The longer days of summer seemed to bring a breath of fresh air to the neighborhood, the younger kids playing around the grassy banks well into the evenings while their parents took the time to gossip on street corners, glancing across on the odd occasion when one of the youngsters sounded a little rowdier than usual. It was the time when things looked hopeful, when the bank of flowers that were lovingly tended to by the old man from a few floors above us were in bloom and spirits were high enough in people to believe anything was possible.
It was as though the summer had almost magical qualities, certainly enough so people felt happy to leave the sanctuary of their homes and spend more time outside. The weather was as balmy as it ever got, the scant nature of the clothing worn by women with bodies worth showing was the only thing making the maddening heat worth living in, though it wasn’t always the case when having to work in such conditions.
The walk down one of the grass banks, almost falling over a child that was chasing a ball along the way, was a slightly hurried one, due mainly to my eagerness to get into the shade of the tower block I was heading for. Assuming that, as was usually the case, the elevator wasn’t working, I made my way up the stairs that began right alongside the sidewalk, sharing the same lack of security that the elevator endured, allowing all and sundry access right up to any resident’s front door.
Edging past the people that'd sat chatting on the cool stone that made up the first flight of stairs, recognizable only in that I’d seen them around, as they kept just enough of an eye on their kids, I doubled back on myself as the steps took me higher. I dragged a couple of bags of shopping up to the fifth floor, swinging open the glass door to the central area with my elbow, before wandering through into the vestibule housing the four apartments that made up the floor, just as the elevator stopped a few feet away from me.
I forced a smile, my muscles too tired from the heat to obey freely, as Theresa stepped out from behind the sliding doors, fishing inside her handbag for her keys. Looking as bothered as I felt, her company uniform in a state that defied the reality of it being pristine that morning, she jumped as she looked up, seeing me stood there before her.
“Good god,” She gasped, “you frightened the bloody life out of me!”
“Well, if there’s enough left in you to get this door open, I’ll try not to make a habit of it…” I replied, the smile coming readily now.
“I can just about manage that, though I think the dishes will be enough of a problem later that I should get someone else to do them…”
“If that’s what you want to tell yourself, that’s fine. I hear the reality of old age can be scary…”
Almost breaking into a jog as I shot through the door she’d held open for me, I was just out of range before she could dish out a clip round the ear for being cheeky, something that’d always been the case as she’d never been up to much in the disciplining kids line of things, at least not since I’d known her. I turned back around to see her shaking her head at me, shutting the door behind us with a half smile on her lips.
“What are you saying to my wife?”
I turned to answer the question, knowing instantly where the owner of the voice would be sat, but only guessing at how much whiskey would be left in the bottle in front of him.
“Nothing worth repeating, father.” I replied, feeling the energy drain from my mood.
“Yeah, I’ll bet…” He mumbled, making sure his voice was just loud enough for me to catch both his words and the tone.
Dropping off the bags in the kitchen, telling myself I’d unpack them later, I made my way out onto the balcony, its white stone matching that of the steps that brought me home, taking my tie off completely and shoving it in my pocket as I ducked under the washing that'd been left drying out on the line. I pulled across the plastic garden chair from the corner and sat close enough to the barrier between a painful landing on the street below and myself, to put my feet up as I sank back into the chair.
Right on time, the roar of an aircraft flew high overhead, far enough up that the markings could barely be seen with the naked eye. The early evening take-offs from the airport always fought it out with the sounds of the rush hour, its backlog of traffic slowly worming their way from the city to the smarter suburbs, as I tried to relax the tension in my mind that had appeared almost as soon as I got in.
“Rush hour? Shouldn’t that be rush hours these days?” I thought, watching the jet disappear behind another of the dozen or so tower blocks nearby, streaking away to climes both foreign and exciting.
A third sound joined the melee, interrupting my musing as I listened properly to try and hear the voice and the words it carried. The person down on the street below seemed to be shouting up, either to or for someone, making me guess they didn’t want anyone from the sixteenth floor at least. There was something familiar about the way he sounded, in particular the insults he called out, when one distinct comment got me out of the chair to look.
“Quit loungin' around and say hello, ya bastard!”
“Mickey?” I uttered as I looked over the balcony, seeing the grinning face of Michael Smith staring back at me.
“In the flesh.” He said, answering what I thought was a rhetorical question. “There’s a beer in this bag that’s just dying to meet you…”
Ignoring the whining from the owner of the half-empty bottle, I made my way out and down the stairs to find Mickey stood waiting there at the bottom. After sharing a manly, backslapping hug, we wandered the short trip over to the children’s playground, to where we used to play ourselves, back before it fell into its current, dilapidated, condition.
The months had dragged by since I’d last seen him, the call of further education had beckoned him to pastures new, limiting the times he could return to the old neighborhood, though it was hard to imagine why anyone would want to. For as close to the city as the place may be, the gulf between the two seemed insurmountable to those of us who hadn’t already got out.
He spoke of campus life, trying hard to not paint too rosy a picture of his scholastic adventures as we made headway into the beer he’d brought, the price tags suggesting they were picked up from the store down the road. Despite my best efforts to lead the conversation from that exact topic, the subject eventually came around to my exploits, with him wanting to know how life in “the real world” was treating me.
Not really wanting to see the disappointment on his face as I told him about the bland existence of this working male, the intimacies of retail quite lacking in anecdotal fare, I looked over at the people still out and about in the evening sun. A quick overview of my life soon segued into the details of gossip on the people we used to know, as I passed on each piece of information I’d either heard or been told personally, sparing the blushes of none of them as I dropped the rumors in with the facts.
Brightening up as I spilled the beans on both friend and foe alike in the spirit of helping him get up to speed, it became all the more obvious as I trailed off slightly, a significant part of my attention being grabbed by the figure making its way across the grass, far enough away to be watched without being noticed. Mickey picked up on my perusing, and didn’t hesitate to comment on it as she slipped out of sight into the block as an elevator swept her up inside.
“She still living with her grandma?” He asked.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, she is.”
“I take it from the way you were drooling, that you’ve still got a thing for her?”
