a grin. “Let your hair down!”
Cathy dropped her elegant gloves and evening bag. Then she pulled out the pins that were keeping her hair in place and shook her pretty little head. Her long, auburn locks tumbled down onto her lovely bare shoulders. She leaned back in her bucket seat and exhaled a long, relaxed sigh—of relief. “Oh well,” she reasoned aloud. “At least you didn’t snore.” She glanced in the driver’s direction, and the two of them traded grins.
John could still see the look on the manager’s face, when the two of them stepped into the bowling alley and asked if they could rent some shoes.
Nope! He would never forget that look…or the way Cathy would tip-toe up to the line, balancing the heavy ball in one hand, while trying to keep her long, lovely evening gown from causing her to fall flat on her face with the other…or the way she smiled when he picked her up in his arms and swirled her gracefully around, every time she managed to knock down some pins.
He didn’t care if it caused the other patrons to stare. The way he figured it, people just weren’t used to seeing such ‘class’ in a bowling alley.
Cathy said she was certain people thought the two of them were ‘crazy’—not ‘classy’.
He told her she had to be ‘crazy’, to drink champagne with pizza.
Cathy assured him that it wasn’t bad at all, and suggested that he try it sometime.
So he promptly promised that he would be sure to take her out for champagne and pizza after every opera.
Cathy had found that most amusing. She had found the entire evening amusing—and every bit as much fun as he had promised her it would be.
The fireman suddenly found himself standing out on the concrete steps in front of Cathy’s condo…
John draped the jacket of his tuxedo over his gorgeous date’s bare shoulders and then stood there in the porch light, staring into the girl’s incredibly blue eyes. “I don’t know. I guess its all a matter of how you were raised. You see, I was deprived of all that ‘high-brow’, ‘cultural’ stuff. Tragically, the only opera house—on the entire Reservation—burned to the ground before I was even bor—” he stopped speaking, as Cathy suddenly let out a laugh and then playfully slugged him in the arm. “Wha-at?” he innocently inquired. “You don’t believe me?”
The girl giggled again. Then she dug her key out of her evening bag and inserted it into the lock. She got the door open and then turned back to face him.
“The opera wasn’t a total loss for me, yah know,” John quietly confessed. “I did get to see you all decked out in your…mmmlovely evening gown…”
“Why, thank you,” Cathy primly replied. “And I found you rather ‘handsome’ in your tux’. I, uh, also got to discover the ‘type’ of guy you are.”
“Oh yeah? What ‘type’ a’ guy am I?”
“My type,” Cathy confessed and flashed her gallant date a grin.
John was extremely relieved to hear that and immediately broke into a big ole grin, himself. "That—That’s great! Because I also discovered the ‘type’ a’ girl you are.”
“You did?”
He nodded. “You are the type a’ girl…I like…to kiss ‘goodnight’,” the fireman finished in a whisper. Then he took her tenderly into his arms and kissed her. WOW! The moment, the chemistry—everything seemed so-o…right!
Until it suddenly started raining—pouring, actually.
Cathy let out a shriek and ducked into her condo’s entryway. She shook the raindrops from her hair and then offered him her hand—and an invitation to come in. When he hesitated, she extended her hand and the invitation to him again.
John stood there in the downpour, wishing he could’ve found a replacement that hadn’t just finished pulling a double shift. “Thanks. But I gotta get back to work. Greg’s prob’ly sittin’ in the Station right now, wonderin’ where I am.”
“Oh. That’s right. I forgot. That’s why you didn’t drink.” Cathy suddenly realized that her date’s jacket was still draped over her shoulders. She saw that the poor paramedic was now completely drenched, and promptly passed him back his only dry article of clothing.
She then thanked him for a ‘really fun evening’.
He assured her that it was his pleasure and thanked her for her company.
The two of them just stood there for a while, giving one another long, lingering looks.
Finally, the fireman stepped down from the porch and slowly began backing his way over to his car…so slowly, that by the time he reached it, his jacket was also thoroughly soaked. “Can I see you again?” he called out to her, over the sound of the wind-driven rain.
Cathy gave him a huge grin and a definite nod. “I thought you’d never ask!”
John did see Cathy again…and again…and again…and again.
In fact, over the course of the next two months, the young couple saw an awful lot of each other.
Their relationship was really going well.
