THE TRUTH BEHIND JOHNNY'S GREEN PEN by Mary Ann Johnny pulled his Land Rover up into the driveway of the newly built station 51. He just recently completed his paramedic training and this was his first assignment since the end of the course. He felt the nervous anticipation in his stomach, the same feeling he had felt three years earlier, when as a probie he had driven to his first fire station assignment. Parking his Land Rover next to a little sports car, he got out admiring it, wondering which of his new crewmates it belonged to. He walked into the station; his gear packed in a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. "Good morning." He announced as he saw the first of his stationmates. "Oh, good morning. I'm Captain Hammer." He extended his hand to the strange fireman in front of him. "John Gage, I'm one of the paramedics that will be riding on the squad." Johnny introduced himself. "Yes, DeSoto's already here. Go pick yourself out a locker and change up." "Okay, thanks Cap." Johnny waved as he explored the station, finally finding the locker room. "Well, hey there." He smiled warmly at the man responsible for convincing him to become a paramedic. Roy smiled back at him. "I told you if you played your cards right, I'd request you for my partner." "I'm glad you did. Where's there a free locker?" "Most all of them are free. We're the first shift on duty here, only 5 lockers are taken so far." Roy explained, tying his shoes. "So, I'm the last one here?" Johnny asked setting his duffel bag down on the bench. "Looks that way. I'm heading to the kitchen for a cup of coffee." He stood up and pushed the door open. "I'll be there in a minute, I could do with a cup myself." Johnny called after him. Roy acknowledged him with a wave as the locker room door swung shut. Johnny quickly found a locker and not wanting to make a bad impression with his new captain, changed his clothes with lightning speed. He strode across the equipment bay, admiring the shiny Crown fire engine and the truck style squad sitting next to it. He followed the voices to the kitchen. "Morning!" He said looking over the men he would be working with. "Since we're all here, I'll go ahead and dismiss the formality of roll call in the equipment bay. We are not officially open for business until this afternoon. We asked you all to report here at your normal shift start time, so that we can put the finishing touches on the station, before we are in service." Captain Hammer announced from the table. "John, have a seat, and we'll introduce ourselves." "Okay." Johnny nodded his head and carried his cup of coffee to the table to join the other men already seated there. "Since I'm the captain, I'll go first. I'm Dick Hammer; I've been a captain of station 48's C-shift for seven years. I've been a fireman since 1952." Dick motioned to the tall man sitting to his right. "I'm Mike Stoker, engineer here. This is my first assignment as engineer. I'm a third generation fireman and I've been doing it for 6 years now." He looked to the man to his right. "I'm Marco Lopez. I come from station 38. I've been a fireman for about 4 years now." He turned to the man next to him and smiled. "Your turn Chet." "Chet Kelly. Like Mike, I'm a third generation fireman. Marco and I both graduated the academy in the same class and worked at station 38 together." He turned to the man to his right. "Roy DeSoto. Since the paramedic program is brand new, of course this is my first assignment as a paramedic. I've been a rescue man with station 18 for 2 years and a fireman for station 42 for another 2 years before that." He turned to the last man to introduce himself. "And I'm John Gage. Just like Roy, this is my first assignment as a paramedic. I was a rescue man at station 110 for 2 years and a fireman at the same station for a year before that." "Okay, now that everyone's been introduced, we have some last minute things to take care of." Dick slid his clipboard in front of him. "Engine crew, they brought us the Crown stripped, so you'll be spending the morning, loading all the equipment and hoses on it. Roy and John, check the squad out and make sure all your equipment is present. I understand, that the captain and the paramedic units will be sharing office space, so we have an order of office supplies that need to be inventoried and put away and the office's filing system needs to be set up." Dick stood up. "That's it, let's get this place ready for business." The men followed their captain out of the kitchen into the bay. Dick continued to the office, while the rest of the crew completed the assigned tasks they'd been given. After checking over the squad's equipment, Roy nudged Johnny, "Come on, might as well help Cap set up the office." "Yeah, okay, I'm right behind you." Johnny agreed. They both entered the crowded office. Dick turned to them as they entered. "Thought I'd get the furniture arranged first. Then we can finish unpacking the office supplies." "Okay, where do you want the desks moved to?" Roy asked. "Let's set up one over here and the other one over there." Dick motioned in the general direction he wanted the desks set up. "Alright." Johnny agreed, helping Roy maneuver a desk into the requested position. With the office furniture arranged, they went to work, opening boxes of office supplies and checking them off against the request voucher. "Looks like 4 boxes of file folders in here." "File folders, . . okay got 'em. What have you got Roy?" Dick turned to Roy, the voucher attached to the clipboard in his hands. "Looks like boxes of pens in this one. Must be at least 10 boxes inside this one." Roy commented pulling one out. "Right, pens. . . Oh, for the love of God, would you look at this. I requested cream colored pens, they wrote down green pens." Dick laughed. "Green pens? I didn't think they made them that color." Roy joined in laughing, he looked down at the box in his hands and looked back at Dick, the smile fading from his face. "You don't suppose. . ." Dick nodded to him. "Better take a look." Roy pulled open one of the boxes of pens, and pulled one out. "Guess they do make them this color." He said, holding it up for Dick and Johnny to see. "Lime green?" Dick shook his head. "You'd think if they made them green, they could make them a nice deep forest green or something." "I don't know about you, but I think I'd rather chip in and buy our own pens than use these." Roy set the box down. "I'm with you on that one." Dick agreed. "I don't know, they're not so bad." Johnny picked up the box looking at the pens again. "Besides, they're free, right?" Dick and Roy exchanged a look. "Tell you what Johnny, they're all yours." Dick told him. "Yeah, and by the looks of how many of them there are, you'll be in green pens for a long time, Johnny." THE END |