El Árbol

El Árbol was a favorite around town, but usually only at night when the exhausting heat let up, and people could leave their homes. That was when the soft, colorless glow of the neon sign would guide locals there like a lighthouse navigating ships to safer waters. But for now, the beach was nearly empty and so was El Árbol. The white sand’s glare was blinding and only added to the oppressive, muggy heat that bore down on the man and woman who were there together. They sat at the patio bar across from one another at a wobbly table. The man had tried to correct it using an old matchbook he found in his pocket, but it hardly helped. The thin umbrella barely shielded them from the relentless sun.

“It’s hot,” the woman said.

    “I know,” the man replied.

    “How did you live here so long?”

    He heard her but ignored her.

    “I’m serious, how?” She insisted.

    “You drink,” he replied.

    The waitress brought two cold beers to the table and placed them on thin white napkins. Their condensation sweat through the glass like the two of them perspired through their faces and shirts until their damp clothes were uncomfortable on their Askin.

    “I don’t like beer,” she said.

    “You don’t have to,” he said, drinking his. “It just helps with the heat.”

    “Is this why you drink so much at home?”

    He ignored her and tried to forget about her.

There was a lot the man tried to forget. For most of his life, he had. But, whenever he came home, he remembered. Because the heat won't let you forget.

"How long did you live here?" The woman asked, blotting her face with the soaked through napkin on the table. Avoiding her beer.

"Most my life."

"Is this why you moved?"

"It's some of the reason, yes."

She asked something else, but the man couldn't hear her. The cold beer on that hot summer's day brought back countless forgotten memories. Suppressed, repressed, regressed, whatever it was, he was never good with words.

"Where else did you want to move to?" The woman asked.

"I always wanted to live out on the Bayou," he said.

She cocked her head to the side, almost furious he would say such a thing.

"I wanted to live deep out into the swamp. I wanted to sit on my porch at dusk and watch the sun go down through the thick, grey Cyprus trees, while the sky turned purple, and pink, and gold. Then after the sun went down, I could watch the fireflies dance on the shallow, green waters. I could buy one of those mosquito nets and watch it all while I smoked cigarettes and drank cheap corn liquor."

"That's stupid," the woman said.

"Maybe," the man said, cooly.

"Why would you move from one hot place to another?"

"Because that's what I wanted to do."

"But you don't like the heat."

"No, you don't like the heat."

"You complain about it. I've heard you complain about it."

"Ok," the man said, as he drank more of his beer.

He remembered other nights. Nights as hot as it was right now. Nights, where all you could do was drink. The small, stale bars filled with people and their sour smells of drunkenness and sweat and desperation. Everyone trying to forget something.

Sweat rolled down the man's face. The heat reminded him of better days too. When he was young and brave, and life meant something worth living. Before divorce and cocktails soured him just like the people in those cramped bars. When the grass would make him itch from rolling down hills, and the time he broke his nose boxing other drunk teenagers in his friend's backyard, reckless and wanting to vomit from the heat and cheap liquor.

"Regardless," the woman interrupted, "I think this will be my last trip here."

"That's fine. I can always come back on my own."

"I suppose you can."

The man remembered how hard it was to breathe after the rain soaked into the asphalt on a day a hot as today. How the rain usually washed heat away, but not here. Here it got hotter.

"Are you even listening?" The woman asked.

The man finished his beer. Hers sat untouched at the other end of the table. Flat and warm.

"I'm sorry, I got distracted."

"By what?" The woman said glancing around, motioning to the empty metal seats around her. "We're the only people here."

"I just remembered something."

"I'll be in the hotel room," she said getting up to leave.

The man ordered another beer.

He thought back to the swamps and the Cyprus trees. If they could have deep, thick roots in a hot place, then so could he. Maybe if the heat made him remember, then it wasn't such a bad thing.