July 31. The night is sticky and hot. Thunder rolls overhead as heat lightning blisters the dark heavens. I sleep in nothing more than a pair of damp boxer-briefs the color of oil. I toss and turn for three hours and eventually fall asleep.
I’m really not sure when a scream wakes me in the middle of the night. I immediately sit up in my queen-size bed, feel a layer of sweat glaze my chest, and listen to the soft sounds of thunder in the sprawling night. The abrupt scream resembles that of a man being murdered. The noise is horrendous, resonant within the night. It seems to originate from Marcos’s bungalow, through the plot of high grass, and enters my abode’s window screens.
Here, sitting up in bed, sweat-covered, and still, I turn my view to the digital alarm clock by my bed and see tha
