Chapter Text
A House Divided – Chet’s Cataclysm
“Hey,” Hank held up a hand to hush the congratulatory chatter, “hold it down. Chief, that’s…K-e-l-l-y, Chester B.”
Chet Kelly looked on intently as his captain sat at his desk, poised to write down the number that would change the young lineman’s life forever. He was happy for DeSoto; Roy had scored ninth on the engineer’s exam. Now he waited to find out where he was on the promotional list. In his heart he was certain he had scored no lower than the low 30’s.
“Chester…B,” Gage chuckled slowly at his tormentor’s formal name.
Chet cut him an evil eye then returned his attention to Hank and his telephone conversation.
“Keep looking, Chief, Kelly’s got to be in there somewhere.”
“Tell ’im to look in the 30’s,” Chet said, anxiously leaning onto the desk.
Hank covered the phone, turning to his lineman. “He’s already in the 40’s,” he explained, returning to his telephone conversation. “Yea, keep going….keep going.”
Chet’s heart sank further with each second that elapsed without Hank putting pencil to paper. Finally, he saw his superior write down a number and he thought surely there had been a mistake. He watched his captain tear the slip of paper from the pad and place it in his trembling hand. The number he saw written on it was 74th.
Although Marco and Mike had been supportive, Chet was devastated. His jovial personality forced the disappointment down into a dark hiding place; a place where it would smolder. After all, there was still a job to be done. Moments after receiving the news that had so discouraged him, the station had been toned out for a massive pile-up on the San Diego Freeway. The busy strip of asphalt had been blanketed in thick fog during the morning commute and the resulting carnage was horrific, even to a seasoned firefighter like Chet Kelly.
But even the resuscitation of a toddler who had been trapped beneath her mother wasn’t enough to restore his deflated self-worth.
E!
Chet sat in the darkened stillness of his small apartment reflecting back on the day it all started; the day his life began a nosedive. He stared at the contents of the glass in his right hand; the diluted amber liquid reminding him of the color of the little girl’s hair. He smiled minutely into the night as he remembered the elation he felt when she opened her big brown eyes and looked so deeply into his own. He remembered brushing her soft short hair away from her face as he murmured reassurances to the precious child that everything was alright; certain that the sight of an oddly clad stranger hovering over her was bound to be terrifying. The sound of the mother’s cries of ‘she’s alive’ echoed in his memory as he swirled the alcoholic mixture in the glass.
He downed the last of his fourth whisky and water, hearing the clinking of the ice in the glass as he returned it to the armrest of his recliner, preferring his drinks cold instead of the usual room temperature. He used the back of his hand to wipe away a bit of moisture from the corner of his mouth, unsure if its origin was the glass he was holding or from somewhere north of his sweat dampened mustache.
The memory of that day was as vivid on this night as it was in Hank’s office on that morning over ten months ago. He dipped his fingers into his glass withdrawing a half melted ice cube, placing it in his mouth. The cold of the ice mixed with the lingering taste of the whisky created a unique burning sensation sliding down his throat. He stared into the TV set sitting on the small table in the corner. He had turned down the volume of the shrill tone left in the wake of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ and sat alone staring at the stripes that now decorated the black and white screen, unsure how long it had been since the station had gone off the air. A disgusted huff escaped his lips as he thought about the color television set he had planned to buy with the extra money he would have earned as an engineer. Now, he remained a lineman at 51’s instead. Why the hell did DeSoto turn down his promotion?
He awoke with a start, the shattering of the glass hitting the hard wood floor jolting him from his drunken slumber. He blinked his reddened dry eyes repeatedly trying to force them to focus on his watch. The numbers blurred and cleared repeatedly until he finally saw the time and scrubbed his unshaven face with his hand, a swear slurring from his chapped lips.
“Aww, shhiiiit...”
He struggled to stand, muscles stiffened from sleeping in his unintentional bed. The crunching of the broken glass beneath his bare feet elicited a hissing sound between a groan and a growl. He didn’t have time to properly clean his wounds and so merely removed the imbedded glass shards, wrapping his foot from arch to ball in multiple rounds of toilet tissue to stop the bleeding and offer a hint of padding to calm the angry cuts. He gingerly covered his throbbing foot with a sock then continued rushing through his morning routine as he prepared for another shift.
E!
