The day that Kirsten took Mike out to Gil and Carrie’s cottage at West Turtle Lake for the first time was a memorable one in many ways. Among other things, it was the day their relationship really started.

Most towns in the region tried to have some sort of summer festival, but the Spearfish Lake Chamber of Commerce had never been able to come up with an idea that worked. They had tried to have a “Lumberman’s Festival” for many years, drawing on the old-time logging heritage, but nothing quite worked, and finally the chamber got the message and gave it up as a bad job. The town went two or three years with nothing, and then the Spearfish Lake Women’s Club decided to step into the breach.

While the Women’s Club at least brought some fresh ideas into the problem, the idea they settled on wasn’t a very good one, as it turned out. The infamous Spearfish Lake Chili Festivals were only held in two years, 1974 and 1975, and the experience of the second year pretty well drained away any enthusiasm for the event.

Mike was still very new to Spearfish Lake when the second Chili Festival came down. Donna Clark and Kate Ellsberg, the powers in the Women’s Club, were having trouble finding judges for the chili contest, since the judges that survived the previous year weren’t anxious to tempt fate again. Kate roped her husband Bud into serving without any great degree of difficulty, but Donna’s son, Frank Matson, backed out only a couple days before the contest citing business problems, and fire chief Harry Masterfield came down with a hot appendix. Masterfield’s wife, Jane, suggested the list had been a little old and a younger person, and a woman at that, would be a little more appropriate. When Kirsten dropped by the bank where Jane was a secretary to see about an ad, she found herself volunteered.

That left one spot to fill, and when Kate approached Mike about being a judge, he reasoned it was a chance to spend some time with Kirsten, and volunteered as well.

The chili festival came on a very hot day, not the best for eating chili. In order to perk things up a little bit, there was a queen contest and a band. The queen contest wasn’t bad – it was won by Jennifer Evachevski, Gil and Carrie’s 14-year-old daughter. Mike noted that Jennifer had a heckuva voice for her age, and great stage presence as she sang an a capella version of “Fever” that was hotter than Peggy Lee could have dreamed.

The band, however, left much to be desired. In fact, it left everything to be desired. Basically a garage band that Donna and Kate could bring in at a very low fee, they got their money’s worth.

The band only knew about twelve songs, and a couple of them they knew less well than they didn’t know the rest, and about half the songs they did know were either Proud Mary, or at least sounded sort of like it. Mike was rather partial to the Ike and Tina Turner version of the bar band specialty, and there was at least one comparison: the Lazy River Band “don’t do nuthin’ nice and easy.” What they mostly did was rock hard and loud, if poorly, but the beat was heavy, and that helped. Mike bought a beer from the beer tent, and drifted as far away from the bandstand as he could manage while still staying in the park.

After a while, Kirsten showed up. She looked stunning: she wore a print shirt, unbuttoned, but with the tails tied together, and it barely managed to stand up to the pressure of her chest. She wore a pair of white pants, so tight they looked like they had been painted on, and a pair of red pumps. “You look like you came dressed for the party,” he said loudly, over the noise of the band.

She let the comment slide, and merely asked, “Do you know what we’re supposed to do?”

“Kate’s around here somewhere,” Mike said. “I suppose we’d better go find her.”

“What do you think of the band?” Kirsten asked.

“God, the dentists in this town are going to make out like bandits, after today,” Mike said. “Think of all the fillings that are getting knocked out.”

“They do play rather loud,” Kirsten admitted.

“They also play rather bad,” Mike said. “But I suppose if you play loud enough, with a heavy enough beat, no one cares too much about bad, at least if they’ve been to the beer tent enough.”

They soon found Kate Ellsberg, who pinned “Judge” ribbons to their shirts and sent them over to the bandstand, where Bud was waiting, looking rather unhappy. Mike presumed it was because he had been waiting at the bandstand for them, all too close to the large stack of speakers.

After the judging of the queen contest, it was time to try the chili. The sound of the band was not quite as intense over at the chili pots, but quite a crowd had gathered around as Kirsten, Mike and Bud walked over from the bandstand. “We better get us some beer,” Bud told the other two. “If this stuff is as hot as last year’s, we may need something to put the fire out.”

