During the Heat Wave

You won't find no newspaper articles about the heatwave in Clover Corners, Pennsylvania -a small town outside of Pittsburgh- in 1971. Them deaths were officially listed as "mundane" causes -heatstroke, heart attack, a domestic fire, but eyewitnesses knew this wasn't true. Mable McCarthy started sweatin' buckets while she was in line at the post office, then collapsed. Jasper Clevington was walkin' along Brewster Boulevard when he started smokin' - and I don't mean no cigarette. Never screamed -just started shakin' while them white tufts was risin' off him. Then he went down. Pat Horton -the county coroner and a friend of my Pop, said Jasper had third degree burns. Cuddy Masters had it worst of all; he was in his kitchen fryin' an egg when he got his: wife Athena said he melted -right in front of her eyes!

Everybody who saw them "accidents" said the same: the victims' bodies got blurry, the way things look in summertime when heat rises off of 'em. But this was October.

Now I know what you're thinkin': some freaky, Halloweeny stuff. But it was the 23rd, 24th and 25th of October. Whatever it was moved like a invisible stalker, and there wasn't no common thread between victims. One was a 69 year-old widow. Jasper was a World War I veteran. Cuddy Masters was a middle-aged machinist; a drunk who slapped Athena a little, but he didn't deserve that. 

I heard about "spontaneous combustion," where folks just burst into flames. But there wasn't no fire in this heatwave. People sweated, smoked and melted, but didn't catch fire.

I think it was a government conspiracy. In June of '69, some big defense contractor wanted to open a plant here. But folks didn't want it; picketed, protested, packed in monthly supervisors' meetin's.  So this weapons maker packed up and left. 

But I have a theory. At a supervisors' meetin', where them defense contractors announced they was changin' their minds, some bigwig corporate lawyer said somethin' like, "We was just tryin' to create jobs and give you'se opportunities. We didn't expect this much heat." Interestin' enough, nothin' ever happened to none of them three supervisors, includin' Pop, who was chairman, and died of natural causes in 1999.

True, nothing happened to the rest of the population 'til two years later, but you know that sayin': revenge is a dish best served cold. Or in this case, hot.

© August 4, 2012 by Allan M. Heller