Doug Donnan
Exective Editor/OM-GEN+
Exective Editor/OM-GEN+
'Fire Power!'
by Doug
Donnan
[Blue
Spruce Estates, Northern Colorado]
“I can
tell ya’ this much Schiller,” Drennan sighed as he stood there in the
roiling
heat and lightly falling ash flakes, “Sheriff Polk is on his way up here as we
speak
and he’s gonna’ pull the plug on all of us. I talked with him on my cell phone
just
a few minutes ago. He told me that from most
of the reports he’s gotten, one of
the
damn wildfire offshoots is headin’ right smack dab this way. That means we
ain’t
got
much time to get… say Kyle, what the hell is that goop you’re sprayin’ all over
that
house of yours anyway?”
“It’s called Blaze Balm,” Schiller replied
as he now aimed the spray nozzle of the
hose
in the direction of his bump-out white cinder block garage. The fire
suppressant
itself
was a clear gelatinous substance that adhered to things more like some kind of
sperm-like
epoxy than anything else. “A buddy of mine back east told me about it.
He
sent me out a few of these barrels here last year,” he said as he swept his
gloved
hand
over the three large gray drums beside him there on the driveway. “It’s a
state-of-the-art
fire suppressant. One hundred per cent guaranteed effective! All I had
to
do was hook up one of my garden hoses to this special adapter and screw it into
this
barrel
here, pump it up a few times and I was good to go.”
“You think that goop will work? I mean look
at your house. It looks like something
out
of an eerie science fiction movie, almost as if it’s… melting.”
“My buddy told me that it washes right off
after the fire or heat source burns out or
passes
by…just hose it all off with water! It's approved by The United States Forestry
Service.
He said that they even use this product
all over China! The American company that
makes
Blaze Balm has a ten-year distribution contract with them! Hell Dave, that’s
good
enough for me!” Schiller exclaimed. The nozzle of his hose began to spit and
sputter
somewhat as he stepped around and attempted to apply a final coating to the
side
and back of his red brick ranch house. “Looks like I’m about outa’ juice here,”
he
said as he shook the nozzle a bit.
As the two neighbors stood there on the
grassy knoll that separated their two homes,
the
indifferent burnt orange sun began to sink into the surrounding sea of swaying
blue
spruce
and towering pine trees. The pungent scent of wood smoke was growing by the
minute.
It now was all but snowing tiny flakes of ash and cinders as dusk loomed all
around
them like some nebulous gray shroud.
“How much of that stuff have you got left…ol’
friend?” Drennan asked as he
stepped
in a little closer as if he were now trying to guard some sort of life and
death
secret.
“One more
barrel,” Schiller replied as he wiped over his sweating face with a
crumpled red bandana. “I promised that to Sam Templeton down the street. I told him
I’d run it by his place as soon as I finished up here. Would you mind helpin’ me load it
up into the back of my truck here Dave?”
crumpled red bandana. “I promised that to Sam Templeton down the street. I told him
I’d run it by his place as soon as I finished up here. Would you mind helpin’ me load it
up into the back of my truck here Dave?”
“Hmm,” from a pensive Drennan as he
turned and scanned over his now soot
covered
two story place next door. “I don’t know Kyle,” he said rather flatly.
“Seems
to me you could of at least checked in with me before…I mean you know,
us
bein’ such close neighbors and all,” he stammered somewhat as he looked all
around
and about.
“Now hold on there a second Dave,”
Schiller turned to and set his fists up into the
rolls
of leisure that padded his hips. “It seems to me I mentioned this to you some
time
ago
that I was getting this stuff, and that I was going to try it out just in case
there was
ever
some kind of an emergency…like this damn out of control forest fire that’s
bearin’
down
on us. You didn’tseem particularly interested as I recall. On the other hand I
saw
Templeton
in town one day and after mentioning the suppressant to him, he was all
in
for it. He wrote me out a check for two hundred bucks right then and there at
the
Sav-O-Mat
gas station. So, all things considered, I’d let you have this last barrel here
but
my hands are tied. You gotta’ understand—"
“What’s goin’ on over there David,” a
little blonde woman called out as she was
desperately
trying to balance a stack of cardboard boxes out to an ash covered black
Jeep
Wagoneer just next door.
“Nothing Miriam dear,” Drennan replied.
“Just a slight difference of opinion.
Kyle
here has something that could probably help save our house from the damn fire…
that’s
all.”
Almost simultaneously did his wife drop
the boxes and Schiller drop his head.
She
came over to them on the common ground between the two houses as though
might
be heading in to battle. And so, as it turns out, the previously simmering
neighborly
discussion soon turned into a tempered quarrel, then a bitter and blatant
argument.
Other neighbors in the vicinity abandoned their hurried evacuation plans
and
gathered around the scene only to have the entire argument quickly turn into a
burgeoning
battle over the remaining barrel of Blaze Balm. The chaos and cutting
comments
now built like an out of control wildfire.
“Jesus, Schiller…how long have you been
hidin’ this stuff from the rest of us?”
“I’ll give ya’ three thousand bucks for
that last barrel Schiller,” called out a
normally
prudish lawyer named Jenkins who had a two-story white clapboard Colonial
style
three bedroom two and a half bath affair down by the red-brick and mortar
entrance
to the sprawling gated community.
“It don’t seem right that he
should be the only one to be protected!” yelled a
slovenly
little hog-faced man from across the street wearing a threadbare Denver
Bronco’s
cap. “Why can’t we just open it on up and give everybody’s house a few
squirts?
