CHAPTER ONE
Pink Dots on the Horizon
Shirley and her granddaughter Rachel kept a low profile on the day of the pumpkin launching competition. They’d driven overnight and stayed off of the freeway, not sure how the cannon would weather being towed at more than fifty miles per hour and not sure how they’d respond to the questioning of a highway patrol officer if they were pulled over. They’d paid their twenty-dollar entrance fee, read a brochure about how launched pumpkins were great for fertilizer, and learned that a local farmer donated the use of his land for the weekend. The rules regarding the picking up of one’s own trash were printed in all capitals, underlined three times.
Shirley carefully drove through the knotted throngs of people setting up their launchers, found the paper plate with her number on it, and backed the cannon into place. She was nervous. No one but Rachel had ever observed her in physics action. Rachel wasn’t comfortable either. They sat in the car for over an hour and watched the sun get higher in the sky. It was still early. Shirley listened to one side of a Vangelis tape. Rachel had brought along her favorite Replacements album and was pleased when her grandma mouthed some of the words to “Favorite Thing.” As the tape clicked to play the other side, Rachel ejected it from the player. “Ready?”
“I think so.”
Their technique was tight and their methodology pushed back some of the fear they felt. Off came the tarp. Out came the level. Sights were adjusted. Slight wind was compensated for. The barrel was inspected and the bicycle was attached. Lawn chairs were set out. Binoculars were mounted.
“Let’s get these pumpkins officialized,” Shirley said.
Shirley and Rachel had fancied up the operations by putting all of the pumpkins into a little wagon and pulled them to the inspection station.
A man with hair like a lion’s put one on the scale and marked the weight, to the tenth of a pound, with a black grease pencil. “Lumina?”
Shirley looked at Rachel, who looked back at Shirley.
“Pardon?”
“This pumpkin a lumina?”
“No, it’s a white diamond,” Rachel responded.
“Never heard of one of those. I gotta split one open. Make sure it’s not made out of rubber.” The man unsheathed a large knife from a holster on his belt, flicked its blade open, cut out a deep slice, and inspected it. “These’ll work real nice. Gotta lot of meat on ‘em.”
“Thanks,” Rachel said.
The man wiped the blade clean on the side of his pants then weighed all of their pumpkins.
“First time at the launch?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Shirley answered guardedly.
“Sampson,” the man said as he held out his hand. “Always glad to see new people launchin’.”
As Shirley shook Sampson’s hand, it felt like a lion’s paw filled with restraint. He didn’t crush her hand, but it was massive, the skin thick and rough. “Good luck. You square with all the rules?”
“Just one question.”
“Shoot.”
“Can anyone tell me how far away that old car is out there?”
“You mean the outhouse?” Sampson swiveled and pointed with the tip of his knife to an outhouse that was sitting on the flatbed of a rusted-out pickup truck out in the field. “That’s about six hundred yards. As a matter of fact, that’s the record running here. If no one can hit it, we’ll drive it up into range and have a go at it. What you got shootin’?”
“No, no.” Shirley replied. “The old car.”
“Which one?”
“I think it’s a Duster.”
Sampson worked through his confusion and realized that Shirley was flirting with the highly improbable. Many of the rookie launchers did. “Shoot, ma’am, that came with the property. Some drunk ran it into a tree two days after he’d bought it new, and it died right there.” Sampson looked up to study Shirley’s face. The woman was serious, if not a little too ambitious. “I’m not quite sure I know. What you shootin’?”
Shirley pointed towards her cannon, blazing pink, even in the morning haze. Her face was blank. “Mind if I measure? I’ve got a wheel.”
Sampson tried not to laugh and was largely successful at hiding his grin with his hand and faking a cough. He looked at his watch. Then he looked at Rachel’s and Shirley’s sweaters and realized that the two were color coordinated with their cannon. “Knock yourself out. Launching starts in a little over an hour. We try to get the competition throws in the morning before the wind picks up. Good thing you wore those sweaters. We’ll be able to see you just fine.”
Shirley and Rachel headed straight to the car, dropped off the marked pumpkins, picked up the measuring wheel, and counted its rotations. The car looked closer than it really was. Shirley made a notation and let out a full mouth of air in determination. “It’s almost exactly half a mile.”
“That’s really far. Think you can do it?” Rachel asked.
“Can’t see why not. Count with me back? Double check?”
“Sure.”
When the two were out walking on the field, some of the curious stood back and inspected the pink cannon, like it was an exotic animal with a funny haircut on a short leash.
“Tassels? Those tassels on the bike handlebars? What kinda crap is that?” one man jeered.
“Pink paint?” another asked. “That don’t seem right.”
One man just repeated the word “pussified” over and over again.
“A bike?” Still another inquired.
And so it went, around and round the circle of men casting aspersions, except one or two quiet ones.
A man with a thick, long, waxed, and balanced moustache saw past the easy flash of skin and could see the kinetic inner workings, step by step, as plainly as if the cannon had a neon halo over it. “I’ll be jiggered,” he said. “That could do it. If it works like it should, it’ll be divine.” Many things, from the cannon’s clean transfer of energy, to the obvious mastery of the welds, impressed him.
“Whose is this?” another man asked as he walked into the fold.
Fingers pointed out to the field, to the small dots of bright pink walking towards them.
The crowd dispersed the closer Shirley and Rachel got, willing to stand back and see what transpired. She could fail all on her own and never become a problem.
Shirley sat down with a calculator and punched in numbers. Although she didn’t have to, she drew a chart. When she was done, she was still nervous, so she drew both her and Rachel as stick figures. That made her feel better.
