It’s almost always calmest before the dawn, and darkest just before the storm. I guess that means before the lightning starts. That’s how I look at it. Anyway, after some time working elsewhere, I was back on duty at the senior citizen high rise on what I thought would be a quiet night. No bingo, no special events, no residents’ meetings. Just a normal, quiet evening. I assumed everyone had settled in to listen to the governor’s Christmas speech on the radio. I had brought my little FM jobbie with the earphone to hear it myself. Someone had told me he was taking circumlocution lessons so I wanted to hear how he talked.

In the speech he still sounded like he was born in a barn and the animals taught him to talk, but he said some nice Christmassy things. It was easy for some people to make him into an escapegoat, but he wasn’t a bad governor. He had done some good things, and in the end we shouldn’t cut off the cart to spite the horse.

I was listening pretty closely to the speech, so it surprised me every time I saw these blinking lights out of the corner of my eye. The first couple times I thought I was having a stroke. Then I thought it was the building warning lights for the residents’ apartments, and I’d pull out my walkie-talkie to call for help. Finally, I’d look over and realize it was the blinking Christmas lights on the tree in the foyer. When I got used to it, I stopped getting whiplash every time I noticed it.

After the speech was over, I put away the radio; didn’t want anybody to think I needed a hearing aid, which is what it looked like. I thought everything was going to be totally quiet then, and I could settle in to a quiet evening.

Suddenly, the stillness of the night was interrupted by a knock on the glass door. It was one of the other guards from my Star Security. She worked at the high rise sometimes, and said she decided to visit me and keep me company. I think she had nowhere else to go and needed a ride home, and so visiting me was convenient in more ways than one, if you get the drift of my meaning.

She was a pretty interesting specimen of uh, a woman. Rumor has it that when she was younger, she liked to follow policemen and firemen, even Wells Fargo guys, anyone in a uniform, around. She’d wind up at every fire, break-in, car accident, or domestic squabble within a ten-block radius of her house. It was almost like she was psychic: she’d be walking down the street, she’d glance into a locked building’s window, see a fire, and right away call for help. Then she’d wait around to give her information to the cops on the scene. I guess she really wanted to marry a cop or a fireman. I was a city cop at the time, but I didn’t really think she was good marriagable material, if you get my meaning.

Then she kind of dropped out of sight for awhile, and years later, she turns up at one of our training sessions. I had retired by then, but you know, for some of us, protecting and serving’s in our blood. So I became a security guard. And so had she.

Looking at her there in the training room, I thought she looked kinda familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. At first, I thought she was this guy I had been in the army with. But then, after a week, she turned to me and called me by name. She had remembered me, and reminded me of who she was. And it was so funny, sitting there in her security guard uniform, looking like a guy—she had become the kind of guy she was always chasing after.

As we were gassing there about what we’d had to eat for the last couple of days—she seemed fond of those microwavable pot pies, while I preferred the frozen entrées that featured gravy and mashed potatoes—she decided she was hungry and was going to call for a pizza. So she pulls out her walkie-talkie. I laughed and said, "Who’s gonna bring you pizza, ambulance drivers?" But she said she knew a pizza delivery place who monitored the police and security channels. She also said she thought that pizza place delivery guys had the best uniforms of any in town.

As she put in the call for a PMS (pepperoni, mushroom and sausage), I thought I saw those lights blinking again. I shook my head, tsked my tongue against my upper partial, and looked the other way, not wanting to get fooled again. But the lady guard says, "What’s with the warning lights going off?" I said, "Ah, no, it’s just them damn Christmas lights winking on and off on the tree." But she taps me on the security patch and she says, "No, look. It’s the warning lights."

I turned slowly, I figured she was trying to play a game on me. So I looked at the warning lights. Well, you could have knocked me over with a sledgehammer! They were blinking away like the Christmas tree lights, so I knew we were in trouble.

So like I almost did all those times earlier, I pulled out my walkie-talkie and called 911 DIS-patch. I said I didn’t know what was going on, but it looked bad. That was too many lights going off all at the same time.

The first ambulance showed up almost immediately, with its siren making the most godawful noise. And I never understood that. It was late at night, the sidewalks had been rolled in for hours, and there wasn't nary a soul outside walking or driving. But here they come, sirens blaring, so’s you’d think it was Judgement Day for sick cats who thought they could sing opera.

The paramedics came flying at the door like a trajectile, hauling their gurney rig. I went to open the door for them, and immediately the lady guard sprang into action. She pushed the elevator call button for them, and then stood there, in front of the doors, blocking their way, asking them all kinds of official questions. For the report she said, but I knew she was just being nosy. Heck, none of us ever writes reports. Sometimes this one guard writes stuff down, but I think he’s working on his fictitional autobiography or something.

So she’s asking them if they know what apartment they are headed for, and if they know what’s going on, and all that, and we’re all waiting what seems a long time. Finally, the door opens, they push the gurney in, get in and hit the floor button. While the one was talking to the lady guard, the other had checked the warning lights, so I guess they knew where they were going. Then the door closes. My colleague and I watch the number indicator to see what floor they are going to. But it doesn’t change. And suddenly the door opens and the paramedics are still there. They look at us, shrug their shoulders, push the button, and the door closes again. We watch. We wait. And the door opens again, and they are still there!

And then we figure it out. The elevator isn’t working! So I start to go over to the maintenance guy’s apartment, to see if he’s around, but my colleague says, with great take-charge confidence, "I’ll deal with this," and pulls her walkie-talkie out to call Kenneth the Maintenance Guy. I guess she figures she can get God on that thing if she needs him.

But she says she’s not sure what the frequency is, so she starts fiddling with the knob. And that’s when all hell REALLY broke loose. I look over at the emergency panel, and the warning lights are now going even crazier!

But the pattern looked familiar somehow. So I checked my clipboard—we had some notes there for emergency situations. And I found what I was looking for. Somehow I had remembered it was there: a diagram of which residents had pacemakers. Her walkie-talkie was making their pacemakers go nuts!

Then I hear more sirens and more ambulances, and the flashing lights outside were out-doing the emergency lights, and you could barely see the Christmas lights anymore. Outside, the paramedics and police and fireman were lined up five deep, trying to get all their gurneys and cases of equipment in. Even the pizza delivery guy was there! And my colleague? She was in uniformed man heaven! She suddenly looked years younger, surrounded by all those men, talking to all of them, trying to look in control and flirting with them at the same time. It was like she hadn’t changed from 30 years ago.

I guess it’s like falling off a bicycle—you never forget how!

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