SNAKEBIT
by ardavenport
- - - Part 2
At two-thirty, Helen Merandez called in sick and Mrs. Harmin asked if anyone wanted to take a double shift. Nancy Bloom took it. She was only a student nurse, but she could still do all the lesser tasks that would free up the regular nursing staff. And she wanted to save up for a new (but used) car before the one she had died.
By five-thirty, when the dinner cart came up - after hearing constant complains from the hemophiliac kid in 202, whose parents had apparently spoiled him rotten, and answering the third buzzer call from the old lady with kidney problems in 217 - Nancy was feeling a bit more charitable toward John Gage. He may have been a pig about how he reacted to going on a date with her, but he still said 'please' and 'thank-you', did what he was told to do and he gave up on the coffee.
One of the evening nurses, Judy Ottman, asked her if she could take Mr. Gage's dinner to him. And get his vital signs for his chart because she had put off doing that. She had actually gone out to dinner with John Gage and didn't want to run into him again, certainly not as a patient. He was a fire department paramedic and was around the Emergency department downstairs a lot. He wasn't a bad guy to go out on a date with, but if you were looking for someone to spend the rest of your life with (and Judy was) then John Gage wasn't him. He was a complete sucker for a pretty face, but she couldn't imagine him walking down the aisle for any woman; he would be too paralyzed with fear to make it.
Nancy caught Mr. Gage napping, faded robe thrown over the end of the bed, when she pushed through his door with tray, BP cuff, stethoscope and chart. But he woke up fast enough when she pushed the sports magazines aside to slide the tray on the bed stand. He leaned away fearfully with a nervous, 'Uh, hi,' when he recognized her.
"The food's lousy, but it comes with the room."
That got half a smile out of him. But he tensed when she grabbed his arm, wrapped the BP cuff around it. She ignored his wide-eyed stare when she touched him and listened carefully to the BP.
"A hundred over eighty."
He suddenly looked hopeful. "Really? Do you think you could get Dr. Brackett to see it and he could let me out?"
Nancy couldn't help feeling a little sympathy for him. And he still had really nice hair. "Sorry, he's probably gone for the day by now. And they don't release people this late anyway." She wrote the BP down in the chart, then pushed the bed stand up, effectively trapping him with the dinner tray. There was tuna casserole under the plate cover. She took his wrist to get his pulse.
"I guess you're just stuck with me."
((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO))
Chet Kelly exited the elevator on the second floor and turned right. Johnny had called him at seven-thirty, as soon as Dr. Brackett told him he was well enough to go home. But visiting hours and Rampart's business office didn't open until nine. He passed the nurse's station, but they were busy and he knew where the room was.
"Where have you been? You're late!" Johnny hustled him into the room and then peered out toward the nurse's station. Chet looked at his watch. Nine-oh-three.
"Well, hey, they wouldn't let me up here before nine anyway."
Johnny didn't even glance back at him. Feeling the lack of gratitude, he scanned the small single hospital room. Unmade bed, white pillows, gray walls, antiseptic scented. There was a duffle bag on the end of the bed. When they found out Johnny wasn't getting out yesterday, Chet and Roy had gotten him some things and moved his car from the Station to his apartment.
Still looking earnestly out though the partially open door, Johnny stretched to look higher.
He whirled around. "Okay! It's clear! Get the bag!"
"What?" Chet didn't move. "Aren't they supposed to take you out in a wheelchair?"
Johnny snatched up the bag himself. "Not this time! Come on."
They got three steps into the hallway before a stern woman's voice stopped them. Johnny cringed.
"Leaving, Mr. Gage?"
She was middle-aged, large-chested in starched white. A nurse's cap with two black stripes. Chet had never figured out what the stripes on those caps meant, but her name tag said she was a head nurse and obviously in charge.
"Uh, ah, Hi Mrs. Harmin." He started talking fast. "Dr. Brackett said I could go and you all looked so busy, I didn't want to - - "
"I am quite aware that Dr. Brackett has discharged you, Mr. Gage. But this hospital has procedures and they will be followed." She called down to the nurse's station. "Mary, will you please get a wheelchair for Mr. Gage, here?"
Johnny looked defeated. "Uh, yes, Ma'am." Mrs. Harmin confidently left them in the hallway.
Chet smirked, guessing what was going on. "What happened? Run into an old girlfriend who works here and gave you a hard time?" But from Johnny's horrified look, that apparently wasn't it. Chet turned his head toward what was now coming down the hall.
The blond girl in the blue student nurse's smock might have been pretty. If she were a hundred pounds lighter. Double chin, shoulders like a linebacker, shorter than Johnny, but at least an inch taller than Chet. She looked like she could break either one of them in half. She parked the wheelchair in front of Johnny and leaned over to set the brake.
"Hi." She smiled. "I see you're getting out."
"Uh, yeah." Looking like he was going to be wheeled to a firing squad, Johnny handed Chet his bag and sat down. Mary knelt to lower the foot rests. He pulled his feet far back out of her way before placing them on the flat metal. Chet almost offered to push, but backed down. She didn't look like she needed any help. She wheeled Johnny to the elevator and pushed the button.
