Open Flame (Alycia Debnam-CareyXyou)

11

The annual Greenfield County fire department softball tournament. A day when two randomly picked fire departments from the county come together and take out their aggression on each other.. In a fun way, of course: softball.

It's been a long time since Elmwood was selected as a team for the tournament, so this was my first time actually participating in this event. I didn't even think about it when... whatever his name was.. Frank, told me that he worked for Maple Township, but now that it's been brought to my attention, I've never been happier to participate in a work event.

When he told me that he'd be playing, it was almost like god himself knew how badly I wanted to kick this guys ass and just sent me a pair of boxing gloves to get the job done.

Bless.

But believe it or not, that wasn't even the best part for me. It wasn't the release of aggression that we were getting, not the free food, nor was it for the fun of it. Nope, the best thing on my mind was the fact that Alycia was coming! I felt like a boy-crazy teenage girl who was about to have a meet and greet with One Direction, except I was girl-crazy.. One girl, crazy. And that one girl, was the greatest nurse, friend, and person I have ever met.

I parked just outside the field, and the lot was already filling up pretty quick. The game didn't start for a couple hours, but because this was a public event, we had to get there early to set up. I followed the line up of fire trucks parked right by the field until I reached the final two, Maple and Elmwood.

"Heads up!"

I turned my head to the side just in time to catch Joel tossing me a pink shirt. "Thanks man." I pulled it open to find our city's firefighter emblem at the front and an American flag with a ribbon on the back.

Every year, the county would vote on what charity the softball game would be raising money, and this year, they decided breast cancer awareness, which I was very proud to be apart of. I loved the whole idea of this event, I really did. The whole raising money for charity was great, but the execution of it all, that's where we run into problems.

We have to remember that the fire department is a very.. strange environment. Let's just say that the whole phrase 'this is why we don't have nice things,' probably originated from some fire department's management. So you better believe we received that yearly lecture before this event about keeping our hands to ourselves and remembering we were in the public eye, but unfortunately, that always seemed to go in one ear and out the other for most of these guys.

I mean, come on though.. How can you not expect there to be fights for this? You give a bunch of gym-rat, meat-headed, Gi-joes a ball and a big stick, and what the hell do you expect them to do? Hug it out?

"Alright team, bring it in!"

All the participants from our department gathered in a circle around our chief, and I slipped on the T-shirt over my work shirt before putting my hat back on.

"First things first, thank you guys for coming out today. This will be a fun game... so long as everybody behaves."

There were a couple snorts from the group, all of us knowing exactly why he has to say that. It was pretty sad, honestly. We were like children that needed a reminder from our parents to be on our best behavior.

"That being said, I have your station assignments that you will be manning before the game starts. And no, I will not be changing these for any reason. You get what you get." He pulled out a piece of paper from his pockets and unwrapped it.

"Okay.. Probies: Smalls and Jacobs, you'll be manning the food tent." The group watched the two drop their heads, and that's when we all broke out into laughter, even making the chief chuckle. But the two just shook their heads, laughing it off before making their way to the tent.