That is, until John bruised his kidneys and ribcage on the job…and suffered some serious rope burns to his hands…
The first sign of trouble came on the couple’s first date, following his release from Rampart.
He’d made dinner reservations at a romantic little restaurant over on Hauser, after Marco had assured him that the place served ‘the best Mexican food, this side of the Border’.
Cathy loved Mexican food…
John’s bandaged hands reached for an open wine bottle. “Would you like a refill?”
Cathy nodded and held her empty glass out to him. “How long do the doctors figure it will be, before you’re able to go back to your fire station?” she tentatively inquired, as he topped it off.
Gage refilled his wineglass, as well, and then set the bottle back down. “The bandages come off Friday. If everything looks good, Morton says I’ll be back at the Station next Monday,” he noticed that his date seemed disappointed to hear that, and his grin turned upside-down. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she assured him, with a forced smile.
Cathy didn’t like to lie, and so she wasn’t very good at it.
The paramedic’s bandaged right hand reached across the table and he gave the girl’s bare wrist a reassuring squeeze. Her pulse was racing. “What’s wrong?” he anxiously re-inquired.
“Nothing…really. I was just hoping that your new job—at headquarters—might become a little more permanent, is all.”
John felt his own heart-rate increase, as the ‘implication’ of what she’d just managed to say fully registered with him. “Oh…I see.”
Cathy didn’t just want him to ‘fill-in’ for Sam, while he was out sick. She wanted him to become a full-time dispatcher.
Headquarters wasn’t a bad place to visit. But he wouldn’t want to work there—leastways, not on a more ‘permanent’ basis.
John gazed into his disappointed date’s beautiful blue, candlelit eyes for quite a long, quiet while…and then nervously cleared his throat. “I, uh, really think that it’s important for a person to love their job. I mean, I don’t think it would be possible for a person to be truly happy, if they didn’t like what they were doing for a living. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Cathy couldn’t deny the veracity of his statement. So she forced another sad smile and nodded her pretty little head.
Just two short months later…
John found himself lying in yet another hospital bed.
He’d suffered a serious concussion—in a partial building collapse—and the doctors had in him a drug-induced coma. Well, at least they ‘thought’ they had him in a coma.
He was completely unable to move—couldn’t even so much as flutter an eyelid.
But his ears were still functioning—just fine, and his brain—while badly bruised—continued to clearly register every disturbing sound around.
Of course, because the patient ‘appeared’ to be unconscious, visitors had no way of knowing that.
Roy knew, though. Roy always seemed to know, and so he would read to him. His partner put his book down and then said he would be right back—following a brief bathroom break.
Roy refused to ignore the ‘FOR PATIENT USE ONLY’ sign on his bathroom door, choosing instead, to walk clear down past the Nurses’ Station, to the public restroom at the opposite end of the hall.
While his partner was visiting the little boy’s room, Cathy came in.
He knew it was Cathy, because his nose was also working.
Cathy wasn’t much into perfume. But she used the most delicious-smelling shampoo.
Her hair always smelled really really good—good enough to eat.
Cathy sat down in Roy’s vacated seat, picked up his limp, left hand and held onto it for dear life. “Hi there,” she managed to say, with some semblance of calm. But then her brave demeanor crumbled. “Oh…gawd,” she exclaimed, the tone of her voice reflecting the pain and anguish she felt upon finding him in such critical condition. “Oh, gawd!” she shakily repeated. “I can’t bear to see you like this!” she confessed, and began crying into her folded arms.
He couldn’t bear to hear her crying. A single tear left the corner of his eye and slid silently down the right side of his impassive face.
“I used to be insanely jealous of your ‘precious’ job,” Cathy quietly continued, once she’d regained some semblance of her composure, “because I knew it meant as much—or more—to you than I did.” She paused again, to regroup. “I now realize that the reason your job is so ‘precious’ to you, is because people’s lives are so precious to you. Being a fireman/paramedic isn’t just what you are, it’s who you are,” her quivering voice gave way and she broke down crying again. “I…I love you, John,” she somehow managed to get out—between sobs and sniffles. “I’ll always love you,” she shakily assured him. “But I…I just can’t stand to see you hurt. I know, now, that I could never be married to someone who lives as dangerously you do…” she choked back her sobs and forced herself to continue, “and I can’t ask you to live any other way. I won’t ask you to give up being who you are! I love who you are!”
