Too Hot to Live

And now, tonight's presentation from Radio's outstanding theatre of frills. Suspense. Tonight, the story of a man who lost his shoes. And when you're suspected of murder, and you've got to run for your life, and the temperature is in the 90s, why then you're correct in saying it's too hot to live.

No tickets on this street. It was empty. I didn't think anybody had mine. Let's hold down for a crossing. I don't want to find you when I come back. Where are we?

Have I from Marcus Junction? Thanks! Forget the tanks! Just beat it before somebody in question starts at completion! Yeah, don't they always? The train rolls by slowly and the crossing bell warns that death is here.

I don't recognize it though. I walk towards Marcus Junction. Towards death. The sun is 11 o'clock high and starting to pucker the tar road. I'm heading in. Sweat is beginning this street through the old suntan uniform, and my shoes are sucking tar every time I lift them.

The soul of one boot bust loose and starts flapping against the road. That's bad. A drifter needs a good pair of shoes, and I'm on the drift. Marcus Junction. It's no different than any thousand others like it.

About a mile square of small buildings all pasted together. I walk a couple of blocks without finding a shoemaker. The town is almost empty this Saturday morning. And then a door opens ahead of me, and a big man steps out.

Really big, both ways. Big high and big wide. He's wearing steel rimmed glasses screwed up tight above the pug nose of his round face. And six full inches of hat-rimmed circle to pink flesh like a halo.