The Show Must Go On

 

By: Kenda

 

 

As with all of my stories, the structure of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, and its paramedic-training program, is fictionalized.  In this fictional universe, Johnny’s rank of Chief Paramedic Instructor would be equal to Roy’s rank as Captain. 

 

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Excerpt from Dancing With The Devil

 

It had been Johnny whom Chris had coerced into talking to his dad about the fact that Chris was dropping out of college. It had been Johnny whom Chris had coerced into telling Roy that his oldest son had signed on with the fire department to go through paramedic training. Not that Roy wasn't proud of having been a paramedic himself, and wouldn't be proud of Chris if he attained that goal, too. But above all else, Roy DeSoto wanted his three children to earn college degrees.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Chapter 1

 

Dust billowed around Heather Langford’s heels as she skipped down the path on her way to school. Bhagi’s elephants, Chanda, Kamala, and Madri, trumpeted a greeting to her.  The twelve-year-old stopped in front of the massive beasts. Their ankles were encircled by chains and tethered to iron hooks strong enough to keep a giant in place.  One by one they bent their huge gray heads and curled their trunks, as Heather patted them and cooed in a language only she and the elephants seemed to understand. 

 

Heather looked at Samara, tethered twenty yards away.  Her heart ached for the elephant.  Samara still bore the scars of the beating Bhagi had given her four days earlier when the elephant refused to perform at their show in San Francisco. Heather knew why Samara wouldn’t perform, and Bhagi, with all his knowledge of elephants, should have known why, too.  He had sold Samara’s sister, Sakari, to pay off his gambling debts. Jack Benton, the man who owned Benton Brothers Circus, had told Bhagi the debts had to be paid or else.  Every person who worked for Jack Benton, and even children of Benton’s employees like Heather, knew what ‘or else’ meant.  It meant you were fired, even if you were one of the best elephant trainers anywhere in the world. 

 

To keep his job, Bhagi sold Sakari to a zoo. Samara hadn’t been the same since. Elephants create family units like humans do.  When a member leaves the family for any reason, the other elephants grieve. They even cry real tears, like humans do - or so Bhagi had often told Heather back when he used to be nice.  But that was before his wife, Kumari, ran off with a man from another circus one night when they were putting on a huge show with eight other circuses in Las Vegas.  That had been almost a year ago now, and Bhagi was a different man from who he’d been when Kumari lived with him.  He never used to drink, or beat his animals, or gamble, and he never would have sold Sakari back when he was married. 

 

Heather’s father had tried to explain to her what a divorce could do to a man. Especially to a man like Bhagi, who was from India, where strong beliefs were held about the place a woman was to keep in her husband’s household. Heather hadn’t understood much of what her father had said.  After all, didn’t Bhagi feel like he still had a family amongst the circus people? 

 

Heather’s father always said everyone who worked for the Benton Brothers Circus, including Mr. Benton himself, was family, and Heather supposed that was true.  Other than her parents, and her eight-year-old brother, Jay, Heather really had no other family to speak of.  Yes, there were aunts and uncles and cousins and maternal grandparents who lived in North Carolina, but she only saw them once a year when the circus was traveling up the eastern seaboard.  They were all nice people, but they didn’t seem like family in the way Kristof, the Hungarian lion tamer did, or in the way Helenka and Rurik, the Russian acrobats did, or the way the twin bare-back riders, Juliana and Jolene, did, or even the way Mr. Benton himself did, though Heather was usually too shy to say anything to the imposing man with the ram-rod straight posture and the slicked back hair the color of coal.  She never managed to get out more than a quiet, “Hello,” before scurrying out of his path.  Her mother and father got along fine with him though, but then, her father had been born a circus kid, just like Heather had. His parents had worked for Jack Benton’s father and uncle, which was the reason the word ‘Brothers’ was still a part of the circus’s name, even though Jack Benton himself had three sisters.

 

Heather walked to Samara.  The elephant’s eyes were so filled with sorrow Heather wanted to cry.  She laid her head against the elephant’s right ear, and ran a gentle hand over an open wound left in Samara’s side from Bhagi’s whip.

 

“Oh, Samara, I’m so sor—“

 

“Hey!  Hey, girl! You get ‘way from there now!  Go on!  Go on with you!”

 

Heather turned. A dark headed man wearing a white robe and loose fitting trousers beneath it stomped toward her. 

 

“But, Bhagi, Samara just needs a friend.  She’s sad and—“

 

“Don’t you be telling Bhagi what that animal needs.  Are you the elephant trainer around here, girl?”

 

“No, but--”

 

“But nothing.  Now go on! Get out of here!”

 

“But Samara’s sad.  She misses Sakari.  You’re the one who told me they’ve been together forever.  That they’ve been sisters for more than twenty-five years.”

 

“Never mind what I tell you,” Bhagi scolded in heavily accented English. “When you are the elephant trainer for Jack Benton, then you will make the decisions.  But for now, I am the trainer, and I know what is best for my animals.  Go on, now.  Go!”

 

“But--”

 

Samara roared a warning and pushed Heather out of the way with her trunk when Bhagi raised his whip. 

 

“Get out of here, girl!  Go!”

 

Heather stood frozen for a moment, wondering if Bhagi would really strike her with his whip.  Her hazel eyes were wide with fear as Bhagi advanced on her.  Samara’s trunk nudged Heather’s back, giving her a little shove in the opposite direction of the irate trainer.  The girl stumbled over her feet, then started running toward the trailer where school classes were held for the children of circus employees.

 

Tears ran down Heather’s face as she heard the whip’s  ‘thwack’ against Samara’s side.  The elephant bellowed in pain again and again, her skin far more sensitive than what most people realized. The other elephants began bellowing, too, as though they understood what was going on and were crying with Samara. Heather flew past the makeshift school, her tennis shoes churning up a cloud of dust as she headed for a grove of trees. The girl collapsed behind a thick oak.  She peered out, watching from a distance as Samara’s beating went on and on until Kristof appeared and pulled Bhagi away from the animal.  The men exchanged heated words, but somehow Kristof managed to convince Bhagi that enough was enough. 

 

Long after the men had disappeared from view, and long after the school day had started, Heather remained behind the tree.  She hid her head in her arms and sobbed for the beautiful animal that was being treated so cruelly, all because one man couldn’t come to terms with his own pain.

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 John Gage hurried to the front door that Wednesday evening. He was an hour late, and hoped they hadn’t delayed the party because of him.  He smiled when he saw the living room curtains part and a little head peek through the opening.  He heard the boy’s feet pounding against the floor, then the door was flung open.

 

“Uncle Johnny! Uncle Johnny!”

 

Johnny opened the storm door and scooped up the auburn haired boy with his right arm. The paramedic balanced John DeSoto on his hip, nudged the door closed with his foot, all the while keeping a grip on the K-mart bag he was holding with his left hand.

 

“Hey, Little Pally.”

 

“Ya’ know what, Uncle Johnny?”

 

“No, John. What?”

 

“It’s my birthday.”

 

Johnny’s eyes widened, as though the significance of this date, January 16th, was a surprise to him, and as though he wasn’t carrying a bagful of presents. 

 

“It is?”

 

“Yeah. And now that you’re here, it’s time for my party.”

 

 The boy pointed to the dining area beyond the living room. Pale blue streamers were anchored to the ceiling and twisted in spirals down to the center of the table. A bouquet of red, blue, green, and yellow balloons had been secured with string and hung upside down from the light fixture.  A blue banner was strung along the south wall that read, Happy Birthday, John, and the birthday boy’s chair was festooned with two helium-filled Mylar balloons. One was silver with the words Happy Birthday in red lettering, and the other was green and had a large yellow 6 in the center of it.

 

Johnny put his namesake down.  The boy tore through the house announcing, “Uncle Johnny’s here!  Uncle Johnny’s here!  It’s time to start my party!”

 

Roy poked his head around the corner of the kitchen.  “Hi, partner.”

 

Though John Gage and Roy DeSoto hadn’t been partners in two years now, they still referred to each other as such. The word had long ago lost its true meaning for both of them – a person associated with another in some common activity, job, or interest.  Instead, the word ‘partner’ when spoken by either man signified the friendship that had started in Squad 51 in January of 1972, and had only grown stronger in the thirteen years that had passed since that time.

 

“Hey, Pally,” Johnny said in return as he walked through the living room.  “Sorry I’m late.  I got hung up in a meeting with Brackett. I’ve got a kid who’ll make a great paramedic if he’d just lose his cocky attitude, keep his mouth shut, and learn to quit pissin’ Brackett off.”

 

Roy gave a sly smile.  “Gee, sounds like a young paramedic I used to know.”

 

Johnny arched a challenging eyebrow at his friend.  “Oh, really?  Who?”

 

Roy chuckled, but refrained from saying the obvious as Johnny entered the dining area. He walked to a corner by the patio doors where presents were stacked, knelt and took wrapped gifts from the bag he’d carried in.  Joanne looked over the snack bar.

 

“Johnny, you spoil him. John doesn’t need that many presents.  One would have been enough. Actually, you didn’t have to bring him anything.”

 

Johnny stood and handed Roy the bag through the opening between the snack bar’s counter top and the upper cabinets. 

 

“Here, you can throw this away if you want to.”  Johnny turned his attention to Joanne as she rounded the counter and kissed his cheek.  “Since when do I show up here without a present for someone’s birthday?”

 

“Never, but I don’t want you to feel obligated, either.”

 

“Joanne, you’ve been saying that to me for the last thirteen years.”

 

“And I’ll probably be saying it for the next thirteen.”

 

“You probably will,” Johnny agreed with a grin.

 

The woman took in the man she hadn’t seen since mid-December. Johnny had celebrated an early Christmas with the DeSotos, and had played ‘Uncle Johnny Santa Claus’ for John, before heading to Montana to spend the holidays with his father, sister, and grandfather.  Johnny had been the head of the fire department’s paramedic training program since March of 1983. Likewise, Roy had taken over as captain of Station 26 at that time. 

