I take the usual route to my brother's house this Friday night, I-80 west until it splits off to 680, a lonely, less-traveled stretch, the road snaking through uneven, grass-covered hills. With the windows rolled down, the roar of tires on asphalt is nearly deafening, but in this stretch I hear something even louder.
WEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEur.
The early evening whir of cicadas, a regular reminder of summer's end, but one I hadn't heard or simply hadn't noticed for so long. A sound from a childhood spent in the country, calling me now to come home. I pull into a rest stop, shut off the engine, close my eyes.
And fall back.
Sometimes it's too hot to do anything, so the evening will be spent sitting in front of a fan, reruns of Hawaii Five-O or Barnaby Jones providing pleasantly bland background noise for a rereading of several past issues of Sgt. Rock. Sometimes there's a movie worth watching, or something else to do.
Most nights, though, are like this. Wolf down supper, then bound through the screen door, down the three front steps, leaping over the fissures in the sidewalk to the widened area at the end of the lane. There, boots scraping lazy circles in the dirt, it's time to decide what to do for the rest of the evening. Climb in the old abandoned combine that doubles as a tank or leap around on the hay rack/pirate ship?
Before a decision can be made, a pause. What's that noise?
WEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEur.
But that can't be! Not yet! The cicadas don't start up until August. By then, it's accepted that summer is coming to an end, the Greene County Fair will come along, followed by the State Fair, followed--sigh--by school starting up again.
All that, though, comes later. It's still July! It's too early to be reminded of homework and earlier bedtimes and responsibilities. It's still early enough to believe summer is an endless loop, a perfect time that will never end. Or it should be, or was--
WEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEurWEEEEur--
--until now.
There's not a choice, then, between the tank and the pirate ship. Not this evening, or the next, or the next after that. Now it must be both, as well as the drainage ditch down the road that leads to Nazi headquarters and the tall grass in the pasture for hiding in wait until outlaws pass, and the creek at the bottom of the hill and the row of evergreens behind the barn and the corncob pile and the old junk cars.
Everything! Everything that's fun must now be experienced in a crazy rush, one last idyll for my childhood, a defiance of the cicadas and the calender and the days that end too soon, a rage to live while there's still time.
