hot heat

Three little girls were double dutching in the shade of the old grocery’s awning. The yellow lettering on the rain weathered cloth used to read JOE’S EATS but by now it just said O ATS. The heat was languid that day – swimming softly through itself, stirring its thickness in the air that barely moved. Beads of sweat collected on the white collar of the littlest girl’s shirt. She was holding one end of the ropes and couldn’t let go to wipe her brow. Each time she made the ropes arch like a cat’s tense back, her tight black braids would swing and catch the sweat up in their strands, but never enough to prevent her from feeling damp.

The other two girls were taller, and that meant the littlest had to hold her hands high to keep the ropes even. The muscles tensed in her thin brown arms and she furrowed her eyebrows with concentration as she fought to keep them raised. She didn’t normally rope with the big girls and she was determined to stay.

Gabriel watched the girls from inside JOE’S. With his nose pressed against the cool glass window next to the sweets freezer, he peered out into the street and squinted to see through the quivering bands of heat. He had an ice cream bar in his left hand, and it slowly dripped onto the overturned tomato crate on which he stood. His once blue laces were caked with dust and mud and grass and his heels were out of the backs of his shoes. When the days got hot he never liked to put them on fully – he always imagined that his feet felt like he did when he got stuck in his turtlenecks. He imagined they would be happier this way.

The girls sang the song they always sang when the pavement got hot. None of the three could remember who they learned it from, and if you asked Gabriel – who always watched but never jumped – it was a tropical bird who first taught it to them. The bird had flown down the avenue one day in a blur of yellow and fierce orange, sang its song, and never came back.

The ice cream bar was almost completely a puddle at Gabriel’s feet when Old Missus Thomas shuffled into the store, sounding like softshoe tap dances on sand. She was dragging her old pooch behind her and she had to hold the door open for a few moments before she could yank him inside. With the door open, the sound of the ropes slapping street inched into the store, along with the song of the three girls. In three perfect and small voices they sang

Sasparilla, old vanilla, spice the corn and fluff the pilla
tickle toes and flower nose and cheat when playing dominoes
kiss me once
and kiss me twice
then hold my hand – don’t kiss me thrice!
The world is made of cats and mice
cats and mice
cats and mice

The old pooch finally crossed the threshold and the bell dinged as the door swung shut. Gabriel removed his nose from the glass and extended his hand towards the old pooch. The dog wriggled its nose and then moved towards Gabriel. He licked the ice cream off his hand, and the tickle of his tongue made Gabriel giggle. He pulled the dog close and whispered into its ear, “Sasparilla, old vanilla…”