Sweet Summer Night

The old wheezing window units were all the air conditioning anyone had when I was a kid. Often it was cooler outside, especially on dark summer evenings when there was a light breeze.

Then my father would unfold two vinyl-webbed lawnchairs on the front walk while my mother mixed up a pitcher of iced Lipton's. Lugging their own vinyl-webbed lawnchairs, the neighbors would begin to drift over--the Hickses, the Paules, the Rollins, the Crims, sometimes the Scarboroughs. And their kids would join my brother and me in our nighttime games.

We would run recklessly across the front yards in the mysterious dark, calling taunts back and forth, emboldened by the nearby sound of our parents' voices, the rumble of adult laughter. Bill and me, Elaine, Ellen, David, Dale and Bevely, little Fleming Crim.

Somehow our games were more exotic in the dark--and more desperate. We knew it was way past our bedtimes. We could be called in at any minute, whenever the adults' conversation drowsed down and chairs started being packed away for the night. Every minute counted. We played as if we would never have a chance to play again.

I dream sometimes about those evenings. I am running across the dark lawn, stretching my stride until it becomes longer and longer--three feet, six feet, nine feet, ten. And still I stretch. Finally I realize my feet don't ever have to touch the ground again, that my magical stride can stretch forever.

Forever into the dark, sweet summer night.