X-ray Chapter 7, part 3.5

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NOTE: this fits between Ch 7 parts three and four.

"I thought we were really in the barrel over that one," Jill said as they walked into Flanagan's. "Do you think he bought it?"

Jim shrugged. "He let us go, right?"

"But what if he looks at the PCR?"

"So what?" said Frank, steering toward the table where Andy was already sitting with two half-empty bottles. "The code happened, right?"

"You guys had a code?" Andy asked as everyone sat down.

"Yeah," Ian said. "Some guy collapsed in his pot garden."

"Lieutenant XXXX was pissed." Jill said. "I don't know, I think he'll figure it out. He could fire us. I don't know how I'll make my car payments. Or my rent."

"You had the giggles earlier, didn't you," Andy asked Jill. "You're high."

"Yeah," JIll said suspiciously.

"And now you're paranoid." Andy said. "Always the same. You'll get over it; you always do. Here's the waitress."

They placed there orders, and after further discussion on the merits and demerits of marijuana, their drinks arrived, breaking the flow of the discussion. "Did I tell you what Lonnie did yesterday?" Jeremy asked as the waitress departed.

"I don't wanna know," Frank said.

"Thirty six year old female calls, chest pain. AOS she has a box of tissues in one hand and a bottle of Excedrin in the other, wincing in pain, breathing rapid and shallow. Four days of cough, runny nose and headache, green phlegm. She says she was coughing and felt a pop, now her right side hurts whenever she breaths or moves. Lonnie listens to her lungs. He starts an IV, a line, puts her on the monitor and walks her down the stairs. She's crying in pain. We get her to the Truck, I go around to drive.

"We get to the hospital, Lonnie's giving the report, 'she was tachycardic so I gave her six of Adenosine-'"

"Adenosine!" Frank cried, knocking over his bottle as he did so. "Fuck. Can I get another? he called over to their waitress.

"Party foul!" said Jill.

"You seem to have recovered," Andy said to her as he passed Frank a napkin.

"'Adenosine,'" Jeremy continued, "'then twelve with no relief. I was gonna give her Cardizem but we pulled up.'"

"OhmiGod," Andy put down his bottle.

"Adenosine," Jeremy repeated. "And my name is on that report."

"Did you say anything?" Andy asked.

"'Hey, I don't tell you what to do with your patient.' You've worked with Lonnie."

"Yeah, but your name's on that report," Andy said.

"I know."

"One of these days that schmuck is gonna kill someone," Frank offered as he continued to dab at his uniform with a napkin. "Hopefully it'll be himself."

"Yeah, well," Jeremy replied.

"You don't like him any more than I do." Frank resigned himself to a wet uniform and tossed his wet napkin on the table. "Anyone want something to eat?"

"Oh, yeah," said Jill, "Buffalo wings. They have wings, right?"

Frank collected orders from everyone else, then stood up to intercept their waitress. "She says five minutes on the food," he reported on his return

Jeremy glanced at his watch. "Five bucks it takes longer."

"Okay," Andy took him up. "Five bucks it takes less," he put his watch on the table.

The food came in exactly five minutes, cancelling the bet. "Did I bring the wrong food?" the waitress asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothin'," Frank answered. "Poppers go here. And can you take some of these bottles away?"

On the TV the Yanks battled it out with the Red Sox. "Son of a bitch," Andy cried as he watched the ball fly over the outfield wall. "I got twenty bucks on this game."

"So do I," Jeremy said, "Let the ball go."

Conversation moved to last night's rain delay, the weather, flooding on Jeremy's street, an anecdote of a white water rafting trip Andy had been on where his raft had become separated from the group.

"Did you ever find them again?" Frank asked.

"Yeah, they waited for us at the take-out. We all hopped into the bus and they were all dry. We were still soaked."

"Sounds like a day at work." Jeremy said.

"We weren't in full uniform. We could peel layers off. The windows on the bus did fog a bit, though."

"You know I tried that anti-fog stuff for the windows," Frank said. "The stuff costs eighteen dollars a bottle, and you have to redo it every week."

"Which one did you use?" Jeremy asked.

"They're all the same."

"We tried a few of them." Andy indicated himself and Jeremy.

"Some of them worked better than others but none of them were great," Jeremy agreed. "None of them got rid of the sauna feel."

Frank grumbled an incoherent reply. Ian looked up from his beer, "Nothing's better for what ails you than sitting around in a sauna in full uniform." he said.

The evening ended with Andy twenty bucks poorer, Jeremy twenty bucks richer, and the usual wreckage of plates and bottles on the table. Two ashtrays sat full of cigarette butts. Ian tossed his cash into the communal pile and walked out alone, opening his window in spite of the rain to unsuccessfully try to clear some of the encroaching fog.

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