There’s something about lemonade in the summer that just hits me. Like right now, I can see the glass pitcher with the lemony yellow liquid inside. Someone is stirring it with a spoon. A glass full of ice cubes sits on the counter. Someone picks up the pitcher and pours the lemonade in the glass. She says I can go out back and sit on the porch to drink it. The sun is bright, the porch is concrete, the yard is green and overgrown. I see the small metal car that kids can drive around the block in. It’s got pedals you pump and a plastic steering wheel. It’s tiresome work after a while.
My glass of lemonade has water beads on the outside. It’s hot out. The sky is a flame blue color with no clouds to be seen. I can somehow smell the bar down the street. It mingles with the smell of the lakeside beach not far away. They keep the doors to the bar open when it’s hot like it is. The loud sounds of drinkers creeps out and haunts the neighborhoods. Across the street from the bar is a pink stucco funeral home. I once took a field trip there. It was weird. We had a field trip there because one of the kids in my class was part of the family that owned it. I always thought his father looked like Dracula. There’s another funeral home two houses and an alleyway past my house. I am surrounded by death here. The house directly next to us is where the man with mental problems lives. The house directly behind us and on the other side of the yard is where they have nine kids. There is always someone to play with. The older brothers fight a lot. One of them rides lightning bolts on a surfboard. The older brothers lounge around outside shirtless and wearing sunglasses. The boys talk about Vietnam and hope they don’t die before they have a chance to live. They already look like soldiers.
Fifty years later my hands are clutching a steering wheel as I drive through Montana on a cool summer night. The moon is out, the road is lonely. The sky is the color of a midnight bruise. Strands of white clouds rimmed dark stretch and flow across the sky. I can’t believe I’ve made it this long, this far. Merciless deities aside, I’ve survived.
The radio is playing the only thing that comes in… Voices, static, stories, old music. A lightning bolt cracks across the sky. Everything around me brightens for a moment. The face of the radio begins to flicker. A loud clap of thunder follows, but there’s no rain. I pull to the side of the road and get out of the car. Something doesn’t seem right. I step out into the middle of the road. Under the moonlight I can see the yellow lines flow off to the hilly horizon. Purple black mountains stand like human shoulders in the distance.
The world seems empty and silent out on the asphalt. I wonder, how did I get here? I look straight up to the stars and absorb their ancient light. “How did I get here?” I ask aloud. I wait for an answer, but nothing arrives. I wonder, how does time burn away so fast? I look at my hands, the hands of a man becoming an older man. I realize, I’ve already lived most of my life. But what then? A breeze kicks up and I walk back to the car and get in.
There’s something almost comforting about the darkness of a car. Even more so when I start the engine, and the dashboard lights come to life. I pull back onto the road. The mysticism of the world out there around me grows deeper. I think of all my sins and mistakes. I think of all my regrets. I think of my one true love and how she’s waiting for me at the cabin in Whitefish. I’m not done living yet.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 