There were seventeen entrants in the chili contest, and each had to make a minimum of five gallons of chili, so the crowd could have their fill. The judges got first crack at the chili, and were expected to award first, second and third places.

With a crowd hanging around, the three set their beers down at the first table, and took foam bowls. “What do you call this stuff?” Bud asked.

“Buzzard’s Breath Chili,” the cook said, filling a ladle.

“Just a little bit, no more than a tablespoon full,” Bud said. “I’ve got to work my way clear down through this line.”

The cook obliged, ladling out rather more than a tablespoon full, but not really a lot. Bud stuck a plastic spoon lightly into the chili, held it up, and studied the contents carefully, without tasting it. He dumped the spoon, which had a small flake of hot pepper in it, and tried another spoonful. He sniffed it carefully, then, throwing caution to the winds, plunged the spoon into his mouth. “Jesus, God, that’s hot,” he said, sipping at his beer to kill the burning sensation. “How much Tabasco sauce is there in this?”

“A bottle,” the cook said.

“Quart or gallon?”

“Let me try,” Mike said, taking a bowl, and having the cook ladle out about as much as Bud’s.

“You need to say something like, ‘We who are about to die salute you,’” Bud said.

Mike took a taste. “Yeah, that is a little on the hot side,” Mike said. Nice taste otherwise, though. Is that venison I’m tasting in there?”

“Nice buck from last fall,” the cook said proudly.

“Well not bad, other than a little too hot,” Mike said. “Kirsten, you want to try some?”

Kirsten looked at the bowl for a moment, then studied the contents of a spoon about as studiously as Bud had, before taking the plunge. “Ye gods, that’s hot,” she said, grabbing frantically for a beer. “Mike,” she said finally, “If that’s just a little hot, will you warn me when you think something is real hot?”

“This isn’t real bad,” Mike said. “I like stuff with a little bite to it.”

“Kid,” Bud said, “Your asshole must hate you.”

“Let’s try the next one,” Kirsten said, diplomatically, but a little hopeful, as well.

The three went up to the next pot. “What do you call your chili?” Kirsten asked.

“Orion Nebula Chili,” the cook said.

“Sounds innocent enough,” Mike noted.

“Kid, did you ever take astronomy in college?” Bud asked.

“Yeah, it was a science gut course.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“No.”

“Do you remember anything about the Orion Nebula?”

“Not particularly,” Mike said, “Other than it’s in Orion.”

“The Orion Nebula is a gaseous emission nebula,” Bud said.

“Caught me,” the cook nodded.

On they went on down the line of chili pots. Some looked better than others, some looked really hideous, and Bud managed to find a disparaging remark to make about each one.

Forked Tongue Chili.

Fire in the Hole Chili.

Thunderbutt Chili, the previous year’s winner. Bud had to agree it was well named, but again this year, it was too hot for his taste. To think that this was the best of the bunch last year … well, it wouldn’t have been bad this year, either, if about half the peppers had stayed in Louisiana.

Recoilless Chili . . . Bud asked the cook, an older man, “Were you in the infantry?”

“Korea, during the war.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Kirsten asked.

“A recoilless rifle is kind of an artillery piece,” Bud said. “It has a helluva backblast. It’s damn near as dangerous to be behind the damn thing as it is to be in front of it.”

“Worse,” the cook said.

Retrofire Chili. At that one, Kirsten paused. The cook was the young roofer she’d been infatuated with a couple of weeks earlier, Hjalmer Lindahlsen. He had a nice butt on him, she knew . . .

“You up to any tricks this year?” Bud asked.

“No,” Hjalmer said. “I had my laughs last year. This year I tried to play it straight.”

“Mike, in case you didn’t know, this young man is the person who inflicted Lutefisk Chili on the world last year. The world has not been the same since. There isn’t any stinking lutefisk in here, is there, Hjalmer?”

“No, no lutefisk. I did it for laughs, last year,” Lindahlsen protested. “I didn’t think it tasted that bad, though.”

“You damn Norwegian,” Bud said, “If you don’t think lutefisk tastes bad, how the hell would you know if anything tastes good?”

“It’s an acquired taste,” the cook said. “Except I think you’ve got to be Norwegian to acquire it.”

“Then what’s this Retrofire shit?”