 

“You look good, Johnny.  How was Christmas with your family?”

 

“Fine. It was nice to get home for a few days.”

 

“The perks of being a paramedic instructor, and not a station captain,” Roy complained, while taking two bubbling casserole dishes of ravioli out of the oven.

 

“Well, Roy,” Johnny pilfered a slice of the garlic bread Joanne was cutting at the kitchen counter,  “I guess next time you’ll think twice and take the cushy job.”

 

Roy chuckled, knowing that Johnny’s job was hardly ‘cushy’ though in Johnny’s eyes maybe it was, when you compared it to the stress that came with being a station captain. 

 

John raced back into the room and scrambled onto his chair. He looked at the stack of presents that had grown higher since he’d left.

 

“Whoa! Now this is what I call a party.” 

 

That adults exchanged amused glances at Roy’s youngest child, who had long ago perfected the role of family clown. Joanne often said he was more like his Uncle Johnny than he was like either her or Roy, which Roy claimed must have come from naming John for John Gage.

 

“If I’d only known,” Roy would often bemoan when one of John’s antics got the little boy mired in more trouble than any child needed.

 

John wasn’t any more concerned with his exploits than his Uncle Johnny had ever been concerned with his own.  Right now, there were more important things on the kindergartner’s mind. 

 

“Is the party gonna start now, Mom?”

 

“In a minute.” Joanne looked down the hallway where the four bedrooms were located. She could hear music coming from Jennifer’s room, and the faint sound of a television program coming from Chris’s. “Where are your brother and sister?”

 

John shrugged. “I don’t know. I told ‘em Uncle Johnny was here.”  He reached for a slice of the garlic bread Joanne had placed in a basket on the table. 

 

“Not yet, John.  Wait until everyone is seated and we begin passing the food.”

 

“But Uncle Johnny’s eating a piece.”

 

Johnny turned away and swallowed. When he turned back to face the boy, he smiled and winked. “No, I’m not.”

 

John grinned and pointed a finger.  “You had a piece.”

 

“Did not.”’

 

“Did too!”

 

“Did not.”

 

“Did too!”

 

“Did--”

 

Joanne held up her hands. “Boys, that’s enough.  Behave yourselves.”

 

John laughed, then pointed at Johnny again. “You got in trouble from my mom, Uncle Johnny.”

 

Johnny placed a hand on top of John’s head as he sat down next to the boy. “It’s not the first time, Little Pally, and it probably won’t be the last.”

 

“No, it probably won’t be,” Joanne agreed with a smile. She looked down the hallway as, one by one, Roy set the casserole dishes on the hot pads Joanne had put on the table. “Chris! Jennifer!  Supper is ready!”

Joanne heard Billy Joel cease to play from Jennifer’s boom box.  The fifteen-year-old bounced into the room. She was dressed in faded Levi’s, a red sweatshirt that declared in white lettering, Property of the Carson High School Cheerleading Squad, and she had her blond hair pulled up in a ponytail. She kissed Johnny on the cheek as she breezed by his chair.

 

“Hi, Uncle Johnny!”

 

“Hey, Jenny Bean. You get prettier and prettier each time I see you.  Your old man is gonna have to lock you in your room in order to keep the boys away.”

 

Jennifer grimaced.  “He already does.”

 

“Oh, I do not,” Roy negated.

 

“You do, too.  You won’t let me go out with Brad Hall.”

 

“That’s because Brad Hall is nineteen and a sophomore in college.”

 

“So?”

 

“So,” Roy said as he sat down at the head of the table, “you’re fifteen and a sophomore in high school.”

 

“I’ll be sixteen in April.”

 

“Good for you.  But you’re still not going out with Brad Hall.”

 

“Dad!”

 

“Jennifer, not tonight.  Not on the night of your brother’s birthday party.”

 

Jennifer turned pleading eyes on the one man who had never been able to say no to her. “Uncle Johnny?”

 

“Oh, no,” Johnny shook his head.  “I’m not gettin’ in the middle of this one.”

 

“You’ve gotten smart in your old age, Junior.”

 

“Uncle Johnny, come on.  Please tell Dad it’s okay for me to date Brad Hall.”

 

“Nope.”

 

Gone was the young lady of only moments earlier, to be replaced by a little girl who crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “Why not?”

 

“Because I agree with him. It’s not okay.  No college guy has any business dating my Jenny Bean.”

 

The girl rolled her eyes. “You’re as bad as my dad.”

 

Johnny laughed. “Maybe even worse, Jen, so don’t think I’m gonna give you permission to date some punk who’s only after one thing.”

 

“Brad’s not a punk. And how do you know he’s only after one thing?”

 

There was no way Johnny was going to tell Jennifer DeSoto how he knew what most young men of nineteen were after from a beautiful girl, anymore than he’d reveal that to a daughter of his own. 

 

“Because it’s like your dad said.  Your uncle Johnny has gotten smart in his old age.”

 

John looked up at the paramedic. “What thing is Brad after, Uncle Johnny? ‘Cause if it’s my presents, I don’t want him hangin’ around here, that’s for sure.”

 

Jennifer scowled at her brother while the grownups laughed.

 

“He’s not after your presents,” Jennifer said. She looked at Roy and Johnny. “He’s not after anything. Brad’s not that kind of guy.”

 

“I don’t care what kind of guy he is, or what he may or may not be after,” Roy said. “We’ve had this discussion before. You’re not dating a college sophomore.” 

 

Roy turned so he was facing the wall the hallway intersected. “Christopher! Get a move on!  Supper is ready!”

 

     Like his daughter, the captain scowled as he swiveled in his seat to face the table again. “You’d think a nineteen-year- old could pull himself away from the T.V. long enough to attend his little brother’s birthday party.”

 

Johnny could tell that Jennifer’s mention of Brad Hall was wearing on Roy’s nerves, and could easily guess this had been an on-going debate in the DeSoto house during recent weeks. Whether something else was going on too, or whether Roy was simply hungry, tired, and ready to get the birthday party underway for a six-year-old who could barely contain his excitement, Johnny didn’t know.  He caught an undercurrent in Roy’s tone that told him the man was upset about something that went beyond Brad Hall and hunger, but Johnny knew Roy’s job was often stressful, and he also knew it wasn’t easy raising a family when your kids ranged in age from six to nineteen. Though Roy and Joanne considered John to be an enormous blessing they wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on, Johnny surmised that there were times when Roy thought his years of having children underfoot would be just about over if it wasn’t for the unexpected third child who had arrived six years ago today.

 

Roy started to yell again, “Chris--” when the young man sauntered into the room.  Chris raised a hand as he passed Johnny’s chair. The two exchanged a cross between a high-five and a handshake while briefly gripping each other’s palms.

 

“Hey, Christopher. How’s it goin’?”

 

“Okay, Uncle Johnny. How about with you?  How’s the training going?”

 

“Great.” Johnny’s eyes twinkled as they slid to Roy. “With the exception of one young smart aleck who resembles no one I’m familiar with, I’ve got a good group of kids.”

 

Chris walked by his brother, rounded the table where his father was sitting at the end by the patio doors, and took his seat next to Jennifer. Roy listened as Chris asked Johnny a smattering of questions about the paramedic-training program, while Joanne started passing food around the table. Roy wished he had the easy camaraderie with his nineteen-year-old that John Gage did.  Not that he begrudged Johnny the man’s friendship with Chris, but lately Chris was growing more and more difficult for Roy to understand. The captain had thought the struggles of the teen years where Chris was concerned were behind him.  Chris had been an easy kid to raise, and had rarely caused Joanne and Roy problems.  Jennifer was the more assertive and explosive personality amongst Roy’s teenagers. Roy knew that by the time she was eighteen, he would have earned, through sleepless nights and multiple arguments over curfew, privileges, household chores, and Brad Hall, every gray hair that was beginning to creep onto his head.  But Chris – well, just when Roy had expected his relationship with his oldest son to become more equal, more man to man than father to son, Roy felt they were drifting apart.

 

Roy’s mind wandered from the chatter going on around the dinner table as he accepted the potholders and casserole dish Johnny passed him.  Without giving it conscious thought, Roy ladled ravioli onto John’s plate, then onto his own plate, before passing the dish to Chris. Other foods were passed that Roy barely noticed, though when he looked down he saw that he’d once again dished servings up for John and himself. 

 

The fire captain tried to shake off his mood.  There was something that troubled him about the way Chris questioned Johnny about the paramedic-training program.  There was a light in Chris’s eyes, and an excitement to his voice, that was absent when Roy talked to the young man about the freshman classes he was taking at U.S.C. 

 

When it had come time to send off college applications the previous year, Chris had been hesitant to do so, and Roy couldn’t understand why.  Chris was an excellent student, and at semester break had been slated to graduate amongst the top ten students in his class.  Roy and Joanne had been so proud of him. Five hundred kids made up Chris’s senior class at Carson High School, so to be ranked that high academically was quite an achievement.  An achievement Chris didn’t seem to care about, nor seemed willing to capitalize on. Chris’s indifferent attitude toward college had prompted Roy to remind the teen several times that an opportunity awaited him that Roy had never had, and to remind Chris he was expected to take that opportunity and make a success of himself. 

 

“But, Dad--” was the way those conversations during Chris’s senior year in high school always began.  

 

“There are no buts about this, Chris,” Roy had said quietly, yet firmly, time and time again.  “Please start to give the decision of where you’ll attend college top priority, so your mother and I will know how to plan the family budget for next year.”

 

“But I don’t want you and Mom to have to struggle because of me. I can work for a couple of years and then--”

 

“You’ll have to continue to work part time while you attend school.”

 

“I know, but that’s not what I meant. I meant that I could go to college later.  A few years from now, after I’ve saved some money, I can--”

 

“No,” Roy could still remember himself saying. “If you don’t go right of out high school...if you work a few years first, then you’ll never go.”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“Just because I do.  Because before you know it, marriage will come along, and a family, and that means a mortgage payment, and car payments, and braces, and too many bills for me to list right now. Chris, you’re young. Now is the time to complete your education, before you have obligations to a wife and children.”

