Shall I compare thee to a summer’s night? Thou art more lovely and more temperate but I’m afraid that’s
not saying much. These nights are thick
and heavy as black velour, hot and formfitting against our bodies, over our
faces. A humid landscape through which we plod like testy zombies, arms
outstretched, eyes blank, returning slowly and inexorably to our
air-conditioned tombs. We have sacrificed our last calorie of energy on the
altar of daytime. We have burned the skin off our thighs getting into the car.
We have permanent ruts between our eyes from the weight of our sunglasses. We
are in imminent danger of losing our nerves.
Motorcycles thunder, jet planes roar, a distant procession of sirens woo-woo
for hours, as if for blocks around us, people are dropping like flies. The
cicadas drone the same annoying phrase over and over, a garage band of
four-year-olds with sitars. Then the monotony is cracked: shattered glass, a
shot, a bomb, a firecracker, maybe just a boom car throbbing down the street.
Toward midnight, the fabric of the sky is torn by heat lightning; even the
atmosphere cannot take it anymore.
Somewhere, a serial killer’s air conditioning conks out, and he leaves his
home.
What is the half-life of a snow cone? But a millisecond compared to the
sticky
mess into which it devolves. And what of the scent of honeysuckle? No match for
the sweetness of ripening dumpster rot. Ah, the perfume of summer. Chlorine,
tar, sunscreen, burned meat and ketchup, yes, ketchup, red and viscous,
dripping from refrigerator shelves down every picnic table, every T-shirt, from
the formica of every take-out window to the hot asphalt. Ketchup, the blood of
summer, oozing from our food, our food which is fast and salty and greasy, our
food which is like our sex, only with more ketchup.
Don’t start with me about fire flies, drive-in movies, hide-and-go seek,
skinny legs swinging from the fire escape, or the sound of a radio drifting
through the open windows of the house next door. I’ve had my good times, like
Walt Whitman, my mad naked summer nights. I’ve had frozen drinks so cold I lost
two years worth of memory. I’ve danced so hard and long I had to throw away
those clothes. I’ve climbed over the fence at the city pool for a midnight swim
and gotten busted. I’ve eaten ice cream ’til I puked, I’ve drunk until I puked,
I’ve stayed all night in bars that smelled like puke. I’ve waited and waited
for the fireworks and I’ve waited for you to kiss me and I’ve waited for
someone to get back with the goddamn beer.
Sure, if I still had a bedtime, I’d be happy to stay up past it. If I still
went to school, I’d be glad it was closed. If I still fell in love with
lifeguards, I’d be delighted to screw one. But those days are over. Now our
kids are in bed, our cockroaches in their cubboards, our empty beer cans
nestled in the recycling bin. We’re avoiding an argument. You want to set the
ac on 65 and sleep with 5 quilts, that’s fine with me. I’ve had it with showers
and ceiling fans, and it’s almost time to get up anyway. Let’s kill this night
and call it morning, while there is still time to make coffee before the
burning begins.
This article appears in May 19 • 1995 and May 19 • 1995 (Cover).