At 'bout a quarter t' ten on that miserable, humid Monday night we had down here last week, I got scared out of my mind. It might've just been the house. Being alone in a house like that-it'll do things to your mind,

I swear.

I was just standin' in my kitchen, and I realized, I was alone in that big old house. My god, how it got me so chilled, even in that horrible temperature.

Yessir, it might've been just my mind playin' tricks on me in that house. But I do believe it was somethin' else. The heat.

The heat'll do strange, strange things to your mind. Especially the kind of heat we been havin' here. The heat wave started last Sunday.

Unbelievable heat. And since all that coolness wasn't ready to leave quite yet, we had some hellacious storms in these parts. That gave way to the muggy Monday night I spoke of earlier.

No one here was ready for a heat like that. It caught everyone so off guard. Everyone thought it was goin' t' pass, it didn't. When the heat stayed, people started behavin' different.

The heat'll do strange things to the mind.

Why, just the other day, ol' Mizz Jane, the ol' widow down-there-when I was walkin' by, I saw her out in her front yard doin' the strangest thing.

I asked her what in the world she was doin'. Let me tell you, she was watterin' her concrete sidewalk and her drive. I asked her why she'd be standin' in this heat doin' such a thing. And she told me, if she didn't keep it cool it might just crack open to the fires of hell.

I tell you, this heat is doin' strange things.

It's been a week now that this heat has been here, and I think people are startin' t' crack.

I think it was Wednesday it was, and at about 11:30 at night I heard this racket outside. I went t' look out my front window, and of all things, t'was Mary Hardeway. Now, she's just a pretty young thing, unmarried an' livin' with her great aunt Beatrice down here, an' I swear to you when I looked out my window I damn near died. There was Mary, walkin' outside in that miserable heat at 11:30 at night, wearin' nothing but her white silk nightgown. And she was hollerin' somethin' fierce 'bout the only way to get cool would've been to zip outta her skin.

And I heard, from Annette who works down at the dispatch office takin' calls, that there have been more accidents, more violations, and more outright fights in this past week then there were the entire rest of the year.

Why, one of them included the Davis boy and the Jameson boy. They say that it started when one of them said somethin' about Elizabeth Berkley. Now she's the best catch any boy could hope to make. She's sweet and kind, and there never was a more pure, caring girl anywhere to be found. One of the boys said something blackening 'bout the poor girl's name and the other took not so well to it. Apparently, before the end when the sheriff got there, the Davis boy had pulled a knife on the Jameson boy.

Things like that didn't happen before this heat got here.

It's Sunday now, and I hope to god that it's done with soon. Everyone seems so edgy now.

I know it tain' nothin' but the heat. I'm tryin' my damnedest to keep my wits about me. So far that just means keepin' cool and not lettin' things get to me.

Even the paperboy's startin' give in. For the past three mornin's I've found the mornin' news in my roses, when for the past two years it has been neatly on my front stoop.

The heat'll make you do mighty strange things sometimes.

*

It is now Thursday afternoon of the hottest week I believe we have ever had. I tell you, the whole town has gone off.

It was Tuesday when I was drivin' to the store to buy some lemonade mix to try and help me pretend it was cooler out, when, at the traffic light of Second and Grove, the one that hadn't been working well for a month now, Mister Jameson bumped into the back end of Mister Davis' car.

I believe they had been sittin' there for a good ten minutes not movin' there in the heat and Mr. Jameson just let his foot off the brake or somethin'. Well, Mister Davis got out of his car, started yellin' at Mister Jameson.

The argument escalated. They started yellin' 'bout the fight their boys had earlier. They were just hollerin' themselves blue in the face, when all the sudden Mister Davis out and shot Mister Jameson dead in the middle o'the intersection.

No one knew what to do. Someone somewhere called the sheriff, and all the while Mister Davis just continued to yell at Jameson's dead body.

And he was dead. Davis shot him in the heart, killed him instantly. None of us there could do anything. We were all either too scared, or just too damn hot to even think about getting' involved.

But, by the time the sheriff got there, Mister Davis was bawlin' like a baby sayin' he didn't know what just happened. There were 'bout a dozen witnesses, there was no question 'bout any of it. Davis is in county by now. I believe when he goes to trial they are pleadin' temporary insanity.

Nothing like that had ever happened in this town before. So many of us just didn't know what to make of it. Mizz Jane just sits out in a lawn chair with her garden hose all the time now. She's still watterin' the walk and drive. She believes god has chosen her to try and keep hell at bay now. And I tell you; it was not the very next night after Mister Jameson's untimely demise, that I was out walkin' in through the park. It was a touch cooler then it had been. To us it felt like relief.

I couldn't sleep and it was late, I admit, when I was in the park. I heard some soft noises from off in the bush. I stopped dead, scared to even move. With all the mess goin' on lately, I didn't want to be any part of it. Especially not a dead part. So I stood still for a moment. Then I heard talkin'.

My curiosity got the best of me. I sneaked over and peeked in through a small gap in the leaves of one of the bushes.

There was a small clearing, completely surrounded on all sides by bushes. It was what I saw in that clearing that nearly gave me an attack. Kneeling, on the hot ground, in the sticky midnight air, was Elizabeth Berkley. And she was stark naked. And-standing in front of her-also naked as the day he was born was the Davis boy. He was tellin' her how his father had killed Mister Jameson, and how he could kill the Jameson boy. If she wanted him too.

She made some kind of dumb complacent answer and what followed does not need to be spoken of. And I am guessing that by the state of Miss Elizabeth, that it was not their first encounter of the night. At this I slowly backed up away from that bush, and hurried my way home. There was nothin' there I wanted to be party to in any way. When I got home, I stopped on my front stoop for a moment. The whole town had gone off, I could swear it.

I looked over.

My roses were broken.

As I said, it's Thursday now, and still as hot as ever. I'm at the café right this time, sippin' the last of my iced tea. I need to be getting' back home.

I need t' do something 'bout the paperboy's body in the bathtub.

He's startin' to smell.

Maybe I'll put some roses in there to tone it out.

The heat does strange, strange things.