 

“But, Dad, I was thinking that if I joined the fire department and went into the paramedic program--”

 

Whatever Chris was going to say after that, and Roy knew exactly what it was, Roy put a stop to it by holding up a hand.

 

“No. Not right now.  If, after you’ve graduated from college, you choose to join the fire department, I’ll support that choice.  But I want you to get a degree first, Chris.  I’ve seen too many guys get burned out by the time they’re thirty from the stress of being a paramedic.  I’ve seen too many guys injured on the job, and not able to return to the department as a result of the injury.  Because of things like that, I know how important it is for you to have a college degree to fall back on.”

 

“But you don’t have a college degree.”

 

“No, I don’t. And I’m in the exact category I was talking about a few minutes ago.”

 

“What category?”

 

“I couldn’t go to school and earn a degree now, even if I wanted to.  Not if your mother is going to stay out of the work force until John is in high school, which is what she and I want.  Between our household bills, and your college tuition, and the fact that your mom is going to need a new car within a year, and future education expenses for Jennifer and John, I can’t afford to attend college, even on a limited basis.  So see, this is why I’m telling you to take college seriously now, son, when you have the chance to enjoy it and devote yourself to it.”

 

“But you and Mom shouldn’t have to struggle because of me - because of my college expenses. I can work for a few years, save all the money I can, and then pay for my schooling myself.”

 

“No. I’ve always planned to put all of my kids through college.  Don’t worry, Chris.  Your mom and I can do this.  We want to do it.  So what if we have to tighten our belts a bit?  We’ve done it before, and I imagine by the time John finally graduates from college, we will have done it again more than once.”

 

Roy had patted his son on the back that night, gestured to the college catalogs on the teen’s nightstand with a wave of his hand that silently told Chris to start looking through them, then left the room.  Roy looked back at it now and knew he hadn’t left the room, as much as he’d fled the room - so he wouldn’t have to hear Chris tell him that he wanted to be a paramedic.  With Johnny’s help, Chris had tried to broach that subject with Roy during the fall of Chris’s senior year, but Roy had let both of them know that notion wasn’t going to be entertained.

 

 If, after Chris earns his degree, he decides to join the fire department...well, I’ll accept that choice, Roy thought as he watched his family and John Gage eat. He’ll be twenty-two by then and more aware of what he wants to do with his life.  But he should take some pre-med courses at school and see if anything related to the paramedic field is what he’s really interested in. If he’d just keep an open mind about school, he’d discover some career that he wants to pursue and from there, declare a major, instead of barely passing classes he’s capable of earning A’s in.  If he’d pick a major, then joining the fire department wouldn’t be so appealing. I don’t want him to have to struggle financially like I did when he and Jennifer were small.  Like I still have to do at times now that we have one in college, one in high school, and one in kindergarten. 

 

Nothing more had been said between Chris and his father about college attendance versus joining the fire department.  Three days after Roy’s conversation with his son, Chris announced he’d attend U.S.C. It was Chris who suggested he live at home and commute to school for at least the first year. After that, he said he might get an apartment with some friends, or choose to get a dorm room, but as of now he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move out. Roy had been concerned Chris had made this choice because of the DeSotos’ budget, but Chris had given Roy a smile that made him seem far older than he was and said, “Don’t worry about it, Dad.  It’s not that important.”

 

Now Roy wondered if what Chris had really meant that day almost a year ago, was that college wasn’t that important to him, so everything else that went along with it wasn’t important either.

 

Johnny subtly eyed Roy while conversation continued to buzz around them. Chris had dropped the subject of the paramedic program when Johnny gave him a tight shake of his head that conveyed the message, “Not in front of your dad, Chris.”

 

Joanne, Chris, and Jennifer were now talking about an upcoming carnival at Jennifer’s school that the cheerleaders were sponsoring, while John jabbered to Johnny about how this was his third birthday party.

 

“First, I had one that my friends came to. Then I had one with Grandma DeSoto, Grandpa and Grandma Stellman, and Aunt Eileen, and now I’m having this one that you’re at, Uncle Johnny. I’m a pretty lucky kid, aren’t I?”

 

“You sure are,” Johnny answered, while taking note of Roy’s pensive mood and knowing his assumption was correct when he surmised that Roy didn’t approve of Chris’s interest in the paramedic program.  “You’re one lucky little squirt.”

 

“I’m not a lucky little squirt. I’m a lucky Little Pally.”

 

Johnny smiled at the boy. Like a typical six-year-old, John was doing his best to cram his favorite foods – ravioli and garlic bread – into his mouth at the same time. His lips were rimmed red from the sauce, but Johnny had learned from experience that there was no use in telling the boy to wipe his face until after John was through eating. 

 

No wonder Roy’s tired and not in the mood to argue with Jennifer over Bill...or Bob...or Brian...or whatever his name was. Three birthday parties is a little over the top.  Joanne didn’t have to do this.

 

With that last thought, Johnny was acknowledging the fact that he hadn’t been able to attend the family birthday party that had been held for John the previous Sunday afternoon, because he had pulled a twenty-four shift at Station 44 with two student paramedics. He could have just as easily dropped the gifts off for John without there being dinner and another party involved. However, Johnny knew this was Joanne’s way of getting a home cooked meal into him, while also allowing he and Roy to spend time together.  Though they still saw one another on occasion through the course of their jobs, ‘on occasion’ was far different, and less frequent, than when they’d worked together out of Station 51.  That had been the one drawback to the choices they’d both made two years ago.

 

Roy had loved being a paramedic, but for financial reasons, had to consider advancement opportunities, which was what prompted him to take the captain’s exam.  As for Johnny, he might have taken the captain’s exam too, if it hadn’t been for the opportunity Kelly Brackett had given him to head the paramedic training program. With Roy no longer Johnny’s partner, there was nothing to keep the man at Station 51. The A-shift had been a special team, but all good things must come to an end, as the saying went. Mike Stoker had taken the captain’s exam at the same time Roy had, and was now captain of Station 88’s B-shift. Hank Stanley had advanced to battalion chief nine months earlier, which left only Marco and Chet at Station 51. Though Johnny missed the crew he had worked with for so long, he had no regrets about his new position as chief paramedic instructor, any more than he imagined Roy had regrets over his position. They had both deserved the new responsibilities, and the increase in pay that came with them.

 

Food was passed around the table again for second helpings.  By the time everyone was finished, John was bouncing in his chair with anticipation of what was to come.  As Roy stood and crossed to the snack bar where a chocolate cake sat, John warned, “Make sure there’s six candles on that cake, Daddy.  And don’t start anything on fire when you light ‘em, ‘cause if you do, the firemen will make fun of you when they have to come to our house and spray it with water.”

 

John’s words chased away Roy’s blue mood.  He laughed and assured, “I think your old daddy can handle lighting a few candles, John.”

 

“Well, if you do start a fire, I guess Uncle Johnny can probably put it out.”

 

Johnny winked at the boy.  “Your dad and Uncle Johnny will put out the fire together, just like we used to.”

 

“Back when you guys were young, you mean?”

 

Joanne choked on the ice water she was sipping. She couldn’t help but laugh at Johnny and Roy’s expressions – a cross between indignation and surprise, as though neither of them could fathom that anyone thought they were too old to put out fires.

 

“I’ll give ya’ this much, Little Pally,” Johnny said. “Given that bald spot on the back of your dad’s head that keeps getting bigger, he’s on the high side of bein’ old.  But your uncle Johnny,” Johnny splayed a hand a cross his chest just like Joanne could have predicted, “your uncle Johnny’s not much more than a kid.”

 

“You’ll be forty next year,” Jennifer reminded. 

 

Even though John Gage’s fortieth birthday was a year and a half away, the DeSotos had already been discussing the surprise party they would host for him. On this night in January of 1985, no one could imagine that by the time Johnny turned forty in August of 1986, he would no longer be living in Los Angeles, Chris would be in a wheelchair, and the friendship that had started so many years earlier in Squad 51, would be shattered into pieces Johnny didn’t know how to put back together, and Roy had no desire to.

 

 In response to Jennifer’s words, Johnny said, “Forty’s not that old, Jenny Bean.”

 

Roy arched an eyebrow as he set John’s cake in the middle of the table.  “You sure thought it was when I turned forty.”

 

“On you, forty’s old.  On me, it’ll be just right.”

 

“Because I was subjected to your twisted logic far too often when we were partners, I’m not even gonna ask what that’s supposed to mean.”

 

“Oh yeah? Well, you should, ‘cause ya’ see, Roy, it’s like this. When it comes to bein’ forty, you--”

 

Though Jennifer and Chris were following the banter in anticipation of what was going to come next, young John didn’t have the interest, or the patience, for the playful bickering his father and his uncle Johnny so often engaged in.  He eyed the cake with its flaming candles and said, “Hey, isn’t anyone gonna sing happy birthday to me so we can eat that cake and I can open my presents?”

 

This was one time Joanne didn’t admonish her youngest for interrupting an adult.  Knowing Johnny, he was just getting warmed up.  As far as she was concerned, the men could continue the debate over old age in the living room after the party was finished. 

 

“Yes, John, we’re going to sing happy birthday right now.”

 

Whatever Johnny was going to say was forgotten as Joanne started singing ‘Happy Birthday’ and everyone else joined in.  When the birthday boy had blown out the candles, Joanne sliced the cake and served it.  John ate just two mouthfuls before he was begging to open his presents.  Because it was getting late and he had school the next day, Joanne allowed the boy to hop off his chair and carry his presents to the table. Roy pushed John’s dishes aside so there was room for the six-year-old to pile everything.  He hadn’t opened any gifts from his parents or siblings yet, so between those packages, and the packages Johnny had carried in, it looked more like a Christmas celebration as opposed to a birthday celebration as far as Roy was concerned.  He watched as his son chose a gift and started unwrapping it.