It only seems fair to share and share alike.
I mean what the hell, we’re all
good
friends and neighbors here… right?”
Just then Sam Templeton slowly pulled up
in a red, ash covered Ford Bronco.
He
switched down the passenger window: “What’s goin’ on Kyle? I thought you
were
comin’ over with that…” he hesitated somewhat as he soon sized up the
situation
out amongst all the edgy and elongated shadows of his seemingly now
decidedly
hostile fellow neighbors.
“Well, well, well,” Drennan spoke out as
the entire group fanned out around the
now
wary and retreating Schiller. Schiller had let out some of the length on the
now
detached
garden hose. He took a cautious stance just out in front of the barrel,
slightly
spinning the hose in a little looping, defensive manner. “There he is folks,
he’s
come to see what the hold-up is on his barrel. You might as well turn that car
around
Sam. The plans have changed a bit!”
“Yeh, we’ve decided to confiscate the drum
of anti-fire stuff. Maybe will share it,
kinda’
spread it around…so to speak,” declared Jenkins as he snatched up a leaning
rake
there by the guttering of Drennan’s house. He held it high as if it was some
kind
of
spear or war pike.
“Maybe, we could draw straws or have some
kind of makeshift lottery real quick,”
suggested
Drennan’s wife Miriam as she now latched onto her husband’s balled fist.
“I got a solution,” Hog-face broke in from
off in the shrubbery shadows of the
grassy
knoll. He drew a little blue-black pistol from his pants pocket and held it up
high
and shiny for all to see. “Instead of waistin’ time screwin’ around out here,
why
don’t
I just roll that barrel across the street and start hosein’ down my house…first.”
At this point Schiller began to whip and
whirl the hose high overhead. The entire
situation
soon turned into a frightening frenzy of feigning fisticuffs, threatening shouts
and
decidedly malicious invective. Eventually, there was a ringing report from the
man’s
gun.
The errant bullet pinged into the base of the drum. The gelatinous goo burst
out
from
the now de-pressurized barrel like a
small atomic explosion. In only moments,
as
if the barrel was now wounded and bleeding, the fire retardant began to gurgle
out
onto
the open grass. They all stopped and stared wide-eyed there under the now
brightening
pale light of the indifferent waxing moon.
* * *
Almost immediately, the distant sound of a
booming bullhorn cut into the eerie
silence
that had now surrounded the feuding figures. The blaring sound was emanating
from
a slowly approaching black and white police car. Flashing blue and red lights
lit
up the various houses and cars as the patrol car wound its way down the central
roundabout
road. The loud mobile message soon became perfectly clear and sobering
to
the entire group of brooding neighbors:
‘Attention Blue Spruce Estates
Residents…Attention Blue
Spruce Estates Residents…The
fire has now been contained…
The National Forest Service and
the Colorado State Firefighters
have announced that the fire is
now one hundred per cent
contained…Repeating the fire
has been one hundred per cent
contained…It is now safe to
return to your homes…It is now
safe to return to your homes…
The
slowly advancing police car eventually glided up just along side Sam
Templeton’s
idling Bronco. The ominous squad car with its, flashing lights came to
a
stop just abreast of the group of moonlit neighbors . The driver directed the
beam
of
his high intensity spotlight all around the stationary, shell shocked
residents.
They
could almost feel the light hit them.
It was
Sheriff Polk.
“Evenin’ folks,” he said as he stepped out
of the car and dramatically stepped
forward
into the light there amongst them in the grassy common ground. “Kinda’
dark
out for a neighborhood watch meetin’ or whatever…don’t ya’ think?”
“Hello there sheriff,” Drennan spoke up as
he stepped forward. “I talked to you
on the
phone earlier. We we’re just having sort of a misunderstanding I guess
you
could
say about… property rights.”
Polk scanned the area briefly and then
stepped over to the leaking black barrel.
He
pushed it over on its side. “Okay everyone, I don’t want to know what you’re
really doing out here at this hour considering everything that’s
goin’ on all around you,
but
the important thing is that the fire has been one hundred per cent contained.
You
can
all go on back to your homes now.”
Polk eyeballed a few of them rather
curiously as he stepped back over to his squad
car.
he soon dropped inside and prepared to drive off.
“Say sheriff,” Schiller now called out as
he dropped his wiggly weapon there in front
of
everyone. “Just one more thing before you go. One of my good neighbors here
Dave
Drennan,” he hooked a rude thumb over his shoulder at the now self-effacing
Drennan
and his blushing wife, “told me earlier that you said that damn fire was
bearing
down on our friendly little neighborhood here bigger than life. What the
hell
happened?”
“One of the fire marshals on the frontline
told me they decided to have their
boys
in the choppers try droppin’ a new powerful fire retardant…sumthin’ called
Blaze
Balm. The stuff must work pretty damn good I’d say. It’s a pretty safe bet
that
it saved all your homes and your ‘friendly’ little neighborhood,”
he said flatly
as
he winked out at their now slightly drifting silhouettes. “Fire Chief told me
it
comes
in a plain old gray drum, kinda’ like that one you got there with that...
bullet
hole in it!”
Sheriff Polk left them there hanging their
heads. He drove away, slowly, with his
flashing
overhead lights on and his booming bullhorn sounding off anew:
‘Attention Blue Spruce Estates
Residents…It is now safe to
return to your homes…I
repeat…It is now safe to... return to...
your homes'
_____ The End _____
