“Did you ever have any doubt?”
She gave a crooked smile. “Yes,” she admitted. “I did. Multiple times, in fact.”
He walked over and kissed her on her forehead. “I didn’t,” he told her. “I saw how determined you and Jake were the whole time.”
She looked up at him and smiled, feeling the love she had for him coursing through her. He was a bit stiff at times—no pun intended—but he had his moments. “Thanks, Greg,” she told him. “For everything.”
“Hey,” he said. “Someone has to start bringing some income into this marriage, don’t they?”
She laughed. “I guess so.”
“What happens next?”
“Now, we sit back and go along with the ride. Hopefully it’ll be an enjoyable one.”
Ted Duncan was on duty on the afternoon of July 8, 1992, when he first heard Struggle played on the air. He was working with Caryn Brown, a five year EMT who was currently engaging in a struggle of her own: She was trying to work full-time hours while simultaneously putting herself through a local paramedic school so she could upgrade and, hopefully, get herself a job with LA County Fire in the next few years.
Caryn—an out of the closet and proud to be there butch lesbian—sat in the driver’s seat of the blue and white converted Ford van ambulance as it sat beneath a tree in the back reaches of Corrigan Park near central Pomona. She had a large textbook—The Principals of Emergency Medical Trauma Assessment and Care—balanced on the steering wheel and open to the chapter regarding mechanisms of injury and how to evaluate them. In her lap was a notebook that she was jotting down sample test question answers on. In the passenger seat was Ted, her assigned partner for this particular six month rotation. He was currently dozing in his seat, his head slumped over to the side in a position that looked hideously uncomfortable, loud snores issuing from his mouth on occasion—snores that were often cut suddenly off for alarming amounts of time by sleep apnea. Both medics were dressed in the standard summer uniform of navy blue cargo pants and light blue polo shirts with their last names and positions stenciled on them. Ted’s polo was untucked and would remain as such unless a field supervisor happened across them—an unlikely scenario on such a warm day. Their communications radios—one tuned to the Pomona City Fire channel and one to their dispatch channel—were squawking out an endless stream of traffic, but both were veteran enough that the volume was kept low. If something came across either radio that concerned them, they would hear it. The music radio was on as well, and tuned to the afternoon show on KPID.
Eric Clapton’s song, Tears in Heaven, came to an end and Caryn’s attention was diverted from her studying when she heard the familiar sound of The Struggle by Celia Valdez start. Though Caryn had not heard the song played on the radio yet, she—along with pretty much every other member of the Pomona division’s paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, supervisors, and managers—had been given a cassette copy of both Celia Valdez’s The Struggle CD and Jake Kingsley’s Can’t Keep Me Down CD that Ted had recorded from the master copies he’d been given. She had listened to both cassettes multiple times in her car during her commutes and really enjoyed both. She had always liked working with Ted—he was a funny guy and a great medic—but that enjoyment had gone up a few notches once he returned from his leave after spending the better part of a cycle recording music with Jake Kingsley (who Caryn considered a legend) and Celia Valdez (who Caryn wanted to palpate in more than a clinical manner).
“Hey,” Caryn said, reaching over and giving him a shake on the shoulder. “Wake up!”
Ted went immediately from sound asleep to wide awake—this was a skill essential to first responders and Ted possessed it—his eyes flying open, his head turning to look at her. “What?” he asked. “Was it the apnea again? I told you, you don’t need to wake me up unless it’s been more than a minute.”
“No, not the apnea,” she said. “You were staying in the thirty to forty seconds range, mostly. Your song is on the radio. I thought you might want to hear it.”
“My song?” he asked, then tuned his ears into the music issuing from the cheap stock speakers in the doors of the rig. He heard the melody playing, heard the rhythm set by his drums and Ben Ping’s bass. He smiled. “Well, what do you know?”
Caryn reached over and turned up the volume a bit, as loud as she dared without drowning out their dispatch radios. “It really is a good tune,” she told him. “I can’t believe that’s actually you on the drums.”
“I’m pretty good, ain’t I?” Ted said. “This was one of the easier cuts, of course, but I got into some pretty complex shit on Jake’s album, also on Games on Celia’s.”
“I really dig Playing Those Games,” Caryn said. “That’s my favorite song on the tape. It rocks.”
“It is badass,” Ted agreed. “Jake told me it’ll be the second cut they start promoting from Celia’s CD.”
“Who would’ve thought that the I Love to Dance girl could put out some premo shit like this?” Caryn said. She looked at Ted meaningfully. “Tell me the truth. Is Jake Kingsley boning her?”
“He’s not boning her,” Ted said. “They’ve definitely got some chemistry working between them—anyone who hangs out with those two can see that—but I’m pretty sure he’s not wetting his weenie with her.”
“A shame,” Caryn said. “I’d sure as shit would play the scissor game with her if she gave me a shot. Is she as hot in person as she looks on TV?”
“Hotter,” he assured her. “Did I ever tell you about the time she got in the hot tub with me?”
“No,” Caryn said. “Do tell.”
“It was back when we were all staying in the house up in Oregon, the one on the cliff over the ocean.”
“You told me about the house,” she said.
“Yeah ... well, there’s this big ass hot tub out on the deck just over the cliff. Jake and Laura spent a lot of time in there, especially at night right before they went to bed, but everyone else had their turns in there too. One night—this was while we were still working on the basic tracks in the beginning—I go out there with a couple of beers so I can relax and listen to the ocean a little—kind of meditate, you know? I’m just sitting out there, minding my own business and the door opens and out comes Celia fucking Valdez dressed in a robe and carrying a towel, a glass, and a fuckin’ bottle of white wine. She sees I’m in the tub and I figure she’ll either go back inside or just wait for me to leave—I mean, I’ll be the first to admit that I ain’t the most attractive thing in the world with my shirt off, you know what I’m saying?—but she don’t even bat an eye. She just asks me if I mind if she joins me.”
“And you said yes?”
“Hell to the yeah I said yes,” he told her. “She smiled at me and then set down her wine and her glass and then she drops that fuckin’ robe and is standing there right in front of me in a goddamn bikini.”
“Wow,” Caryn whispered. “A bikini.”
Ted nodded his head, flushing a bit at the memory. “I’m telling you,” he told her, “those titties of hers are a sight to behold. I mean, they always look nice no matter what she’s wearing—she could be in a fuckin’ burqa and they’d still look good—but in a bikini ... that shit’s enough to make you believe in God.”
“What about the rest of her body?” Caryn asked. “Is it nice too?”
Ted nodded. “Fuckin’ premo,” he said. “Smooth skin that’s just a little bit dark, hot legs that got some runner’s muscle on them, nice flat belly with the kind of belly button you’d like to nut on.”
“Sweet,” Caryn whispered.
“She climbed on into the tub and sat down across from me and then poured herself a nice big glass of wine. And then ... and then she just started talking to me.”