Tiffany McDaniel - The Summer That Melted Everything

“Is that true?” I whispered to Sal.

He placed his trembling finger to his lips.

“She says as long as you’re able to provide a safe and healthy environment for the boy, then she don’t have no problem with his stayin’ here for the time bein’. She knows about the accidents but not to the extent of the boy bein’ thought responsible. And after the promise from Elohim today, I feel no need to elaborate on the details with her.

“Folks only started believin’ those things about the boy ’cause of that midget in the first place, and if he swears he’ll turn things around with their thinkin’, then so be it. Lord knows why he suddenly wants that boy to stay. For the sake of calm, I’ll have to think nothin’ of it, though I’ll keep my eye on Elohim. I advise you to do the same.

“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.”

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.”

“But, Mr. Bliss.” He looked down at my bare feet. “You’re not wearin’ any shoes.”

“That doesn’t matter. The laces are still untied.” I pointed down at the old pair of dirty tennis shoes on the floor.

“But how can they trip you up if you’re not even wearin’ ’em?”

“Because those laces are everything, and when everything gets untied, you don’t stop tripping just because the shoes are off.”

He stepped over to the shoes, where he bent down and ran his fingers over the eyes threaded into the backs of their heels. “There’s somethin’ on the laces.” He grabbed hold of them and looked closer.

“Blood,” I answered as if I were carrying armloads of it, exhausted by that very thing.

I thought he would let go of the laces. Instead, he tied them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I found myself not stopping him.

“I’m tyin’ them. So they won’t trip you anymore.”

It was the kindest thing anyone had done for me in years. It was so kind, I had to sit down.

After he tied both shoes, he stood and walked around the trailer, staring at the photographs of chimneys and steeples framed on the walls.

“That one over there was one I did in San Francisco,” I told him from my lawn chair. “That one beside it is from a small town called Sunburst — that’s in Montana, in case you don’t know. The big one there is from Baton Rouge, and—”