Chapter 22 #3
The first pair went. The man gripped the hose two-handed out in front of him, arms straight, and I watched it shove him around the course like a man wrestling an anaconda.
His boy did fine work with the aim anyway.
The bowling ball was indeed the hardest challenge, rolling back twice before they finally got it into the basket.
"Fifty-nine seconds!"
I leaned down to DJ. "See how he held it? Both hands out front. The hose pushed him instead of him steering it. We'll do better."
The second pair was a young guy in a Seahawks cap, and the hose simply beat him.
It bucked, he over-corrected, his feet went out from under him on the wet grass, and he sat down hard with the hose flailing while his son shrieked with laughter and then got dragged down beside him in the spray.
They finished to the biggest cheer of the morning anyway, soaked and laughing.
The third pair had clearly done this before. Compact stance, hose against his hip, his son quick on the nozzle. Forty-five seconds. The boy whooped. The crowd applauded.
DJ looked up at me. The worry was all over his face. I put my hand on his shoulder.
"We got this."
The firefighters reset the course. Pins up, cans stacked, fresh balloons, ball at the bottom of the ramp. Walczak waved us forward and handed me the hose. It was heavier than I expected, the brass coupling cold, the canvas damp from the earlier runs.
"Charge it on my whistle," Walczak said. "Timer starts when the water moves."
I didn't hold it out in front of me, instead wrapping both arms around it and clamping it hard against my ribs like I was putting it in a headlock. DJ set both hands on the nozzle in front of him and bent his knees.
"Ready?" I said.
"Ready."
The whistle blew.
The hose came alive, the water hitting the line and the thing surging like an animal in my grip.
It would have walked straight out of my hands if my hands had been all that held it.
But it was locked against my body, and my body was braced, and the push went through my ribs and hips and into my planted boots, and the hose stayed where DJ pointed it.
"Pins!" DJ shouted. "GO!"
The stream hit the plank and the pins went over in a clattering sweep. DJ immediately swung right and I pivoted with him, keeping the hose clamped, my forearms already burning.
The can pyramid exploded off the barrel.
"Balloons!" DJ hollered, and I was laughing now, whooping, the spray drifting back over both of us in a cold mist. "Go, go, go!"
DJ walked the stream across the balloon board with methodical precision. Pop, pop, pop-pop-pop. Not one wasted second, not one missed. Somewhere behind us I could hear Claire screaming our names and Bessie Anne's voice cutting through the whole crowd, "That's my grandson!"
"Ball!" he yelled.
"Hit it!" I shouted.
We swung together toward the ramp. DJ dropped the stream low and caught the bowling ball at its base and the water drove it up the incline.
It slowed near the top, wobbling, and DJ leaned in like he could push it with his shoulders until the ball tipped over the lip and dropped into the basket with a thunk I felt in my teeth.
"TIME!" Walczak bellowed.
The water died in the line. He looked at his stopwatch, then looked at the crowd, and grinned.
"Forty-three seconds!"
The crowd erupted. DJ screamed and leaped straight up and I caught him on the way down and swung him around with my arms still shaking from the hose, both of us soaked, both of us yelling.
Claire got to us first and grabbed DJ and hugged him off his feet. Bessie Anne kissed my cheek with a smack, then seized DJ and smooched him so thoroughly he squirmed like a hooked fish, delighted and mortified in equal measure.
Then Claire turned to me.
She hugged me hard, her arms around my neck, her cheek against my wet face. And then she pulled back just far enough, and there was a gleam in her green eyes that made my heart race.
Claire kissed me.
Openly, on the lips, in front of the volunteer fire department and the crowd of fifty locals including Stella, who I had no doubt was already composing the bulletin.
I startled and felt my own eyes go wide, but Claire didn't waver and didn't hurry, so I stopped being startled and kissed her back, and everyone saw that too.
When we separated, Bessie Anne was watching us with a grin like a woman collecting on a long-standing bet. DJ was staring at us open-mouthed, the fire hose forgotten.
Walczak saved us all. He came over with a trophy in one hand, a little golden firefighter on a wooden base, and the clear plastic cube in the other. On the baseball, Brad Fitzgerald's signature looped across the white leather sweet spot.
"Gentlemen," Walczak said. "Your prize. Congratulations!"
DJ took the trophy in one hand and the baseball in the other and thrust both over his head. The crowd cheered all over again.
I stood there dripping on the firehouse lawn with Claire's hand in mine and her shoulder against my arm, close together in front of everybody beneath the warm summer sun.