Summary

The narrator begins the story by describing the August heat as it bore down on a trailer park in New England. The air was hazy, and the heat brought silence to the trailer park. The haze was so thick that the residents “couldn’t see the far shore of the lake” (94). An old man opened his trailer and entered a small section of the lake that was separated by a sandy spit. He swam in the pool for a short time before returning to his trailer. As time passed, more residents left their trailers and started their days. “Those with jobs” (95) left the trailer park to work at the town nearby.

When the initial wave of residents had left the trailer park, silence engulfed the trailer park once again. Heat bore down on the trailers, heating them up and causing residents to spend...