Hit and Nun

by Peg Cochran

  “For some reason, I don’t find that reassuring,” Flo said as she fastened her seat belt.

  Lucille examined the array of gauges and dials in front of her. She didn’t have to know nothing about them or how they worked. She only had to figure out how to back up and then go forward. She’d been driving for thirty-five years now, how hard could it be?

  Lucille put the fire truck in gear and slowly they began to back out of the driveway. Horns blared as motorists on Springfield Avenue were forced to come to an abrupt stop.

  Lucille looked in the side-view mirror to see several of the firemen running after them, yelling and waving their arms. One’s face was all red, and Lucille sure hoped he wasn’t going to have no heart attack.

  Suddenly, there was a loud crunch.

  “What was that?” Lucille looked over at Flo.

  “Nothing. You just ran over the statue of St. Dominic. All in the name of justice, right?”

  Lucille suspected Flo was being sarcastic, but she decided to ignore it. It was taking all of her concentration to keep the fire engine on the road. She sure didn’t handle like the Olds.

  “Everyone is looking at us,” Lucille said. “I wonder why.”

  “It could be because they’ve never seen a nun drive a fire truck before.”

  Lucille grunted. Joey’s car was now just a white speck in the distance. She stepped on the gas.

  “Whoa, cowboy.” Flo grabbed for the dashboard.

  Lucille could see the frightened faces of the drivers as she whizzed past them. She had an idea. “Put on the siren, would you?”

  “Why?”

  “So people will get out of our way.”

  “Good idea.” Flo fiddled with some controls and managed to activate the siren.

  Cars began pulling over to the side of the road to let them pass, the drivers’ mouths hanging open and their eyes wide.

  “That’s better.” Lucille tromped down even harder on the gas. “This is kind of fun, you know?”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “Look, that’s Joey’s car up ahead.” Lucille hit the gas even harder. She watched as Joey made a left turn onto South Street.

  Lucille prepared to do the same.

  “Oh, no.” Flo put her hands over her eyes.

  “Don’t go scaring me like that, Flo.”

  The wheels of the fire truck went up over the curb and knocked a mailbox right off its feet. It flew open, belching letters into the air and strewing them onto the sidewalk and the grass verge.

  Lucille looked in the side-view mirror to see an old man leaning on a cane and shaking his fist at her.

  “I wonder where Joey is headed.” Flo flipped down the sun visor.

  “I don’t think they put mirrors on the visors in fire trucks.”

  Flo shrugged. “You never know.” She began digging in her purse and pulled out her compact. She frowned at her reflection and powdered her nose.

  “For chrissake, Flo, who do you think we’re going to run into that you need to fix your makeup?”

  Flo snapped her compact shut. “I figure someone is going to call the police on us, and when they arrive, I want to look decent in case Richie comes along.” Flo sighed. “Although I don’t look forward to trying to explain why the two of us is dressed in nun costumes.”

  Lucille barreled down South Street toward the intersection with Mountain Avenue. She thought she heard sirens in the distance—police sirens—and sent up a prayer to St. Arthelais of Benvento, patron saint of kidnap victims. She figured Sister Genevieve could be considered a kidnap victim—Joey had taken her with a gun to her head, after all. And, in a way, the fire truck she was driving had been kidnapped as well. She hoped God would forgive her. She figured he would understand that it had been for a good cause.

  The turn onto Mountain Avenue was a little dicey. Lucille once drove a delivery truck for Dugan Bakeries in Newark, going door-to-door with a case full of pastries and fresh bread. It had been her first job straight out of high school. She had had to take some classes on how to handle the truck. It hadn’t been nearly as big as the fire engine, more of a van than a truck, but she’d learned a couple of tricks. Just when she’d begun to get the hang of it, though, she lost the job on account of she couldn’t resist taking a tiny nibble of that walnut streusel coffee cake she was supposed to deliver to Mrs. Sinclair. Mrs. Sinclair was old and half blind, and Lucille didn’t think she’d notice the missing corner, but she did. Lucille had tried to convince her boss, Mr. Pritchard, that it had been a mouse that did it, but that didn’t fly, and he fired her. Even after all these years, she’d never found another coffee cake that moist and tasty.