There wasn't much going on around them. A few patients in bathrobes, nurses with stainless steel carts loaded with little bottles and plastic cups. Chet shivered at the sight of a stubborn-looking old lady inching her way along the wall with a walker. Old people in the hospital had to be the worst; you never knew when they were going to die.
The elevator arrived. Mary pulled Johnny in. Chet followed.
"So, ah, did Johnny here give you guys a hard time?"
Mary shrugged. "Oh, not too bad. A lot nicer than some of the other patients we've got right now."
Shoulders hunched, Johnny didn't say anything.
The door opened and they exited. They went down the hall to the business office. Because the snake bit Johnny when he was on the job there would be Workman's Comp forms to fill out, too. Chet sat in a chair to wait. Mary stayed, too.
"I have to make sure I get the wheelchair back. Other floors steal them and Mrs. Harmin is tired of losing ours."
They chatted about the similarities between wheelchairs and carts and fire equipment. By the time Johnny finished filling out his forms Chet had decided that Mary was the girl from a nightmare blind date who still had a great personality. Mary went over to the office window and before Johnny could push the wheelchair, she had yanked it back for him. Johnny looked very unhappy with this new 'girlfriend'.
Chet told them to meet him in front while he got the car. He sighed. He would have enjoyed seeing Johnny getting stuck on a blind date with Mary. If he couldn't have Johnny Gage for himself, then at least he could watch the fun.
((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO))
Johnny knew something was up as soon as he drove into Station Fifty-One's back parking lot.
A head ducked behind the edge of the garage door. Sanchez on C-shift.
Johnny parked his car and cut the engine. He sat there a moment. Great. They had some stupid cram to play on the guy coming back off the injured list. He supposed he should just go in and get it over with. But . . . . .
He didn't want to.
He grabbed his duffle bag of clean uniforms and got out of the car. Running down the driveway, he circled around to the front door, surprising the A and C-shift captains in the office.
"Hi, Cap. Hi, Cap."
Captain Stanley had a hand up and his mouth open, but Johnny was already past them. Past the squad, past the engine, into the dorm. Nobody was there and, keeping low, he went to the door to the locker room. He slowly raised up, just enough to see through the window. There were people there, but nobody looking his way.
Still keeping low, he slipped through the door and hid in the third row of lockers.
" - - - come on guys! You've got to be kidding me!" Chet.
"Since when did you go soft, Kelly? I heard you've been ragging on Gage ever since you've been here." Martin from C-shift
"Yeah, well you weren't on the back of that engine with him, thinking he was going to die. I was."
Pause.
"And my gags are a hell of a lot better than some cheap rubber snake in a guy's locker. They've got some class."
"Class? It's just a gag, Chet." Sanchez.
"Yeah, well, rubber snakes went out of style back in high school, guys."
Johnny heard the other two leave.
Chet? Defending him? Passing up a chance to play a trick on him?
Johnny sat down on the bench between the lockers and tried to puzzle out what he'd just heard. He knew that Chet had been with him when they took him in on the engine. And Chet was there when he woke up at Rampart. He scratched his head. Maybe Chet really was as concerned about him dying as Roy said he was. Maybe . . . . if things got really serious, a guy could change. Johnny shrugged, got up and strolled to the first row of lockers as if he'd just come in.
"Hey, Chet."
Standing by his locker, Kelly jumped, hands behind his back. Johnny caught a glimpse of the tail of the rubber snake. But he didn't let on.
"How're you doing?"
Chet didn't move. "Oh, fine. Hey, how's the leg? Ready for a new shift?"
Johnny stepped over the bench. "Yeah, it's fine."
He opened his locker - - -
Wwwhhhh-hhhiiiii-iiiiii-ttttttttttt!
Thwak-a-thwak-a-thwak-a-thwak-a-thwak-a-thwak-a-thwak-a!
Freezing, Johnny only had time to shut his eyes from the sudden onslaught of motion and color. Lightweight things hit him. He heard paper crinkling.
Warily, he opened his eyes and looked down around him at the long uncoiled paper snakes on the floor, lying over his feet. A bright yellow one hadn't quite made it out of his locker, part of it hanging over the edge. He slowly turned his head toward Chet who smiled back smugly, the rubber snake in one hand. Martin and Sanchez appeared from between the lockers.
Sanchez nodded approval. "Well, I gotta admit Kelly, that was pretty classy."
"Hey, when you've got it, you got it." Chet looked like he was ready to take a bow.
Johnny snarled.
The door opened from the apparatus room. Roy entered, looked around at the scene, shook his head and opened his own locker by the wall.
"I thought you might want to lay off for a bit, Chet." He took his jacket off. "Isn't this just a little immature?"
Martine, Sanchez and Kelly kept grinning, completely unrepentant. But Johnny felt a little better, having his partner's support.
"Well, you know me, Roy." Kelly held up the snake by the head.
Johnny just shook his head. "Yeah, I know you."
((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO)) END ((OO)) ((OO)) ((OO))
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Mark VII Productions, Inc., Universal Studios and whoever else owns the 1970's TV show Emergency!; I am just playing in their sandbox.