Is It Hot Enough For You?
by Bloodsport 3.1
They bought a house in Florida. Kids, finally all gone. To make sure they stayed that way they got the smallest house they could find. It was near the airport and if you were outside the noise was deafening. But with a drive-in garage and year round lawn care there was really never a reason to be outside. Besides this was Florida and it was hot as the warm part of hell out there. Inside the house the constant drone of the air conditioner and the double paned heat shield windows that were closed all of the time made it hard to remember the airport was there.
Twenty-nine years and 3 kids (glad they’re gone) rounded most of the pointy spikes in the marriage, but still they had their moments. This is the story of the last one.
For once it wasn’t really hot all day. Tuesday morning started out a cool 90 degrees. By 1:00 it was only 96 and was starting to drop. The afternoon thunderstorm lasted 20 minutes, which was just enough to make the air musty and dank.
Our couple knew none of this. They were comfortably watching Jeopardy when the air conditioner went out. Of course this caused panic. The temperature in the house went from relaxing 68 to a blood boiling 110 in little over nine minutes. Sweat erupted from them. This didn’t end during or after the phone call summoning the repairman. When he finally arrived there was an over flowing of gratitude that only ended when he told them it would cost them a king’s ransom to repair. He gave them a couple of days to think about it, knowing in the end there would be only one decision.
Paul (our hero) went to Wal-Mart and bought four of the biggest fans they had. After all, he reasoned the “natives” never had air conditioners. He didn’t know that his house and all of his neighbor’s houses were built on a landfill that was used to fill in a swamp; there had never been any “natives”. Man, it was just too damn hot. They lost a pound and a half each that night and all the fans did was make the sweat dry faster. Making them both sticky. By Wednesday tempers were starting to flair. The first display of this was when Stacey (our other hero) threw a shoe at Paul for no reason at all.
They had other problems. With the windows and doors open the cats (all six of them) discovered that by ripping out the screens they could leave and return as they pleased. So could all the bugs and lizards that made Florida famous. Along with the incredibly loud roar of the airplanes.
The noise of the planes was so loud and regular that on Thursday the family Pekingese went crazy, dove out the kitchen window, shot across the grass and drowned himself in the lake behind the house. Thursday was also the day Paul went golfing as usual. Stacey went to play Bingo over at St. Michael’s. Crazy from the heat, she upset a table and smacked a priest before she was asked to leave. The trip home wasn’t much better. The thought of going back to that hotbox temporarily glazed her vision and she ran over some mailboxes. Hopefully mailboxes. When she got home it was as hot as she’d expected, still she decided to bake orange muffins.
When Paul got home from a round of golf, which ended with him dangling from a tree by his right foot, he found that conditions in his house had turned it into a blast furnace. He went fairly ballistic.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Is that muffins I smell? Are you out of your mind? I ought to …”.
At this point an airplane went overhead and by the time it was gone Paul had a grip on himself. His apology was lost as the plane flew by low enough to shake the Plates of the World Collection mounted on the walls in the kitchen. Stacey was very cross about the part of the conversation she heard.
“You cheap son of a bitch if you had a brain we wouldn’t be sweating like…” that was all she got out before a smaller plane going in the other direction drowned her out.
“Oh now wait a minute, you crazy…” right at this moment a lizard ran up Paul’s pants leg and a bug that appeared to have a mouth with fangs at both ends (only in Florida) attacked his neck with what seemed to be berserker rage.
“Oh sweet Mary mother…”more lost conversation.
“What the hell…” more lost words. The last jet also drowned out the sound of Paul falling through the glass coffee table.
“Have you using the Lord’s name in vain you…” lost words plus the sound of Paul climbing out of the table. The fanged bug was a casualty of the fall, but the fight with the lizard was still on. Stumbling into the kitchen, arms flailing like a mad man, he (with blood literally in his eyes and shards of glass in his face) searched for and found a weapon. The ginsu knife rack. This was the first time since he got home that his wife saw him. It was clear to her Paul was trying to commit suicide. Obvious to Stacy because he was stabbing himself in the groin.
For almost thirty years Stacy had been one of those cops who never drew her gun in anger. Hell, in the six years since she retired she had carried her gun more often than she had even seen it back in the property room where she spent the greater part of those thirty years. Lately, she’d taken to wearing it all the time. This is why the request to leave St. Michael’s was just that, a request. This is also why her first response to a perceived suicide attempt was to draw a pistol and aim it at her husband.
“Drop the knife or I’ll drop you!” she screamed. That sounded so much more authoritative when she practiced saying it (and stuff like it) in the shower. Of course, the 707, flying so low it took shingles off the roof, more than muffled the sound of her voice. When Paul didn’t put down the knives she tried to shoot them out of his hand. She missed. She did get the lizard, which was good. The lizard had made it to Paul’s collar, which was bad.
Now Stacy had his full attention. Having missed as much of the conversation as she, Paul was under the impression the he was shot for bitching about the oven being on. He managed to stab his wife, of 29 years, 3 times before he bled to death from multiple wounds. She noticed the smoke bellowing out of the oven right before she, also, bled to death.
The cats moved in with the “lesbian but nice” couple in the cul-de-sac and the oven caused a fire that ultimately burned the house to the ground. The whole thing looked wrong and led to an investigation. That led to public outrage, which then led to the arrest of a transient. Who later confessed to the double murder.
Some people will do anything to get out of the Florida heat.
Tampa, Florida
April 22, 2002
Previosly published in D.R.Hadleys Aphliktion's
