Nov 30 '05 - 1283 W, 2 I - Vote Good + 8 :: Bad - 14 Short Story :: Hot Like Johnny
Published November 30th, 2005 :: C.I.C.L.E.
by Brady Russell :: USA
The street was too hot that day. The cars were sluggish, and no one had woken with enough energy to be the toxic attitudes-on-wheels that District of Columbia drivers normally were. The God-But-I'm-Essential mantra had been drowned out by their collective consciousness chanting in unison: "God-But-My-Ass-Cheeks-Are-Sweaty." So no one was bothering to honk, not even at bikers.
Red was a D.C. bicycle courier, and he missed the honking. He missed it, but he did not mourn it. He swept through black and blue cars, a lazy blur that let his hips loll their way through heavy traffic. Biking was a cool cruise. 1,000 exhaust pipes didn't smell like anything but fresh air at twenty miles per hour, with nothing on either side protecting him from the pavement but God. That was fine.
And so, Red was not noticing the heat that day like the drivers did. To him, it was just because he did not wear a suit to work and was never stuck in traffic jams. When he got off his bike he would sweat as if his pores were hoses. But he never left his bike for long. In truth, Red was much cooler that day than even a courier should have been.
But the heat did affect his riding in one way: he was thinking less about the road and more about something rather random, but his distraction didn't matter so much that morning. The heat and the morning teamed up to make motorists indifferent. Why should they care about some idiot on a bicycle? Red was free to daydream, and he did. Hot days made Red think about comic books.
And as the sweat accumulated in the padding of his goggles, Red started to wonder what it must be like to be Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, the
hothead of the Fantastic Four. The Human Torch could turn his whole body to flame and fly and fight with balls of fire flying everywhere. If Johnny sweats, he wondered, did it put his flame out? Did Johnny care how hot a summer day could get?
The citizens of the District of Columbia cared, and as the day grew hotter the driving became worse. By mid-morning, drivers had woken up and become cranky. They were growling and cursing in their cars, but still they weren't bothering to honk because everyone was angry at the heat, their suits and their bosses who made them wear their suits. Heat got wise. The city heat bounced around on the pavement and the office buildings, so that each sunbeam pounded repeatedly on walkers and especially drivers caught inside their silly metal boxes; it seemed to sneak into places it should not ought to be. The beating left most folks too puny for air. That wasn't so bad though. The air smelled like tire rubber. Still, no one was honking.
By midday other couriers were feeling run down and rung out, except Red.
With superheroes on his mind he had to keep moving. Even when he stopped to have lunch with his girlfriend he was daydreaming about a hotter life, caught up in super action till he died by the hand of Mole Man, Galactus or Dr. Doom! His girlfriend was not so fresh; she was not herself. That afternoon her normally charming suits looked ill fitting. They were ornery on her body, so she twitched to be free of them and looked a little ugly for it. Her face was reddening and her skin looked oily. She was all pretty sapphires under dirty glass. Then, when he kissed her goodbye, she felt wilted; Johnny Storm's girlfriends were always perfect, like rock stars. Red thought, damn but Johnny was cool! So Red left her and went on to be like Johnny, energized as a firefighter for flame. He was mad with the hot, hot, hot, even though the rest of the world was having a cantankerous, humid day.
And the day was strange. Quiet and quite strange. The city was waiting for
someone to do something impossible. It was waiting for something out of
Red's daydreams.
Red was taking a package to 14th Street, heading down Washington's big fat K Street. K Street was always wild with couriers. By late afternoon of that day bikers were collapsing on a square at Connecticut and K, where messengers hung out. They were a crunchy rainbow drying in the Washington sun. None of them felt the same way that Red did. One girl was laying on the grass crying to the gods, "Tell the yellow fucker to shut up a minute! Just shut up!" A boy was talking to his water bottle and squirting himself. Three big rasta bikers rolled in, super tense in the sunlight. They smoked-up to mellowness and
walked home. And so they were calm while the rest of the city approached
thermal breakdown.
A worn out woman was walking a baby stroller down the 17th Street side of the biker's square. She was not looking where she was going because she was rearranging her baby's linens. A suit stepped out of a taxicab and she hit him with the stroller. Hot and disgusted as any suit would be on days with the sun shouting "I will not be ignored!" he had not been paying attention. The suit fell. He tore his stupid pants on the pavement and snapped. Defeat swept over the mother, but he was going to hit her anyway.
The baby started to cry.
Red had been crossing the intersection of K and 17th, when the first honk
he'd heard all day came from his right, just where the mother, baby, and man were beginning this exchange.
Red flashed!
The suit's arm was raised to the level of her throat. His other was rising in a fist. She was cowering.
Red twisted his bike in his first of three acts defying possibility. Second, he bunny hopped onto the roof of a Capitol Cab waiting at 17th's light. Finally, he jumped seven feet from his bike to tackle the man.
The woman sank to her knees. The sun hit her on the back. The baby stopped crying.
"What are you thinking?" Red asked the suit, who replied, "I don't know." And the suit was gone. Red sank back on the grass while the mother delayed her bewilderment to say:
"God, you must be hot today."
"I'm hot as a storm, baby, hotter than Johnny Storm."
• This story was originally published at Literary Vision Magaine "The free-range rooster of creative writting"
Sometime in high school he decided he would not pursue studies in writing and just try to do it himself. Brady had a few opinion pieces published in some small magazines around the country, but so far he's largely been writing in a closet and keeping his work there.
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hmmm…The dude is a lobbyist for ACORN! The story kicked much ass!
Jason (Email) - November 30 '05 - 21:33
I loved your story… I wish a hot Johnny would come and save me. ;)Timothy (Email) - December 01 '05 - 13:51