Chapter 14 Starting the day in Texas
Musical theme: Layla by Eric Clapton
Dave rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Jainie wasn’t in the bed. He looked out the window. The day was beginning clear and cool. The thermometer outside read 50. Nice day to work. It was just after sunrise, and should likely get to 60 later in the morning. He got dressed, put on a long sleeved T shirt, a sweater, a velour shirt, and a heavy Carhartt jacket. He put on a pair of Red Wing boots with Vibram soles, and a watch cap of Ragg wool. He went outside to look for Jainie. First he went to the barn, and saw the stock had been fed. He put the collar on Clyde, and the bridle, too. He jumped up, and scrambled on by pulling on poor Clyde’s mane. He stroked Clyde’s neck. “Let’s see where she is, big guy.”
They went out the barn door. She wasn’t by the corral. There were no horses missing from the barn, which would have been bad, because she could be far out in the prairie somewhere. He rode Clyde around the farmhouse, then around the barn. Where could she be?
He spotted what looked like a pile of rags in the yard. He rode over, and jumped off Clyde. It was Jainie. She was breathing, and had a pulse, but she was unconscious. Dave pulled out his cell phone. He called Eric Delacroix. “It must be a seizure of some sort. Have you called 911?”
“No. We’re way out in the boonies.”
“At your ranch.”
“Yes.”
“Too far. I can’t be there in time. Call 911. Give them this number: he read off a landline number. Then call me on the landline from your landline, so you don’t run out of charge. Get her inside. Put her on the floor, not a bed, and put a pillow under her shoulders, not her head. I want her on her back with her head tilted back. Does your first aid kit have a breathing tube?”
“I suppose. It’s a military kit.”
“You know this already, but read the instructions for the tube. Don’t put it in so long as she is breathing normally, but make sure you are ready if she swallows her tongue or something.”
‘My charge nurse is on the line to your EMT’s, and they are on the way, so you don’t need to call 911. Read back that landline number. Good. Get her inside on the floor with the pillow under her shoulders, and be prepared to intubate her if you have to. Then call me on the landline.”
Dave picked Jainie up and put her on his shoulder. He ran into the house, and laid her out on the living room floor. He put the pillow under her shoulders, and brought the phone over from the table. He called Eric Delacroix again.
“Look over her hands and face. Do you see anything like a sting?”
“Yes. Some bumps on her arm. And on her hand is part of a bug. Looks like a paper wasp.”
Eric was talking to the nurse. It sounded like he said ‘epinepherine’ which did not mean anything to Dave. Then he was back.
“Respiration normal?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you do her blood pressure?”
“Yes.” Dave ran for the blood pressure cuff, and put it on her. When it read out, he told Eric. “105 over 77.”
“Dave, if it was under 60 on systolic, I would be worried. This is almost a normal blood pressure. None of the people who die from venomous insects have blood pressures like hers after this much time. I’m going to consult with the EMTs when they arrive, but she will be just fine. I am almost certain of that.”
“Dave! Dave! Are you there?”
Dave flicked the phone on speaker. “Yeah, Jainie, I am. Eric is on the speakerphone.”
“I did something dumb. I saw the wasp nest, but I thought they were gone already because of the cold weather. They came out and stung me.”
“Eric, did you hear that?”
“Yes, Dave. I’ve ordered some blood work. The EMTs will take a blood sample when they get there. Give me the latest blood pressure.”
He tested again.
“109 over 79.”
“Dave, the blood is going to my head. Can I sit up?”
“That’s fine, Dave.”
Dave put his hands under her arms, and lifted her up, and put her on the sofa. He put some pillows behind her head so she wouldn’t flop back. The ambulance zoomed up to the door, and Dave opened it. The EMTs came in, one of them still talking to Eric on the phone. They took her blood pressure, looked in her eyes with the little scope, and some things like that. Eric came back. “She is sensitive, not allergic. She’s going to be fine. Don’t let her drive until tomorrow. We’re not going to transport her, and there is no treatment indicated. Just keep her away from those wasps. I have to go to surGarry. See ya, and thanks for the lagniappe.”
Dave turned to the EMTs, who had just drawn the blood sample. “Well I guess this turned out not to be much of a much, but it could have been. We really appreciate the job you do for us. He handed one of them a business card. Send the bill to the ranch in Wyoming.” Then he handed each of them two hundred dollar bills.
“Uh, Dave, I don’t think we can take this money.”
“What money?”
The female one kicked the male one in the ankle. “I’m a single mom, Jeff.”
Dave looked at her. She was a sort of weatherbeaten looking woman in her thirties. “Boy or girl?”
“She’s a girl. She is seven.”
“Does she play computer games and all that?”
“We don’t have a computer.”
Dave extended his closed hand. “Get one.”
