From Ridge to Sunset

I was en route to the train station, where first-world Misfortune leaned mischievously against the grungy metal turnstile on the far right.

Eager to make it home, I failed to notice him slip the invaluable yellow, plastic rectangle out of my bag. The clatter of metal rails resisting the oppressive weight of train carts rolling into the station then off to the next stop without me was salt to my wounds.

At regular walking speed, I was a fair playlist’s length away from home. However, with the weight of a long day in my backpack and bones, the journey would require an album at full.

I found entertainment in the shadows stretched across the checkerboard pavement as they cycled through Wonka Taffy Puller distortions and shades of gray in response to light before escaping me. Shadows of couples walking hand in hand, of sly stray cats, of boisterous groups painting the town a pale red.

Block by block and avenue squared, I was approaching my destination. It’s redundant to complain about heat in the summer, but I did anyway. My fitted black pants, and sleeved apricot sweater clung to me like boiled pasta to a wall. Sticky.

I checked my phone at a neon orange stoplight. Hot as a cup of coffee in hand; not unbearable, but it reminds you why those cup grips exist.

I imagine my sweat believed we were racing considering how quickly a pond was forming beneath my backpack. I groaned, but it was inaudible since still brownstones had been replaced by Spanglish bodega chatter and lively cohorts similar to those depicted in Hayden’s Midsummer Night in Harlem, 1938.

Spanish music flooded over track 14 of 15 while the aromas of cigars, and Mexican food crept into my nose to perform a duet. The heat of the food truck cooked the side of my face unapologetically despite the light breeze that visited my neck, gently tousling my already frizzy curls.

I nodded at the neighbors, old and young, decorating the otherwise inornate brown blocks of concrete that formed stoops. The corner building, which housed domino games more often than a church provides mass, greeted me the loudest and invited me to lose a few rounds with the slam of ceramic tiles against a worn plastic table.

The reckless, oversized Hotwheels replicas that zipped around my neighborhood with asphyxiating puffs of gasoline trailing greeted me, too, with the obtrusive dins of acceleration. Or, maybe they were celebrating the success of my odyssey.

The enfilade of trees on my right reflected my energy, etiolated. Towering houses, like mine, had deprived them of sunlight, but their determination to sprout proud little leaves was admirable.

Across the street was Mr. Hernandez, too entranced to wave back at me. Strange, how well a statue could reminisce. Under the sliver of moonlight peeking over him you could see the soft contentment with which he enjoyed the humid night creeping around his pursed lips, and the longing for nights on a tropical island anchored in his drooping eyes.

Misfortune played one last trick, pricking me with a pencil as I fumbled for my keys. Typical. Upon entering my house, I slid out of my shoes so the ceramic tiles could drain the heat out of my soles step by step, but not before track 15 of 15 came to its end.