Summer burst upon the neighborhood like the first firecracker to come spiraling to the sidewalk from the hands of a local mischief. It set off a chain reaction that will continue until Labor Day. The path of young, late-night roamers can be traced by listening to the bangs and shouts wind down Euclid Street.
These are nights for sleeping with the fan turned up high. Its breeze cuts through the oppressive, muggy air, providing some comfort, and its constant hum muffles other noises.
Sirens seem to scream louder and longer in the summer, racing to a crescendo and then fading into the distance. Police helicopters, beaming searchlights into the alley out back, hover close enough to rattle windows.
The "bacon man" comes through the neighborhood after dinner, shouting and pushing a shopping cart full of meat for sale. The ice cream truck retraces its afternoon route at midnight, and young children swarm to its beckoning bell. Apartment windows are left open, and music blasts into the street from all sides, creating a swirl of disco dissonance. Dogs bark and cats whine at rats and roaches which scurry through the alley's garbage.
Fourteenth Street, the counterpart to Manhattan's 42nd Street, is a bottle's throw away. On a clear night you can climb up to the roof and watch the approach and takeoff of planes from National Airport; or gaze at the three stars visible in this part of the world; or enjoy a circle of fireworks displays in Maryland, Virginia, and downtown, if it's the Fourth of July. A glimpse across to the tenement next door shows a two-bedroom apartment with laundry for a family of nine hanging from its balcony. One window below, an argument is going on, accompanied by the cacophony of a TV set.
In summer kids get squeezed out into the street, and you wonder how they found space to survive the winter. Some have hauled a dilapidated mattress for tumbling into the parking lot across the street, next to a discarded Christmas tree that has rested there for eight months and still holds strands of tinsel. On Saturdays they trickle into the food store in our basement and leave with peaches and 20-cent pickles.
On the day you cook for the household, Heywood, Emily, Pie-wacky, Boo, and maybe half a dozen others will be waiting on the back porch. Only two get chosen to help chop carrots for that evening's salad. In some situations two extra cooks may spoil the broth, but in this one they just add an hour to preparation time.
Summer means that the box of band-aids that lasted all winter is gone in three weeks' time. The assault of scraped knees is endless, and the status attached to wearing a band-aid always prompts one young friend to ask, "Can I have a band-aid for my headache?" And seven-year-old innocence touches on the ramifications of social injustice by asking, "Why does the band-aid blend into you and not me?"
You notice the broken glass on the streets more in summer, perhaps because there is more and perhaps because you remember that at one time in your life this was a season to go barefoot. The glass is like the suffering: Occasionally you let it blend into the environment. Sometimes you allow it to scrape only the surface of your white and secure exterior. But you are learning to walk these streets and carry all the broken pieces of humanity within you, letting them pierce whatever pride or distanced self-satisfaction you brought with you.
Working late brings you home just about sunset. You catch brief glimpses of a hazy, red sun between tenements as the bus leaves L Street and climbs north up the alphabet and then to Euclid Street. You think of places in your past and wish that tenement walls were canyon walls or mountain cliffs. And a quiet ache rises in you.
Summer is a somewhat relaxed time in the rhythm of community. Vacations bring frequent goodbyes and reunions and interrupt ministry-as-usual. In addition to individual vacations for its members, each household grouping takes a camping weekend together for retreat and enjoyment. And so you find yourself in the middle of the following scenario:
You leave for the beach at Chincoteague, Virginia, but the directions to the campsite blow out the window of the car. You arrive after dark and discover that you've brought the wrong size tents. Some of the group volunteer to sleep outside.
You spend the entire next day jumping waves, dodging jellyfish, and baking in the sun at the beach. You return with that tired, boiled-lobster look. Dinner is bread from home and crabs from the wharf. Somebody put the bread in the ice chest, and you have to wring it out before you eat it.
It starts pouring rain. Those who slept outside the night before are refusing to do so tonight. You find yourself stuffed into a three-person tent with four adults and a baby.
You notice that you violated the first rule of the beach: Never get sunburned on both sides of your body. There is no painless way to sleep, and tossing and turning is made impossible by the fact that you are wedged immobile between two snoring friends. The snores are a distracting reminder of the sirens back home. Everything in the tent, including you, is damp and reeks of mildew and crabs. There is nothing to do in such a situation but ponder the mysteries of life.
Your mind wanders to broken glass and kids. And there's a stronger ache for them than you've ever felt for mountains. You try to explain it to yourself, but there's no rational answer to be found, only futile dialogue with yourself. Are you delirious from over-exposure to the sun? Why miss and love such a place? And then it hits you like June's first firecracker hit the pavement: because, God bless it, it's home.
Joyce Hollyday was on the editorial staff at Sojourners when this article appeared.
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