Down in the South, it’s known for getting hot. But on that faithful summer when I felt all things in my life were changing, when I finally felt the tug of adulthood, it was damn hot. I was almost 15 and I was sure these feelings were premature, but they were too powerful for me to ignore. I think everyone knew I was getting restlessness; something was changing. I always thought people in the South grew-up too fast…maybe I was growing to fast too back then. Whatever it was, it was happening and it’d been happening all along.

The weather must have picked up my frustration, my aloneness, my anger (sometimes) and then, in efforts to get back at civilization for stealing the childhood of one of its most devout patrons, brought on the type of weather that could kill. I’d always find myself watching the rain with utmost concentration, or dancing in it with some tribal heat. I liked the feel of it, the smell, the taste, it seemed meaningful and I fancied it was, for more than superficial reasons; more that just a feeling I picked up in a picture show. For a while it did nothing but rain. Hard and fast, the sheets poured down as if to wash clean the sins of the town. I never knew how horrible the people of my town were, for I never dared to ask them of their secrets and for reasons unknown, my family stayed secluded from it all. We were our own town; a small town in a large town. Two weeks later the rain had finally subsided until the only thing left was a warm, wet, heat; a heat that you could taste before you and seemed to salivate on the skin. As we lay there, on out separate beds, the sweat of the days; the works, the loves, the pain and the hopes all clung to our skin and buried us. The woman I loved, the woman I will always love, Margaret-Anne Jenkins, did not love me and she had made this positively clear when she laughed at my proposal for a date the following Sunday. She said she only dated basketball players and so I tried out for the team. I didn’t get picked.

…I had tried so hard and failed.

I groaned miserably.

Margaret-Anne…

“Don’t get into that again” he sighed, “It’s too hot for that again.”

“I wanted it so bad.” I continued groaning.

“I wanted it to rain so bad.” He mocked my pain, my whine, my tone. Sometimes I hated him.

We were lying in the bedroom in the complete darkness. I couldn’t see him, just his voice traveling through the air, or maybe that was the heat playing tricks on me. I could hear him breathing softly. My breaths were not as tamed. I couldn’t find a cool spot on my bed. I couldn’t find any type of comfort or relief. I tossed and turned. I couldn’t sleep in the dark. I was afraid, but I didn’t want to admit it, not to him.

“Come on man,” he called out from the darkness, “Just mellow out. Relax”

He spoke with a druggy drawl, the kind of speech my friend Jack uses. Jack, he and his tranquillizers…

I ignored him, tossing and turning once more. There had to be relief.

“Maybe it’s all the stuff in here,” I spoke getting up, “Maybe if I clear some of the stuff out it won’t feel so wet and hot.”

I threw my desk, a hamper, some clothes that were collecting on my floor and all the blankets I owned in the closet and shut the door, this time leaving the closet light on so that a single bar of light shone through. I lay back on the bed and sighed.

“You forgot to turn the light off.” He spoke.

“God, just leave it.” I answered, not wanting to admit I had done this intentionally.

“No, it’s cool.” He spoke with a dazed smile, got off the bed and turned off the light.

Complete darkness.

I began to imagine that the darkness would engulf me like the heat. I would be swallowed hole. I would loose myself to the heat; to the darkness; to the wetness. It was like I was in the belly of an animal; of a beast. I panicked. I muttered, almost shrieked into the darkness to make sure I was still alive.

“God damn. it’s hot.” I spoke looking in his direction, desperate to start conversation, to not be alone while I felt so lonely.

No answer.

“God damn! It’s hot!” I gasped, feeling my own temperature rise by frustration.

Just say something. Anything…

“GOD DAMN! IT’S HOT!” I sat up now, looking at him, and just for leverage added, “FUCK!”

“Just mellow out, man! Relax. It’s cool, man.”

“It’s cool? The one fucking thing it’s not is ‘cool!’”

“Here. Want some of this iced water?” he raised the cup, and I saw its glossy shape in the night. I grabbed it, it felt like solid heaven. There were once eight or nine big chunks of ice in the glass, but now they had shrunken and shriveled to small chips. I stared at the chips, almost too mesmerized by the coldness of it all to move. I took a gulp and continued staring at the cup.

“You can’t swim in it” he droned from his bed.

I stared into the darkness, searching for him then back at the cup for a moment, I hadn’t been thinking of that, but now…the cup seemed so spacious with the small ice chips floating to one side or the other. There seemed to be so much room there for me….

“For God’s sake, you can’t swim in it! I just know your imagining a little you in there. Stop it!”

“Jesus, I was just looking at it! Can’t a guy drink and think?” I spoke too defensively, because I was ashamed I had been thinking that exact thought.

I lay back down, frustrated and angry. I tossed in my bed wishing I could feel the coolness of the ice water on my skin. I felt I was going delirious and the thought both made me frightened and giddy. The giddy part is what frightened me.

“You got to lie under it.” He muttered.

“What?” I spoke staring back at him; maybe he was the delirious one.

“The heat. You got to lie under the heat.”

“Under it, huh?” I mused.

“Yeah, I can see it now…It’s like three inches above my head. All that heat up there…” he trailed off, falling asleep and I was alone again.

Alone in the dark.

*****WRITER'S NOTE:*****PS. I hope this made some of you laugh, because looking back on this scene I can't help but think how stupid we both were.