I look at Hallie. “Cletus' a regular. Won’t get rid of his favorite recliner. We get calls to extract him every few weeks.”
“Extract him?” Hallie asks on our way to the truck.
No need for the engine when there’s not a fire.
“He gets stuck in the chair,” I say.
“Cletus likes his Southern food. And he loves my wife’s bakery,” Dustin says. “He’s what you’d call a right jolly old elf—only far less jolly than Santa.”
I chuckle. Leave it to Dustin.
We take our spots in the truck. Dustin’s driving. I’m in the officer seat and Hallie takes the jump seat behind Dustin. The sky looks like it might rain, casting a cinematic lighting over the neighborhoods as we drive toward Cletus'.
We pull up to his small, one-story home.
I knock on the door. “Cletus? Are you in there?”
“I’m in here. Where else would I be?”
Dustin chuckles. “He’s got a point.”
“We’re coming in, Cletus,” I shout through the door.
“’Bout time!” he shouts back. “Door’s open.”
I turn the knob.
The front room of Cletus' home is a typical TV room. He’s got a couch, which he never seems to use, and his favorite recliner. Both are usually centered around the coffee table. Across the room, on a 1960’s style TV cabinet, the television is on, blaring reruns ofThe Andy Griffith Showat a volume that makes my ears ring.
“Mind if I turn this down?” I ask Cletus.
“What’s that got to do with gettin’ me out of my chair? This is the good part. Barney’s about to wake up with lipstick all over his face.”
Cletus is flat on his back in his recliner, which has tipped over—again. He peers around my ankles to watch the scene unfold, but then his gaze catches on Hallie. “And who do we have here?”
“Hello,” Hallie says. “I’m Hallie. The new firefighter.”
“They’re lettin’ girls on the squad these days?” Cletus asks.
Hallie puts her hands on her hips and her spine straightens with a determination that makes me wonder if she’s going to suggest we leave Cletus in his current predicament a while longer to teach him a lesson.
“They let girls on if we pass the academy and prove we can handle any crisis thrown our way,” she says.
“Well now,” Cletus says. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It sure is nice to meet you, Miss Hallie. You can call me Shugs. All my friends call me Shugs.”
“You never told me to call you Shugs,” Dustin complains.
“I said that’s what my friends call me. You can call me Cletus.”
Hallie smiles softly. “Well, Cletus, let’s see if we can’t get you up out of that chair.”
“Call me Shugs,” Cletus says. “And I wouldn’t need your help if it weren’t for the way this thing tipped this time.”
He’s lying feet overhead like a dead bug, legs skyward on the footrest, snugly compressed into the chair, as always.
The problem is that the back of the chair is lodged between the side table and the couch.
“Gait belt,” I say to Dustin.
