Work Text:
“You know what day it is, Cap?” Chet said after roll call.
Captain Stanley nodded his head. “Yes, I do, and no, don’t go there. Just leave it alone, Kelly.”
“Aw, Cap,” Johnny said. “It doesn’t matter. We all know it’s Friday the th—”
“Just don’t say it, okay?” Marco said. “Then we can pretend it’s just another day.”
“Saying it or not saying it doesn’t have anything to do with what’s gonna happen,” Mike said. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Well,” Marco said, “you have your opinions, and I have mine. And I’d just as soon nobody said it.”
“Fine, fine,” Johnny said. “I don’t care. I’m with Mike on this one—it doesn’t make a hill of beans worth of difference whether anyone says anything, or not. It’s just another day.”
“Let’s hope so,” Roy muttered to himself.
“Ah, my partner, always the optimist,” Johnny said, pounding Roy on the back cheerfully. “C’mon. Let’s hit Rampart. B-shift left us undersupplied.”
~!~!~!~
BWAAAAAMP, BWOOM BWEEEEEEEP!
“Engine 51, Station 8, respond with Station 110 to a working structure fire, 1480 Reeves Street, cross street Henderson. 1-4-8-0 Reeves. Time out: 0851.”
“Well, here we go,” Cap said from the call station, as Mike checked the map.
Mike squinted at the map, and Cap clapped him on the shoulder.
“You need glasses or something?”
Mike joined him climbing up into the cab.
“No,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure that street’s where I thought it was.”
The engine pulled out of the bay, and Mike laid on the air horn to herald his arrival at an intersection. He slowed at the red light, and watched for the cross-wise and oncoming vehicles to yield before turning left through the red light.
“On your right!” Cap shouted suddenly, and Mike hit the brakes, hard. A car that had stopped, apparently yielding to the engine, had started moving again. It and the engine barely missed each other as the car’s driver suddenly realized the error of his ways and slammed his brakes on too.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Mike said under his breath. “What an idiot!”
“There’s one born every minute,” Cap said. “Though sometimes I think that’s an underestimate.”
They sped to their incident, with Mike’s speed knocked down a notch by his close call. They approached the neighborhood where the street was, and could see the plume of dirty-looking smoke that accompanied a well-involved structure.
A few seconds later, Cap spoke up again.
“Uh, Mike, that was our street.”
“Crap,” Mike said. “Sorry.” He hit the brakes for the next street, and proceeded in a loop around the block until they were back on track.
“It happens,” Cap said, though he was surprised it had happened on one of the occasions when Mike had just looked at the map.
“Engine 51, hit the hydrant at Henderson and Wyatt,” said 110’s captain. “That’ll be on a different branch of the main.”
“Copy that,” Cap said. Mike found the hydrant, and dropped Marco off with the hydrant bag. When Marco had looped the supply line around the hydrant and signaled to Mike to go, Mike pulled the engine up to the scene.
He chocked the wheels, and put the engine in pump gear. The transmission made a noise that a casual observer wouldn’t have noticed, but that made Mike switch back into the neutral setting between the road gear and the pump gear, and then put the engine back into pump gear. The noise didn’t happen again, so Mike shrugged and continued with his business.
Chet was pulling a hand line, so Mike prepared to charge that line with water from the tank until the hydrant was flowing. He waved to Marco, and gave the hand signal for him to open the hydrant. At the same time, Chet signaled for water, so Mike pulled the control that would charge his line.
Mike saw Marco spinning the hydrant wrench in a large circle to open the valve, but nothing was happening with the supply line.
“You gotta be kidding me,” he said again. He made a ‘what’s going on?’ gesture to Marco, who shook his head and sliced the side of his hand across his throat.
Mike made an annoyed sound that of course only he could hear, before stepping into the cab to get on the radio.
“Command from Engine 51.”
“Go ahead, 51.”
“Engine 51 has a dead hydrant.”