If his lovely visitor’s vision hadn’t been so unbelievably blurry, she might have noticed that the patient’s respiration rate was now rapid, shallow and irregular, and that a trail of tears had appeared on both sides of his otherwise impassive face.
Cathy rose up from the chair and then stood there, sniffling. “I…I gotta be going. A friend of mine is waiting downstairs, to drive me to the airport. I’m…moving back to Massachusetts…Goodbye, John.” That said, the young woman leaned over his perfectly still form, and planted a ‘farewell’ kiss on his forehead.
One of her tears fell upon his seemingly impassive face and mingled with the now steady stream of his own.
Cathy met up with his partner in the doorway. “Goodbye, Roy. Take care…of him—and yourself.”
“I will,” his partner promised.
On the outside, John was crying. On the inside, he was dying.
That burning building wasn’t the only thing that had fallen down around him. His whole world had just collapsed.
Speaking of his partner…
The sound of someone coming up the steps forced John from his reveries. He glanced down and was pleasantly surprised to find his best friend standing there on the stairs, with an HT in his hand.
Roy always took the stairs to the second floor when he was on duty, because his visiting time was limited and the elevator was so goshdarn slow.
The two of them locked gazes.
Upon seeing that his buddy’s eyes were brimming with tears, DeSoto’s blue eyes filled with concern. He didn’t have to ask his partner if he was okay. He could clearly see that he wasn’t.
John saw the concern on his friend’s face and flashed him a sad, slightly crooked smile. Then he buried his own tear-streaked face in his hands and asked Roy the question he’d been asking himself for the past six months. “Why-y? Why-y, when the right girl finally comes along, why do I gotta turn out to be the wrong guy?”
Johnny had a tendency to toss his deepest feelings into an ‘emotional closet’. His feelings would just keep right on piling up in there, til there was no more room.
Then some exceptionally ‘traumatic’ event would occur. That closet door would pop open and all of those strong, stacked up feelings of his would come spilling out.
Johnny would then just ‘clean up the mess’…and move on.
Roy wondered what exceptionally ‘traumatic’ event had caused that closet door to open up this time.
Something had to have happened, to get his recuperating partner to go AWOL from his hospital bed to hide out in a stairwell…
The on-duty paramedic climbed another two steps up and placed a comforting hand on his sadder than sad friend’s slumped shoulder. “You were the right guy, Johnny,” Roy softly assured him. “She just turned out to be the wrong girl.”
Johnny was just about to say something, when he was interrupted by the ‘bleeping’ HT.
The two paramedics exchanged a couple of ‘Isn’t this typical?’ looks.
“Squad 51…standby for a response…”
DeSoto aimed a stern gaze, and his right index finger, in his AWOL associate’s direction. “Don’t. Move!” he commanded.
Gage couldn’t help but grin. “If I stay, do I get a doggie biscuit?”
Roy returned his grin. “No. But I promise you’ll get something if you move,” he teased and turned his pointing finger into a knuckle sandwich.
His buddy’s grin broadened. “Be careful, huh…”
“Always,” the on-duty paramedic promised. DeSoto flashed his friend a final smile. Then he turned and disappeared back down the stairs.
Less than a minute later, the fire door at the bottom of the stairwell reopened and Dixie McCall appeared.
Dixie studied the sad, lonely soul, seated on the top step of the second-floor landing, for a few moments. It broke her heart to see her young friend hurting so. “Mind if I come up?”
The paramedic replied to the pretty RN’s inquiry with a quick, light-hearted question of his own. “Do you promise not to lecture me on the perils of leaving my hospital bed?”
Dixie had to struggle desperately to keep a straight face. “I promise.”
“Then you may come up,” Johnny regally allowed and began brushing off a place for her to sit down on his ‘throne’ step.
“I’m not here in my ‘official’ nurse capacity, anyway.” Dixie reached the top of the stairs and assumed her assigned seat beside him. “I came as a friend,” she quietly confessed, and gave her friend’s shoulder a playful nudge.
The two of them just sat there like that for the next ten minutes—neither one of them saying a word.
“Dix?” John finally spoke up.
“Yeah, Johnny?”
“Do you think you could turn back into a nurse now…and help me get back to my room?”
“Oh-oh, I think I could manage that,” Dixie warmly replied and gave her patient’s no longer sagging right shoulder another playful shove.
“Truth be told,” Johnny continued, as Dixie assisted him to his bare feet and turned him carefully around, “I don’t think I’m quite ready to be out of bed yet.”
