The voice over the radio was cheerfully announcing that today was setting yet another record for a high temperature. A story which was immediately followed by a similar, yet pedantically different, story about how today also set a record for the number of consecutive record high days.

Leonard peels himself off the plastic chair and makes his way, labourously, toward the icebox.

The damn linoleum is hot on my feet, he thinks, taking his second to last Miller out of the fridge.

He cracks the cap off the bottle and steps out onto the porch, where he finds his midget neighbor Cliff, staring up at the sky in the yard next door.

“They say it’s aliens,” Cliff beings, unprompted. “Causing the heat, I mean.”

“And who’s sayin’ that?” Leonard responds drolly.

“The tabloids, of course!” he says, cheery as the radio voice.

“Cliff, shut the hell up.” Lenoard finishes the beer in a single, long swig. “It’s too hot for your crap.”

Cliff watches Leonard retreat back into his house through narrowed eyes.

Then, quite unexpectedly, Cliff jerks his pinky finger in an awkward manner, and begins to speak into it, like a telephone.

“They don’t suspect a thing, sir.”

Memphis News
Last year was the hottest year on record for Memphis, and today, barely into April, we kissed 90 degrees, topping out at a 88 degrees. Which is a new high record for today. I may not live to see next fall.

His mother did not approve of him working at the Paris explicit movie theater on Summer avenue. But, Carlyle was bringing in his part of the rent, and paying for most of her cigarettes, so he figured she could keep her trap shut.

She also refused to let him borrow her car to drive to work, even though she never left the house. His mother said that he was a horrible driver and would sure enough wreck it.

Carlyle sometimes thought his mother could be a real B-I-T-C-H, but he’d never say it to her face. She once put a cigarette out on his arm for swearing at a football game on the television. His mother did not abide any profanity in her house.

Lack of a car meant that poor Carlyle was resigned to hoofing the three miles to the Paris theater.

And in the dead heat of a humid Memphis summer it also meant showing up to work soaked to the bone in sweat. Where his boss would joke to the homely girl who ran the ticket counter that Carlyle had swum to work.

They could be real B-I-T-C-Hes, too.

Memphis Note:
The Paris Adult theatre is one of those Memphis landmarks the proper folk of Memphis wish wasn’t. It was originally the Luciann theatre, named for the architect’s two daughters. But at some point, sin won out and there hasn’t been a film without nudity shown there in decades.