How Can You Mend a Broken Proscenium? by Linda Jeffrey (PG)

[aesposito.livejournal.com]

Fandom: EMERGENCY!
Pairing: everyone, and no one
Author on LJ:  unknown
Author Website: http://web.archive.org/web/20041210101102/home.earthlink.net/~station51/squadroom.htm#stories
Why this must be read:

I want to thank everyone who indulged me as I recced Emergency! this month. It allowed me to rediscover my love of my first fandom, as well as sucker a few new people into it.

My last rec is a hysterical look at what would happen if the guys suddenly figured out their lives were being manipuated by screenwriters and fan ficcers:

Roy pulled his head out of the script for the first time since Gage had arrived, so that his partner would get the full effect of his glare. "I believe your true love first makes an appearance on page three."

"Three? Page three?" Gage flipped ahead through the pages, certain that Roy was mistaken. "That can't be right. There's nobody in that scene except me and--" His eyes opened wide at something on the page he'd just turned.

"Roy? Tell me I'm not seeing what I'm seeing."

Roy glanced over to see where Gage was in the script. "Oh, you haven't seen anything yet. I'm twenty pages ahead of you. By the way, if you try any of the things on page thirty two, I'll punch your lights out."

Really you can't go wrong with any of Linda's stories, but this is the one that has me rolling in the aisles every time.

How Can You Mend a Broken Proscenium?

Comments

[miwahni.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your recs. I watched Emergency in its first run (used to have Randolph Mantooth on the cover of my schoolbooks!) and hadn't thought about it since. I've enjoyed just about all the stories you recced, and I've browsed through the links you posted. This story, though - boy, does it sum up everything bad about Emergency fic. Especially this bit -
"I've been blown up, caved in, concussed, abraded--" Gage ticked the events off on his fingers,
"--contused, cracked, crushed, shot, abducted, defibbed - do you have any idea how much that hurts? - bitten, scratched, ruptured, burned, beaten, drowned, dropped, poisoned, dislocated, infected, incised, debrided, disfigured, lacerated, folded, spindled, mutilated, and just plain killed. I don't think I've been strangled. Yet." He's not wrong! The first three stories I read Johnny 1) ended up as a quadriplegic; 2) died of AIDS, and 3) was attacked by killer bees. Yep. *sigh*. Proves the old adage "you always hurt the ones you love."
Anyway, happy new year, and thanks again!

[aesposito.livejournal.com]

You are most welcome! and yes, this story really sums it up... so funny too!

[mapleshade.livejournal.com]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for reminding me of fun I used to have watching this TV show. I have to credit/blame them for my interest in medicine. I wanted to be Nurse Dixie McCall SOOOOOO bad (LOL, until my first day as a volunteer on the floor of the hospital when I saw the horrible paperwork they had to do -- and this was in the 70's!!) until I realized I really wanted to be Johnny and Roy. I had many happy years working as an EMT/Paramedic before ending up in family practice as a PA.

I LOVE your story. It's hilarious. Warning: don't drink anything while reading this unless you want to clean off your computer. There were so many great lines. One of my favs was "Hell, you've gotta pound on the damn back doors to tell them to go." I once read somewhere (one of those paramedic joke emails you send to buddies) that this was called the "ambu-slap."

Thank you for reminding me of a fantastic show and all the dreams I had as a teenager of doing all the crazy stuff they all did (well, without the monkey bites, snake bites, falls, spitting snakes, planes crashing on them, haz mat exposures, collapsing buildings, scorpion stings, black widow bites, dodging The Phantom, etc.).

Thanks again.

Christina

KMZ.... Jeez can't remember the rest of their radio identification. 462? I'll wake up tonight to throw an old VCR tape in just to answer that question or else I won't get any sleep. :)

kmg365

[aesposito.livejournal.com]

The answer to that and many other questions here! If you think the story rec revived your memory, wait until you read my crack_van summary of the show:

http://community.livejournal.com/crack_van/2820514.html