He pulled his duffle bag out of the passenger’s side of his van, grimacing as he placed his injured right foot down on the hard concrete of the parking lot. The sight of the other familiar vehicles of his crew mates no longer caused him concern; he’d accepted the fact that latrine duty was now a routine part of his job at 51’s.
Mike and Marco made their way out of the locker room offering a smile to the last member of their crew to arrive as he shuffled through the open bay door. “I’ll get us some coffee started,” Mike called over his shoulder, loud enough so as to be heard by the remaining crew members as they completed dressing in their L.A. County blues.
“Thanks, Mike,” Roy called out as both he and Johnny turned in the direction of Mike’s fading voice.
Johnny was buttoning up his shirt as Chet pushed through the locker room door. He caught a brief glimpse of his long-time nemesis slouching as he ambled towards his locker, unaware that Chet was forcing himself to walk through the pain of his injury so as not to alert them to his predicament.
Chet remained silent during the light morning chatter of the ‘A’ shift paramedics. He neither felt like exchanging pleasantries nor discussing what he did on his off time with the others. All he wanted to do was get through another shift.
Johnny gave a knowing nod to his partner as Chet hung up his uniforms. “Mornin’, Chet.”
“Yea,” the Irishman muttered, slinging his duffle bag down on the bench in front of his locker. He began unbuttoning his untucked shirt rolling his eyes and silently mouthing obscenities at the realization that he had buttoned it up wrong before he left home.
Johnny felt his jaw muscles clenching and relaxing as he took in the sight of their friend pulling his button down shirt off his shoulders. He averted his gaze when Chet looked up briefly while crumpling the shirt and throwing it in the back of his locker. Looking around him, Johnny realized that Roy had walked out of the locker room ahead of him and he bolted through the still swinging door.
Feeling the younger man’s hand on his shoulder, Roy stopped and turned around as they stood behind the engine. He thought he knew what his partner was about to say and his instincts were once again right on target.
“He’s never been this bad, Roy. We gotta do somethin’.”
“Like what? He’s a grown man and what he does on his off days is his business.” Roy wasn’t disagreeing that their friend seemed to be having a really bad day; he simply had no idea what to do about it. “Until it affects his job there’s really nothing anybody can do.”
“Well, don’t ya think the job’s sufferin’ now? Look at ‘im,” Johnny said in a hushed voice, animated arms flailing. “Anybody can see he’s hung over.”
Roy shook his head, staring at his shoes summoning his patience as he sought the right words to calm his partner. Johnny could obsess over something more than the most neurotic patient they’d ever been called to assist. He looked up into the concerned brown eyes of his friend. “Being hung over isn’t a crime. He probably feels like hell but he’s here and he isn’t late for roll call. Not yet anyway. As long as he can do his job then what do we do?”
Seething behind the locker room door, Chet listened carefully to the conversation taking place between the paramedics. Although his name was never mentioned, he had no doubt that he was the topic of their somewhat heated conversation.
“Well, I’m gonna talk to Cap ‘bout it. There’s gotta be somethin’ he can do,” Johnny huffed in exasperation. He loved Roy like a brother but sometimes his ‘don’t interfere’ attitude grated on Johnny’s nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. He had grown up watching more than one person self-destruct and he refused to stand by idly while his friend went down that long lonely pathway. He watched Roy push open the door to the kitchen and the smell of fresh coffee beckoned him to follow.
However, the memory of Chet in the locker room sent his feet in a different direction and he quickly found himself staring at the closed door of the captain’s office, unaware of the man hovering behind the emergency vehicles struggling to control his acrimony.
Hank heard the tell-tale rapping on the door and surmised that his visitor was his younger medic. “Come in.”
“Hey Cap,” Johnny cast a brief glance over his shoulder making sure no one was watching, “can I come in?”
Hank chuckled softly to himself. “Well, John…I just invited you in when you knocked.”
“Oh, oh yea…I guess ya did. Uh,” he shifted nervously then finally took the seat toward which Hank’s hand was gesturing. He tried to smile but his expressive face revealed his distress. “Cap, uh…I know this is none of my business but, um…well, Chet…he’s, he’s not doin’ too good.”
Hank exhaled a rush of air and leaned back in his chair. He too had been watching his young lineman spiraling downward and had wondered if he was the only one who had noticed. “I’ve been seeing some signs that…well, what’s going on this morning?”
