New York City, August 5, 2012

★ As inescapable as a blockbuster movie, and as indifferent to anyone’s enjoyment. Even the katydid wanted no part of it. It clung, pale green, to the black-painted frame of the cashier’s window, in the ersatz night of the black-painted garage. The garage mouth was an open oven door. The dashboard thermometer read 98… 99…. People were out in it, stooped. Pale skin flushed magenta, white clothing went slack and dingy. 100. A man labored across Central Park West, burdened with a gaily striped tubular lawn chair, his scalp showing through the dampened hair at his crown. 101… 102 — on the pavement, of which the heat island is made. The expected storm came through late and swiftly: slate-blue sky, a tangle of lightning, pulsing bursts of rain blowing up the south side of the next apartment tower over. Then it passed, leaving everything a bit less hot, but no cooler it had to be.