Red Light (20 page)

“Show her your pee-pee, kiss her, and
get off my radio
!”

I was laughing so hard I was crying, and I couldn’t sit right.

“Why do all the pretty girls laugh at me?” Jean asked no one.

But in addition to the kidding, Jean told me about growing up in Brooklyn, her older brother, Patrick, whom everyone called Pat and who was a cop working in Manhattan, and her dog, a female golden retriever she called Dusty—because she liked to roll around in everything she could.

After work, she introduced me to Lundy’s, a Brooklyn icon in Sheepshead Bay, and way too many shellfish at the raw bar, after which we’d grab a beer and walk the pier. Jean lived close by in Manhattan Beach, because it was a great place to do the two things she was really into outside of work: scuba diving and cycling.

I promised Jean we’d ride together when the weather got better, because I liked to cycle too and knew some really good routes, and Jean promised to teach me how to dive, something I’d always wanted to do but never had the time for.

I introduced her to black and tans and the burgers at Peggy O’Neills in Bay Ridge, a place I’d discovered by accident with Roy and Bennie one day after class when we felt like taking a drive and visiting all the private ambulance companies we could find.

The place was so much fun to hang out in, because of the food, the live music, and the occasional very competitive dart games, that we had all started dragging friends there, and we often ran into Bennie, who was working with a different private company, or Roy, who’d managed to snag a per-diem spot at Bayley Seton Hospital—affectionately nicknamed Barely Breathing Hospital.

Both Bennie and I had goggled at him over a beer and waffle fries when he’d told us, and he shrugged. “You know, it’s a guy thing,” he said. “It’s not for any other reason.”

I hated to admit he might be right about that, but I couldn’t come up with any other reasonable explanation, and I had to let it go. We’d all applied to the city, though, and, like Jean, were waiting for that to come through.

I saw Trace a few times over the next weeks but, between the facts that she hadn’t asked me before she tied me up and that I was so sore it hurt to piss, combined with Jean’s story, I begged off staying too long because of work.

Barbara pulled me to the side one morning as I signed in on a clipboard.

“What’s the deal between you and Jean?” she asked point-blank.

“We work together, why?”

Barbara scowled.

“Aw, come on, you mean that whole on-air thing? Jean’s just playing, you know that,” I said. “She jokes like that with everyone.”

The truth was, Jean did have a bit of a rep as a pick-up artist, and she did joke like that with just about everyone. I’d witnessed more than a few exchanges between her and other crew members or hospital staff, and Chuck and a few others had told me I was pretty much the only female on staff who wasn’t married or straight she hadn’t slept with, which seemed to be the only distinction I held as low man on the totem pole.

I didn’t know if that was true or not; not only was it none of my business, I didn’t care because Jean was absolutely great to work with, and besides, we had fun hanging out.

“No, not with everyone. In fact, not with
anyone
anymore, and definitely not on air,” Barbara clarified. “It’s just you, so you better not be leading her on or something.”

“What? That’s…that’s not—” I spluttered, and Barbara’s expression softened as she interrupted me.

“Look, Jean…she’s good people, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. She’s great medical personnel too.”

“She’s one of the best, and she doesn’t belong here. She should work for a hospital or for the city, but just because she’s tough on the street…” Barbara sighed, then started again. “Look, the Ms. Psycho-Bitch thing, that’s a game. She’s good people, good-hearted, and I don’t want to see her hurt.”

I shook my head. “Look, Barbara, that’s not my game. I like Jean, I think she’s cool, and I don’t go out of my way to fuck people over.”

Barbara nodded. “Just…just letting you know. You seem nice enough, Tori. You get along well with everyone, the hospitals and the patients like you, but you never know, and I just—”

“You’re taking care of your buddy, I understand.” I smiled. “I’d do the same. But Barbara, I wouldn’t play with anyone like that and, really, Jean’s just joking around.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” Barbara answered as she ticked something off on one of her endless ledgers. “I wouldn’t be that certain at all.”

