On our street, Anda, Kiss and I ruled the world. We knew who lived where from 13th street to 15th street, from Notre-Dame to Churchill streets. Our section of road was our empire, we were the queens. We were the Cumberland Street girls. That street was populated with every sort of character and we knew each and every one. That was just the way it was. We lived without worry or fear. The scariest thing on our street was my mother getting mad. We all knew to run then.
We lived for the chipman. The chiptruck came around twice a day, just around four and then late in the evening, around 8:30. We had our greasy, golden fries in paper cones, sprinkled liberally with salt and vinegar. The best part was drinking up the salty vinegar at the bottom, when you were done devouring the fries. You could get a small cone of fries for 5 cents or a large cone for 10 cents. Then there was the box of fries you could buy for a quarter. I was so jealous of Anda and Kiss. More often than not, their mother gave them each a quarter and they got the coveted box of fries, for supper. Even though they would share with me, it wasn’t the same. I wanted my own.
We lived for the summers. When we were kids, they seemed to last forever. That last day of school, when summer vacation was officially upon us, we’d run home and discard the school clothes once more until September. We were free…free to ride our bicycles all day, free to sit on my Mom’s clothes line step stool and gossip. We ran our empire from that delapidated stool. It was built by my great grandfather and it was rickety and falling apart but it was our shared throne.
Summer was so magical. Two houses down from us, lived a boy named Segee. He and Aawkie and two of the Leclair boys used to build these bicycles that were some eight feet tall. They worked on those things for hours. When they were done, they would set the bike against the house, climb up on the porch roof to be able to get on to the thing. Off they would go, up and down the street, eight feet off the ground, trying to ride with no hands. We thought they were nuts, just stupid boys. Now I see how ingenius they actually were.
That was the summer I got some kind of bug, and I had to rest on a lounge chair, on the porch. I don’t remember who, but someone brought me some Orange Crush. That was the beginning of a life long love affair. Oh and then it was Pepsi. I can’t count how many times Kiss and I walked to Blanchard’s to get Pepsi. It was our addiction of choice. Me, Kiss, Anda and their Mom; we had to have our Pepsi. I remember when Kiss and I bought matching bikinis with identical cover-ups. Turquoise for her and peach for me. And we walked to the store, in our bikinis, to get Pepsi. We could do that in our world and no one cared.
We’d be out on someone’s porch until midnight and the parents never worried. Probably because they could hear us yakking, singing or arguing…loudly. No one ever told us to be quiet.The boys played street hockey like it was no ones business; we’d play skipping rope until the owner got mad, usually for some imaginary slight, took her rope and went home. That left us with hopscotch until our legs fell off or tormenting the teenage boys, because we could.
And then there was the Wally…our neighborhood pervert.
Next -> Wally the Perv
Tags: pervert, queens, step stool, summer vacation