Even Jainie, who could see a gnat in a blizzard, didn’t see anything change hands.
Jeff headed for the door. “We need to call in.”
They took Jainie’s blood pressure again, it was coming up, and reported it in. The doctor told them there was no problem.
In a moment, they were gone.
“What did you give her?”
“A thousand.”
“That’s great. I would have been fine with two. I like this handing out hundred dollar bills thing. Even to that clown at the dealership. You put him in his place better with a tip than you ever could have by punching him out.”
“He was just a pompous dumbshit. He didn’t deserve to be hurt.”
“You’re right.”
“You could have a few of them in your pocket.”
“Well, I might get some, but I like seeing you do it more than I would do it myself.”
“The Tundra is here. Do you want to let Billy and Larry drive it?”
“No. I don’t like boys driving my new cars. They are better than most, but they are still boys.”
“Do you want to leave one of the new trucks here? I don’t see much reason if the Toy truck is already here.”
“Can I get them painted with the ranch name here?”
“Maybe. But the picture, I don’t know how they did that. I don’t know where to get that done.”
“That’s just for the Volvo. The rest of them, I just want the ranch name.”
“Location and phone number?”
“That makes sense. So just that.”
Let me make a call. He dialed. “May I speak to Jackie Escobedo, please? Thanks. Jackie, this is Dave. Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, she will have you towing something pretty soon. We might buy a car carrier. Probably. OK, so I want to get our ranch name painted on three trucks. Can you give me the number?” He wrote down a name and number. “Thanks, Jackie.”
“May I speak to Dan?”
“Great. This is Dave, with the Princess Baby Doll Ranch, Inc. in Maris Lake, Wyoming. We have three pickups we would like to have painted with our ranch name on the doors. Well, we have a ranch in Big Bird, too. We’re in Big Bird now. We could head over there now, though. Tonight? We’d like that. I have the pickups in a bull trailer. OK, fine.” He scribbled down the directions. He pointed to himself, and Jainie, and the note pad, and spread his hands. She nodded. “We’ll be there this afternoon, then, Dan.”
They got in the truck and headed over to the sign writing shop. They pulled in in the early afternoon, and Dan came out to greet them. They went inside, Jainie noticeable as always in jeans, high heeled black suede boots, and a crème sweater. When they got inside, Dan offered them coffee, which Dave accepted. Dave gave Dan the pic. Dan put it on his computer. It showed Jainie in a white silk pantsuit, with brown cowboy boots, and a matching belt and holster with a Colt .45 single action revolver. In her left hand was a lariat, and she wore a brown Stetson.
“You had a great photographer Ma’am.”
“That’s him.”
“Oh, I thought you were the rancher.”
“He is the ranch mathematician.”
“I’ve never heard of a ranch mathematician. What does your husband think of all this?”
“I believe he thinks it’s all just fine. Don’t you, Dave?”
“The only problem I have with Jainie, I love her very much, but she is non-integrable over her domain. Naturally, you understand.”
“Uh, right.”
“See, the problem is, she is discontinuous. At every multiple of the square root of e*i, I am afraid.”
“Well, I am not a doctor.”
“Oh, my wife’s problem is purely mathematical, I assure you.”
“Well I am also not a mathematician.”
“So I want to put the ranch name, and this picture if you can, and our location, and phone number on each door of those three trucks in my trailer out there, and I just know you can do it!”
“We certainly can. You see, we do this by computer, so nobody can make a mistake. We triple clean the door with a degreaser, and”
“Xylene I would like.”
“Yes, we’ll use xylene. And then we put a printing sprayer on the door, like they did to make the image on your semi tractor. So we will do all this for $200 an image.”
“They are not images, they are actually Dodges, but that’s fine. $600. We will pay in cash.”
“It’s one image on each door, so the total will be $1200.”
“Well, at Safeway, they have this buy one get one free. So how about if you let us buy two and get one free? You will just be telling your machine to spray the same image again. I wish my inkjet could do this job.”
“So it will be $800 cash, payable today when we get the images on the doors.”
Dave and Jainie looked at each other. “The math works.”
“He has to make a living.”
“Yes. Paint them.”
Dan had designed an image where the name of the ranch was rolled over the top of her picture, and location and phone number were below.
Dave looked it over. “Now, could I put this on the bottom?”
He drew out an equation that meant ‘the integral, from t equals zero to t equals infinity of D+J tx’ “Looks like I can do that.”
“What does it mean, Dave?”
“It could be interpreted as Dave and Jillian forever.”
“Nice artwork, Dan. Let’s print it on the trucks.”
They shuffled the trucks and Dan put the paint on them. In about two hours, it was done, and the work was very good. Dave handed Dan $800.
