Different Circles

“I’ll introduce you as Gordon Paladay,” Jake countered. “Just a brief little blast out, like Frampton did for Bob Mayo on the live version of Feel. I’ll even imitate the style: ‘Gordon Paladay on the keyboards, Gordon Paladay’. Cue the audience applause in honor of you. I then transition into the guitar solo and the talk box solo.”

Gordon nodded his head as he thought this over. “Okay,” he said. “I can get into that. Most of the people in your audience won’t even know that my real name is Gordon Paladay. The media people will pick up on it though. The secret won’t be secret for long.”

“No, but will the knowledge that you played keyboards for me at the TSF hurt either of our reputations? It’s already known by your target demographic and mine that we collaborate on our music. I think it would do nothing but give me some added street cred and you some added musical cred.”

A few more nods from Gordon. “You do have a point there, homey,” he said.

“Why don’t we take a look at the set list I put together and see where we can do this thing?” Jake suggested.

“Bust it out,” Gordon said.

There was a three-and-a-half-week break between the last date of Matt Tisdale’s European tour in Odesa, Ukraine and the first date of the Asian tour in Seoul, South Korea. This was how long it would take for the equipment to travel by ship from the port of Odesa, through the Suez Canal, arrive at the port of Incheon, and then be trucked from there to Seoul to await the arrival of the crew to set everything up. The plan had been for the band and crew to enjoy their tour break at a resort on the Greek island of Mykonos in the Aegean Sea, and, in fact, most of the band and crew were still going to do just that. But Jim Ramos, Matt’s tour paramedic, whose job it was to stay by Matt’s side at all times during the trip, would not get to see the resort this time around. Instead, he was flying back to Los Angeles with Matt so that Matt could spend the break sorting through his IRS and state franchise tax board troubles.

“Was I right about the Ukrainian gash, or what?” Matt asked as they cruised high above Belarus about an hour after lifting off from Kiev. They were en route to London, as the Ukrainian International Airlines currently did not have any planes capable of reaching the United States nonstop. That was okay with Jim. He did not really wish to fly any further with UIA than he had to.

“It was some pretty good gash,” Jim said honestly. Though the Ukrainian groupies that he had bedded since arriving in the country eight days ago were not into shaving or even trimming things down below, they had all been extremely beautiful and enthusiastic sex partners. It had been an experience to remember in a trip full of such things.

“It’s gonna be kind of hard to go back to regular gash now,” Matt said sadly. He then shrugged. “Oh well. Life goes on, right?”

“Right,” Jim agreed, taking a sip from his gin and tonic.

Matt lit up a cigarette—smoking was still allowed on UIA flights—and puffed on it thoughtfully for a moment while sipping out of his own Jack and coke. “I’m sorry about you having to miss out on that fuckin’ Greek island,” he said. “It sounded like a good place to let your schlong out on the beach and kick back for a few.”

“It’s no big,” Jim told him. “It’ll be nice to spend a little time at home.”

“I guess,” Matt said. “I really do feel bad about dragging your ass along with me. After all, I won’t need you when I’m in LA and have access to American fucking healthcare. It’s just these flights out of the third world and back to America that make me nervous.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Jim told him. “This is my job, what you pay me all that money for. And, like I said, I’d rather be home for a few weeks than sitting on an island with my schlong out.”

Matt looked at him pointedly. “You can’t possibly be serious about that.”

“Dead serious,” Jim said. “There will be other tour breaks, right? They’re setting us up in Rio for the break between Asia and South America. And then we get to go to Vegas for the TSF in the middle of it. That’s all shit I never got to do as a private paramedic. Believe me, Matt. I will never be one to complain about having to do my job. Especially not when I’m working for you.”

“All right then,” Matt said, taking another drag. “I guess I’ll keep you around a little while longer.”

They flew on for a bit, long enough for the two of them to finish their drinks and order two more. While they were waiting for them to arrive, Jim looked over at Matt once again. “I know it’s none of my business,” he said, “and feel free to tell me that, but how much tax trouble are you in?”

“That’s what I’m going home to find out,” Matt said sourly. “It will be significant, I’m afraid. According to the tax lawyer I hired, I should probably just bend over and start slabbing on the lube right now so at least when they stick it in, it won’t hurt as much.”

“Your lawyer said that?” Jim asked.