The Wildfire Lottery
Inspired by Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”
The late afternoon of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh promise of an active fire season; the ten hour fuels snapped under foot and the grass was already drying to a tender-box amber. The people of the hotshot crew began to gather in their ready shack. Some fire districts had so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 20th, yet for this crew, where there were only about thirty people, the whole lottery took less than half an hour. But the drinking went on for hours.
The rookies assembled first, of course. Fire school training was recently over, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them. Bobby Martin had stuffed his pockets full of beer bottles and had already drunk three or four, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and most exotic microbrews. The Mormons there drank Pepsi from glass bottles. Bobby and Harry Jones and Dana Delacroix—the crewmembers pronounced her name “Dellacroyicks”—eventually made a great pile of beer bottles in one corner of the shack and guarded it against the raids of the other crewmembers.
The returning wildfirer veterans stood together, away from the pile of beer bottles. They each nursed a carefully chosen brewski and listened politely to stories they’ve heard a hundred times about old-timey wildfire fighting harangued by their most senior crewmember, Old Man Warner. The crew boss, Mr. Joe Summers, who had time and energy to devote to obfuscating his crew’s activities from overhead, ran the lottery. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the fire crew very well. People were envious of him because he had no children even though his wife was a scold.
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the old aluminum beer keg with its top sawed off now resting on the tall stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man on the crew, had joined. Some thought the lottery had always been. Others thought it grew out of the change from wildfire suppression to wildfire monitoring, when their favored name began to drift from wildland firefighters to wildfirers because they started and shepherded more wildland fires than they were dispatched to monitor. Still others thought the lottery came about when the smart, battery-electric chainsaws were introduced with their instant stop and visual sensors that made chainsaw injuries virtually impossible. One thing for sure during the long hours of beer drinking, the delivery and comprehension of all these lottery origin stories got jumbled.
Joe Summers noodled his beer while politely hobnobbing with experienced crewmembers. He fumbled with the empty beer bottles in his pockets and looked around impatiently counting heads and trying to figure out who was missing. Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled wildfirers, Toby Hutchinson came hurriedly through the door of the ready shack, his fire shirt thrown over his shoulders, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Clean forgot what day it was,” he said to Dana Delacroix, who stood next to him, and they both laughed softly. Joe Summers glowered disapprovingly at Toby Hutchinson. He cleared his throat, “We are a bit late, folks, let’s get started,” Joe said. “Are you sure you’re ready, Toby?” Some laugh nervously and a few cast hearty jeers at Toby, just to show they were paying attention.
Mr. Summers droned out the rules while the assembled wildfirers downed and emptied additional beer bottles in trepidation and anticipation. Then Mr. Summers began to call out names, one by one in alphabetical order of last names. As their names were called, wildfirers approached the ancient topless beer keg and, without looking into the keg, stirred the folded slips of paper a bit inside the keg and selected one by feel. Then they held it up to show they had just one and it was still folded. Upon their exit they were to hold the folded slip of paper so that it was visible at all times. As a contestant approached the keg, the crowd raccously chanted a humorous, but insulting and annoying, nickname usually based on a past embarrassing incident. The putative intent was to jinx them as they chose their lottery slip, but in reality it swaddled them in belonging. Some wildfirers responded to the jeering crowd with obscene gestures or pantomimes. Too long of an on-stage performance provoked loud booing. Particularly cheeky burlesques often elicited a spray of foamed beer. When their names were called, most wildfirers simply trotted to the keg, chose their slip, and ran back to the chanting crowd waving their folded slip as quickly as possible to just get it over with.
When Toby Hutchinson’s name was called, Joe Summers shouted out, “Since you’ve already delayed the lottery, Toby, please choose your lot quickly.” The crowd hooted and chanted “To-by! To-by! Tar-dy To-by!” As an embarrassed Toby approach the keg, stuck his hand in and tried to stir the slips a bit before choosing, Mr. Graves, who held the keg stable on the stool, suddenly tipped the keg away from Toby. This delighted the crowd but left Toby with only a brief chance to grasp a folded paper slip.
As drawing of the lots progressed, Steve Adams whispered to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “They do say that over in the north fire crews they’re talking of giving up the lottery.“ Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work no more, try living like that way for a while. Used to be a saying, ‘Injuries never dire be the glory of wildfire.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody. “
As the last lot was drawn, a sobering silence permeated the crowd. Sometimes at this point the lottery preceded by Mr. Summer ceremoniously calling out each name a second time while wildfirers unfolded and held up their unmarked lot for all to see. Sometimes, such as this time, the wildfirers were too anxious to wait and they spontaneously and simultaneously unfolded their lots. Sighs of relief and nervous laughs trickled through the crowd. But they would soon enough know who had chosen the marked lot.
Toby Hutchinson’s face had grown ashen as he stared down at his unfolded slip of paper. The wildfirers grew quiet again, whispering among each other, “I think it’s Hutchinson” or “It’s Toby,” as they stepped away from Toby and gawked. Toby did not look up. He shook as if he were sobbing. He repeated over and over, “It’s not fair. I wasn’t given enough time to properly choose.”
“Toby, show us your lot,” called out Joe Summers. But Toby just stared at his unfolded paper slip and repeated that it wasn’t fair. Another wildfirer step up to Toby and snatched his hands, forcing Toby to hold up his slip of paper with this year’s flame design marked on it. “It’s not fair,” Toby repeated, “I wasn’t given enough time to properly choose.”
“All right, folks. ” Mr. Summers said. “Let’s finish quickly.“
Two burly wildfirers grabbed and tightly held Toby. While another shoved on his head a hardhat with attached plexiglass chainsaw shield, others quickly clad the struggling Toby with chainsaw chaps attached to a catcher’s chest-protector. The crowd had retreated to the back of the ready shack and enthusiastically grabbed armloads of empty beer bottles. Someone woke up Bobby Martin and placed empty beer bottles in his hands. Dana Delacroix selected a pile of beer bottles so large that many fell back on the floor as she ran towards Toby. “Come on! Hurry!” she shouted.
Toby Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and he held his padded-gloved hands out desperately as the wildfirers moved in on him. “It isn’t fair,” he said. A beer bottle hit him on the side of his hardhat. Old Man Warner was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone. ” Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of wildlifers, with Mr. Graves beside him.
“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Toby Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon him.
After the final barrage of beer bottles subsided, an exhausted Toby was heard to say, “Darn it, guys! I think you cracked a rib! Oh, I hope I’m not out for the whole fire season.”
