I drive a 2001 Chevy Camaro.

I won’t waste your time explaining all the reasons I drive such an old car; we’ll just boil it down to two words: sentimentality and money.

But I will say this: I’ve owned it since 2005, its engine has always gone strong, and while I’ve sunk a lot of cash into the steering rack, the clutch, the transmission, etc., it’s typically the bells and whistles that break first and continue to break. For example, the CD player. The power windows. The alarm system. The horn.

Most recently, it’s been the air conditioning, and let me tell you, Holy fuck.

My commute to work is about 30 minutes. A straight shot down Mills north to Winter Park that takes about 10 minutes on any normal night, when the traffic is at a minimum, but my shift begins at noon, which means I have to leave by at least 11:30, right at the beginning of the lunch rush, right when the sun is about to start beating down from its daily zenith.

My habits are a little bit against me here.

I like to go running in the mornings, and after showering off I cool down by standing directly in front of the A/C vent in my apartment with the ceiling fan on high, but the green digital numbers on my kitchen clock eventually drive me outside into the unshaded parking lot where the sun glints off my windshield without mercy.

A hot blast of greenhouse gasses billows out when I open the door, making the air shimmer and dance, and I take the driver’s seat like Hansel loading himself into the oven. Sometimes I sing a little song: “Florida car / Florida car / Fuck my life / It’s a Florida car” as I turn the ignition and roll down the windows. Every piece of exposed metal burns the shit out of me; I have to lean off the seat to keep away from a shiny piece of framework sticking through the worn upholstery, and I’m extra careful when buckling my seat belt. Already I’m pouring sweat, and my sunglasses fog up, sliding down the bridge of my nose. I take them off and wipe the lenses with a paper towel that I also use to wipe my face. Then I throw them onto the passenger seat and pull out onto the cobblestone road that leads to Mills Avenue.

My Camaro is a five-speed manual. It’s a highway car, not so bad when you can pick up speed and get some air flowing through the cabin. But in the stop-and-go, red light-green light traffic of midday, with a broken A/C in the dead of summer, it’s a jerky, sweltering ride inside of a slow-moving, sometimes completely immobile sauna.

Every stop sign is an indignity. Every red light a test.

By the time I get to Anderson Street I’m melting like a candle. The paper towel is soaked through and so is my shirt. Anything I touch, anything I rest my arms on — the console, the steering wheel, the door, the blinker — is also running and dripping with sweat.

I find myself speeding, growing more agitated, screaming at all the slow-moving vans and SUVs going 20 in a 25, taking turns at 5 mph, brand new Escalades and Tahoes with perfectly functioning climate control, Arctic air vents blasting out long, luxurious currents, and I’m shifting gears and passing them and calling them motherfuckers, telling them to hurry the fuck up, to get off their fucking phones, “Life is but a FUCKing dream, huh?”

I start developing elaborate theories about them — salaried workers milking lunch breaks for all they’re worth; people who hate their jobs almost as much as they hate their families, and this is the only escape, the only private time they have: milling about in their smooth-running, air-conditioned chariots, clogging up the roads for people like me, people just trying to move from point A to B as quickly as possible.

By the time I’m at Colonial Drive, I’ve given up. I let the sweat run down my lips, off my ears, my chin.

When I finally make it to work I’ll look as though I’ve passed under a waterfall.

And I think, Jesus Christ. We’ve had some hot summers in Florida, but this is a fucking cauldron.

And I have to wonder in those moments if it’s any hotter than any other summer or if it just feels that way because I have to deal with it now, in the present, at this very moment.

Whenever there’s bad weather these days, people always say climate change — and I believe in climate change, I believe the 99 percent of experts who say it’s real — but I also think that we’ve always had hurricanes, we’ve always had flooding, we’ve always had heat.

I’m reminded of the meme in which Robin says “It’s hot —-” but before he can say “outside,” Batman slaps him and shouts, “It’s summer!”

And every time someone says “climate change” after a bad thunderstorm in Florida, where bad thunderstorms are as common as palm trees, I can’t help thinking about those people who self-diagnose autism or ADHD because they had trouble paying attention to a book one time or feel nervous at parties.

I’m not saying it’s impossible. But without an expert diagnosis, how could they really know?

I’m what you might call a man who’s in touch with his sweat glands. A Florida man, born and raised. So I’m willing to entertain the idea that this might just be how it is and how it’s always been.

But when I finally walk my drenched ass into work, the cool 72-degree air touching me all over as though I’ve jumped into a pool, making me gasp with delight — “Oh my God, holy fucking shit, oh my God” — I sit down, log in and catch a story on the news feed that says, “World registers hottest day ever recorded,” and I think, Oh. It’s fucking climate change.  

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Fred Lambert is a writing tutor whose work has been featured in Ghost Parachute, War, Literature & the Arts, and After Action Review. He lives in his hometown of Orlando, Florida.