Too Dang Hot

It was hot.

The cows stood in the lake as far as they could go without having to swim. Too hot for the birds to sing. Too dang hot for the dog to lift his head when the postman drove up and used a potholder to open the bent metal door of the mailbox and drop two thin envelopes inside.

Yeah. It was that hot.

The porch swing moved when she tapped her toe against the rough brick pushing it back and forth just enough to set it swaying, just enough to cause the air to ripple around her. She lay on her back, one leg propped over the arm of the swing with her foot reaching out to the wall of the house, the other dangling off the seat. Her right arm angled up toward the other arm rest near her head which lay flat on the seat. Her left arm was straight, almost falling off of the green, wooden boards.

It was too hot.

Breathing felt like swimming underwater. The air was heavy. Sweat pooled on her skin. The swing squealed each time she pushed it away from the wall. It didn’t want to swing that way. It wanted to float in the air free on its chains creating a breeze to whisk the sweat away, but she didn’t let it fly. She tamed it. She pushed it back and forth against its natural swing with just her toes gripping the beveled edges of the red brick.

It could have been hotter.

She could hear the bang of pots and lids, the rising murmur of voices, the hum of the weak, little window air conditioner in the back window of the kitchen. They didn’t know how to use it. They turned it on when they were cooking, but they left the screen doors open. They shut the doors and windows at night and turned it off. The wire screen on the door barely kept the flies outside. It did nothing to stop the heat coming either way. Clouds of steam from the boilers on the 8 burner stove passed through the tiny squares. Steam that smelled of hot corn, bubbling tomato sauce, cooking carrots. She should have been inside sliding the skins off of the hot, blanched tomatoes. She should have been shucking the corn out back or shelling a peck of butter beans out here on the porch. Lots of things she should have been.

At least there was shade.

The porch in the front was covered with an oak tree that must have been there when Sherman came through. Maybe not that old. Maybe older. Its heavy arms spread out in every direction unimpeded by other trees. It stretched out covering the whole front half of the house. The back of the house where the kitchen was, though, baked in the shimmering heat of the summer sun. Even more, they created their own heat with the flames on the stove putting up the vegetables that grew in the back acres.

There was too much heat and too little water.

She opened her eyes. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She smacked her mouth a few times trying to make the thirst go away. It didn’t work. She slowly pulled her leg off the arm of the swing and braced her arms against the chair to bring herself upright. Going inside they’d put her to work, so she looked around for the water hose. It was out in the yard near the truck. She slid off the swing and walked over to the spigot to turn it on. The water ran hot. It nearly boiled in the hose while it was in the sun. She ran it for a few minutes to let it cool. It tasted like rubber, but it was wet. She pointed it at her neck and face then her arms and legs. The water was cold now from the deep well. She looked out in the pasture at the cows in the lake and wondered if the moccasins were swimming around their legs. Maybe not. The cows were still. Even the chickens were quiet. They hid in the shade around the trees. The only sound she heard in the yard was the whining of mosquitos. She wasn’t too bothered by them. Maybe she wasn’t sweet enough. The flies, though. The flies were worrisome. They tickled when they walked on her skin. They liked the salt.

Even the ground was hot.

She stepped carefully over the gravel in the road until she reached the peach trees. She’d forgot to wear her shoes. The hornets and wasps were thick on the ground sucking on the rotten peaches where they’d fallen from the trees. A yellow bushel basket sat empty near the base of the tree. Maybe she should pick some peaches before they fell. But not without her shoes. She scrambled back over the gravel as fast as she could until she could get her dirty white keds. She shook them out and peered in to look at insects. Back to the trees, still careful of the yellow jackets. The peaches on the bottom limbs had been picked over. She climbed up a branch or two, then put the peaches she could reach into a pouch she made with her shirt. Climbing down was harder because of the peaches, but she got about a peck and a half by the time she was done. Back up, more peaches, back down, back up until the basket was half full. A full bushel was too heavy to carry.

The heat inside the house was worse than out.

The air was thicker with steam. The flames on the stove were an open fire inside the room. Pressure cookers, bubbling stock pots, cast iron skillets all put out their special kind of heat. The women turned when she walked in with the peaches.

“Lord, what did you bring us more work for? Those are yours. Get you a sharp knife, a pot of water from the tap, and some of that Fruit Fresh. You take that out on the screened-in porch and peel them.”

“Look at your shirt! You know peach stains never come out.”

“Don’t you let those peaches turn brown. Slice them up and put sugar on them. At least we can freeze them. Go ahead and get those plastic cartons off the top shelf out there in the storage room. Just dust them out. They get washed before we put them up.”

The screened in porch wasn’t much cooler, but it did get a little airflow from side to side. She put in as many peaches as would fit in the old enameled tub and swished them around. The peach fuzz floated in the water and stuck to her arms like stinging ants. Peach juice ran down her arms attracting the flies. She swatted them away as she dropped thick, shining, gold slices into another metal bowl full of sugar. She ate almost as many as she saved. The sugar melted to form a thick, peachy syrup. When the bowl was full, she scooped up cupfuls to go in the plastic containers. She blew into the container to get the dust out. The lids didn’t want to stick anymore, so she got some duct tape to hold the sides together. 7 boxes out of a peck of peaches didn't seem like much. Maybe if she’d eaten fewer and put up more.

Sometimes clouds mean heat and not rain.

She could see the clouds roll in as the porch got darker, but these didn’t mean rain would fall. These were dry clouds full of flashing sheets of lightning. No thunder. They came when the ground was dry, when the wind blew hot, and the heat felt like a wet, wool blanket wrapped around your shoulders. They weren’t a promise of rain. Done with the peaches, she left the boxes on the picnic table and ran around to the carport where she could slip in the side door and get to the bathroom to wash off without being seen. Itchy peach fuzz didn’t wash off, but the sticky syrup would. You have to wait for the fuzz to wear off.

She thought about staying here in the wood-paneled room and reading. She thought about bug spray and a hat and walking through the woods to the old green cabin she could almost see from the carport. She thought about the porch swing. She thought about the peaches. She sat on the back steps under cover of the carport and thought about a lot of things for a long time.