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2004-06-23 - 2:38 p.m. Another story courtesy of my friend connor, who is teaching english in seoul. "Hot Day" It was the hottest day of the year. Nobody wanted to do anything. The streets were empty. In the depths of the afternoon, around 3 o'clock, ominously, even the cicadas shut up. Up and down the streets of the town there was silence. Nothing moved. Inside an air-conditioned hardware store on the town's main street, kittycorner from a movie theater and across from a stand of saggy, peeling old Victorian homes, two men sat behind the counter and watched the broiling street through the shop's tinted windows. One of them sipped on a Dr. Pepper. Their names were Claud and Jeff. They were brothers. No one had been in their store since nearly two hours before, when Daniel from the American Family restaurant had come in and bought a pair of pliars. "The air-conditioner's broken," he said. Since then there had been nothing. It looked likely that no one else would be in at all. Jeff, who owned the store and the building, was going to keep the place open until seven anyway, "Just to see if anyone else comes in." He had nothing else to do. Claud, who was three years younger and did not want to stay at the store for no reason, had better things in mind. "It's stupid to stay in here today," he said. "Let's close up and go to the lake." Jeff shook his head. "I'm not going swimming today." "Why not?" Jeff gestured out the window. "It's so hot out there today, you'd get so sweaty, you'd never dry off after you got out of the water." "So?" "I hate that feeling." There was a pause. "You're a sissy," said Claud. "You don't have to stay here," said Jeff, turning his head to face his brother. "You can go swimming all you want. Be my guest. The shop doesn't need two people today." Claud nodded and made a thoughtful face. But he made no preparations to leave. Both men returned their attention to the empty street. Claud had finished his Dr. Pepper. He crushed the can and wandered into the darkness at the rear part of the store. A refrigerator door opened. A can popped open. Claud returned to the counter with a fresh can of soda. "By the way, Jeff," he said, "what day is it?" "Why do you ask?" "No reason." After a pause that was long enough to make his brother think he'd forgotten the question, Jeff said, "It's Wednesday."
"Ah," said Claud. "Are there any OTHER reasons why you want to sit here in an empty store all afternoon by yourself, besides that you don't want to get all sweaty?" "Yeah. I'm a businessman. I don't want to lose customers. You should know that. You work here too." "What about any... OTHER reasons?" "What are you talking about?" "You know what I'm talking about." Jeff said nothing. After a second Claud continued. "All right, then, maybe you do just want to stay here for the sake of business. But you said it yourself earlier, no one else is coming in today. At least, not enough people to pay for the cost of air-conditioning for the rest of the afternoon. How's that for a business decision? Let's get out of here." "I told you you could go." "I don't want to go to the lake alone." "Fine." Jeff sighed in exasperation. "I'll close up and drive over with you. But you have to give me an hour here first." Claud was exasperated too. He wanted to go swimming. "And what are you planning to do with another hour in this helltrap? Give yourself a manicure?" "I'm gonna stay right here and watch this street." Suddenly, after he said it, a strange sort of determined look came into Jeff's face. And as Claud watched, a suppressed little smile crept in to the corners of his mouth, too, as if he had some minor troublemaking in mind. "Aaah," said Claud. Jeff continued to almost smile, his eyes fixed on the street. "So there IS another reason," said Claud. "I'm just... curious," said Jeff at last. "You are going to be disappointed," said Claud. "If she's not out in an hour," said Jeff, "then she's not coming out at all. I'll come out to the lake with you then. But I'm giving her that hour first." Claud settled himself into his chair. "What time does she usually come out?" "On Wednesdays? About three." "It's four-thirty." "I know. She hasn't missed a Wednesday since Memorial Day weekend, though." "It's a hot day." Jeff nodded in agreement. The brothers fell silent, but there was a renewed sense of excitement in the air. Claud continued to sip noisily at his can of soda, and began to tap rhythmically on the counter with his fingertips. Jeff leaned his chair back and scanned the street, following the occassional lonesome, sun-blistered car acros the face of the window. Eventually Claud picked up a magazine and settled in to wait. After forty minutes the scene beyond the windows had not changed, and Claud was growing restless. Even Jeff was beginning to shift positions and glance at the clock. "I don't think it's going to happen today," said Claud. "Could be," said Jeff. "It's too hot." "She's been out in hot weather before." "Not this hot." They waited then in silence for ten more minutes, and then could stand it no longer. Jeff stood up slowly and made a wry face. He stretched. He turned and looked at his brother. But his brother was not looking at him. It was exactly then, at five-twenty in the afternoon of the very hottest day of the year, that something miraculous had occurred. Inside the hardware store, Jeff followed his brother's gaze. He stopped and his eyes grew wide. He sat back down. All four eyes within the hardware store were focused on the front door of the second house acros the street. The door was opening. As the brothers watched raptly from their little air-conditioned store, a woman, a short, stocky woman with dark brown hair and a small pair of shorts, emerged from the house. She was about thirty-two or thirty-three years old. Although her build was thick, she was pretty. No one would call her fat. She carried herself well. Very well. The woman walked around to the side of the house and, with some effort, pulled out a push lawnmower from the space between her house and the next. Still watched unmercifully by the brothers, she manouvered the mower into the center of her little lawn, which sloped gently until it met a concrete retaining wall by the street, and a little set of concrete steps in the wall. There, this woman stopped and absolutely naturally removed her shirt. Underneath her shirt was a sports bra. It was sky blue. Inside the hardware store, the brothers whooped and hollered. You could not hear them doing so from the street, but the woman did something funny then. She wiped her brow, which was already glistening with sweat, and fanned herself briefly with her hand, then turned to face the hardware store directly. For a few moments she peered in the window intently, although she could not see anything in it but her own reflection and the reflection of the houses and the street. Then, very deliberately, she bent forward very slightly, and waved. And then she tied her hair behind her head, and she set to work mowing the lawn.
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