I wondered about that comment as I readjusted my tech bag on my shoulder.

“By the way, Ms. Scotty, would you like to know who you’re working with today?” Barbara asked without looking at me, her tone once again all business.

“Actually, yes, I would.”

Barbara glanced up and beamed at me. “We’ve saved the best for last—get through today, and you can get through anything. You’re on eight Danny with Lara. Have a great day!” She waved me off like she was Miss America as I walked to the rig.

*

“Hi, I’m Lara. I’m bisexual, I’m born-again, and I’m into anal sex,” she introduced herself, holding a hand out.

I stopped counting bandages for the checklist to say hello and shake it. “Nice to meet you.” She had a good handshake, at least. “I’m Tori, everyone calls me Scotty, and I’m not, I’m not, and I’m not.”

Lara laughed. “We gonna get along just fine, I think, just fine. You a gay girl, Miz Thing?”

“You know, I’m feeling pretty cheerful right now, and,” I looked down at my chest, “last I checked I was a girl, so yeah, I guess you could say that.” I grinned.

Lara chortled. “Yep, you and me, we’ll be just fine, I think.”

Lara was hell to work with. She drove slower than snails on quaaludes, and I wanted to scream with frustration as we inched down the street under the L line in Brighton, Brooklyn, as she searched for the right bank to cash her check in.

I couldn’t even nap, because she regaled me with tales about herself, her fiancé Pierre, her girlfriend, who was a “fine, just
fine
!” woman named Cerise, and she expected a response to everything she said.

By ten that morning, I knew more about her sex life than I knew about mine, by twelve in the afternoon I had a thorough academic overview of every way she and Pierre enjoyed anal sex, and by three I wanted medication—for myself. It wasn’t that I had issues with discussing sex per se; it was just that this was so…
raw
, and from someone I didn’t even know.

“Yeah, you know, I got the religion about two, three months ago, and you know, you’re not supposed to do the dicky-pussy thing before marriage, but it don’t say nothing about anal sex before marriage, so, since Pierre and I got engaged and he got the religion too, we do that now, and we’ll save the pussy for after that day,” she told me conversationally as she drove.

“Uh-huh, yeah, I get that,” I answered briefly, hoping like anything she’d get the hint and simply stop.

“And you know, ’ccording to the Bible, and you read it real careful-like, you know, you can suck all the titties and clitties you want, just so long as you have a man and a baby. Read it, you’ll see, I’m not making no lies.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, unable to believe that I was actually hearing what I was hearing. I’d never heard anyone,
ever
, speak the way she did, say anything like that, even with the crudity that passed for normal around the job. “I’m sure.”

“But I love my Cerise, and if Pierre so much as even thinks I’ll let her touch his willie, he can go look for it in the trash. Pussy is so much better and hers is so fine, hmph! But you know, the Bible and all.”

I looked out the window and prayed for a flag-down, or an extra-super-routine dialysis transport. I even prayed for a personal aneurysm, because I was pretty sure that listening to Lara was not only rapidly dropping my IQ, it was also making my brain bleed; I was expecting blood to come gushing out of my ears, nose, and eyes at any moment.

“Um, what was that, Lara? I didn’t quite catch that,” I said as she made a sound that I now knew meant she was waiting for an answer. “The radio, you know?” I excused weakly.

“I was saying, you know, I think it’s the rest of the world that’s crazy, and I’m normal, you know what I mean? They’re the wackos, out there,” she said, and took both hands off the steering wheel to gesture when she faced me. “You and me, we’re okay.”

I could feel my whole face stretch with the alarm I felt at our imminent violent death by vehicular manslaughter, but I was careful as I leaned over and grabbed Lara’s wrist to place her hand back on the wheel.