There was a pause while 110’s captain considered what to do with that unfortunate information. It wasn’t simple to choose another hydrant, largely because the majority of the engine’s supply hose was lying in the road between the fire and the dead hydrant.
“51 interior team from command. Pull out; your engine has a dead hydrant.”
“51 interior team copies.”
Mike sighed in relief as he heard Cap’s voice, muffled by his SCBA facepiece, acknowledging the order. His crew wouldn’t be stuck inside with no water.
Seconds later, Cap and Chet emerged from the front door, and Mike listened as 110’s captain first called for additional assistance from another engine company, and then reassigned the next-due engine to establish a water supply to relay to Engine 51.
Twenty minutes later, the fire was under control. Once the fire was out, Engine 51 and her crew worked on overhaul, until the incident commander declared the job to be done.
It wasn’t a satisfying outcome. Fortunately, no residents were inside at the time of the fire, but the disruption in water supply, which had lasted only a few minutes, slowed down the attack enough to make a difference. The exposures had been adequately protected—no other structures became involved—but the original fire building was most likely a total loss.
The men began the process of repacking the handlines they’d stretched, and the supply lines they’d laid. Once they were cleared from the scene, Mike backed down the narrow street onto the cross street. He looked out the window at the hydrant with the brand new marker on it labeling it as out of service. As he rounded the corner, a large puddle appeared in the road ahead of them.
“No way,” Mike said, pulling over so they could inspect the situation.
“Yes way,” Cap said with a sigh. “Good grief.”
Water was welling up from the ground on the tree lawn, filling the entire roadway with a muddy puddle that was growing as they watched. The water began flowing down the storm drain on the other side of the street.
Cap picked up the handset of the mobile radio, and switched to the appropriate channel.
“L.A., from Engine 51.”
“Engine 51.”
“Alert the water department that we have a broken main around the corner from the Reeves Street fire,” Cap said. He provided the address of the break, and they proceeded on their way.
“Haven’t seen that happen in a while,” Cap said.
“Well, as you said earlier, it happens,” Mike said. “This is a pretty old neighborhood, as L.A. County goes, so I guess if flowing water for a fire was gonna break a main, this is where it’d happen.”
A steep downhill section of the road was coming up, so Mike downshifted, and felt the engine braking take effect. He used just enough air brake to bring the engine to a complete stop at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill.
When there was a break in traffic, Mike started up in first gear and pulled into the intersection. He heard a pinging sound—not the same as the sound he’d heard when switching into pump gear, but an attention-getter all its own.
“Did you hear that, Cap?” Mike asked.
Cap frowned. “Yeah. Let’s listen at the next stop sign.”
A few blocks later, they heard a sound again when Mike started from a dead stop. This time, though the sound was louder and more continuous.
“What happens if you shift up?” Cap asked.
Mike shifted into second gear before he normally would, and the noise ceased.
“Can’t say I like that one bit,” Mike said.
At the next stop sign, as soon as Mike shifted into first and started pulling his foot off the clutch pedal, the grinding noise started immediately, but the gears didn’t engage. He waved the other drivers at the four-way-stop through, and tried again.
“Can’t get into first gear,” Mike said, slapping the steering wheel with open hands. “This is ridiculous.”
“Well,” Cap said, “there aren’t any hills between here and the barn. Will she stall out if you start in second?”
“One way to find out,” Mike said. He put the gearshift straight into second gear, releasing the clutch slowly, and putting the pedal to the metal to try to get enough rpm’s so the engine wouldn’t stall. The engine complained in a deep bass voice about this violation of routine, but the heavy truck inched forward into the intersection, with the transmission staying out of the conversation.
“Well, let’s get her back home,” Cap said.
He got on the radio and reported the problem to headquarters. An old reserve engine was on its way to Station 51, along with the mechanics who would either fix the problem on site, or get the engine into their shop.
When the engine arrived at the station, the bay was empty—the squad was out on a run. Mike parked on the concrete apron in front of the bay, just in case a tow truck would be needed. He popped the latches and worked the controls to tilt the cab up to expose the engine beneath, to be ready for the mechanics.
