lemonade

it is just past 5 and the air outside is lurking somewhere near 90 when guthrie and i go out. we head south, toward the park, toward the coolest part of brooklyn. i can hear the girls before i can really see them but when we come up close there are four of them, fairly close in age, with those skinny girl knees sticking out everywhere. one of them is dressed up in some sort of tutu outfit, white and pink, with some orange as well. and they call out lemonade all together and singsongy like some sort of lemonade sirens. they are perched there on the stoop, two on the cement banister sides and one in a chair. the ballerina stands, hops from one foot to the other.

i do not really want any lemonade but i ask for one anyway and one of the girls pours it into a clear plastic cup that looks like what bartenders put old fashioneds in while another hands me change for my dollar. they thank me and tell me to have a nice day and i thank them right back and wish them luck on their lemonading. i suspect they will do well. guthrie and i head on up toward the park, he with his red lizard and i with my cocktail glass of lemonade.

it is not fresh squeezed lemonade and some part of me is always a little sad at the first taste of lemonade stand lemonade but the rest of me knows fresh squeezed lemonade is not cost effective at the elementary school level. but there is always a second sip and that sip is good because it is cold and tart. we walk along the edge of the park and under the trees like we are at some party just our side of fancy. i sip my lemonade as we walk and feel dangerous, decadent. my drink sloshes from time to time, onto my skirt or my feet or onto guthrie a little but that is all part of the risk of drinking lemonade out in the open like this, reckless.

on the walk back we pass a woman standing in a spotted summer dress, head thrown back, cigarette like a chimney sprouting from her lips. she just stands there, smoking, eyes closed, face to the sky. a teenage girl sits on a stoop petting the soft ears of her own speckled dachshund, whispering into his head to keep cool. and then, when we are getting ready to cross the street and walk up to our own home an old man comes running toward us and stops short. in his left hand is an empty manger and stable covered in dark moss. his right hand is up to ward us off, maybe. maybe to stop himself from running into us.

we cross the street and head up past stoop, stoop, hydrant, stoop, fire escape, everything heavy with july flowers and potted tomatoes. how else is there to live in brooklyn's summer but by walking out the door and into lemonade?