“Uh-huh, I agree with you, Lara, you’re right,” I said as I settled back into my seat after I was certain someone was actually driving again. What was it we had learned in tech class about EDPs, emotionally disturbed people? Don’t fuck with their delusions. I was definitely with an EDP, and I wasn’t going to fuck with whatever she said—she’d already let go of the steering wheel twice.

“In fact, Lara, you’re so right that if you want me to call you Jesus, I will. I will call you Jesus. Is that okay, Jesus?”

She cracked up so hard I was afraid we were never going to make it through that intersection alive.

“Oh, my, you are so funny, Scotty!” she guffawed and punched my arm. “You…are such a card!” and she punched my arm again. “Jesus,” she exclaimed, “you called me Jesus!”

For the rest of the shift, I was very sorry I’d said that, because she’d chuckle every now and again, say “Jesus—what a card!” and punch my arm. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to use it again.

“Hey, you diddling Jean?” Lara asked me when we finally got back to base, thirteen hours later instead of eight because we’d ended up with a rig down and too many extra calls.

“What?” She was the second person to ask me about Jean that day.

“I was just wondering, you know, everyone is.”

“Really? Why’s that, you think?” I asked dryly as I removed my bag from the back of the vehicle.

“Well, she’s not sleeping with anyone else. Hell, I asked her if she wanted to just two, three days ago, and she told me she was involved with someone. I asked about you, she said you were seeing someone and…you work together a lot, you the one she talks about on the air, so—”

Ah. I got it. She’d added two and two and come up with twenty-two. Wonderful.

“And she talks about how we’re
not
having sex,” I reminded her.

“Well, you a gay girl, she’s pretty and tall—she got herself some
nice
titties—you pretty with a nice body. Why don’t you hook up?”

I shook my head in negation, slightly irritated by the comment about Jean’s body, especially since I’d seen the part she’d referred to, and I didn’t want to
think
about that view, which, of course, now that I’d been reminded, was exactly like trying not to think about blue elephants. That and…it was wrong, somehow, to talk about Jean like that. And I didn’t want to ponder the implications of what Barbara, and now Lara, had told me. “Lara, I
am
kinda seeing someone, and it’s—”

“It’s nothing,” Lara said. “Jean likes you, you like her, you should do something about it. Hey, look, it’s none of
my
business, but—”

“No, it’s not.”

Lara continued as if I’d said nothing. “—but if I was
you
, I’d grab a chance at her with both hands, you know what I’m saying?” She leered.

“Yeah, I hear you.”

“No, you don’t, cuz, that other girl, what is she, like a sometime thing or something?”

I shrugged. I didn’t want to answer that question despite the fact I’d spent the day listening to Lara’s most intimate details, none of which I’d wanted to know and most of which I hoped to forget.

“You and she, you’d be good together. I know these things, I truly do,” Lara insisted as we walked into the dispatch office.

I penciled in my hours and faced her. “Lara, it was an interesting day,” I said as I shook her hand. “Thank you.”

“Why, you’re welcome, Scotty.” She beamed. “I had a most excellent day too.”

“You have a great night,” I told her as I put my hand on the door, “and you take care.”

“You too. Oh, and Scotty?”

“Yeah?”

“You think about it, what I said about you and”—she waggled her eyebrows at me—“her, you know? It’s got good feeling to it, I know these things.”

I smiled at her. “I’ll think about it,” I promised. “Good night, Lara.”

*

I was given a regular shift the next morning, with Anton, who was a driver and not a tech. He informed me as we pulled out of the garage together for the first time that riding with Lara was the standard acid test for new techs and medics at the company before they were given a permanent shift: if the person survived both it and her report? Well, I had a regular shift and days now, didn’t I?

Besides, despite the bruise Lara had left me as a souvenir of our day together, my arm functioned exactly as it should have, even if it was a bit tender.

Anton and I got along well, though when things went south and down, and plenty of times they did, he was muscle, not backup, which meant every decision was up to me, from vitals to treatment, and if I needed help I had to instruct and direct him.