Hot Day in New York
It was one of those days when everything stuck to everything else, cloyed and clung, dripped and oozed. Blouse
to back, palm to door handle, thigh to taxi seat. Candy hated it.
Winter she could cope with. The fur boots with snuggly mink-collars, ankle length coat and ear muffs - but
this heat, this godamned, sticky heat was threatening to melt her away.
And she felt so dirty. What was it with summertime that it made a person feel dirty? Wasn’t summertime
supposed to be all happy and leisurely, joy-joy-joy, a feel-good season?
Not in New York it ain’t. Candy wiped perspiration from her eyes and pulled her silk blouse
in and out, away from her chest, fanning herself with its wet folds.
Here on the corner of Parker and 16th she could smell the dirt; decay, auto fumes, rancid frying, steam
from the Woo Fat Laundry which contracted all the hospital linen, god she hated every noseful and tried hard not to breathe
in.
The lights changed and everyone walked, quickly even thought the heat was enervating, quickly to get to the
shops and offices and the blessed, blessed air conditioning.
Copyright (c) 2005 L D Finn