“Is that so,” the pretty nurse played along. She helped him back up onto the landing, through the fire door and out into the corridor.
“Besides,” John continued, “THEY didn’t say that I could get out of bed yet. And, believe me, THEY know everything.” He stared off down the loooooong hospital hallway. “Good heavens! How did I ever manage to make it this far, in the first place? Why, I could’ve passed out…hit my head on something…and really hurt myself.” He stopped talking as Dixie suddenly stopped walking.
The nurse gave him a sideways roll of her eyes.
He beamed her back a broad grin. “I knew…deep down…that you were just dying to say all those things. And, since I made you promise not to say them, I figured I’d say them for you.”
The woman released the smile she’d been suppressing, along with a weary sigh. “You’re incorrigible. You know that?”
“Yes. I do,” the paramedic shamelessly confessed.
Miss McCall’s smile broadened into a grin and she bumped him again, this time, with her hip.
Everyone in the four-bed ward watched as Dixie McCall guided Gage over—and back in—to his hospital bed.
“Behold!” Kelly dramatically declared. “Sir John returneth!” The fireman fixed his gaze upon the beautiful blonde ER nurse. “And dig the ‘fair damsel’ that rescueth him…”
The guys grinned and snickered.
"Someone needs to be transferred to the 'psyche' ward," John immediately determined and flashed the 'fair damsel' a wry, sly smile.
Dixie returned his grin and tucked him in. "Be more specific," she teased. "That could be any one of the four goofy guys in this ward."
The 'four goofy guys' glanced at one another…and grinned.
Later that same day…
Mike Morton and Dixie McCall stepped out of the elevator on the hospital’s second floor and started heading toward the four-bed ward at the end of the corridor.
They were about to go ‘off-duty’. But they both wanted to pay the ward’s occupants a final visit, prior to heading for home.
“I don’t think Kelly is quite ready to begin physical therapy just yet,” the young doctor determined, as the two of them walked along. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes,” Miss McCall whole-heartedly concurred. “But you may want to consider releasing the other three.”
“What makes you say that? They didn’t seem to be any better when I looked in on them this morning. They still appeared to be completely physically exhausted.”
The RN’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Yeah. Well…Let’s just say that things have gotten a lot more…interesting since then.”
The nurse’s comment piqued the doctor’s curiosity, causing him to cock an eyebrow.
Just as the two of them reached their destination, a distraught nurse came backing out into the hall.
The woman was carrying a meal tray—piled high with empty soda bottles and cardboard food containers. “Welcome to ‘The Spider Web’,” she greeted the pair, sounding every bit as frazzled as she looked.
Morton’s other eyebrow shot up.
The physician started to enter ‘The Spider Web’, but then stopped—right in the middle of the doorway. Morton just stood there, staring around the four-bed ward in both shock and disbelief.
The four firefighters seemed to be in the middle of some kind of card game. There were strands and strands of store string strung between their hospital beds, and the patients were, apparently, using the complex network of strings to pass one another playing cards.
“What is the meaning of this?!” the young doctor demanded.
The card players cringed and promptly ducked beneath their covers.
“What on earth is going on in here?!” Morton re-demanded.
John Gage poked his head up out of his bed sheet. “Uhhh…Hi doc’,” he sheepishly replied. “We were, uh, just havin’ a friendly little card game.”
His fellow firefighters’ heads slowly reappeared and then nodded.
Gage saw that Morton remained dissatisfied with his explanation, and immediately went into a defensive mode. “Well, THEY wouldn’t let us get out of bed! And we were bored! Really bored!” He motioned to their ‘web’. “So-o, we decided to let our ‘fingers’ do the walking,” the really bored fireman further explained, looking quite pleased and rather proud.
The web’s engineers glanced at one another and grinned.
Morton glared icily back at them.
Their grins vanished.
The doctor stood there, looking like he was counting to ten. "I repeat…" he said, sounding a tad bit calmer, "what is the meaning of…" he gave the strung strings a distasteful glance, "this?"
“We’ve invented a new game,” Chet informed the grumpy physician. “It goes along the same lines as ‘Go Fish’. But we call our version ‘You Wish’.” He studied the cards in his hands for a few moments and then turned to Gage. “Is it my turn yet?”
