A Summer Life Read Free Page A

Venetian blinds that banged when a breeze stirred. This was before TV, before long pants and shoes on our feet, before Christ became a glow-in-the-dark statue we kept on a night stand.
    I noticed that my fingers were smaller than my brother's, not as dark, and a lot cleaner. Black dwelled beneath his fingernails, and a pink scar ran along his thumb where he got caught on barbed-wire. His breath rattled like a leaf. His neck held a pulsating blue vein as large as our father's. For a moment I thought my brother might become a giant, that it would be only a matter of time before he could fill the window with one scary eye. His naked feet were large, and his head had trouble staying straight up. It seemed to me that it always leaned one way or the other. I thought about this a while, then decided my brother was only a brother, not a giant with crashing feet.
    After ten minutes on the sofa, we got up and helped with the dishes by putting away the forks and spoons. Mother handled the water glasses and the plates, which were blue with ancient scenes of Chinese dragons and temples. When she finished, we stood watching the steam rise from the gray, soapy dishwater and thought deeply about the cold pipes that rushed water to us from snow-slushed mountains. We watched the water, mesmerized by the transaction of heat to air, both of us glad that we lived in a house where you could press an ear to the wall and hear the faraway sounds.
    With the dishes out of the way, my brother and I scurried down to the end of the block to look once more at the shoe prints, which now seemed smaller, though not small enough to calm our minds. I got down on my knees and measured my hands in the print: three-and-a-half hands, not four. When I lifted my hand, two red ants were pressed into my palm, staggering with bent antennas and broken legs. With a cheek fat with summer air, I blew them off, only a little scared of the red ant's bitter bite. Rick said that a million ants could easily fill those prints, and if the ants decided to do it one day they could flood over to our house when they were through.
    Rick and I returned home, darkness gathering around trees, bushes, and parked cars. We played with a punctured, multicolored beach ball under an orange porch light until I stubbed my toe on the cement steps and my sobbing reminded Mother that it was late and we still had to bathe.
    We bathed in scalding water and cooled off. In bed, I listened to the broom factory, the loud whack of straw being wired onto red, yellow, and blue sticks. That was another worry, because I had once said hello to a worker, and he had said hello back. One day, he might show me the machinery, and by accident I might fall into a hamper of straw and get tangled in the machine that tied the wire.
    I got up and stood at the window, the smell of crushed china-berry in the warm summer air. The junkyard facing our house was a silhouette of iron pipes and jagged sheet metal. A dog barked as a car circled out of a driveway, the sweep of headlights passing over my hands as they clutched the windowsill. Back in bed, I closed my eyes, convinced that because the giant's brain was so far from his feet, he would have no pity when he turned onto our street.
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The Bike
    M Y FIRST BIKE got me nowhere, though the shadow I cast as I pedaled raced along my side. The leaves of bird-filled trees stirred a warm breeze and litter scuttled out of the way. Our orange cats looked on from the fence, their tails up like antennas. I opened my mouth, and wind tickled the back of my throat. When I squinted, I could see past the end of the block. My hair flicked like black fire, and I thought I was pretty cool riding up and down the block, age five, in my brother's hand-me-down shirt.
    Going up and down the block was one thing, but taking the first curve, out of sight of Mom and the house, was another. I was scared of riding on Sarah Street. Mom said hungry dogs lived on that street, and red anger lived in