Dear readers, I can't come up with a good title for this story. Can you help me out? Come up with a good title and post it in the comments section.The last five firefighters of the Virginia State Department of Forestry sat in a circle around their makeshift campfire, soaking in the heat of the dancing flames on their chests and the cool night air on their backs. They drank ice cold beer from cans and passed around a bottle of Canadian Club, laughing about the adventures of the day. Just hours ago, whole crew had quelled a ravenous wildfire that had swallowed up 60 acres of national forest and belched out a blanket of woodsmoke that covered half of Putnam County. Most of the crew had already left for home, but these five young men stayed back, relishing their reward: a night out under the stars, a campfire, a bottle of whiskey and a case of beer among friends.
The bottle came around to Charlie Dixon. He was short and muscular, with olive skin and long, straight black hair. A more racist person who observed his appearance and stoic demeanor would have mistakenly thought he was Native American, something that happened quite often out here in the Appalachians. Actually he was Irish and Italian. Dixon raised the whiskey bottle high in the air as he stood up and addressed his four friends. "Gentlemen," he said, "I propose a toast."
The others sat back in their seats and raised their beers high in the air. They all respected Dixon, and not just because he was their ranking officer. He was eloquent and college-educated, a natural leader. That, and he could hold his liquor better than anyone else around the fire.
"Here's to us," Dixon said, "the leanest and meanest firefighters in Virginia!"
The crew erupted with cheers, and tossed back their beers.
The whiskey bottle made its way around to Carter Hayes and he took a long draught. He gritted his teeth and blew a booze-soaked vapor of pain and pleasure. "God, that's good shit," he grunted, and gripped the neck of the bottle tightly.
One of the other campers noticed the bottle had stopped circulating and turned his attention to Hayes. "Hey man, don't stop the whiskey train," he said in jest.
Hayes clutched the bottle to his chest and glared at the man. "You can't handle this shit," he said. "Whiskey ain't for girls."
Dixon had seen this kind of behavior from him many times. Carter Hayes was extremely determined and eager to prove himself. And while that made him a damn good firefighter, it also made him irritatingly stubborn. He was the kind of man who stuck to his guns no matter how wrong he was - who would easily put a pistol to his head and blow his own brains out if he thought it would prove him right, especially after he'd gotten a few drinks down his throat.
And the whiskey had already made four loops around the campfire.
"Hey Carter," Dixon said to Hayes, "I brought that whiskey for all of us to share. Pass it around."
Hayes glared at Dixon for a moment, but Dixon just stood there like a stone. Finally, Hayes relented. "I'll call your mommy when you drink this and pass out," he said as he passed the bottle to the next person.
Everyone around the campfire rolled their eyes. Hayes was definitely drunk now. Drunk and obnoxious. It wouldn't be long now before he'd start bragging about--
"I'm tough, man," Hayes said. Everyone else groaned. Hayes was right on cue.
"Seriously!" Hayes demanded. "I could drink every last one of you under the table." He laughed out loud. "And then I'd have a beer to celebrate!"
Dixon shook his head and smiled to himself. Normally when Hayes got out of line, Dixon would just pull rank and put him in his place. But Dixon felt the whiskey slosh around in his head, and he decided to have a little fun with Hayes.
Why not, he thought to himself.
He's got it coming."Hey Carter," Dixon called out across the campfire, "do you get poison ivy?"
"Hell no!" Hayes yelled, squinting his eyes and flashing a toothy grin. "That shit doesn't affect me."
"Really?" Dixon asked, egging him on.
"Damn straight," Hayes replied. "I've been in that stuff plenty of times. Hell, last year I was backpacking through the Appalachians. There was a whole field of poison ivy and no other way through. Deep, too. Up to my chest. I almost had to swim through it." He killed off his beer and staggered over to the cooler to grab another one. "A whole acre of it I had to wade through," he said, cracking open a fresh beer and taking a swig. "I didn't shower for three days on that trip."
"You didn't get a rash?" someone by the fire asked.
Hayes shook his head. "Not one blister. Not even one itch. I tell ya, that stuff doesn't affect me one bit."
A sly grin crawled across Dixon's face and his eyes narrowed. "I don't believe you," he said.
Hayes' nostrils flared. "I'm serious! I don't get a rash from poison ivy!"
Everyone else around the fire kept their mouth shut. This wasn't their battle. Under normal circumstances, they would have walked away from the whole scene and let Dixon and Hayes duke it out amongst themselves. But tonight, with the fire dancing and the stars above them, and especially with the alcohol flowing through their veins, this was entertainment. So they kept their mouths shut, and they watched.
Dixon's voice was a sharp contrast to Hayes. It was calm and authoritative. He never raised his voice once during the whole argument. Hayes on the other hand bellowed louder and louder, his face contorted to a strange, half-frown-half-smile grimace.
Dixon kept his voice low and laid out his trump card. "I'll believe it when I see it," he said.
Hayes, whose face had turned red from a combination of drunkenness and frustration, countered, stormed off into the darkness and disappeared. One of the other firefighters started to follow after him, but was stopped by Dixon. "Let him go," he said. "He knows what he's doing." As Hayes' footfalls became fainter and fainter, the rest of the crew began to wonder. So did Dixon. This had all been a carefully-played game of verbal chess, trying to get Hayes to shut up or smear poison ivy on himself. Either way, he figured, it'd make for an interesting night.
Thirty minutes passed. Total silence. The only sound was the sloshing of the whiskey in the bottle that kept making its rounds, the crackling of the fire, and the crickets in the forest. Not a peep was heard from Hayes off in the distance, or any of the firefighters in the circle.
After nearly an hour of silence, they heard a rustling in the distance. And a laugh. Hayes emerged from the woods and back into view of the firelight carrying a sprig of green leaves and wearing a big grin. "I found some," he announced triumphantly.