“You wish!” the paramedic replied. He pulled two playing cards from the string running between his bed and Stoker’s and stuck them in his hand. “Thank you, Michael.” He looked up at Lopez. “Marco, give me all your Cheryl Tiegs…”
Marco glanced at his cards and grinned. “You wish!”
A central string was attached to each of the patients’ beds’ headboards, using a traction bar. Clipped to this central string, were dozens of playing cards.
John tugged on this central string, pulled a playing card up to his hospital bed and snatched onto it. “Ah-ha! Ah-ha! I got a Cheryl Tieg!” Upon seeing that his fellow card players seemed skeptical, he held the card up for all to see, before finally placing it in his hand. He reeled another card in from the central line, scrutinized it for a few moments, and then turned to Kelly. “Now, it’s your turn.”
Kelly looked positively delighted and beamed a big, smug smile at Stoker. “Mikey, give me all your Ferrah Fawcetts.”
Stoker looked positively shattered.
Morton looked more than a little curious. He ducked under the string web, stepped up to Stoker’s bed, and stared down at the playing cards in his hands. The flabbergasted physician watched as Mike reluctantly removed three cards—bearing bikini-clad photos of Ferrah Fawcett—from the assorted collection of skimpily-clad models in his hand, and clipped them to one of the three strings that were strung around the top bar of the side-railing on his hospital bed…with a bobbypin? He glanced up and saw that Chet was now reeling the cards in. The young physician was feeling too ‘overwhelmed’ for words. He slowly swung his head around, to stare disbelievingly at Dixie.
Miss McCall seemed to be having a great deal of difficulty maintaining a straight face. “See what I mean?”
One lecture—some major room revamping—and fifteen ‘boring’ minutes later…
John Gage glanced glumly around their ‘web-less’ hospital ward. “Two hours!” he exclaimed, sounding as miffed as he looked. “It took us two hours to set it up and get all the kinks out of the system. And it only took Morton a lousy two minutes to ‘snip’ it all down!”
Chet gave his glum chum a sympathetic glance. “At least he promised to give you your cards back, when you guys get discharged.”
Marco stared sadly at the center of the ward, now completely devoid of their network of strings. “It was a thing of beauty, though. Wasn’t it? A real example of engineering ingenuity!”
His fellow firefighters were forced to nod.
But John was not to be comforted. “He could’ve at least waited until we finished the game!”
Again, his shiftmates were forced to nod glumly in agreement.
Stoker picked a newspaper up from his medicine stand. “Let’s see what’s on TV…” He flipped through the paper, ran down the program listings…and frowned. “Trash!”
Kelly’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Hmmm…sounds ‘spicy’. What channel is it on?”
The guys grinned.
Mike glanced down at the paper again. “All of them.”
Their grins broadened.
“What’s on—besides ‘trash’,” Marco inquired.
Mike glanced down at the program listings again. “Nothing.”
Chet suppressed a smile. “Sounds a little ‘dull’. I think I’ll pass on that one.”
The guys exchanged grins again. But then their amused expressions slowly vanished. Their glum gazes returned to the center of the ward and they exhaled audible sighs—of extreme ennui.
The four bored, bedridden firemen had an interesting—and rather heated—game of 'Toss The Numbered Tongue Depressors Into The Stainless-steel Bedpan' going.
That is, until an orderly stepped on one of the errant wooden wafers, slipped and nearly took a header into a doorpost.
The target—er, bedpan was quickly confiscated.
The disappointed tongue depressor tossers then attempted to keep themselves entertained with an 'Arts and Crafts' project.
The goal was to build a recognizable piece of firefighting apparatus, utilizing nothing but bits and pieces of tangled store string…and boxes of Kleenex tissues.
Mike, who had every square inch of his beloved 'Big Red' firmly committed to memory, turned his two boxes of tissues into an amazing replica of Engine 51—replete with side-mounted ladders and hose lines lying in the hose bed.
John was able to successfully assemble a reasonable facsimile of a rescue squad, complete with a light bar on the roof of the truck's cab and spare air bottles in back.
Marco's arts and crafts project proved to be a bit ambitious. Even with Gage and Kelly's leftover Kleenex, he ran out of tissues and ended up turning his snorkel rig into a regular ladder truck.
Chet built what he 'claimed' was a Chief's car.
The rest of the guys were forced to take his word for it.
All four firemen then went back to being bored…really bored.
Fifteen mind-numbingly boring minutes later…
Hank Stanley poked his head into the room. "I see the 'spiders'. But where's the 'web'?"