  They barreled down Mountain Avenue, siren still blaring.

  “Can you turn that thing off? It’s giving me a headache,” Lucille said as she put on her blinker for the turn onto Diamond Hill Road.

  “Better not. It’s clearing the road. And given the way you’re driving, that’s a good thing.”

  “What? I don’t think I’m doing too badly.”

  “If you don’t count knocking over a holy statue and a mailbox, you’re right, you’re not doing too badly.”

  They had come to the intersection, and Lucille began turning the large, unwieldy fire truck. Her hands were sweating on the steering wheel, and they slipped a little. The truck bumped up over the curb and smacked into a fire hydrant.

  “Look, it’s starting to rain,” Lucille said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “What do you mean? There are raindrops on the windshield. See?”

  “You hit a fire hydrant, Lucille.” Flo stuck her head out the window and looked behind her. “It’s spewing water everywhere. The street is already flooded.”

  “These things happen, right? The important thing is to save Sister Genevieve.” Lucille stepped down harder on the gas.

  Joey’s car was barely visible in the distance.

  “I wonder where he’s going.” Flo squinted out the window.

  “My guess is the Watchung Reservation. It will be deserted so he can shoot her and no one will hear.”

  “And then dig a grave and bury her.” Flo shivered.

  The thought made Lucille’s stomach turn over. She’d taken a liking to Sister Genevieve. She tromped down even harder on the gas.

  “What are we going to do when we catch up with him?” Flo turned toward Lucille. “He does have a gun, you know.”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “I’m glad you’re feeling so positive.”

  “Like they say, Flo, you got to think on the bright side. You’ve got to be optimistic.”

  “I’d feel more optimistic if we were packing some heat of our own.”

  By now they had entered the reservation. Tall trees blocked the sunlight, and it was dark and quiet.

  They passed a pond on their right. “There’s Seeley’s Pond. Frankie and me used to come here when we was dating—we’d bring a blanket, something to eat and a bottle of Mateus. We ought to do that again sometime.”

  By now they were deep into the dense trees that lined Sky Top Drive on either side. Lucille was finding it more and more difficult to keep the fire truck on the road.

  “Maybe we ought to turn the siren off now. So we can sneak up on ’em.”

  “It’s rather hard to sneak up on someone in an enormous, bright red fire engine,” Flo said, but she reached out to silence the sirens.

  They spied Joey’s white car pulled off the road into a small clearing. He was standing next to the passenger door with Sister Genevieve beside him. Lucille hit the brakes. The reservation was eerily silent, with no noise to mask the sound of the approaching truck. Flo was right, there was no way to sneak up on anybody given the size of the fire engine and the racket it was making.

  Lucille pulled up in back of Joey’s car and came to a stop.

  “What should we do now?” She turned to Flo.

  “Duck?” Flo said as she scrunched down in her seat.

&nb
sp; Lucille looked out the window to see Joey waving the gun in their direction. She’d parked the truck so that it was diagonally across the road. Joey’s gun was pointed straight at the window on the passenger side.

  Flo had gone white, and Lucille could see her teeth chattering.

  “Geez, Lucille, forget about Sister Genevieve and let’s get out of here before one of us gets killed . . . probably me!”

  “Hold your horses. We’ve got this far. There’s got to be something we can do.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Joey can’t see my side of the truck. I’ll sneak out and . . . do something.”

  “You’ll get yourself killed, Lucille.” A tear coursed down Flo’s cheek.

  “We can’t just sit here and let him shoot Sister Genevieve.”

  “The hose,” Flo exclaimed suddenly, sitting upright in her seat, momentarily forgetting the gun Joey had trained on her side of the truck.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s attached to the truck. And if this one here is like the one Mike showed me, the truck has a tank already full of water and ready to go.”

  Lucille looked around. “I don’t see no fire, Flo. So just what are we going to do with this here hose? You want to tell me that?”

