“Kind of a hot piece of trim,” Matt commented to Jim as she walked away. “You ever bone her?”
“No,” Jim told him. “She doesn’t want anything to do with me. She’s a hose bunny.”
“A hose bunny?” Matt asked, seemingly intrigued. “What’s that?”
“A firefighter groupie,” Jim clarified. “Those without a pair of turnouts need not apply for entry.”
“Ahhh,” said Matt, nodding, understanding now showing. “I guess that makes sense. Those guys get a lot of pussy then?”
“Probably not as much as you do,” Jim allowed, “but they don’t want for it much.”
Matt nodded. “Good for them. I’m in favor of everyone getting all the pussy they can—even dykes. What about you guys? Are there paramedic groupies?”
He shrugged. “We do okay with the night shift waitresses and the nurses in the convalescent homes. Not quite the same league as the hose bunnies, but when I need to get laid, I can.”
“That’s good to know,” Matt said seriously. “Anyway, are you up for the boat trip? If you’re not, I’ll set you up with the same deal as your partner there.”
Jim was torn. Four days in Vegas in a hotel suite did sound like a pretty damn good time, especially with free drinks, free food, and twenty grand in casino chips thrown in. But on the other hand ... cruising on a yacht with Matt Tisdale and his band ... well ... how often did an offer like that come around?
“Are you sure you really want me there, Matt?” Jim asked meekly. “I’m probably kind of ... you know ... square compared to the people you’re used to hanging out with. If you’re just making the offer to be polite...”
“I ain’t making the offer just to be polite,” Matt said. “I really want to thank you for saving my ass, and I really want you to have a good time. Come party with us, dude! Seriously. There’s gonna be good booze, good blow, good weed, premo fuckin’ chow, and some of the hottest, sluttiest, nastiest bitches I can scrounge up on short notice. Shit that’ll make those night shift waitresses of yours look like fucking prudish nuns in comparison.”
“Well ... I don’t do weed or blow,” he said carefully.
Matt simply shrugged. “More for the rest of us then,” he said. “I’d really like you to be there, Jim. And for more than one reason.”
“What’s the other reason?” Jim asked.
“You’re a paramedic,” he said. “We’re going to be out on the high fuckin’ seas for part of the time and in a fuckin’ third world country with shitty healthcare the rest of the time. If my heart starts doing that funky shit again, it would really be nice to have you there to help me out.”
Understanding flooded into Jim’s brain. Now things were starting to make sense. Unfortunately, Jim was afflicted with the curse of honesty. “Well ... to tell you the truth, Matt,” he explained, “there wouldn’t be much I could do if I’m off duty. If I don’t have my monitor and defibrillator with me, I can’t do anything about SVT.”
“I bought one of those Lifepak things you carry,” Matt told him. “It’s already on the boat. I also got my hands on twelve doses of Adenosine in case I go into SVT and you can stop it without having to light me up.”
“You ... you bought a Lifepak?” Jim asked, astounded.
“Fuckin’ A,” Matt said.
“Wow,” Jim said. “I didn’t know you could just buy one of those like a pack of cigarettes.”
“When you have enough coin, you can buy anything,” Matt assured him. “The fuckin’ thing cost me twelve grand, and the Adenosine was another grand, and then I had to buy some IV fluids and tubing and all that other shit to go with it, but I’m now equipped for you to deal with my heart if you need to.”
Jim was still shaking his head. “That’s all good and everything,” he said, “but I can’t just treat you out on your boat.”
“Why not?” Matt asked.
“Well ... even if I have the equipment, I’m only allowed to act as a paramedic when I’m on the clock. It’s a legal thing, you see. I act under a medical director’s license following written orders known as protocols. They don’t apply when I’m outside of Los Angeles County or off duty. And I’m not allowed to administer Adenosine at all. It’s not in the California scope of practice for medics.”
“But you know how to use the monitor to light me up, obviously, since you’ve done it.”
“Right,” Jim agreed, “but that was when I was on duty acting as...”
“And you know when and how to use the Adenosine, right?” Matt interrupted.
“Well ... yes,” he said. “It’s pretty straightforward. We’ve been arguing to put it in our scope for years, but...”
“So...” Matt interrupted again, “correct me if I’m wrong, but these rules and regulations about scope of practice only apply when you’re actually in the state of California or the nation of the USA, right?”
Jim’s eyes widened a little. “Uh ... yeah ... that’s right.”
Matt nodded. “So, once we leave Marina Del Rey tomorrow afternoon and make it more than twelve miles offshore, we’ll be in international waters. The rules won’t apply then, right?”
“Uh ... well...” He hesitated, his brain trying to find a hole in Matt’s theory and failing. “Right. I guess that’s true.”
“All right then,” Matt said with a smile. “So ... you my man, or what?”
“What about ... you know ... the drinking and the partying? Am I supposed to stay sober the whole trip just in case you go into SVT again?”
“I do not expect that of you,” Matt said. “Party as hard as you want, fuck anything that will let you fuck it back, just stay coherent enough to do what needs to be done if and when it needs to be done. Fair?”
Jim smiled back. “I guess I’m your man,” he said.
In the late afternoon of August 26th, a chartered Gulfstream IV jet landed at North Bend Municipal Airport outside of Coos Bay after flying nonstop from Midway in Chicago. The single passenger was Greg Oldfellow, who had just finished his duties during principal photography of the film Us and Them and now had a two-week break before the start of postproduction in Los Angeles. Since Greg’s wife was currently mired in the duties of recording her third album at Blake Family Studios, and since he had not seen her in the flesh in several months, and since ground had finally been broken on the golf resort just south of Coos Bay that Greg was a primary investor in, his choice of destination was unsurprising.
Celia was done with her recording duties for the day and had been given the next day off—they were working primarily on distorted electric guitar and percussion overdubs at this point and did not really need her anyway—so she and her husband could have some alone time. She drove her Mercedes to the airport by herself and loaded Greg and his four bags into the trunk.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go by the house first?” Celia asked him as she climbed behind the wheel. “Everyone is looking forward to seeing you. And Jake is making burgers and French fries tonight.”
“I’m sure,” he said. “We’ll visit tomorrow night; take everyone out of dinner. For now, I just want to get to that hotel room and get reacquainted with you.”
Celia smiled warmly. “I’ll send them our regrets,” she said.
She drove directly to the Seaside Resort, the nicest hotel in the bay area, where she had reserved for them the Presidential Suite for the next week. They checked in, let the bellboy bring up their luggage, tipped him, and then they went directly to bed. They did not leave the room for the next nineteen hours.
It was a good reunion.
As promised, Greg took the entire houseful of musicians and the sound team out to dinner the following night. They met at The Dancing Pelican, one of the nicer Coos Bay establishments. Greg booked the entire upper floor of the dining room and spent the better part of the evening regaling Jake and Laura, Nerdly and Sharon, Pauline and Obie, Liz, Natalie, Coop, Charlie, and Celia with tales of Chicago and his portrayal of a hardened street cop there. No one asked about Mindy Snow and he volunteered no information about her.