Upon spotting their 'on-duty' Captain standing in the doorway with an HT in his hand, the four moping firemen's moods immediately perked up.
"Cap!" Chet Kelly declared. "What are you doin' here? You ain't hurt…or nothin'?" he hopefully inquired.
"We were assisting 23's with a garage fire over on Meredith," Stanley informed his concerned-looking recuperating crew. "And, since we were already 'in the neighborhood', I decided I'd drop by and see how you guys are doin'. Just one a' the many perks of bein' a Captain," he added and pointed to the bugles on the collar of his uniform.
His guys traded grins. They knew that Meredith was no where near to being 'in the neighborhood'.
Hank glanced around the room again. "So…where's the 'web'?"
His men pointed to the floor beside the door.
There was a small wastebasket between the open portal and Stoker's hospital bed. The tiny container was currently overflowing with gobs of tangled store string.
"What happened to it?" their Captain inquired, disappointment clearly evident in his voice.
"Dr. Morton 'happened' to it," John replied, still sounding extremely dismayed.
The other men managed glum nods.
The Captain took in his crew's 'arts and crafts' projects. "Sheesh! You guys are bored. Are-en't you…"
His guys looked even glummer.
"Yeah…well," Hank flashed John, Mike and Marco each a sympathetic smile, "rumor has it, that the three of you may be released in the morning."
Gage, Stoker and Lopez looked elated.
Their Captain looked pleased. "So get a good night's sleep, and I'll stop by again, right after the shift…just in case you guys need a lift." Hank couldn't help but notice that, at the mention of 'a good night's sleep', his guys' faces had filled with gloom and doom again. His own face filled with concern. "What's the matter? Are you having trouble sleeping?" Though the question was posed to all three of his suddenly unhappy crewmen, his troubled gaze locked on Gage.
John nervously cleared his throat. "Ah-ah…no. No, Cap. I been sleeping just fine." He saw that his superior wasn't buying it and reluctantly came clean. "I, uh, just had a really…weird dream, is all."
"Me, too!" Mike and Marco chimed together.
Hank's anxiety level soared up a notch or two. "What d'yah mean 'weird'?"
Gage shrugged. "I dunno…I just never had a dream like that before. It was…just…so—"
"—Realistic?" Mike inserted.
The three 'realistic' dreamers exchanged amazed glances.
"Yeah!" Gage agreed. "It was more like a bad B Western movie, than a dream."
Lopez nodded vehemently in agreement. "Exactly! It was just like being in a movie."
The Captain gave each of the 'dreamers' a concerned once over…and then crossed over to Kelly. "What about you, Chester? Been having any 'weird' dreams lately?"
"No weirder than usual, Cap," Chet assured him.
Hank was forced to smile. But his smile quickly faded and his full attention returned to the remainder of his hospitalized crew. "Do your doctors know about these…dreams?" 'They will soon enough,' he silently resolved, upon seeing the three forlorn firemen shaking their heads. Stanley started heading for the exit. "Well, hang in there," he encouraged. "And I'll see you all again in the morning. I'll bring you your 'civies'." The Captain paused in the open doorway for a moment. "Oh…and…sweet dreams," he solemnly wished.
His guys flashed him back some grateful grins and bid him a 'Goodnight', as well.
Hank gave each of them one last deeply concerned glance—and then he was gone.
Less than an hour after Captain Stanley left, Dr. James Hendelson came strolling into the ward. "So…how's everybody doing?"
The four firemen greeted the grinning physician with half-hearted smiles and 'Okay's.
The toxicologist's smile faded fast. "Your Captain tells me that you've been experiencing some rather 'disturbing'—and entirely too realistic—dreams. He's concerned that this may be a lingering side effect of your DMCST exposure."
The three 'poisoned' patients exchanged solemn glances.
Gage then directed his anxious gaze back to the young doctor. "Are you?"
The physician opened his growing DMCST folder. "The heat treatments rendered the toxin inert. But they did not destroy it…entirely. I'm 'guessing' that—as the blood began to absorb and remove the toxic residue from the brain—it 'somehow' triggered these hallucinatory dreams."
The disturbed dreamers traded grave glances.
"How long will it take to remove the toxic residue…entirely?" Mike asked, sounding every bit as anxious as he looked.
