The Summer That Melted Everything(30)

“I told her you and Stella are very willin’ for Sal to stay here. I assured her you’re a respectable family. She likes that you’re a lawyer ’n’ all. She’s gonna be payin’ ya a visit in a couple days to check things out. I suspect she’ll look ’round the house, ask y’all a couple of questions, so I’d make sure Grand and Fieldin’ are here if need be. If she deems it all proper, you’ll be granted temporary custody of the boy.”

Suddenly the study door was yanked open the rest of the way. Me and Sal slowly raised our heads to see Dad shaking his and looking down at us.

“Go on up to bed, you two. I’ll be up in a little while.”

He made sure we climbed up the stairs before returning to the sheriff.

“So?” I asked Sal once we were in my room.

“So what?” He fell back in the window bed.

“I mean ain’tcha happy you’re stayin’? You’re lucky Elohim stopped the sheriff.”

“I don’t need Elohim. I’m the devil. No one tells me when to stay and when to leave. But it sure is nice to be wanted. I tell you, Fielding, it sure is nice to be wanted right in this very place.”





9

Where all life dies, death lives, Nature breeds,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

These yelling monsters

—MILTON, PARADISE LOST 2:624, 795

SHE CAME IN a large black car with candy bar wrappers all over the passenger seat. Her breath smelled like Butterfingers. Her shirt had coffee stains. Her gold bracelets dangled over the clipboard and her fake nails, in radioactive green, scratched the paper as she put the little checks in the little boxes. She was children’s services, and she spoke mostly to Mom and Dad. She did ask me and Grand things like, Do you get along with Sal? Would you mind him staying with you for a while? Is there any reason his staying would be a bad idea?

Yes, we answered. No, we said. And if there were any reasons, we couldn’t think of them. We fibbed on that last one, but Dad had said we were not to bring up Dovey or the runner with the gone spine.

She and her clipboard went through the house, wanted to see where Sal slept, things like that. At the end, she gave Dad and Mom some papers to sign. Temporary is what the papers said, though Dad still kneeled in front of Sal and said he was one of us now.

“Did you know that before you came along, Sal, our four-person family was too small to own our name?” Dad held up the piece of paper he’d written our name on so he could illustrate his point. “I had the B, Mother there had the L, Grand had the I, and Fielding had the S. But this second S here has been waiting to be claimed this entire time. You, Sal, you are the last S in our name. You are the wholeness of our family.”

So we were, suddenly a family of five, and June wasn’t even over yet. By that time, sweat lived on us, leaving our skin stuck between the sensation and the response to that unbearable heat. While the sweat dripped, dropped, and flowed, it seemed at times to press upon us like dry twigs threatening to spark.

Owing to that longstanding advice on how to stay cool, an aerial view of Breathed would have captured a town of pastel seersucker and beige linen. No one wore anything heavier. There were those who dared to free themselves of clothes altogether and nap quietly bare on the banks of the river or stretch out in their backyards with the garden hoses. At first those who went naked tended to unintentionally build fences of young masturbators, but soon orgasms, even the most triumphant ones, became too minuscule a wage for the labors of the hand in such a roasting heat.

At that time, not many homes, especially the older ones like ours, had central air, so we had air conditioners sitting bulky in windows for rooms like the living room and the kitchen.

Even with air-conditioning, we relied on electric fans. We had a couple stored in the attic. Dad bought more at the hardware store before they sold out. He did then what others did, which was to drive to the surrounding towns to buy what fans they had. Fans became the statement of our house and their steady hum-buzz was like living in a beehive. To influence the temperature of their flow, Dad would place bowls of ice water in front of their blades, which brought a cool, though not cold, relief.

Even now, I sweat from that heat. People think it’s Arizona that makes me sweat, but it’s always been Ohio.

Did I tell you the neighbor boy brought me over a fan the other day?

“I just thought you looked awful hot,” he said as he set it up on the table. “Do ya like it?”

“It’s not going to help.”

“Sure it will. And I got somethin’ else that might help ya.”

He ran out of the trailer, returning minutes later with a cane.

“I just worry you’re gonna fall down. I used my allowance to get it. It’s not new. I got it at a yard sale, but I think it’ll work just fine.”

I slapped the cane down to the floor. There is nothing more angering than being told you’re old, and nothing tells it quite like a cane.

“Don’t you know I was friends with the devil once?”

As if that will make me greater than just another old man.

“I’m awful sorry, Mr. Bliss. I just thought it’d help.”

Good intentions slapped down to the floor is a hard scene to come away from. I sighed and did my best.

“Listen, kid. My shoelaces are untied. That’s why I look like I’m about to fall. No cane can ever help me with that.”