“Okay,” Drea replied. “We should probably keep the doors closed as long as we can?”
“Yeah, try not to let the heat in until it gets cooler in the evening.Ifwe don’t get the AC fixed, that is.” He ran into the office to call their AC guy who, as he’d expected, was elbow-deep in some apartment building’s AC system that had bugged the fuck out.
Part of Josiah wanted to throw money around. He had it, Denny had more, they could’ve done that. But there were elderly and young families living in that building, and no business was worth making them suffer. In the end he told the guy to come by whenever he could, there’d be a bonus, and that drinks would be on the house for a while.
Josiah got up and grabbed his stuff. He went to the swinging door and pushed it open a bit.
“Guys? I’ll go and see if I can come up with some fans. We’re gonna need a lot of them. I’ll be back eventually. Meanwhile, get the fans we already have from the storage and put them where you think they’re needed the most.”
“Will do!” Nelson called, already marching to the back hallway on the other side where the bathrooms were. There was a backup storage room there for all the stuff they didn’t need. Yolanda had once said she wouldn’t be surprised if they’d find a body buried under all the crap there, since nobody had really deep cleaned it in… Josiah preferred not to think about that.
He drove to the closest big store he could think of and came back out within fifteen minutes with nothing, because they’d had exactly zero fans left. He tried another store, and a third one, and by the time an hour and a half had gone by and the bar was about to open, he had nothing to show for his troubles.
He sat in his blessedly cool car on the parking lot of yet another store and called Denny.
“Hey sweetheart, what’s up?” Denny asked, his voice warm enough to made Josiah feel a bit better about his current predicament.
“Our AC got busted. I’ve been driving around stores, trying to find fans or… I don’t even know. Whatever would cool the place, you know? It’ll get bad, because it’s—”
“Open mic, right. I’ll redress myself into something more heat-friendly and then drive around here to see if I can find anything. If nothing else, I think I have a couple of old swamp coolers in the storage, so we have those at least. I’ll be there as soon as I can!”
“Thanks, Denny. See you soon.”
As he got out of his car to go to the last store, he spotted a strip mall across the road. He hadn’t been here before, but there was a small, ancient-looking appliance store at the end of the strip mall.
Josiah turned his back to the big store and waited for cars to pass before jogging over to the little store.
He stepped inside and the bell rang over his head. Smiling, he looked around.
“Welcome, son. How can I help you?” A man who looked older than Methuselah sat behind the counter, smiling.
“I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but you don’t happen to have anything to cool down a bar? My AC broke down and it’s going to be a busy night—” He glanced at his phone and frowned. “Hell, it might already be one.”
“A bar, you say? Hmm…. Nothing for long term, but if you need a quick fix….” The man pondered and then pointed to a small gap between over-stacked, too-high shelves. “If you go there, then take a right, there might be an old portable air conditioner there. You’ll need to crack open a window for the hose and make it tight, but that’s it.”
Josiah ducked between the shelves and went as far as he could before the right turn came up. He found the box easily, it was on the floor in a corner, and looked, well, old and battered. Shrugging, he lifted it and carried it to the front.
“It looks worse than it is. The contents are good, I swear,” the man promised. “It’s just that people don’t really like the dirty boxes and that’s been around for a while.”
“I can tell.” Josiah smiled at him to show he didn’t care. “If this works even half what it should, it will make a difference. Thank you so much. Now what do I owe you?”
The old guy hemmed and hawed, then told Josiah a price that was way too generous.
“Tell you what, since you might be saving some of my income until my AC guy gets over….” He dug out all the cash he had in his wallet and put it on the counter in front of the man. “Thank you!”
He could tell the man was trying to not get emotional, so he ignored it and picked up the box again. “Now I know where I’ll come for any appliance needs in the future!” he called over his shoulder and got a wet chuckle in response.
Feeling like he’d done something good, Josiah headed back across the road to his car and hoped that they could keep the Hare cool enough for it to be tolerable.
They had to do some work to get the window close to the newly extended stage open. It had been painted over and was too narrow for anyone to get through. Somehow there was a smaller part on the top that could be opened separately and they jerry-rigged the air con unit’s pipe to it, while standing the unit itself on a couple of bar stools placed on a table.
When Josiah and Nelson got it done and running, a couple of the regulars sitting nearby clapped at them and whooped sarcastically. They were friendly though, knew what the staff was doing, so they also promised to keep an eye on the thing in the already heating-up bar.
“Oh my God you look disgusting,” Drea told him and Nelson when they went to the bar to get cold drinks. “Both of you, change into something else, seriously.”
Nelson tipped his water bottle at her and went to the staff room to look for his backup clothing. Messes happened, so having extra things to wear was always handy. Josiah’s first thought was to run upstairs to change, except he didn’t live there anymore.
Sighing, he realized he’d taken everything to Denny’s to be washed when he moved there. The only salvation might’ve been in the trunk of his car. He jogged out to check his gym bag. Well, it wasn’t much, nor was it professional, but Drea had been right about his jeans and T-shirt being disgusting after the work they’d done to get the window open and air con operational.