“Actually,” Hjalmer said, “It really is pretty mild, but you know how it is. You’ve got to have some kind of hotter than hell name for the chili, whether it’s hot or not, and it should have some kind of a fart joke attached, too.”

“I will probably live to regret this,” Bud said. “But I’ll give it a try.” He held out a bowl, and Lindahlsen ladled a little into it. As always, Bud took a spoonful, and studied it for a moment. Amazingly, he could see no pieces of hot pepper floating in it. It smelled good, too, not hot at all. Wondering if he were doing the right thing, he gave it a taste.

“Hey, not bad,” Bud said. “You’re right, that’s not hot at all, but really has a nice flavor. It just shows you can make chili without an army course in running a flamethrower.”

Mike took a taste. “That’s pretty darn good,” he said. “Italian sausage?”

“That, and mooseburger,” Lindahlsen said.

“Where the hell did you come up with moose?” Bud wanted to know.

“Friend of mine got one up in Canada last year,” Hjalmer said. “He gave me a couple of pounds of it, just for the sake of something exotic.”

Kirsten tried a taste of it. “Hey, that’s not bad,” she agreed, and took another spoonful. It was the first time all day that she had taken a second spoonful, and not a drink of her beer. “I think I could eat this,” she said, winking at Lindahlsen.

“It’s got beans, too,” Mike said. “Not a lot of the chilies that we’ve seen have them. I like beans.”

Once they had worked their way down through the line of chili pots, the three judges sat down at a picnic table to decide on a winner. “Most of that stuff is too hot for me,” Kirsten said. “I think we ought to go for a mild one.”

“That would mean Hjalmer’s Retrofire Chili,” Bud said. “After the trick he pulled last year, I’m not so sure I want to reward him this year.”

After some discussion, they settled on Lindahlsen’s offering as the winner. In a brief ceremony afterwards, he was awarded a gas grill and a porta-potty, both useful for chili makers. The judge’s award for their services was a big bowl of the winner’s chili.

Bud looked at his bowl. “I really don’t want any,” he said. “My stomach is acting up, already.”

“I didn’t have lunch,” Mike said. “Leave it, and I’ll eat some of it.”

“I didn’t have any lunch, either,” Kirsten said, digging into the bowl in front of her. “I’ll help. That really is pretty good chili.”

“Thanks, kids, both of you. This went a lot better than last year,” Bud said. “I honestly think the chili was better, too.”

In years to come, Mike and Bud would become pretty good friends, but Mike would never let Bud forget his words.

Hjalmer Lindahlsen already had a reputation around town as a practical joker, and the 1975 Chili Festival sealed it for all time. Strangely, he never would talk about the contest and the aftermath much, but eventually developed a stock response, which he gave over and over again for years: “You can laugh, and no one knows it. You can cry, and no one knows it. But make one damn pot of chili, and you never live it down.”

No one ever found out what Hjalmer had dosed his chili with, but it wasn’t on the list of ingredients published in the Record-Herald the week after the contest. Worse, whatever it was, at least some people thought he’d managed to slip it into several other pots of chili. In any case, the results were widespread.

But whatever it was, it certainly had a delayed action, one that Mike and Kirsten didn’t find out about until several hours later, when they were on their way back from Gil and Carrie’s cabin at West Turtle Lake. The visit was sort of anticlimactic after the chili festival, but Mike had found out that Gil and Carrie liked to play volleyball, and they had several enjoyable, challenging sets on the sand court up the street. Kirsten had played high school intramural volleyball, and he was, after all a veteran of the State varsity team.

It proved that Gil and Carrie were pretty good too. Mike had entertained visions of Kirsten in a bikini, but a couple hours of good volleyball was almost as much fun. They all had a fun afternoon, and Gil and Carrie invited Mike and Kirsten to come back out the following day, for dinner and more volleyball, and Mike thought there still might be a chance for bikini time.

“I hope you had a good time,” Kirsten said as they drove back to Spearfish Lake that evening.

“That was the best time I’ve had since I’ve been in Spearfish Lake,” Mike told her. “Thanks for bringing me.”

“I guess I’m glad I did, then,” she said.