 

When it comes to presents and parties, John’s been spoiled in a way Chris and Jennifer never were. We couldn’t afford more than a couple of presents for either of them when they were his age, let alone hosting three parties. When Chris turned six we had to limit his guest list to just two boys, because we couldn’t afford party favors and food for more than that.

 

The captain didn’t begrudge his youngest the privilege of having been born at a time when Roy’s salary was higher, but he often worried they were spoiling John in ways they shouldn’t.  He smiled slightly when John began to unwrap the mountain of gifts Johnny had brought.

 

Guess we don’t spoil him nearly as much as Johnny does. 

 

Roy and Joanne dutifully exclaimed over the four G.I. Joe action figures John held up that had been gifts from Johnny, followed by a G.I. Joe vehicle.

 

“Wow! It’s the Cobra Water Moccasin!” The boy’s eyes lit up when he looked at Johnny. “It’s just what I wanted, Uncle Johnny!  I asked Santa Claus for it, but he didn’t bring it.  How did you know that?”

 

“Oh, your Uncle Johnny’s a psychic.”

 

“What’s that mean?”

 

“It means he’s nuts,” Roy answered.

 

“I said psychic, Roy.”

 

“Oh, sorry about that.  I thought you said you were a psych-o.”

 

Jennifer and Chris laughed again, while John went on ignoring the men. His next gifts from Johnny were two transformers, followed by a children’s puzzle of a fire engine.  He finally came to a plain white envelope that had his name on it.  The boy opened it, expecting to find a birthday card inside.  Instead, he pulled out two manila tickets that had pictures of clowns on them.  He scrunched his nose as he studied the tickets, then held them up.

 

“What are these, Uncle Johnny?”

 

“Tickets to the Benton Brothers Circus.”

 

“A circus?” John’s hazel eyes grew wide with excitement.  Really?”

 

“Really.”

 

“I’ve never been to a circus before.”

 

“Then I guess you and I will have to use those tickets on Saturday and go. And if it’s okay with your folks, I can pick you up after school on Friday, and you can spend the night with me on the ranch.”

 

John’s head swiveled from Joanne to Roy, then back again.

 

“Can I?  Can I stay at Uncle Johnny’s and then go to the circus?”

 

Roy stroked his chin, while pretending to mull his son’s request over.  Johnny had already arranged this outing with Roy and Joanne prior to buying the tickets, though Roy didn’t tell John that.

 

“Well...let me see.  Are you going to behave yourself?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Are you going to do exactly what Uncle Johnny tells you to?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Are you going to clean your room before you go?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“And cook my supper?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“And bring me my newspaper and slippers?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“And clean the bathroom?”

 

“Daddy!”

 

“Well, are you?”

 

“Daddy, quit teasing.”

 

Roy chuckled. “All right, no more teasing.  But I was serious about my first two questions.  Can you behave yourself and obey Uncle Johnny?”

 

“Yep.  I’ll be the best boy you ever saw.”

 

“Glad to hear it.  I hope the ‘best boy I ever saw’ comes back home with Uncle Johnny, too.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Never mind,” Roy dismissed, knowing the humor had gone over John’s head.  “Yes, you can spend the night with Uncle Johnny and go to the circus.”

 

“Yea!”  John looked up at Johnny. “Did you hear that? I get to have a sleepover at your house and then go to the circus.”

 

“Sounds like a good time to me.”

 

“Oh, it’ll be a good time all right,” John assured as he turned his attention to the gifts Chris and Jennifer had given him that he had yet to open.  “I’m a pretty fun guy, you know.”

 

Johnny laughed at Roy’s youngest. “So I’ve heard.”

 

Fifteen minutes later, the table was piled with dirty dishes and discarded wrapping paper. Joanne made certain John thanked everyone for his gifts, then stood.

 

     “Chris, would you please help John carry his presents to his room.”

 

     “But I wanna play with ‘em!”

 

     “You can, but in your room.  And only until I get the kitchen cleaned up. When I’m through, it’s off to bed for you, young man.”

 

     “But, Mom, I haven’t even gotten to play with anything yet.”

 

     “You can play with your new toys after school tomorrow.”

 

     “But I wanna play with ‘em now.”

 

     Roy gave his son a stern look.  “John, do as your mother says. You’ve had plenty of fun for one night. It’s past your bed time as it is.”

 

Roy looked at Jennifer next, who was still seated at the table.  “Please help your mother clear the table and clean up the kitchen.”

 

“But I’ve got homework to do.”

 

“You should have been doing that before the party started, instead of talking to Amy on the phone.”

 

“I’ll help Mom, if you’ll let me ask Brad Hall to the Valentine’s Day dance.”

 

“Jennifer--”

 

“Dad, come on. You’re not being fair.”

 

“As long as you live in my house, I don’t have to be fair.  Now help your mother.”

 

“But Chris doesn’t have to.”

 

Roy gave his oldest son a pointed look as the young man stood to help John gather his gifts.  “Chris is going to be studying.”

 

Jennifer whined, “But I need to study, too.”

 

Roy took a long, slow deep breath, which indicated to Johnny the man was about to lose his temper.  Jennifer must have realized it as well, because she jumped to her feet and picked up a stack of plates.

 

     “Never mind.  I’ll help Mom.”

 

     “Thank you,” Roy said as he stood as well.  He looked at Johnny and indicated to the living room. “Let’s go in there.”

 

     Johnny thanked Joanne for the meal, then followed Roy into the living room.  He sat in a recliner that was positioned on the right side of the fireplace hearth, while Roy sat in its twin on the left side of the hearth. Both men reached for the wooden handles attached to the sides of the chairs.  They pulled back on them, brought the footrests up, and then splayed their feet out in front of them.

 

     Roy leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes for a moment. Johnny smiled while listening to the hubbub coming from the kitchen and dining room. He could hear Jennifer walking back and forth between the two areas, all the while bemoaning the fact that her father wouldn’t let her date Brad Hall.  John chattered to Chris about his new toys as the two made multiple trips between the table and John’s bedroom.  It wasn’t until things quieted down – until John was in his room playing, and Chris was in his room studying, and Jennifer and Joanne were in the kitchen with the dishwasher cycling, meaning its sound drowned out any complaints Jennifer might be making, that Roy opened his eyes. He looked over at Johnny.

 

     “If, in the future, you ever think about having kids, remember this night before you do.”

 

     Johnny laughed. He knew that Roy wouldn’t trade his children for all the money in the world, but he also knew Roy was acknowledging that it wasn’t always easy being a father.

    

     “I don’t think I’m gonna have to be concerned with kids of my own.”

 

     Because Roy and Johnny no longer worked together each day, Roy wasn’t always up to speed on who was the latest woman in John Gage’s life. 

 

     “So, you’re not seeing Shelly any more?”

 

     “Nope. Haven’t seen her in three months. Haven’t seen Barbara, Janice, or Sue in a while either.”

 

     “They all came after Shelly?”

 

     “Yep.”

 

     “Oh.  Well, if nothing else, you can still reel ‘em in as fast as you did in your younger days.”

 

     “That’s true.  But can’t seem to hold onto ‘em any better than I did back then.”

 

     “You will when the right one comes along.”

 

     Johnny shrugged, leaving Roy uncertain if having a wife and children made little difference to him, or if he’d simply given up hope of ever finding another woman he’d like to marry and start a family with.

 

     Maybe he really can’t put the tragedy of Kim and Jessie behind him, no matter how hard he acts like just the opposite is true.

 

     John Gage was an anomaly if there ever was one, as far as Roy was concerned.  The two men had been best friends for six years before Roy knew Johnny had married shortly after he’d graduated from high school.  Johnny’s wife and fourteen-month-old daughter had been murdered by a jealous ex-boyfriend of Kim’s.  Johnny had been severely injured while trying to ward off the attacker.  Roy had known nothing about any of this – that Johnny had been married, that he’d been a father, that his wife and child had been killed – until events took place in April of 1978 that had Johnny risking his life in an effort to keep Jennifer from the clutches of a man bent on violence.  Those events forced John Gage to travel full circle, and face what he’d left behind in Montana – a dead wife and child he’d never fully mourned. 

 

     After Johnny had returned from Montana that summer of 1978, Roy thought the man would finally be ready to make a commitment to another woman.  A woman who wasn’t Kim.  He expected to see Johnny fall head over heels in love with some woman – a woman who wouldn’t be in Johnny’s life for just two days, or two weeks, or two months, before Johnny found a reason why the relationship wouldn’t work and broke it off.  Or, until he did something to annoy the woman so she was the one forced to break up with him.  Roy had long ago figured out that Johnny, more often than not, gave whatever woman he was seeing a reason to break up with him, simply because Johnny didn’t want to hurt her feelings by initiating the termination of the relationship.   Roy often wondered if Johnny feared he’d lose another wife and child to a tragedy like he’d lost Kim and Jessie, and if that was why the man wouldn’t allow himself to carry a relationship far enough that it led to marriage.

 

     He always talks a good talk.  There’s always some woman he’s seeing, some woman he has available to bring to any event where a person feels more comfortable being a part of a couple – the firemen’s ball, Rampart’s Christmas party, Chet’s wedding last year...but despite what Johnny says and how down he acts after the break up, he never seems to really care that it didn’t work out.

 

     Roy shook off his thoughts.  There was little point in letting Johnny’s single status bother him, if it didn’t bother Johnny.  Despite the quirkiness that would always be a part of John Gage, Roy knew his friend would make a terrific father, but he supposed Johnny was correct.  The man would be thirty-nine in August and had been single for many years now.  Like Johnny, Roy doubted if his former partner would ever have to be concerned with putting a son through college, or arguing with a fifteen-year-old over dating privileges, or hosting three birthday parties for a lively six-year-old.

 

     Thinking of his lively six-year-old prompted Roy to say, “Thanks for letting John stay at your place on Friday, and then taking him to the circus on Saturday.”

 

     “You’re welcome. Glad to do it. I haven’t spent as much time with him as I did with Chris and Jen.”