"Let me see," Dixon said. He walked over to Hayes, who drunkenly shot the fistful of plant material dangerously close to Dixon's face. "Whoa! Careful, pal," Dixon said, just barely dodging Hayes' hand. Dixon inspected the green sprig from a safe distance, taking great pains to make sure he didn't touch the leaves. The plant had been gruffly yanked out of the ground with so much force that several of the leaves had been torn or pulled off. But Dixon could still make out the trademark clusters of three shiny, pointed leaves that spelled out the infamous plant's name. Once satisfied, Dixon turned to the crew and nodded. "Looks like poison ivy to me." He returned to his chair and sat down.
Hayes beamed. He held the poison ivy high in the air like a trophy for all to see, and he paused, as if he was saying to himself, "now what do I do?"
The excitement around the fire was palpable. Here was a drunk, obstinate man holding poison ivy, claiming the stuff won't give him a rash. Would he actually do it? If he did, would he get a rash? The other four men sat silently, mulling these thoughts over in their heads. Hayes was ballsy, they all knew. Seven years of charging into wildfires head-on had proven that fact. But they all knew he was full of shit sometimes, too. Seven years of drunken bragging about things he may or may not have done had proven that fact. And whenever Hayes came up with an outrageous claim, there was a 50/50 chance he'd either prove himself right or make a total ass of himself. Instinctively, everyone looked at Charlie Dixon.
Dixon was deep in thought. He wanted to take advantage of any opportunity to get Carter Hayes to make an ass of himself. But he didn't want him to get hurt.
All the same, he thought to himself,
Hayes did say he was immune to poison ivy. Dixon untied his ponytail and let his long black mane drop down past his shoulders. He looked around at the faces of the men around the camp fire, then back up at Hayes. he pointed at the nasty green leaves in Hayes' hand and said, "You should write your name on your arm with it."
The rest of the crew looked perplexed.
"So if you get a rash, we'll know who the jackass is," Dixon finished. The crew laughed.
"I'm not gonna get a rash," Hayes said. "I told you, the stuff doesn't affect me." He pulled one leaf off of the poison ivy sprig and took a deep breath. He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and exposed his left forearm. Hayes pressed the leaf into the skin on the inside of his forearm and dragged it across, slowly spelling out letters. Groans of shock and disbelief echoed out from around the fire with each letter he smeared onto his skin.
C... A... R... T... E... R...
When it was done, Carter Hayes pumped his fists in the air and howled up into the clear night sky. The rest of the crew cheered. The whiskey made its rounds. The men drank and laughed. The fire danced in the reflections of their eyes.
. . .
The five men tossed and turned in their tents, struggling to keep cool. Out in the trees, the hum of cicadas droned in the night air. A nearby screech owl trilled. An occasional breeze would pass through and ruffle the leaves of the long-standing maple trees, but the heat persisted well into the night, only to break just as the sun peeked over the hills and blasted its bastard amber rays of early morning light into every tent in camp.
Slowly, the men crawled from their tents and trickled back to the place where their campfire had roared the night before. All of them except Carter Hayes.
Charlie Dixon flicked on a propane burner and set a percolator full of coffee grounds and creek water over the blue flames. "Coffee will be ready in about five minutes," he announced.
The crew slumped in their chairs, holding their heads in their hands and wondering if they'd be able to stomach the coffee at all. The shaky stomachs they got from their hangovers were bad enough. But Dixon's camping coffee was notoriously bad, and it usually came out like gritty, black, caffeine-loaded soup. As intelligent as their crew leader was, he just couldn't make a decent cup of coffee.
The percolator started to bubble. Dixon pulled it off the burner and set it on a nearby stump to do its work. "Anyone seen Carter?" he asked.
The men perked up. They'd forgotten all about last night's big poison ivy show. They looked around at eachother, turned to Dixon and shook their heads.
Probably still sleeping like a log in his tent, they thought. The men sat in silence, the bubbling and popping of the percolator making the only sound in the camp. Eventually the bubbling stopped.
Dixon looked up from the percolator. "Coffee's ready," he announced.
As if right on cue, a hungover figure emerged from the woods and trudged into camp, shirtless and cradling his left arm like a baby. It was Carter Hayes. The rest of the men craned their necks, straining to get a peek at his arm.
Dixon spun around and grinned at Hayes. "Hey, Carter," he said. "How's the arm?"
Hayes grunted and plopped down in a chair.
"C'mon, Carter, Let's have a look," Dixon said.
Hayes picked up his head and glared at Dixon. Then he stood up, faced the crew, and stretched out his arm for everyone to see.
Six oozy, blistered red letters stood out from the pasty Irish skin on Haye's forearm and spelled out his first name. C...A...R...T...E...R. But it wasn't until everyone caught a glimpse of Hayes' chest that they really started to laugh. Apparently, He had slept last night with his arm across his chest, because the same six letters, blistered and fiery red, were spelled backwards across his torso. The camp erupted with laughter. Everyone that is, except Carter Hayes.
Later on, as the crew packed their gear for the long drive back to the station, Dixon walked up to Hayes. "Hey, man. Good show last night," he said.
"Shut up," Hayes grumbled.
"Hey, it's all in good fun," Dixon said. He walked over to the truck and pulled out a first aid kit. He pulled out some cotton bandages, an alcohol swab and some neosporin. "Don't worry about it," he told Hayes. "Nobody here thinks less of you for it." Dixon cleaned and dressed Hayes' arm and chest. "Besides," he said, applying the bandages, "It doesn't look that bad."
"You don't think so?" Hayes asked.
Dixon looked at Hayes and smiled. "Nah," he said. "Nothing a few shots of whiskey won't cure."
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