The air writhed in scarfs of heat… Women in open sandals and damp shorts slumped on their arms at sorting tables in airless Laundromats. People pushing carts from air-conditioned malls raising an arm to ward off the incessant light which glints from mica chips in the griddle sidewalk. Their hands jump back from the door handles of their cars. They recoil from the sting of Naugahyde upholstery and gasp for air in these broilers.
Summer in Northern Indiana, the pale light of the dog days, and smolder of towns like South Bend. We were pulling away at over a hundred.
I’d borrowed my younger brother’s car, a two-seat convertible.
– Barry Lopez,
“Speed,” ch. 16 in About This Life