 

     Roy nodded. Between Johnny’s small ranch, his horses, his job as paramedic trainer, and the fact that he still worked as an active duty paramedic when classes weren’t in session, he was busy. And unlike when Chris and Jennifer were small and Roy would occasionally ask Johnny to baby-sit so he could take Joanne out for the evening, there had been little need to request that service of Johnny for John.  The age differences between the two older DeSoto children and their younger brother meant the occasional baby-sitting duty fell to Chris or Jennifer.

 

     “Joanne will let the school know you’re picking him up. Kindergarten gets out at noon.”

 

     “I’ll be there.”

 

     “Thanks. Chris has classes until two on Friday afternoon, then has to work and won’t be home until ten. Maybe later if he and Wendy go out for dinner after he gets done. Jennifer has to cheer for a basketball game after school, and then is spending the night at Amy’s, so Jo and I are looking forward to a nice, long day together in a quiet house.”

 

     Johnny waggled his eyebrows at his friend. “Just be careful, Pally.  Remember what happened the last time you and Joanne had a nice, long day together in a quiet house thanks to me.”

 

     Roy blushed a little and smiled.  Johnny was referring to the weekend he’d taken Chris and Jennifer camping in April of 1978, which had also been the weekend John was conceived. 

 

     “Yeah, thanks to you I had to host three birthday parties for a six-year-old this year.”

 

     “Ah, you didn’t mind all that much.”

 

     “No, I didn’t,” Roy admitted. “I don’t always have the energy...or maybe the word is desire, to keep up with John like I did with Chris and Jen, but he doesn’t seem to know the difference, so old Daddy here hasn’t confessed to that.”

 

     “I don’t think you need to worry about it. I’d say John is pretty crazy about his daddy, old or not.”

 

     “He is,” Roy agreed. “But it’s easy to be the guy your six-year-old looks up to.  It’s not so easy to be the guy your nineteen-year-old looks up to.”

 

Johnny caught sight of Jennifer and Joanne passing between the living and dining rooms on their way to the bedrooms.  He waited until they were out of hearing range to ask, “Whatta ya’ mean by that?”

 

     “Oh...I don’t know. Maybe nothing.  Maybe everything.  It’s...” Roy hiked himself up in his chair so he wasn’t leaning back any longer. “Chris isn’t taking college seriously. His first semester grades arrived right after Christmas.  He’s barely passing his classes.”

 

     “Oh. Oh...that’s too bad.”

 

     “That’s too bad? I just told you a kid that graduated from high school with a three point nine grade average is barely making it through college, and all you can say is, that’s too bad?”

 

     “Well, whatta ya’ want me to say?” Johnny asked, while trying not to act like he was already aware of this news.  “It is too bad.  I wish Chris was doing better, but there’s not much more I can say about it than I already did.  He’s nineteen, Roy.  He’s an adult.  If Chris doesn’t keep his grades up and is kicked out of school...well, he knows the opportunities he’ll be missing.”

 

     “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I guess...”

 

     “You guess what?”

 

     Roy shot his friend a smile.  “When we worked together you always had an answer for all my problems, even when I didn’t ask for your advice. Now that I need your advice, I wish you did have an answer.”

 

     “I wish I had an answer for you too, but I don’t.”

 

     “It just gets to me, ya’ know?  I want Chris to earn that college degree.  School has always come so easy for him.  He’s always liked school. I thought he’d be excited to go to college, and I thought he’d do well once he got there. He always got excellent grades in all of his math classes. I thought he might decide to teach high school algebra or geometry, or go into economics, which would open up a lot of doors for him. Or maybe get degrees in business and finance. Those are other good fields, you know. A lot of possibilities are available with a degree in business, or finance, or both.”

 

     Johnny wanted to ask Roy if he’d memorized Chris’s college catalogs, since he sounded like he was reciting from one of them, but he knew Roy wasn’t in the mood for dry humor – or flippant comments. 

 

     “Uh huh,” is what Johnny said instead, as Roy droned on about all the jobs Chris could get if he got degrees in business and finance. 

 

     Geez, Roy, don’t you hear how boring all that stuff sounds?  Or at least boring to a kid like Chris, who has always hung on your every word whenever you’ve told him stories about stuff that happened at work.

 

     Johnny focused back on his friend as Roy said, “I just don’t understand it.  I’d have killed for the opportunity to go to college when I was his age. I would have--”     

 

     Roy turned his head and looked up when he heard someone enter the room. 

 

     “Why aren’t you studying?”

 

     “I was...I am,” Chris said. “I’m just taking a break for a few minutes.”

 

     “You’ve taken enough breaks tonight, don’t you think?”

 

     “Dad...” Chris said, while turning pleading eyes on Johnny.

 

     The paramedic instructor shook his head.  Whatever passed between Johnny and Chris was understood, and over with, by the time Roy glanced at Johnny.

 

     “I just thought I’d say good night to Uncle Johnny before I got a soda and then went back to my...studying.” 

 

     Johnny stood as Chris approached him. They shook hands, and Johnny patted the younger man on the upper arm.

 

     “See ya’ later, Sport.”

 

     “Yeah, see ya’ later.”

 

     Chris started to say something else, then thought better of it. He turned and headed for the kitchen as Johnny sat back down.

 

     After Chris left, Johnny shifted the conversation to the fire department and work-related issues.  Ten minutes later, John was sent into the living room to say goodnight to his father and his uncle Johnny.  The boy climbed in Roy’s lap. He gave Roy a hug and a kiss, and then bounded to Johnny’s chair.  The paramedic roughhoused with the child until Joanne came to retrieve John for bed.  Johnny decided that was his cue to go home. He knew Roy was tired, and he imagined Joanne was as well.  It was time to let the DeSoto household wind down for the night. 

 

     Johnny poked his head into the open doorway of Jennifer’s room.  The teenager was sitting cross-legged on her bed doing homework.

 

     “Night, Jen.”

 

     The girl looked up and gave Johnny a wave. “Good night, Uncle Johnny.”

 

     Johnny called a final goodbye to Chris, who was in his room, and said, “Good night, John!” to the boy Joanne had just put to bed. Johnny kissed Joanne’s cheek as she came out of John’s room and shut the door behind her.

 

     “Thanks again for supper, Jo.”

 

     “You’re welcome. And thank you for John’s gifts, and the trip to the circus.  Roy and I plan to enjoy our quiet day.”

 

     Johnny grinned and winked. “So I’ve been told.”

 

     Joanne gave the paramedic’s chest a playful whack. “I never said we were doing that.  All I said was that we’re going to enjoy a quiet day.”

 

     “You do whatever you want to.  I promise I won’t ask any questions.”

 

     “Good, because I won’t give you any answers. Now, what time will you bring John back on Saturday?”

 

     “Around six-thirty.  The afternoon performance starts at two.  I figure it will be over between three-thirty and four. Then we’ll stop somewhere for pizza before I bring him home. Is that okay?”

 

     “That’s fine.  Roy has to work on Saturday, and so does Chris.  Jennifer had a babysitting job from three in the afternoon until midnight, but I’ll be here.”

 

     “All right.”

 

     “Come with me to the kitchen before you go.  I have some leftovers for you to take home.”

 

     Johnny didn’t protest that offer.  He’d learned long ago that it did him no good, and besides, Joanne was an outstanding cook.  Johnny wasn’t about to turn down the ravioli, garlic bread, and chocolate cake Jo was sending home with him.

 

     Roy stood as Johnny entered the living room carrying a paper grocery bag filled with Tupperware containers.  The captain walked his friend to front door.

 

     “Thanks again for John’s presents.”

 

     “You’re welcome again for John’s presents.”

 

     Roy opened the door and stood back so Johnny could pass in front of him.  “Have fun at the circus.”

 

     “We will.”

 

     “Don’t bring John home with a stomachache from eating too many hotdogs. Don’t let him talk you into buying him any useless trinkets. Don’t let him drink soda to the point that he’s so wound up Joanne can’t get him to bed, and don’t let him anywhere near the trapeze.  With the way that boy likes to climb, God knows what he’ll do if he spots a rope and you turn your back on him.”

 

     “Gee, Roy, you sure know how to ruin a kid’s fun.”

 

     “And yours too, I suppose.”

 

     “Well, I was planning on John and me havin’ a hotdog eating contest, but now that you’ve put the kibosh on that, I guess we’ll have to go for the cotton candy instead.”

 

     “And don’t let him eat too much of that, either.”

 

     Johnny laughed. “Roy, you take life too seriously, ya’ know that?”

 

     “And you don’t take it seriously enough,” Roy tossed back the running debate the two men had engaged in numerous times since they’d met each other.  

 

     “Don’t worry. I got it.  Don’t fill the kid up with hotdogs or soda, don’t buy him junky toys, and keep him away from ropes. Does that about cover it?”

 

     “That about covers it.”

 

     “Okay. I’m headin’ home then. ‘Night.”

 

     “Good night.”

 

Roy flicked on the porch light.  He watched while Johnny unlocked the Land Rover and placed the bag of food in the passenger seat.  When Roy heard the vehicle start, he shut and locked the front door.

 

      Roy’s house was finally quiet.  John was asleep, Chris and Jennifer were studying, and since Roy couldn’t hear Joanne moving around in the kitchen or laundry room, he assumed she was in their bedroom reading or watching T.V.

 

     Roy sat on the couch and picked the remote control up off the end table. He aimed it at the television set, making sure to keep the volume low. He flipped channels until he found a program he liked, but paid little attention to it.  Roy’s mind wandered to his oldest son. The concerns he harbored for Chris’s future had made concentrating on anything in recent weeks difficult at best.

 

     Chris is too smart to throw away such a good opportunity, Roy attempted to assure himself as images flicked across the television screen.  He knows how much overtime I work so we can live comfortably, and so I can put him, and Jennifer, and John through college. He’s too smart to want his future to hold the same thing – scrambling for hours so your paycheck will be bigger, while at the same time being away from home, being away from your wife and kids, more than you want to be.