“Dan, what’s the best restaurant around here?”
“Outback Steakhouse.”
“Call your wife. We’re taking you there.”
“She has to watch our 6 year old son.”
“He can come, too, if he promises to behave.”
“Let me see.”
A few minutes later, he came back, and said they could do that.
They headed down to the steakhouse in Dan’s family station wagon with the Baby following.
Everyone was doing Crocodile Dundee imitations, so Dave worked on getting sympathy for his non-integrable wife. Most people were just shaking their heads. One young woman with a blond ponytail opined that probably the only way to save her was to put her in a matrix and look for a linear solution. Dave gravely admitted that most of the mathematicians he had consulted had come to the same conclusion. The problem, of course, was the seriousness of her discontinuities.
After dinner, Jainie went out to get the truck, and Dave stayed to pay the bill. The blond girl came up behind him. “Too bad you’re married. I would have liked to map your topology.”
“Integrating two expressions is always the hard part.”
“It sometimes seems impossible.”
“If I wasn’t married, darling, I’d set out to find a summation. But don’t you worry. My wife didn’t get the last mathematician who knows what tintinnabulation is.”
“You’re a professor.”
“I’m an ex marine. I drive an 18 wheeler.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“Jainie, do we have time to put the Baby at the curb and take a pic with this young lady?”
“Sure. We’ll see you in a few. Don’t get too fresh with her, now.”
“What’s your name, Ma’am?”
“Leandra Tomkins.”
“I’m Dave Cale.”
“No way.”
“I drive a cattle truck for Princess Baby Doll Ranch, Inc. Maris Lake, Wyoming.”
He handed her his driver’s license and his business card, which announced him as David Cale, CEO of Princess Baby Doll Ranch, Maris Lake, Wyoming. She handed back the license. The Baby pulled up to the curb, and Jainie came out like a paratrooper.
Up against the truck girl. Behind the door. Dave, get there, put your arm around her if you want.”
She shot them like a fashion photographer. bam bam bam. In the digital age, anyone can do it like that. Jainie wouldn’t have cared if she was using film. She would have done the same thing.
“Kiss her on the cheek, Dave. Now open that notebook and sit there showing it to her as if it had something like a theorem of fundamental arithmetic or something on it. Bam bam bam. Have her put down her name and address, phone number and email, and look like she’s deriving the Lorenz transformation. Bam bam bam. We’re good. This goes on the web site, and send her high res copies of these pix on her email.”
“Girl, take some engineering classes. There is no money in math. You could be David Cale, and the only way you are going to have any money is driving a truck.”
Dave got in.
“What is tintinnabulation?”
“Look it up in your Funk and Wagnall’s,” Jainie said.
She took the wheel.
They took off down the road. “I told her I was an ex marine and drove an 18 wheeler for a ranch in Wyoming.”
“She didn’t believe you.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Eric said not to let you drive until tomorrow.”
“Nobody obeys doctors’ orders, and nobody knows it like doctors do.”
“I think I should drive the Baby today, though, just in case.”
“Just say you are going to.”
“What?”
“If you say some wishy washy crap, then I’ll do whatever I like. If you tell me I can’t drive the baby until tomorrow morning, then I will do what you say.”
“We’re equal partners. I don’t have the right to run over you like that.”
“All right, then, I am going to drive. Fuck the doctor and fuck you.”
“Please don’t talk like that, honey.”
“Fuck you. Tell me I can’t say it. Tell me not to.”
“Don’t say it,” he said softly.
“Can I drive back to your house?”
“I think the doctor might have a point. What if you have some kind of relapse or whatever? We should play it safe.”
“Then I’m driving. You didn’t say I can’t.”
“Do you figure on painting the Tundra?”
“Should I?”
“I’m inclined to think putting your business name on your truck is worth it. Seems like almost all businesses think so. So I would say do it or think it out and be sure it’s not worth it for you.”
“Pretty wishy washy and philosophical.”
“Then put a picture of a chimpanzee extending his middle finger there instead.”
She laughed until tears came to her eyes. “What would we call ourselves?”
“Obviously the 4Q2 ranch. It could make a nice brand, too.”
She started laughing again. “Stop it, Dave.”
“We could establish our own retail brand. Have the 4Q2 steakhouse, burger joints, retail products in grocery stores, of course with the chimp on all of it.”
She laughed some more. “What’s the most outrageous thing you said to the little girl with the pony tail?”
“She said, Too bad you’re married. I would have liked to map your topology.’”
“That’s pretty clever. What did you say?”
“Integrating two expressions is always the hard part. If I wasn’t married, darling, I’d set out to find a summation. But don’t you worry. My wife didn’t get the last mathematician who knows what tintinnabulation is.”
Jainie started laughing again until she had to wipe her eyes