Johnny looked down at his hands, picking at a nearly healed scrape he’d acquired during the rescue last shift of a teenage driver who had managed to plow his car into a brick wall – in reverse. “Ah,” he began unprepared for the feelings of betrayal washing over him for discussing Chet with their superior. “He’s…he’s just not himself.” He looked up from his hands and saw Hank leaning back in his desk chair, one elbow propped on the arm in a position that his men knew meant he was contemplating something heavy.
“Let me guess…he’s disheveled and sluggish? Not talkative? Blood shot eyes?” Hank watched his medic shaking his head in agreement.
“Yea…yea and…I don’t know how to explain it…he’s just, uh…he’s not here.”
Hank leaned forward, his eyes bugging. “He’s not here? I thought you just said…”
“No, no, Cap…he’s here he’s just…not, ya know what I mean?” Johnny hoped his captain understood what he was trying to say because he knew that his words were tumbling out of his mouth landing in a jumbled heap on the desk between himself and Captain Stanley.
Hank relaxed, lightly pressing his lips together into a thin line. “So he’s…distant? Is that what you’re trying to say, John?”
“Yessir,” Johnny looked up feeling the almost overwhelming relief flood his body as Hank spoke.
“I’ve tried talking to him…a few weeks back. He said everything was fine and that he’d been doing some work around his apartment complex for his landlady. That had him tired but he assured me he was fine.”
“And you believed him?” Johnny winced at the accusatory tone he knew he shouldn’t have used. “Ah, I’m sorry, Cap. I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”
Hank smiled at the nervousness of his dark haired paramedic. The man had a heart of gold that was occasionally tarnished by his overbearing personality. “I know what you meant. And to answer your question, no I didn’t believe him. But, there was nothing I could do.”
Johnny stood up slapping his thigh in annoyance. “So we just let ‘im keep goin’?”
“Please sit back down,” Hank began. “I said I talked to him several weeks ago…not recently.” He waited for Johnny to sit and watched as his pacing was replaced by bouncing his knee. “Now, I really do appreciate your concern. It means a lot and I’m going to discuss it with Chet again. I’m just as worried as you are and I have to admit, I’ve felt frustrated over the whole thing. I thought it had gotten better but…well, I guess it hasn’t.”
Johnny leaned his elbows on his knees, pressing his fingertips together as he asked his next question. “So, you will talk to him again?”
Hank patted the younger man on the shoulder. “Yes, I’ll talk to him again. John, I look at you men as more than subordinates; I, uh, hope you know that.”
Again, Johnny lifted his dark eyes to look at his officer. “Yessir.”
“You men are somewhere between sons, brothers and close friends to me. And when something’s wrong with one of you, well…it becomes wrong with me too. I feel it in here,” he said tapping a fist lightly to his chest.
“We all feel it, Cap,” Johnny retorted, turning towards the door as he stood. He blew out his cheeks, dipping his head as he stood in front of the closed door. “We all feel it.”
Hank watched the young man reach for the door knob. “John, I do appreciate you bringing this to my attention and I promise you that I will discuss it with Chet; in depth this time.”
“When?” Johnny asked impatiently.
“This shift…right after roll call if the tones are quiet,” Hank stood up as he waited for a response.
Johnny nodded a gesture of gratitude as he stepped out into the apparatus bay. He needed a cup of coffee; the conversation he’d just shared had depleted his energy reserves much more than he’d expected. As he stepped out of the office, Johnny’s dark eyes locked with leery blue ones narrowed by suspicion; Chet was standing at the entrance to the kitchen glaring in Johnny’s direction.
The lineman’s paranoia began to whisper silently inside his mind, confirming that the conversation which had just taken place behind the closed captain’s door had been about him. His frustration with his pigeon began to swell, rising from deep within his soul heating up his heart and lungs as it rose higher and higher towards his mouth where he fought to control the lava-like tongue that so desperately wanted to spew forth its molten words into the face of one John Roderick Gage.
E!
Hank heard the hesitation in Johnny’s normally sure footfalls and he momentarily considered the possibility that Chet had been standing nearby. Just as he stepped through his office door into the apparatus bay, he saw his paramedic hang his head. At the other end of the bay, the kitchen door lightly swished to and fro; the seemingly ordinary movement answering Hank’s silent question.
“Come on, Pal,” he said, clamping the back of Johnny’s neck with a firm grasp, “time for roll call.”
A/N: Opening scene taken from “The Promotion” – Emergency! Season 3.