It was tadpole season, the end
of spring. Summer was around
the way. We booked past Double
Dutch girls, Mrs. Wilson’s nosy
glare, through alleys jungled
with weeds. We crossed 60th
Street and Chester Avenue—
traversed enemy corners, dog
packs chasing us, fiends begging
for quarters. Lamont’s moms
was on the pipe again. Boo’s
pops had stepped out for Camels
and never came back. Our Adidas
floated, we were latchkey kids,
but we called ourselves “Chil
Kru.” We came to the traffic
on 65th, fleeing prisoners dodging
cars and curses to make it to
the rocky hill on the other side.
At the bottom: railroad tracks
overgrown with wildflowers
and “the lake,” a sinkhole with
knee-deep water, a paradise
for gnats, mosquitoes, gutter sparrows.
We galloped down in hand-me-
down cut-offs and t-shirts,
backpacks clinking coffee cans.
Behind us: boarded-up windows
and factories tomb-quiet. Somewhere
our parents mopped floors, sat
in cubicles, believing we were
in row houses they told us not
to leave. “This is how it be
in the woods,” Lamont said,
even though none of us
had ever been to a forest
in all our asphalt lives. Though
the tracks were abandoned,
we watched for trains, having
heard of a boy who walked without
looking, how they collected him,
in pieces, for days. Tadpole season.
End of spring. Soon the water
would steam way. There, we waded
our cans in the ashy water, until
one or two gulped inside, then
slapped the lids on quick. “Watch
your back,” Boo said. “Can’t never
tell when something’s coming.”
Buy Brian’s new chapbook, Latchkey Kids, from Finishing Line Press.