The young doctor glanced up from his notes. "I'm 'hoping' that it is now completely gone. However, since I've been granted temporary privileges here…I took the liberty of prescribing a little 'something' that will provide the three of you with a dreamless, restful night's sleep. You're gonna need all the rest you can get. Word on the floor is, that they're gonna be giving you guys 'the boot' tomorrow morning. It may also interest you to know that copies of your medical records are being sent to Washington, D.C.."
Hendelson appeared somewhat astonished. "You guys are familiar with Drs. Dyer and Esch?"
"Isn't everybody?" Marco teased.
His fellow firefighters were forced to grin.
The young physician was even more flabbergasted.
John pulled one of the periodicals from the stack on his med' stand and explained about the magazine article they'd recently read.
The look on Hendelson's face went from 'completely perplexed' to 'duly impressed'. The doctor proceeded to give the firemen an impromptu—and extremely interesting—lecture on the Dyer/Esch Report. "Of course," he summed up, "you won't be mentioned by 'name'. But your case files will definitely be included in their next report."
"Anonymous celebrities!" Kelly lightly declared. "Instead of autographs, I'll just ask you guys for your case file numbers."
The 'anonymous celebrities' glanced at one another and rolled their eyes.
True to his word, Hank Stanley showed up at the hospital as soon as he was off-shift. He handed each of the 'dischargees' a bag, containing their civilian clothes, and then dropped into a chair…to wait. The Captain intended to give his crew a lift back to the Station, so they could pick up their parked cars. Hank was tremendously relieved to hear that his men had enjoyed a relatively peaceful night.
While waiting for their discharge papers to be processed, the three soon to be freed firemen regaled their Captain with just the 'gist' of their hallucinatory dreams—er, nightmares.
Hank was amazed to hear that he had actually played a role in each of their 'too realistic' dreams, as a Roman Centurion, a Captain in the United States Cavalry and a Knight in shining armor. His engineer then passed him a copy of the latest 'Popular Mechanics' magazine and suggested that he read a certain article of interest.
Gage slipped his shirt on and promptly rolled its sleeves up past his elbows. The paramedic then stood there, staring sadly down at his bare forearms. His wrists were scarred up from all of the IV needles they'd been subjected to. "Sheesh!" He glanced up and locked gazes with Kelly, who was being uncharacteristically quiet. "I should prob'ly start wearing my sleeves rolled down. Anybody sees these needle marks, they'll think I'm a 'hype', for sure!"
Chet forced a smile.
John finished dressing and stepped up to his moody friend's bedside. "I'll be back tonight…for a visit."
His glum chum nodded.
"Seems sort a' strange. Don't it?" John continued. "I'm the one who's usually stuck in the bed, and you're the one doing the visiting."
Chet forced another smile. "I'd rather be the visitor than the visitee—anyday!"
Gage gripped the visitee's left shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "The next few weeks will fly by so fast, you'll be out of that cast before yah even know it."
Kelly gave him an 'Oh, brother' look.
"I know," John came clean. "When you said that to me, I didn't buy it, either."
This time, Chet didn't have to try quite so hard to smile.
"I'm leaving you my magazines," John continued, "and a certain extra ordinary deck of playing cards."
"Thanks. Before you go, will you do me a favor?"
"Sure."
"Will you please tell me what I signed to you the other night?"
Gage couldn't help but grin. "Okay. What were you trying to sign?"
Kelly's eyes took on a mischievous glint. "Sit on it, John-boy!"
"Yeah? Well…that's probably exactly what you did sign," the paramedic shamelessly confessed.
Chet’s bottom jaw dropped open.
"What do you think, Cap?" Mike asked, as his Captain completed the article and closed the magazine. "Think that guy's right? That this job is a lot more dangerous today, than at any other time in history?"
Hank thought his reply over for a few moments. "As fires become deadlier, tools, techniques and training improve. As the nature of fires changes, we adapt right along with it. Firefighting is truly a work in progress—"
"—Of all the lowdown, sneaky, conniving," Chet Kelly exclaimed, when he could finally speak again.
The Captain's head swung in Gage and Kelly's direction.
Chet paused in his rant, to give the wryly-grinning paramedic a glare that was an equal mixture of admiration and envy.
"It was. Wasn't it," John admitted, not sounding even the teensiest bit repentant. "It's the company I keep."
Hank turned back to his engineer. "The, uh, firefighters are also ‘a work in progress’," he teased, and the two of them traded grins.
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