28-04-2009 Brooklyn, NY
Summer seemed to be back, if only for a few days.
Walking out into the unseasonable temperatures, a warm light bathed everything in a hazy yellow glow. The cars slowly passing by on 8th avenue spewed their endless exhaust, bumping the waves of heat to another level. Every memory from past heat waves collectively flooded my mind. It was almost as if summer had never left. I began to run up Mongomery Place towards the park to escape the gasoline fumes.
In the park, maple trees had exploded in a large green swath. The leaves seemed to have come in over night, yawning through fuzzy pods and stretching their fingers wide to embrace the weather. Their memory was long too, this was second nature to them. You burrow in for the winter, toughening up your bark. When the coast is clear and the last frost has dusted the city streets, you let fly the life within you. I tried keeping to the shaded sides of the path, but it provided little respite from the pulsing sun. People flooded every inch of the meadows and paths, floating along as if they were in a dream. We were all waking up again, shedding our thick layer of winter bark and letting our warm skin breathe life.
The memories became clearer now with each passing smell.
The smell of wet pavement took me back to my Nana’s backyard. During the dog days, she would fill up an inflatable pool she had tucked into the garage during the winter months. As she filled it the water would steam off hot cracked concrete and float over the green philodendrons. I could see her smile and perfect white teeth, her shining mahogany hair as the smell lingered for a moment, then faded as I ran on.
People were bar-b-queuing in the meadow, the smell of charred meat and cooked corn was everywhere, enveloping the runners and bikers in a lingering trail of smoke. I remembered my stepfather’s place in Queens. Steve had this hibachi that he and my brother used every weekend. Once a month during the summer I would go out there with my mother and we’d sit on his stoop and cook out all day. We would sit on cheap folding chairs, talk and laugh. Bob Murphy’s grainy voice filled in the gaps of silence as the Mets games blared on the radio. When it got dark, I would throw ants into the smoldering coals. They would sizzle and pop the instant their crumpled bodies hit the pile of hot ash. I didn’t think about what I was doing at the time, but years later I remember feeling terrible about doing that. As I approached the lake, the smell drifted and the memory gradually faded back through the rays of sunlight flooding the new Prospect Park canopy.
Then came the freshly cut grass on the hill overlooking the nethermead. Out of nowhere, the image of a long fairway came from the depths of my memory bank. I lived with my father out on Long Island during the summers in high school. My first job was as a golf caddy at the Hillcrest Country Club. I’m not sure how most country clubs are, but this one was full of snobby awful human beings who would yell at you any chance they got. The physical strain of carrying their heavy bags and keeping your eyes trained on their shanked balls wasn’t nearly as bad as the mental toughness caddies needed to maintain during constant barrages of insults and gripes. If the person you caddied for hit the ball in the water, it was your fault. If they missed a putt, it was your fault. If they hit a tree and you couldn’t find the ball, you didn’t get tipped. There was a great upside though… Mondays. Not only was the course closed, but caddies got to hit the links for free. Most times it felt as if I had the whole course to myself. There was no yelling, no pressure, just peaceful green all around. Even if I played lousy golf, it didn’t matter. After each shot, I would wipe the club face and rub the wet blades of grass between my fingers. It was the best smell… shredded grass, metal, and lingering leather from the club grips. I saw the ball hit crisply down the long verdant fairway, cutting through the morning mist towards the green.
I was at the top of lookout hill and the run was almost over. It was as if I had missed out on the grueling pain of the eight miles my legs had just covered. Those thoughts of summers past had whisked the aches and stitches away. I passed into the farmers market, past the smell of freshly baked bread. I was taken back to another place, my family’s restaurant on Remsen Street… to the summer mornings I would head into school with my uncle Arthur. There was always a sharp smell of freshly baked rolls and blueberry muffins coming from the restaurant in those early hours. I saw my Boopa standing in the kitchen wearing his red t-shirt, a white apron around his waist, thick tortoise-shell glasses hanging firmly on the bridge of his nose. He was smiling at me. I smiled back as I came back through the door of my building, happy that another summer would soon be here…
Singapore Dreams 