Late summer. Bluejays squawked in bellicose tones distinctively bluejay, ganging up in trees in the median parkway of Florence Street.

Out back, chickens wandered in a pen, wheezy and trepidatious. (Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote in his perfect way that chickens sound asthmatic)

A eucalyptus tree a century-old stood by a tall lawn spigot with brick splashguards. In the grass were faded sticks from an old croquet set. An antique gun workshop hid behind a bamboo grove. A homemade motor boat slept in a back shed. Broken-down polo mallets tacked up to bare studs. Farther away a defunct camper trailer, a wrecked rowboat, on flats of sandy dirt loaded with red ants. 

After lunch Neapolitan ice cream out of the carton. The strawberry section had bits of fruit, tart to balance the sweet. Lots of infants and grade school cousins occupied the house. Among the adults, concerns about baby formula and potty training ran below their everyday kitchen conversations. 

The uncles were comics. Midday meal, the big one, had prayer, ha ha.

Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat.

An afternoon car ride in gramma’s Buick if you were nice. The heat pounding down on the way back. 8oz Coke bottles from the icebox. Rules required you read aloud the city of origin imprinted on the bottom. A sack of boiled peanuts, chilled, always on the top rack.

Nighttime we ate again but ate light, like leftover bread, biscuits, doctored-up casseroles. Sliced tomatoes from the yard.

Retiring to the family room, we saw the golden clocks that moved silently inside inverted glass jars. A floor fan hummed.

The night heat was heavy and still.

From the cabinet TV, Adlai Stevenson’s summer convention speech played loud. Mixed support. An ancient magnolia tree loomed outside like a giant.

Windows were opened cautiously. Everyone was afraid of black people.