His thermostat’s set on ‘slow roast’

On THE HOTTEST DAY of the year, she tests me for doneness the way you’d test a pork roast, pressing against my arm and seeing if the juices are running clear.

“He can probably coach another inning,” my wife tells the team.

“He’s red as a stoplight,” someone says.

“I’m a person of color,” I remind them.

We are at a kids’ softball tournament in the shadow of a giant brewery, out along the 210 Freeway, the last exit before oblivion. Last gas till hell.

“Come on, Sarah!” I scream.

“Dad, that’s Anna,” the little girl corrects me from the dugout.

“Come on, Anna!” I yell.

I am coaching third base as we take on the Amazon Girls of the Apocalypse -- or wherever they’re from -- a towering all-star team that has more thyroid cases than the Lakers.

“Come on, Kate, rip one,” I say, tapping my chest and giving her the sign of the cross, the only coaching sign our batters seem to understand.

“Dad, that’s Charlotte!” the little girl yells.

“Amen,” I say.

Of the three stages of heatstroke -- grief, ambivalence and death -- I have already crossed two of them. The temperature inside my cargo shorts is nearing 400 degrees. Two minutes ago, my zipper imploded.

“Come on, Spartans, let’s hit!” a parent yells from the bleachers.

In the dugout, the girls are chanting the usual, ubiquitous softball cheers. They cheer fair balls. They cheer foul balls. Like a dozen Disney elves, they even cheer a teammate’s walk.

“Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to first she goes,

Then second and third and home again, hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho

After six straight months of this, I’ve concluded that a softball cheer is a frightening glimpse inside the young female psyche. The cheers center on triumph and humiliation. Listen to them long enough and you would never, ever get married.

“Mandy’s up to bat, and she knows she’s good,

She’s gonna walk on you, like she walks on wood ... “

Final score: Amazon Girls, 9; Us, 0; Mother Nature, 105 (degrees).

Yep, it’s definitely the hottest day of the year.

ON THE HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR, I putter around the yard doing a million things but nothing really.

That’s the beauty of puttering. Like parenthood, it’s never over.

“What are you doing now?” my wife asks.

“With 10 truckloads of fill, I figure we could expand the lawn,” I say.

“Really?” she says, sweating sarcasm.

Edison’s wife went through this. Einstein’s too. When you’re married to a putterer with a vision, false hopes pile up like bad debts.

“Maybe I’ll just wash the car,” I say.

My wife goes inside. She’s replaced at the back door by a smaller, more-freckled version of herself.

“Hey, I was thinking of washing the car,” I tell the little girl.

“You’re kidding,” she says.

“I’d never kid a kid,” I say.

So we spend two hours washing the minivan. It’s an intimate act. We Q-Tip the ashtrays. We floss the front grill.

By the time we are done, the gleaming white minivan looks like a bride ready to walk down the aisle. Pure and virginal. A vision.

“Looks like a giant cooler,” the little girl says.

“Don’t knock giant coolers,” I say.

“OK, Dad,” she says.

ON THE HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR, we end the evening with a stroll down the boulevard.

“You know who you just waved to?” my wife asks.

“No.”

“That was Ann,” she says.

“Most of the people I wave to I don’t know,” I explain.

We walk past the dried-out landscaping of late July. One lawn looks like an Army haircut. Another looks like a quarter-acre of toast.

Another car passes. I wave.

“You know who that was?” I ask.

“No.”

“Me neither,” I say.

We turn up one street and down the other. The two of us study the curbside recycle bins and reach this conclusion: The nicer the neighborhood, the better the booze.

On the next block, we run into a neighbor. She and my wife discuss a mutual acquaintance who has made some regretful decisions, evidently of a personal nature.

“That woman screwed up her life helping other people,” my wife says.

“That exact thing happened to me,” I tell them.

They laugh as if I’m joking.

“I’m completely serious,” I say.

“Oh, take a hike,” my wife snaps.

“I thought we were,” I answer.

And after the hottest day of the year, we turn for home.

*

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.