 

     Roy hoped his thoughts where his oldest son was concerned were correct. Thirty minutes later, Roy smiled with satisfaction when he passed Chris’s room and saw the young man’s head bent over a book.

 

     Roy stopped in the doorway.  “Good night, son.”

 

     Chris was seated at his desk with his back to his father.  He turned in his chair, making sure his body blocked his desktop.

 

     “‘Night, Dad.”

 

     “I see you’re still hitting the books.”

 

     Chris offered Roy a half smile.  “Yeah...yeah. I’ll be shutting the light out in a little while.  I’ve got an early class tomorrow.”

 

     “All right. Do you want me to close the door?”

 

     “Yeah, please.”

 

     Roy did as his son requested.  His last look at Chris was of the young man bent over his book again, intently reading something that seemed to have captured his interest.

 

     Thank God. Maybe he’s got some classes this semester that finally mean something to him - classes that will really make a difference in his life.

 

     Unbeknownst to Roy, his oldest son had found something that interested him, and that Chris hoped would make a difference in his life.  For the book he was studying didn’t come from the college bookstore, but instead, Chris had gotten it from John Gage when he’d stopped by the man’s small, cramped office at fire department headquarters a week ago.  

       

     Emergency Care of the Sick and Injured wasn’t going to take Chris anywhere until he began paramedic training, but as far as the nineteen-year-old was concerned, it was a start.  And a heck of a lot more interesting than anything he was currently learning at the University of Southern California.

 

     Chris finished the chapter he was reading, shut the book, and slipped it into his backpack.  He crossed to his bed, flopping down on the mattress.  He laced his fingers behind his head, and heaved a deep sigh while staring at the ceiling. Not for the first time in recent weeks, Chris wondered how he’d tell his father that he was dropping out of college. 

 

     And, not for the first time in recent weeks, Chris wondered how he’d tell his father that he was joining the fire department.

 

 

 Chapter 3

 

 

     On the same Wednesday evening that Johnny Gage attended John DeSoto’s birthday party, Heather Langford was hunched over the kitchen table in her family’s Airstream trailer.  Her schoolbooks and papers were spread across one half of the small table, while her brother Jay’s were spread across the other half. Everything in the small, silver trailer was designed for efficiency and maximum use of space. Later in the evening, the table would be folded against the wall, and the couch would be pulled out into the walkway and used as Jay’s bed.  For now, Heather sat on the couch, with Jay seated in a chair across from her.  She glowered and looked up when a foot nudged her shin.

 

     “Cut it out!”

 

Jay’s eyes lifted from the words he was memorizing for the next day’s spelling test. “I didn’t do anything!”

 

     “You kicked me!”

 

     “Did not!”

 

     “You did, too!”

 

     “Not on purpose. It was an accident.”

 

     “Was not!”

 

     “Was too!”

 

     “Was--”

 

     Heather’s father looked over from the trailer’s living area, where he was watching television with his wife.  

 

     “Knock it off, munchkins, and get back to that homework.”

 

     “But, Dad, Jay kicked me.”

 

     The boy looked at his father. “Not on purpose. Honest.”

 

     “You did too do it on purpose.”

 

     “I did not!”

 

     “Did too!”

 

     “Did--”

 

     “That’s enough.” The man pointed at the schoolbooks. “Get back to work now.”

 

     “But, Dad, Jay--”

 

     “I know, I know. Jay kicked you so hard your leg’s gonna  fall off, which means you’ll have a hard time getting around, but I’ll be able to put you in a side-show act and bill you as ‘Gimpy the Amazing.’”

 

     “Daaaad!”

 

     “Daaaad!” Pat Langford whined in imitation. “Heather, you’ve been doin’ nothing but growling like Kristof’s lions ever since you came home from school. Maybe I should put you in a cage with one of them.”

 

     Heather turned away and rolled her eyes.  She loved her father as much as any daughter could, but now that she was making the transition from child to teenager, she found his sense of humor annoying at times.

 

     Heather’s mother, Lynette, craned her head to see around her husband’s body. “Did something happen today that has you upset?”

 

     Heather shook her head and returned her attention to her schoolwork. She didn’t see Jay stick his tongue out at her when their parents weren’t watching, but she sensed he did so.  You didn’t spend the majority of your life in a twenty-seven foot trailer without being able to sense just about everything, from the mood your family members were in, to who was coming down with a cold, to when Jay was up to something he’d get in trouble for, like snitching a cookie ten minutes before supper was ready, or sticking his tongue out.

 

     Heather didn’t bother to tattle on her brother.  First of all, she could tell her father wouldn’t appreciate another disruption, and second of all, Jay would just deny he’d stuck his tongue out anyway.

 

     Heather loved being a circus kid, but lately she found herself wanting to call one place home, instead of ‘home’ being a trailer that followed the circus from town to town. And now that she was twelve, Heather had begun to envy girls who had their own bedrooms. Bedrooms with doors that locked, and kept nosey little brothers out.  Her parents’ bedroom was on one end of the trailer, and it had an accordion-style door that slid shut and locked. Heather’s bedroom was nothing more than a raised bunk on the opposite end of the trailer, with the kitchen, living room, and bathroom separating it from her parents’ room.  She supposed she was luckier than Jay, who didn’t have a space to call his own.  Each morning he had to help Mom roll the couch back against the wall, so the family would have a place to sit and eat breakfast.

 

     The girl scooped strands of her long hair behind her ears. Heather’s father said her hair was the same color that her mother’s had been when Mom was younger – a golden blond with vanilla highlights throughout.  Jay’s hair was darker, like Mom’s was now – dishwater blond, as Heather had heard it referred to, though Mom playfully pouted and called it “mossy brown” whenever she was bemoaning what the passage of time had done to her hair color. 

 

Heather hoped her hair didn’t turn mossy brown as she got older, but if it did, she was going to color it.  She’d seen advertisements for hair color in the Seventeen magazines her friend, Michelle, passed onto her when Michelle was done reading them.

 

     Heather glanced at her parents. They were cuddled together on the only other couch in the trailer, watching a movie.  Heather’s father had built a wooden shelving unit that held the nineteen-inch T.V. set, the radio/cassette player, and the VCR the family had just gotten for Christmas. Like everything else Heather sensed because of how difficult it was to keep a secret in such a small space, she had known they were getting their first VCR long before it was wrapped and under the tree. She’d heard her parents talking about it one night after Jay had fallen asleep. And even if she hadn’t heard them talking about it, she had known something was going on when, in early-December, her father started building the shelving unit that now held their various means of entertainment.  Jay had never caught on though, so maybe secrets were easier kept than Heather realized, and maybe she was just especially perceptive, like Madam Boguslav, the gypsy fortune teller who traveled with the circus.

 

     Heather’s parents had their hands clasped, as they often did when they watched television together. Heather wondered what it would be like to still be in love after fourteen years of marriage. When her father had proposed, he hadn’t asked, “Lynette, will you marry me?” but instead had asked “Lynette, would you run away and join the circus with me?”  Of course, it had been a big joke, because Heather’s father had grown up in the circus, just like she and Jay were.  At the time Heather’s father had proposed to her mother, he was already part of the Benton Brothers Circus clown troupe. But Heather’s mother hadn’t been a circus kid, and Heather’s maternal grandparents hadn’t been pleased at the thought of their only daughter traveling far away from them for forty-six weeks out of each year with Fitzpatrick ‘Pat’ Langford.

 

As far as Heather knew, her grandparents had eventually reconciled themselves to the life that their daughter had chosen.  Heather’s mother was a ticket taker, and she helped sell cotton candy, or popcorn, or soft drinks, too, when needed.  She didn’t make a lot of money, but every little bit helped, as Heather had often heard her father say.

 

     Although her father was now the Boss Clown – circus lingo for the person who was in charge of the clown troupe, Heather often found herself wishing he had a more exciting job. When she was younger, Heather thought it was neat that her daddy was a clown, but now she wanted him to be like Kristof and train lions, or to be like Aleksander and teach the tigers to jump through flaming hoops.  Or to be the elephant handler, so someone who was kind and gentle would be Samara’s trainer.

 

     Heather closed her English book and stood. She walked over to the couch and sat down next to her mother.  The woman put an arm around her daughter, snuggling the girl to her side.

 

     “What’s wrong, sweetie? You haven’t been yourself since you came home from school.”

 

     “Nothing’s wrong,” Heather said. She twisted her hands a moment, then looked at her father. “Dad, can you train the elephants?”

 

     Heather’s father looked at her with surprise. When he saw she was serious, he chuckled. “I don’t think Bhagi would appreciate it if I took his job away. Besides, I don’t know much about elephant training.”

 

     “But you help him sometimes.”

 

     “Yeah, I do,” Pat acknowledged.  All circus performers, and even children who didn’t perform like Heather and Jay, were pressed into service to assist with animals, props, costume changes, supply delivery, raising and lowering the Big Top, and just about anything else that needed to be done.  “But just because I help Bhagi get the elephants to the Big Top, or just because I help him feed them every so often, doesn’t mean I know the first thing about training them.”

 

     “Well, Bhagi doesn’t know the first thing about training them, either.”

 

     Pat reached for the remote control and hit the ‘still’ button, pausing the movie’s action.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

     “He’s been beating Samara.”

 

     “He’s been disciplining her, you mean,” Pat countered.

 

     “No. I mean he’s been beating her.”

 

     “Heather,” Lynette cautioned, “be careful what you say.  Especially when you don’t fully understand the situation.”

 

     Animal rights activists were beginning to follow circuses all across the nation. Their protests could put an end to a form of entertainment, and a way of life in the United States, that dated back to 1793, when the first circus performance in the new country took place with George and Martha Washington in the audience.

 

     “Yes, be careful about what you say,” Heather’s father warned with uncharacteristic sternness.  Normally he couldn’t keep his blue eyes from twinkling when he was talking to his children. It was Heather’s mother who did the majority of the disciplining, while saying she struggled to keep two kids and a clown in line.  “Besides, how Bhagi handles his elephants is none of your business.  He knows what he’s doing, Heather.”