  “Aim it at Joey. The force of the water will knock him off his feet and the gun out of his hand. That’ll give us a chance to get the gun away from him.”

  “But meanwhile, Joey still has the weapon pointed at us.”

  “Yeah, but he can’t see your side of the truck. That way you can slip out real quiet like, unwind the hose and then turn it on the bastard.”

  “Why me? How come I’ve got to do it? You know more about these here trucks than I do.”

  “Because you’re on the side away from Joey, Lu, that’s why.”

  “Can’t you climb over me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, I’ll have to operate the pump from in here. As soon as I figure out which one of these levers it is.”

  “Oh, all right. I’ll do it. But you’re going to owe me big-time.”

  “Me? This whole thing was your idea. You got us into this mess in the first place.”

  Lucille grunted and put her hand on the door.

  “Wait. That habit is going to get in your way. You’d better take it off.”

  “But I didn’t bring no clothes with me. All I’ve got on under here is my underwear.”

  “You want to die all on account of you don’t want no one to see you in your underwear?”

  “Sheesh, Flo,” Lucille said, but she began to pull the tunic over her head.

  “Honestly, Lucille,” Flo said when Lucille was done. “Are you still wearing those old-fashioned granny panties?”

  “Yeah. And I’ll tell you something. This is one time I’m real glad I ain’t wearing no thong.”

  Chapter 26

  “Wish me luck,” Lucille said, sending up a quick prayer to St. Eustace, the patron saint of those facing difficult situations. He was also the patron saint of firefighters which Lucille hoped would bring her extra good luck.

  Lucille could see that Flo had tears in her eyes, and it suddenly occurred to her that Joey could shoot her and she could die. And then she’d never see Frankie or little Lucy again—not even in heaven if Frankie didn’t regain his faith and Bernadette kept refusing to baptize her daughter. If she got through this, Lucille vowed to talk to Father Brennan and beg him to knock some sense into the two of them.

  Lucille opened her door quietly, slid off her seat and landed with a thud on the ground. It was certainly easier getting out than it had been getting into the truck. She crouched way down the way she’d seen them do on television. The wind had picked up and it was awful chilly in her underwear, but she broke out in a sweat on account of nerves. So far Joey hadn’t seemed to notice anything, but when he did, she was pretty sure he’d let loose with some bullets.

  The hoses were tidily arrayed along the sides of the truck. Lucille had to give them firemen credit—they sure were neat and organized. Everything was in its place, and the whole truck was spic and span. She wondered if they were like that at home or did they leave their dirty socks in the living room and their dishes in the sink like everyone else?

  Lucille loosened one of the hoses from the side of the truck. She wanted to sneak up on Joey and surprise him like but she couldn’t see him without peering around the edge of the truck. Maybe if she climbed on top? That would take him by surprise.

  But how to do that? There must be a way. The firemen didn’t sprout wings and fly up there. Lucille poked around the truck and found a small ladder inside one of the compartments. It looked as if it would hook over the side. She managed to drag it out and get it into place. All this activity was making a racket, but that Flo sure had brains. She had turned on the siren again, and Joey wouldn’t have heard nothing even if Lucille had set off a firecracker back there.

  Lucille lifted the ladder in order to hook it to the top of the truck. She’d misjudged its weight and nearly went over backward with it. She dropped it against the truck and stood, panting. She could do this—she just had to brace herself. After all, she was used to carrying a week’s groceries into the house all in one trip. She had some muscle.

  Lucille stood with her feet planted wide apart and once again picked up the ladder. This time she was able to hook it over the side of the fire truck. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, then grabbed the end of the hose and began to climb the ladder.

  She could only hold on with one hand so it was rough going, but she made it. She stayed down low, crawling into position toward the front of the truck.

  She could see Joey standing next to his car—Sister Genevieve was back in the passenger seat but with the door open. Joey began to walk around toward the driver’s side.

  “Are you ready, Lu?” Flo yelled. “He’s going to make a break for it.”

