At eight am, it’s already eighty-nine degrees outside as the rooster alarm next to his bed announces the day abruptly. Earl is aware of the heat permeating the walls of his house, even with constant air conditioning. The forecast is calling for one hundred degrees at five o’clock, and it’s December 2. It will be a brutal work week. Phoenix is used to heat, but this is the worst he can remember.
A native, his parents moved here from the Northeast before he was born. He never left home, his father died while he was in high school, and the thought of leaving his mother alone wasn’t an option. Then, the day after his thirty-second birthday, she passed suddenly of a heart attack. That was that. At first, the silence and newfound freedom were exciting but, a year later, he’s started talking to himself, even when there are people around, augmenting an already unhealthy isolation.
Having reached the height of six-foot, four at the age of thirteen, he’s developed a custodial slouch to avert attention to himself. He’s shy and awkward but works well with others and enjoys his job in the kitchen of a small roadhouse diner off 24 Street. He thinks the waitresses that work with him are pretty, and all but one of them, treat him with kindness. The manager was an old friend of his mom’s and talking with him fills Earl with a comfortable nostalgia he only feels while sitting in her chair watching television. Having worked there since high school, this is all he knows; unaware his tenure is respected among his co-workers, his easy smile and bright, child-like eyes are endearing to everyone who meets him.
Heading out the door of his childhood home, a single-story brick house, dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, he climbs into a ‘90s Cutlass, the only car he’s ever driven in. The daily routine is a comfort as he constantly changes the radio station during commercials, driving into the rising sun on Arizona’s Highway 17.
Traffic is already heavy, but his favorite song, “Happy”, is playing. “Because I’m happy,” he sings along as Phoenix traffic slows to a stop, thankful to be in the shade of the stack that the I-10 and I-17 Highway interchange creates. He’s been meaning to get the windows tinted but hasn’t had the nerve, his mother was such a staunch believer that tinted windows were for gangsters.
It’s not a surprise the westbound traffic has also come to a dead stop while he reads the signs on the truck in front of him: \*\*Drivers Wanted. This Vehicle Makes Wide Turns,\*\* and other various colored triangles with numbers on them attached to the back of the oddly- shaped, stainless tanker. The warbled reflection of his car in the mirrored finish reminds him of the state fair fun house. To pass the time, he checks out the drivers in the five lanes of traffic on either side of him. The woman to his right is combing her hair in the rearview mirror as the D.J. breaks in with a news bulletin, “Police believe a sixth victim in eleven days was discovered today, in now what is being called the Tatau Murders. An unidentified male, approximately thirty years old was found dead this morning on North 5 Street. Naked, the victim died of a gunshot wound but was found with large patches . . .” Earl changes the station, and Dolly Parton immediately swoons, “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene . . . Jolene.” Checking out his neighbors, the man to his left is texting while his passenger, a beautiful older woman, applies lipstick with zest. But the lady behind him in the rearview mirror is his all-time favorite. “She’s singing!” He giggles, unable to look away. Smiling to himself, he suddenly feels the earth shudder. Gripping the steering wheel, the windshield implodes with green and blue flames, incinerating his flesh on contact and consuming his very existence.