“You know, I’ve been kind of lonely, and bored, ever since I’ve been here. This afternoon, I was among friends, having a good time. I guess I hadn’t realized what I was missing. Yes, I’m glad I came.”

She slid across the seat to snuggle up beside him. “I’m glad to hear you say that,” she said. “Can we be friends, then?”

He put his arm around her lightly. “It’s nice to have a friend,” he said.

“We’re coming out tomorrow?” she asked.

“I will if you want me to,” he told her.

“I do,” she said.

They drove back into Spearfish Lake, holding onto each other, not saying much, just enjoying being close to each other. It was nice to have a friend.

They came to a stop at the stoplight a block up the street from the office. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I need to stop off at the shop for a minute to drop off the camera.”

“Fine,” she said. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

The office had not entirely given up the heat of the day when they walked in and turned on the light. Mike dumped the camera on the desk, while Kirsten made a beeline for the bathroom.

She no more than had the door closed when Mike heard the last thing he’d expected to hear: an enormously noisy fart, resonating off the tile walls of the rest room. It was hard to believe such a loud blast could come from such a small girl.

It had to be the chili.

And it had to be the chili that was causing the gas pressure in his own gut. What the hell, he thought, and let it go, a noisy, echoing fart of his own, giving that joy of relief in only the way a really healthy, gassy fart can give. He was feeling the relief from the pressure on his gut when the smell hit him, a rotten, reeking, disgusting smell that hit hard and lingered.

The bathroom door opened and Kirsten sheepishly stepped out. “Did you hear that?” she said shyly.

“That cherry bomb that just went off?” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, redfaced. “I didn’t think it would be so loud. It must have been the chili.”

Mike nodded. “I’ve got the same problem,” he said.

“We’re still friends, aren’t we?” she asked.

“Still friends.”

“Could we promise we won’t be embarrassed if we share our misery tonight?” she asked.

Mike shook his head, then put his arm around her to show he still cared. “Do you mean, can we fart around each other and not be embarrassed about it?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say.”

“We’re good enough friends for that,” he said, putting his other arm around her.

She responded with a hug of her own. “Mike,” she said, “I don’t know how to say this, but can I sleep on your couch or something tonight? I don’t want to go home and upset mother with gas like this.”

“Won’t she be worried if you don’t come home?”

“No, she knows I often stay with Gil and Carrie, and they don’t have a phone out there.”

“You can have my bed,” Mike said. “I’ll spend the night on the couch.”

“I’m not talking about fooling around,” she said, “But I guess I’d just like to hold on to you tonight.”

“We can do that,” he said. Whatever you want to do, Kirsten, he thought, at whatever speed you want. “I won’t mind.”

She pulled away from him. “Mike, look, I’m not ready for some kind of commitment. I can’t have any kind of commitment. I have to keep my options open.”

“Henry Toivo?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “How did you know about him?”

“Carrie told me,” he said, quietly, and took her in his arms again.

Tears were running down her face, now. “Mike, I don’t know if this is fair to you or me, but I have to be fair to him. I’m willing to be your friend, maybe even your lover, so long as you understand that if he ever comes home, I’ll leave you in an instant.”

“I can live with that,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s a chance he’ll every come home alive,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “But I couldn’t bear to have cut him off if he does. Until I know for sure, I don’t think I can make a commitment, to you or anyone.”

He pulled her tighter, and patted her on the back. “Kirsten,” he said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Thanks, Mike,” she smiled. “Excuse me for this.”

“For what?” he started to ask as she let go of another massive gutrumbler. There was nothing he could say but to kiss her, and reply in kind.

Despite their mutual protestations of innocent intentions toward each other, something well under five minutes elapsed between Mike’s closing the door to his apartment and finding himself in a hot embrace with a naked Kirsten on his bed.

Most couples find their first such encounter memorable for the usual reasons, and thus it was for them – but with the special bonus of the agony, the noise, and the smell, which only got worse as the evening progressed, and their repeated mutual belly massages just stirred up the action. It soon got so bad that Mike set a fan in the open window, just to blow some fresh air on them so they could breathe, but that didn’t really slow them down in other respects.

