Tag: urban

It was ’93 and me and Siobhan were doing nothing. We never did nothing on lazy summer days on the avenue, waiting for the rain to drive us back inside. And it rained a lot that summer. It seemed like we were always tiptoeing through the raindrops on our way to nowhere. We would skip in the puddles like we were six years old, but we knew better. It was our last summer together, although we didn’t know it at the time. The summer of us.

The new movie theater had just opened up halfway down the longest block on the avenue, and there was a Taco Bell in the plaza downstairs. It cost three bucks for a matinee and we had money from our allowance burning holes in our pockets. Plus it had air, and air was in short supply on the avenue, even in summer. Ma said it was on account of black folk being our own air conditioners,what with being dark and all. I never got what she was saying, and I sweat like a hog, but none of it ever got us air. So I learned to use a piece of paper like a fan and not complain.

Siobhan lived three houses down from us, in a building that was s’posed to be abandoned. Lord knows how long that sign was in the yard out front. But her ma said it was wrong, and one day she painted over it with white paint left over from the rehab center’s new rec room. Said it made the yard look special, but all I thought was that she should have just pulled it out of the ground. No matter. We never spent time over there anyway, on account of her ma being a drunk. I never asked about it, and Siobhan never said nothing about it, but it was as clear as day. Continue reading “Me & Siobhan”