 

     “But, Daddy, that’s just it, he doesn’t know. Or at least he doesn’t seem to care what he knows.”

 

     “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

     “Samara is only acting up ‘cause she misses Sakari. It’s not her fault!  She doesn’t understand why Sakari doesn’t perform with her anymore.”

 

     “Then Bhagi will have to deal with that, not you.”

 

     “He is dealing with, only in the wrong way. He can’t beat her, and then expect that to fix the problem. He can’t beat her, and think that’s going to make Samara do what he wants her to. He can’t--”

 

     “Heather Ann, that’s enough.” Pat aimed the remote at the television and started the action again. “You stay away from Bhagi and mind your own business, do you understand?”

 

     When Heather didn’t answer, her father glared at her.

 

“Heather, I asked you a question. Do you understand?”

 

     The girl hesitated a moment longer, before nodding and saying around the lump in her throat, “Yeah...yeah, I understand.”

 

     Heather stood and rushed through the kitchen. Jay giggled and taunted in a stage whisper, “Elephant girl.”

 

     Heather ignored her brother and propelled herself onto her bunk. She turned her head toward the wall, and inhaled the scent of sawdust, straw, and animal dung that drifted in through the open window. The sound of the elephants calling to one another in that odd, gentle ‘chirp’ they possessed reached Heather’s ears.  Then she heard another sound...the sound of Samara mournfully trumpeting for her sister, each call growing weaker and more disheartened, as though Samara knew there was no hope that Sakari would return to her. 

 

Silent tears ran down Heather’s face. She didn’t care what her parents said, or what Jay called her.  She couldn’t help but cry right along with Samara, because like the elephant, Heather knew there was no hope that Sakari would return either.

 

 

Chapter 4

 

 

     Johnny stood behind his desk in a Rampart classroom at eleven-fifteen on Thursday morning. Though it had been almost two years since Kelly Brackett had turned the bulk of the paramedic training over to the fire department, Doctor Brackett was still considered the program’s mentor. Or at least John Gage thought of him as the program’s mentor, which meant Johnny sometimes looked to Brackett for an opinion, or for assistance with a classroom lecture.

 

The final step toward full integration of paramedic training within the fire department would come when the department had its own training facility. There had been talk of a new building being erected for just that purpose. There had also been talk of using one of the older fire stations for the purpose of paramedic training, while building a new station to replace the one that would be retired. Debate continued in that area, and Johnny didn’t foresee a decision being made any time soon.  He assumed the decision would come when Rampart no longer had the room to house the training program, which Johnny figured was a few years off yet.  Knowing the fire department the way he did, Johnny was aware no money would be spent on a new building, or on revamping an old fire station for paramedic classroom space, until it was absolutely necessary.  Not that the department didn’t want well-trained paramedics.  It was simply that the administrators of the annual budget would be just as happy if those well-trained paramedics could continue learning their craft in a building – in this case Rampart Hospital – that the fire department didn’t have to pay the overhead on.   

 

Johnny didn’t look up when he heard someone enter the room. He assumed his visitor was one of his students. Tests had been taken at eight o’clock that morning that were leading up to the final exams that would be given in another three weeks. This session was almost over for Johnny, and a new group of students would be entering the program in mid-February. Because of those tests, Johnny assumed a student anxious to receive his or her grade was hovering around the doorway. 

 

You’d think they’d know me well enough by now to realize that I’m not a guy who’s jumpin’ at the chance to wade through paperwork.

 

Johnny resisted the urge to sigh as he stacked the papers, and lightly tapped them against the desk’s top before putting them in the leather satchel he carried. If there was one thing he disliked about his new role, it was the paperwork.  John Gage was far more of a hands-on guy, than he was one to sit behind a desk grading papers.  But as Hank Stanley had once told him, you had to take the bad with the good when it came to accepting promotions, so Johnny had learned to do just that over the past two years. He enjoyed being in front of a classroom in the role of instructor, and had been told he had a natural gift for teaching. Johnny didn’t know if that was true, but he did recognize that his exuberance, sense of humor, energy, and love of paramedic work, made it easy for him to connect with the young people he was teaching. Or maybe it was nothing more than what Roy often said when he was teasing Johnny about his role as paramedic trainer – “Anyone who likes to hear himself talk as much as you do should make a good teacher.”

 

 

Johnny still didn’t glance up when he said, “I haven’t even started to look at the tests yet, so if you’ve come for your grade, you might as well do something productive – like go chase after a fire truck.”

 

Johnny recognized the chuckle, because it sounded like it belonged to Roy DeSoto in his younger days. 

 

“I’m not one of your students yet, and the last time I chased after a fire truck my uncle Johnny told me to get lost before my father saw me.”

 

Johnny laughed at the memory.  Chris had been seventeen, and had shown up at a fire because he was in the area, and had observed Station 51 on the scene.  Johnny had chased Chris off for two reasons. One: because they didn’t need any bystanders getting hurt. And two: because Johnny knew that if Roy found out Chris was contemplating a career with the fire department, as opposed to attending college, Roy was going to be more upset than Chris was prepared to deal with, and more upset than Roy would want to display in front of his station mates. Roy was a private man, and matters of the heart that involved his family were ones he had preferred to keep within the walls of his home, rather than within the walls of Station 51.

 

    

“Chris, come in.” Johnny stepped around the desk. “And shut the door,” he added for good measure, not wanting anyone passing by in the hall to see Chris talking to him, and then mention Chris’s visit to Roy. 

 

Chris did as Johnny requested, knowing full well the reason for it. He walked to the front of the classroom and sat at one of the desks, while Johnny hiked himself up to perch on his own desk.

 

“I was going to tell you last night that I’d stop and see you today,” Chris said, “but then I decided I’d better not since Dad was sitting right there.”

 

“Chris, I really hate deceiving your dad like this.”

 

“You’re not deceiving him. I am.”

 

“Maybe so, but he’s not gonna look at it that way when he finds out I’ve known about this since November.”

 

“Well, that’s the way he should look at it. I’m an adult, which means I can confide in who I want to.”

 

“Your father might buy that if you’d chosen to confide in anyone but his best friend.”

 

“He’ll get over it.”

 

“Maybe,” Johnny said, “or maybe not. And it’s the ‘maybe not’ that I’m worried about.”

 

“I won’t let him be mad at you, Johnny, I promise. I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him understand this was my decision, and my decision alone. You didn’t know anything about it until it was too late.”

 

Johnny had to admit that last was true.  He hadn’t known Chris had taken the department’s entry exam until after the fact. Nor had Johnny known until Chris confided in him at Roy’s birthday dinner in November, that Chris was taking EMT courses at a local vocational school. Chris had scheduled those courses around his classes at U.S.C., and had his grades mailed to a friend’s house, which meant Joanne and Roy were unaware of Chris’s extra course load. If nothing else, Johnny gave Chris credit for being as prepared as he could be for acceptance into the fire department’s paramedic program.  Not only was Chris carrying a full load of classes he had no interest in, but he had taken on additional classes in preparation for the career he really wanted to pursue - and was earning straight A’s in those classes.

 

“When are you gonna tell him?” Johnny asked.

 

“I...I don’t know. It has to be soon, because I dropped out of school today.”

 

“And it has to be soon, because one of these days someone from headquarters is bound to tell your dad you took the entry exam and passed with flying colors.”

 

“I know,” Chris acknowledged.

 

Chris had asked the chief of the fire department, Robert Marcuson, not to mention his entry exam results to Roy. “I’d like to surprise my dad and tell him myself, Chief,” had been the way Chris had put it to the man. The chief had agreed to keep Chris’s secret, agreeing that no one other than Chris should give this type of good news to Roy. 

 

“I know you asked Chief Marcuson to keep things quiet for you, but this kind of stuff has a way of getting around, Chris.” 

 

“I know,” Chris acknowledged again. “And it also has to be soon because...” Chris paused and smiled. “Because I’m going to be in your class next month.”

 

Johnny didn’t know whether to smile or groan. He was thrilled over the thought of teaching Chris DeSoto what Johnny himself had learned from Kelly Brackett and Roy fourteen years earlier.  As a matter of fact, he’d be honored to teach Roy’s oldest son – the boy he’d known since Chris was five.  But at the same time, Johnny didn’t relish the thought of Roy’s reaction to all of this.

 

“I...I’ve been trying to decide how to break the news to Dad.”

 

“Good idea.  Maybe you’ll come up with something over the weekend.”

 

“I don’t have until the weekend.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because the list of incoming rookies goes out this afternoon. Headquarters will deliver one to Dad, won’t they?”

 

“Yeah,” Johnny sighed, knowing the situation was rapidly going from bad to worse. “They’ll deliver one to all station captains to post on their bulletin boards.”

 

“I know I shouldn’t have waited this long, but you saw how Dad was last night.  I just haven’t been able to tell him. If I even attempt to tell him that I’m not interested in getting a degree in business, or finance, or whatever Dad thinks would be good for me, then he gets upset.  I know how much he wants me to attend college, Johnny, and I know and understand the reasons why.  Dad doesn’t think I do, but he’s wrong.  I do understand, and I respect his reasons, but they’re just not for me.  I’m not happy, and I don’t want to be a banker, or an investment broker, or a math teacher.  I want to be a paramedic, just like my father was.  I want to make a career for myself within the fire department, just like my father has. I don’t know why he can’t respect that. He doesn’t have to like it, but I wish he would hear what I’m saying and respect it.”

 

“Chris, your dad...he loves you a lot.  He just wants what he thinks is best for you, like all fathers want for their sons. He just wants you to have things easier than he did.”

 

“I realize that, but already my life is different than Dad’s. He was married to Mom when he was my age, and I was born two years after that. I’m not married, and I don’t plan to be any time soon, let alone become a father within the next couple of years.”

 

Johnny grinned. “Glad to hear it, because I don’t think your old man’s heart could take that news.”

 

Chris smiled back. “I don’t think so, either.” 