Though the euphemism “sleeping together” is often used in somewhat similar circumstances, Mike and Kirsten didn’t get a lot of sleep that night, and passion was only a small part of the reason. The massive gutrumblings, the nearly continuous noisy farts, and the obnoxious, lingering smell could have wakened the comatose. They did, however, find something to fill the hours.

It would have been pretty disgusting to either one of them, except for the fact they were both suffering together, and, admittedly, they did have some diversion to their mutual embarrassment. At that, they were lucky; they had company in their misery, while all over town people who had eaten hearty at the chili festival suffered alone.

Even in August, the sun rises early in Spearfish Lake, and Mike and Kirsten saw the coming of the morning light after a sleepless night. “I hate to bring this up,” Kirsten said finally, “But if we’re going go back out to Gil and Carrie’s today, we should really try to get some sleep.”

“I know,” Mike agreed in an exhausted voice. It had been a night like he could never have imagined, with Kirsten, with the Ice Queen, with anyone, and not just as a result of the chili. “I think maybe it’s dying down a little, now.” A familiar pain in the gut struck him, and like she had, he’d learned over the course of the evening the best thing to do in the circumstances was to relieve it, just as noisily as ever.

“God, I hope so,” Kirsten said, wincing as she felt another bomb building up inside her. “It just doesn’t seem to quit.”

“We really didn’t even eat that much chili,” Mike agreed. “God, there were people who were really pigging out. What in the hell must they be going through?”

“I hope Hjalmer has the good sense to get out of town and stay gone for a while,” Kirsten commented. “Otherwise you might have a lynching to write about this week.”

“Yeah, he’s probably laughing himself silly right about now,” Mike said.

“Well, he probably thinks it’s funny,” she said. “I suppose it is, in a way. Maybe in time we’ll look back on this and laugh about it.”

“Fat chance,” Mike said. “Let’s try and get some sleep.”

“Yeah, let’s,” she said, snuggling up close to him as the light of the dawn filtered into the window.

The close snuggling had an effect that wasn’t unexpected, and it was a while before they actually got to sleep. They did manage three hours or so of troubled, restless sleep, broken by the frequent painful need to relieve the pressure, before the alarm went off. Both of them were pretty wasted as they opened their eyes.

“Mike, do you still want to go out to Gil and Carrie’s?” Kirsten yawned.

“Not particularly,” Mike said. “But it gets so hot in here during the day we probably wouldn’t get any sleep, anyway. We might as well go. Maybe we can find a cool, shady spot to take a nap.”

By then the gas pressure was tailing off, so to speak. They got dressed, stopped for a couple giant cups of coffee, and drove out to West Turtle Lake. They spent the day playing sand court volleyball, swimming – anticlimactically, Mike did get to see Kirsten in a bikini, and thought she still looked pretty good in it – and paddling around the lake in the double Klepper kayak Gil and Carrie had brought back from Germany.

By the time they got done with dinner, they were really winding down, and they were beginning to feel their exhaustion. “We’d better get some sleep or tomorrow is going to be a killer,” Mike said.

“Yeah, if we head back now, we might be able to celebrate a little without farting all the time,” Kirsten agreed. “Let’s swing by my place so I can pick up some clothes for tomorrow.”

Mike barely managed to keep his eyes open as they drove back to Spearfish Lake, stopping at Kirsten’s along the way. They got up to the apartment, which still had a lingering odor despite the windows being open all day, and fell into bed. Despite their best intentions of other activities, they fell asleep within seconds, and slept the sleep of the dead around the clock in each other’s arms. They could have gone longer yet had Mike not had the forethought to set the alarm across the room, where they couldn’t turn it off without getting out of bed.

“That didn’t work out quite like I planned,” Kirsten admitted as she yawned and tried to lever her eyes open that Monday morning. “But I do feel better.”

“Yeah, me too,” Mike agreed, yawning himself.

“Mike, I’m sorry I fell asleep on you,” she smiled. “I had other plans.”

“Well, me too,” he smiled. “Except I think I was the one who fell asleep on you.”

“Maybe tonight we can do it right,” Kirsten smiled.

“It’ll have to be late,” Mike replied. “School board tonight, and I’ll have to write it up afterwards.”

“That doesn’t start till seven,” she said. “We can have dinner and a quickie before you have to go. I’ll run out to the house and get some more clothes while you’re at the meeting.”