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Auxiliary
by
Heather Van Doren
After waving pageant-style from the polished antique fire truck in the candy-toss parade, and handing the men chilled Dixie cups at the mock-fire-with-sandbag-dummy obstacle contest, and grilling a thousand ears of corn for chicken dinners in the station’s back lot, the Auxiliary convened. “That raffle was fixed,” the veteran fire wife charged, waving a veined hand toward the two youngest girls. A state route removed from urban Gen-X apathy, these brides had joined for the cause, to pack Christmas baskets and organize casino night fundraisers and serve hot chocolate at 2 a.m. barn fires, where puddles of hose water turned to ice. “Volunteer firefighters from statewide were at this convention, with hundreds of ladies – including fire chiefs’ wives – eyeballing those Auxiliary raffle prizes. But you two managed to win the embroidered coat and Teflon pans, two top prizes. You fixed it somehow. Now tell us,” the head wife demanded. Twenty-four pairs of eyes – thirteen pairs rimmed with cheap liner, eighteen under frosted blue lids, three behind drugstore glasses, and five above cigarette-induced bags – glared at the girls. The sensitive girl cried, staring into Teflon piled on the table because the gray, oily steel reflecting the room’s dull fluorescence was much easier to look at. The other girl planted her fists like potatoes on the laminated table. “Like we’ve said, we didn’t fix this. We had tickets just like everybody else, you called our numbers and we won our prizes.” “Still denying it?” the woman pushed, pausing. “We can’t prove you helped yourselves to these nice things, but we’ll take them back for our honest ladies to win at the next raffle. We would kick you off the Auxiliary but, lucky you, the bylaws say you’re married to it.” Dazed, the sensitive girl dared a whisper, “We really didn’t ‘fix’ anything.” |
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