 

Chris shifted nervously in his seat, his actions suddenly contrasting with the confident, young adult he normally was.

 

“Uh...Johnny?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Remember how you told me that when the day came I knew for sure what my decision was about my future...that when and if the day came I knew I wasn’t going to college, that you’d help me break the news to my dad?”

 

“I wish I could say I don’t remember, but yeah, I do.”

 

“Well, I could sure use your help now.”

 

“Chris, we tried to talk to your father about this together last year when you were still in high school, and look where it landed you.”

 

“I know, I know.  Right at U.S.C.  But that’s because neither one of us wanted to push the issue with Dad.  That’s because you wanted me to give college a try for Dad, and I agreed to it, even though I knew it was never going to work out.”

 

“So you’re sayin’ it’s my fault you went to U.S.C?”

 

“No...no, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying that...well, that I know now, I should have done what I knew was right for me.  I went to college for my dad, Johnny, not for myself. I gave it a try, but I can’t keep trying for three and a half more years.  I’ll go crazy sitting in lecture halls listening to stuff I don’t care about.  Mom and Dad can’t afford to spend money on an education I don’t want, and Dad is just gonna have to face that fact.”

 

“Yeah,” Johnny agreed, “he is.”  

 

In many ways, Johnny understood Roy’s desire for Chris to obtain his college degree and have an easier life, financially speaking, than Roy had experienced. But in other ways, he didn’t understand why Roy wasn’t willing to see that Chris was an adult now and capable of making his own decisions - even if some of those decisions turned out to be mistakes, like were made by every young adult as he or she traveled through their late teens and into their early twenties.

 

Johnny crossed his arms and did his best to glare at the young man. “I’m afraid to ask this question, but I’m gonna take the plunge. Whatta ya’ want me to do to help your cause?”

 

“You don’t have to do anything.”

 

“I know. But for you, Christopher Roy, and only you, I will.  Well...I’d do the same for Jenny and John, too, but don’t tell them that, ‘cause it’s gonna take until John is nineteen for your dad to get over being pissed at me for this.”

 

“Do you really think so?”

 

“Let’s put it this way, your dad’s one of the most easy-going men I know, and not much gets him riled. But I’ve known him for too long not to predict that this news is gonna have Roy so upset that, next to him, I’ll look calm and easy-going.”

 

“Maybe I’d better tell him myself, then. I don’t want to put you in the middle, Johnny. I just thought that hearing it from you...well, I thought he’d take it better.”

 

Johnny arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

 

Chris laughed. “No. I’m a chicken-shit.”

 

Johnny couldn’t keep the twinkle out of his eyes. “That’s what I thought.” 

 

“The other thing is, I have to work today.  Normally I could be an hour or two late if I let Bill know ahead of time, but his wife’s got health problems, and she’s scheduled for tests this afternoon. I promised Bill I’d handle things while he was at the hospital with her.  I would have told Dad earlier if I had known all of this would hit on the same day, but I didn’t.”

 

“Timing is everything.”

 

When that was all Johnny said, and he didn’t say it with a smile, Chris knew the man was sending him a message that said, “You know you had plenty of opportunities to tell your dad that you’re joining the department.  You know you put it off until the last minute. You’re nineteen years old, and you should be facin’ your old man on your own.”

 

Chris started to stand. “Listen, just forget I came by. This is something I have to do on my own.  I’ll go talk to Dad right now. I’ll--”

 

Johnny waved the young man back to his seat. “I’ll talk to him, Chris. But all I’m gonna do, is tell him that I’m seein’ him on your behalf, and tell him what you’ve decided to do.  From that point, you’re gonna have to explain the reasons why.”

 

“I will.”

 

“You’re gonna have to make him understand how important this is to you.”

 

“I will.”

 

“You’re gonna have to make him understand that you’re committed to this decision, and that three months from now you won’t be changing your mind.”

 

“I will.”

 

“And you’re gonna have to beg him not to kill me.”

 

Chris laughed again at the teasing. “He’s not going to kill you.  He’ll respect my decision more if he hears it from you first.”

 

“Christopher, I’ll say this. You view life through rose-colored glasses.”

 

“No, I mean it. Once Dad gives it some thought, and realizes you’re going to be one of my first instructors, he won’t stay mad, Johnny.  I know he won’t.  He’ll be willing to accept this, and once he does, I think he’ll be proud of me.”

 

“Chris, your dad has always been proud of you.”

 

“I know. But I think this will make him especially proud, don’t you?”

 

Johnny gave a reluctant nod.  Given time to grow accustomed to Chris’s decision, Johnny knew that Roy would be proud to have another DeSoto within the ranks of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.  But just how much time Roy would need to grow accustomed to that decision, and grow to accept it, was not something Johnny could predict.

 

Chris stood, which prompted Johnny to stand as well. The nineteen-year-old gave a quick hug to the man he thought of as a second father.

 

“Thanks for keeping all of this a secret, Uncle Johnny.”  

 

“You’re welcome, Sport.”

 

As Chris stepped out of their embrace he said, “Oh, and next month when I’m in your class?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Don’t call me Sport, okay?”

 

Now it was Johnny’s turn to laugh. “Only if you promise not to call me Uncle Johnny.”

 

Chris held out his hand, and the two men shook on their joke.

 

“Deal.”

 

Johnny nodded. “Deal.  Actually, I plan to make an example out of you, DeSoto. You’re gonna think I’m the toughest, orneriest, meanest son-of-a-bitch you’ve ever had for a teacher by the time I’m through with you.”

 

“Yeah, right,” Chris chuckled. He’d heard enough talk around the fire department about what type of a teacher John Gage was, and though many descriptions had been used, an ‘ornery, mean, son-of-a-bitch’ wasn’t one of them.  Tough – yes, John Gage was tough on his students if by tough a person meant Johnny cared, and wanted to see everyone live up to his or her highest potential.  But his students also found him to be fun, knowledgeable, accessible, and eager to see them succeed.  Therefore, Chris knew he couldn’t ask for a better teacher, or a better mentor.

 

 

“You’ll call me later,” Chris asked, “so I know what to expect when I beard the lion in his den?”

 

“Yeah, I’ll call you later. Are you gonna be at home tonight, or at work?”

 

Chris worked part-time for a man named Bill Mattson. Mattson had gone out on a limb and started a business for personal computer set up and repair – something Chris claimed was going to catch on in large way over the next decade. Johnny had no idea if that was true or not, but Chris seemed to enjoy the work. He had a strong interest in computers, though evidently not enough of an interest to prompt him to stick with college and study computer science.

 

“At work, but I’ll be home by nine.”

 

“Okay. I’ll call you then,” Johnny promised, knowing there would be no chance of Roy answering the phone, since he was on duty until eight the following morning. On an after thought, Johnny added, “And make sure you pick up the phone. I don’t wanna have to deal with your mom if she’s out for my hide, too.”

 

“Mom’s not gonna mind.”

 

Johnny wasn’t too sure about that.  After all, firefighting was dangerous work, so the paramedic couldn’t guess how Joanne would feel about her son joining the department.  Joanne had never been vocal one way or another regarding Chris’s future – at least not in front of Johnny, so the man didn’t know if she felt as strongly about a college education as Roy did, or if she just wanted her children to pursue whatever job it was that made them happy.

 

“Maybe not,” Johnny said in answer to Chris, “but still, just make sure you’re the only other DeSoto I have to talk to, after I finish talkin’ to your dad.”

 

“Will do,” Chris promised.  “Thanks again, Johnny.  I really appreciate this. I owe you one.”

 

“All you owe me is to do well during your training, and to prove to your dad that this was the right decision.”

 

“You know I will.”

 

Johnny smiled.  This was one area where he had the utmost confidence. “Yeah, I do.”

 

“Talk to you later.”

 

“Okay,” Johnny agreed. “I’ll talk to you later.”

 

“Should I wish you luck?”

 

“I think you’d better wish us both luck.”

 

“Okay, I’ll wish us both luck then,” Chris agreed, before saying goodbye and heading out of the door.

 

Johnny watched Chris exit the room. He didn’t envy either of them – himself or Chris – the discussions that were to be had with Roy. Johnny would break the ice, but Chris was the one who had to navigate through that ice when he faced Roy about this sometime in the next twenty-four hours.

 

The paramedic instructor glanced at the clock as his stomach growled. He picked up his satchel and headed for the door. He’d see if Dixie wanted to eat lunch with him in the cafeteria before he went to Station 26.  He didn’t want to show up when the men were eating, but instead, was hoping to make a quiet entrance and go directly to Roy’s office.  As far as the test papers were concerned, Johnny would grade those at his kitchen table later in the day. He had no afternoon classes scheduled, since his students were doing a lab from one to four.  The next morning’s instruction was scheduled from seven-thirty to eleven.  After that, Johnny would be free to pick up John DeSoto, and didn’t have to report to work again until Monday, unless a station captain in need of a fill-in paramedic had headquarters summon him into work on Sunday.

 

As Johnny approached the Emergency Room nurses’ station, Dixie looked up and smiled.

 

“Hey, Johnny.”

 

“Hi, Dix. I’m gonna get a sandwich.  Wanna join me?”

 

“Sure.” Dixie let the nurse standing next to her know where she was going, then stepped out from behind the counter.  “I saw Chris leaving a few minutes ago.”

 

“Chris?”

 

“Chris DeSoto.”

 

“Oh. Was he here?”

 

Dixie looked up at the man as they traveled the corridor. She studied his face a long moment, taking note of the way he refused to meet her gaze.

 

“You know something, John Gage?”

 

Johnny’s eyes tentatively slid to the woman.  “What?”

 

“You always were a rotten liar, and you still are.”

 

Johnny refused to reply, and Dixie had the good grace to drop the subject.  Whatever reason had prompted Chris to drop by Rampart, and had prompted Johnny to act as though he hadn’t seen the young man, was none of Dixie’s business.  The two old friends ate lunch together, and then went their separate ways an hour later. 

 

  

Part 2