Summer Twilight

We dreamed of air conditioning, like in the movie theatre or in the department store, cool and soothing over our warm skin simmering in the humid evening air, slowly braising in the summer sun.

Instead we had to rely on what breeze the night brought us as the sun sank over the radio towers atop Neutaconkanut Hill, the sky turning from pale cerulean to a velvet navy blue, stars incandescing one by one. We fled the warm lamps and even warmer rooms—despite ceaselessly whirring fans and the occasional waft of air through a window—and instead emerged into the mosquito-ridden twilight, one from one direction, two from another; the composition of the crowd changed nightly.

It was summer in the 1960s. My godmother and her husband came out to sit on "the piazza," what they called their open porch, in hopes of a breeze. Other neighbors unfolded their canvas-and-wood or woven-tape-and-aluminum lawn chairs and sat in circles around citronella candles in back or front yards, still slapping at mosquitoes. Moths flew sorties around traffic lights topped with crenelated caps. If there was a baseball game on television or, even better, on radio, you could hear it through wide-open front doors and thrown-wide windows, the crack of the bat against the ball, the crowd roaring, the announcer shouting. If you were lucky the breeze rustled the leaves of the trees and played accompaniment to the crickets strumming their tune in the grass. In the lower part of Cooney Field, the usual complement of young men were playing a summer-long after-supper baseball game of their own. If it were a Friday night, Mom would put on a light duster and some sandals and walk the one block to Mary DiPrete's house so the two of them could sit out in the yard in metal lawn chairs to chat.

We kids were free to go anywhere close to home so long as our mothers knew where we were. We'd never heard of a "playdate." Asking permission consisted of "Hey, Mom, I'm going to Penny's house." "Okay, be home by nine o'clock!" It wasn't a long trip for me. There was a wooden gate always left propped open between my godmother's house next door and Victoria's house on the opposite side of the chain-link fence, so that Padina Lillian's mother, "Zia Maria" could easily visit with Victoria's mother, "Zia Maria Antonia" in the Adirondak chairs under the grape arbor in my godparents' back yard, where they would talk in Italian about the progress of their gardens—there were always tomatoes and zucchini and string beans growing throughout the summer in both yards—and memories of the Old Country. Children were welcome to use the gate as long as they did no damage, and I would slip through and walk respectfully out Victoria's side yard, across Fiat Avenue, and on to Penny's house.

Overland and Flint Avenues came to a point at Fiat Avenue, and it was on that isosceles triangle of land that my friend Penny lived with her mother, stepfather, two sisters, and baby brother. The lot was set up so that the only thing behind the house was the driveway, so the whole front yard was their back yard. On the Overland side of the street was a retaining wall, and here we all gathered: Penny and her sisters, Pauline from down the street, Armand and his little sister from across Overland Avenue, sometimes Barbara from over on Jordan Avenue. We'd play kickball in the street until it became too dark to see, and then perch on the wall in our shorts and sleeveless tops, most of us with Keds bought from the US rubber outlet store down off Harris Avenue, fidgeting, kicking our heels against the concrete. Behind us, there was a good chance Penny's grandmother Carrie would also be sitting outside, perhaps talking with a neighbor.

Since school was out, we would avoid that dreaded subject; most of our conversation seemed to revolve around television programs. Batman with Adam West was then popular and much wangling went on about who was the best villain, the Joker or the Riddler or the Penguin? The Penguin certainly had his fans; Burgess Meredith's comic opera portrayal and his "quack-quack" laugh was much admired. Catwoman also had her fans. The other topic of conversation was always Dark Shadows. Everyone—but me—loved watching Barnabas Collins the vampire, and the others of the horror soap, like Angelique and Quentin. The original storyline, more of a Gothic romance involving a governess named Victoria Winters, had long gone by the wayside as Jonathan Frid fandom came to the fore. I wasn't into vampires, but liked to punctuate the stories with wolf howls to add the appropriate atmosphere. Later I'd have my own foray into horror soaps with Strange Paradise.

Eventually Carrie would tells us it was time to go, or Penny's mother would call from the kitchen where the fan was running ceaselessly and the refrigerator dispensing endless supplies of Kool-Aid. We'd groan and moan and slip off the wall and slowly trudge toward home, stopping to watch the frantic flutterings around the streetlights. Tomorrow would be another night, but now it was time for a cool sponge bath or a shower and a humid trip to Dreamland under a summer sheet, the windows open wide so the symphony of the crickets would lull you to sleep.