“Doesn’t smell right in there,” Cap remarked.
“Nope,” Mike said, shaking his head. “Boy—I don’t think I did anything. I sure hope not.”
“Probably just one of those things,” Cap said.
“I sure hope so,” Mike said. “You know how Charlie gets.”
Half an hour later, Charlie arrived in his repair truck, with an old fire engine following him. The reserve engine was at least two generations behind Engine 51, with an open cab, wooden ladders that Mike sure hoped had been tested within his lifetime, and a dull finish.
“Oh, man,” Chet said, staring at their replacement engine, which the driver parked on the street in front of the station.
“All right,” Cap said, “no complaining. We all have to deal with it, so let’s just deal with it, and think about how lucky we are with the engine we have most of the time. Remember there are people in volunteer departments who do this job for free, and would be happy to have an engine like the one we’ll be using for the rest of this shift.”
Everyone knew better than to continue complaining after a speech like that from Cap, so they went back to their business while Mike talked with the mechanics.
“You sure you didn’t skip neutral when you went from pump gear to road gear?” Charlie asked Mike, head and shoulders deep in the engine.
“Yes, I’m sure! I’ve been doing this for almost six years, and that’s a rookie mistake. So yes, I’m completely sure,” Mike said, not bothering to hide his annoyance.
Charlie popped his head out from the engine, and started asking another question. “And are you sure you didn’t—”
He stopped, suddenly, looking behind Mike. Mike turned around to see Captain Stanley frowning heavily, arms crossed over his chest.
“Whatever it was, he didn’t,” Cap said. “Now what’s the story here?”
Charlie sighed and wiped his hands on a rag. “Needs some transmission work. Hafta tow her into the garage for that. So it’s a good thing you left her on the pad, here.”
“Now that, I did do,” Mike said, and stalked away.
“Touchy, touchy!” Charlie said to Cap.
“Well, you did pretty much insult his skills,” Cap said.
“I gotta ask these things,” Charlie said. “Just like you gotta ask sometimes if someone left their stove on, or if they did some creative wiring, or if they shoved a penny in their fuse box, or if—”
“Okay, all right,” Cap said. “I see your point. What’s your estimate on timing?”
Charlie shook his head. “Not gonna touch that one with a ten foot pike pole. Could be tomorrow, if we don’t need parts, or could be end of next week if there’s a stripped gear. Which I sorta think there is.”
“I kind of think so too,” Cap sighed. “Okay—well, keep us posted.”
“Will do.”
Just then, the squad pulled up to the station. Roy hesitated at the entrance, but backed in when Charlie waved him in.
Johnny and Roy got out of the squad, and went straight up to Cap.
“Well,” Roy said, “we were gonna complain about our last run, but it looks like you guys have got us beat.”
“Transmission problems,” Cap said. “And be extra nice to Stoker.”
“Why—did he break it?” Johnny asked.
“Do yourself a favor, Gage, and don’t even go there,” Cap said. “So, what was up with your run?”
“Well,” Roy said, “we were dispatched for chest pain and difficulty breathing, which is never a good combination, but when we got to the address, it wasn’t there.”
“And none of the buildings nearby had that apartment number,” Johnny added.
“And, we triple checked the address with dispatch, and we had what they had,” Roy continued.
“And dispatch tried to reach the caller, but there was no answer on call-back, of course,” Johnny said.
There was a pause, and then Cap said, “Any more ‘ands?’”
“No, that’s all,” Roy said.
“Well, I’ll just say something that’s come up a couple times already today,” Cap said.
Johnny piped up. “What? Something about it being Friday the thir—”
“No,” Cap said firmly. “That things just happen sometimes.”
“Man,” Johnny said. “Nobody actually ever even said the day, did they? And look what happened anyhow. Imagine what could’ve happened if we did actually say it!”
Roy chewed on his lip for a moment.
“I’m gonna go make some coffee,” he said.
The End