  “Hit it,” Lucille yelled back.

  Suddenly the hose, which had been lying flaccidly on the ground, came to life. It nearly flew out of Lucille’s grasp, and she had to hold on to it with two hands. She aimed it at Joey.

  Bull’s-eye. The force of the water knocked him backward. He stumbled, almost gained his footing and then fell flat on his back. His gun went flying.

  Flo motioned and yelled to Sister Genevieve. “Yo, Sister, get in the truck.”

  Joey lay on the grass, his clothes sopping wet, his hair plastered to his head. And a really pissed-off look on his face.

  Sister Genevieve had gotten out of the passenger seat but stood paralyzed between Joey’s car and the fire truck.

  Flo let out a piercing whistle. “Run, Sister, run,” she yelled through cupped hands.

  Sister Genevieve’s eyes went right, left, right—almost as if they were rolling around in her head like a couple of loose marbles. She looked like Lucille’s mother had the time she thought she’d accidentally swallowed her partial.

  Joey, meanwhile, had rolled onto his side and was inching his way toward his gun. The dirt had turned to mud, and he was covered in it. He’d have to get those clothes in the washer right away if he was going to get the stains out, Lucille thought.

  “Lucille,” Flo yelled. “Hit him again.”

  Lucille looked again, and Joey’s fingers were brushing the handle of the gun. She picked up the hose and nearly staggered from the wave of weariness that washed over her. It had been a long day, and she still hadn’t picked up anything for dinner. No matter what happened, Frankie, Bernadette and Tony expected to be fed. It would be nice if Bernadette occasionally pitched in, but she had her hands full with the baby. Of course, Lucille had managed to cook, clean and care for Bernadette all by herself—that thought niggled at Lucille as she got into position with the hose. But she was used to making excuses for Bernadette and that was unlikely to change—otherwise, she’d have to admit to herself, if no one else, that Bernadette wasn’t the perfect daughter she’d always expected to have.

  Sudden
ly the hose jumped in Lucille’s hands and water shot out in an arc. She tried to get control of it, but it was like holding on to an animal that was desperate to get away. Water hit the trees bordering the road, sending leaves and small twigs crashing to the ground. Lucille tried to bring the hose around and focus on Joey, but her hands were getting slippery and she was losing her grip.

  Joey continued to inch his way toward his gun. His fingers closed over the handle, and Lucille struggled to bring the hose back in position. But before she was able to do that, Joey had grabbed the gun and was pointing it at Sister Genevieve, who continued to hesitate between Joey’s car and the fire truck.

  Lucille had to do something. She could no longer control the hose—her strength was giving out and her grip loosening. She swung the hose around, missing Joey and nearly hitting Sister Genevieve. Fortunately, it seemed to have prompted the sister to move, and she was now heading toward the fire truck where Flo had opened the door.

  Lucille swung the hose around again, and this time she dropped it. It slithered away like a snake, and before she could catch it, Joey had his gun pointed straight at her.

  Lucille crossed her arms over her body. Her teeth were chattering, and she wasn’t sure which saint to pray to—St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, or St. George, the patron saint of bravery and courage.

  She saw Joey’s finger tighten on the trigger and heard the noise as the gun fired. The bullet glanced off a tree behind Lucille, and she let out a gasp of relief. It did have the effect of galvanizing Sister Genevieve, however, and she flew toward the truck faster than the Flying Nun.

  Joey was aiming his gun at Lucille again, and she scrambled backward, away from the black hole of the barrel that was pointed in her direction. The roof of the fire truck was wet, and Lucille slipped, going down hard on her stomach. She didn’t have time to register the shock or pain—she had to get out of Joey’s sights. She crawled backward on her hands and knees and onto what looked like a folded-up ladder. She supposed it was what the firemen used to rescue people from windows and roofs.

  Lucille tried to flatten herself as much as possible. Joey fired the gun, but he missed again. Lucille jumped at the sound of the shot and decided she didn’t want to be brave—now was the time to invoke St. Jude because this was fast becoming a lost cause.