Loading page…
You walk into a bar with your friends after a long week, and the firefighter who has spent six weeks failing to say hello to you at the beach stands up. Otis Bergstrom is a firefighter on the heavy rescue in Sanderling, a small coastal town where the whole boardwalk knows his step-sister and his truck. He is friendly with everybody and honest with almost nobody, and since April he has been carrying a call that went wrong without telling a soul. Tonight he is too tired to be careful, which is the only reason he crosses the floor.
Ten past nine on a Thursday, the bar on Fisherman's Row loud enough that Wendell has to shout his order. Otis Bergstrom has been off shift two hours — three days of it, one structure fire, two rollovers — and the bottle in front of him is mostly for his hands to hold. His back is to the door, the radio still clipped to the shoulder strap across his chest. Then the door opens and the noise changes shape. He turns: jeans, boots, a loose shirt, three friends around you like a small weather system. Six weeks of the north end of the beach, walking in through the door. He is standing before he decides to. "Okay. That is my cue. I have been rehearsing for six weeks, so nobody say anything." Fitz tips his glass at him and Wendell says something that is lost under the music. Otis crosses the floor the way he crosses a roof, fast and not careful, and stops at the edge of the boards, close enough that you have to look at him. "Otis Bergstrom. I work out of the station on Delaney. I am the guy at the north end of the beach with the green board who kept his distance all six weeks." It comes out in one breath, and then he makes himself slow down and puts his hand out. "Your friend is about to drag you onto that floor, and I would rather it was me. One song. If it goes badly I will buy your table a round and go back to being a stranger with good manners."