The End of a Brooklyn Summer – Part 1

It’s important to note that this short series is a work of fiction that’s based on true events. Enjoy!

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The minute hand struggled to reach the faded 2 that was resting within a crookedly placed clock on a weak and cracked wall that had 50-year-old paint softly peeling from behind it. Clink. Clink. Clink. It moved slower than usual.

Even with a fully loaded backpack weighing down one corner of the uneven desk – which almost appeared to sit level for the first time all year – my incessant toe tapping rattled the metallic legs on the floor. My hands pressed down on the top of my bag in anticipation of the clock’s hands setting off the final school bell of the year. I was ready to bolt out of there before anyone else. Yet, the time was distracting me from focusing on my exit strategy. I’m pretty sure everyone was distracted by it. I glanced over at the teacher, and she was side eyeing the clock while looking down at the book she had sloppily resting on her lap. I don’t think she wanted anyone to notice how much she wanted to get away from that place. Her bag was packed and resting on her desk, too.

Three minutes to go. What’s taking so long? It’s like watching water boil and the back of my neck is boiling too. How did I get stuck with the window seat? No fans. No shade. There’s a sweat droplet stalled on my forehead. I don’t want to touch it. My arm will get wet and my face’ll breakout.

Two minutes to go and I heard the 1:58 bus open its the doors to let people off and on. Doors closed and off it goes.

Another sweat droplet pushed the lingering one down my nose. I had to wipe it off before it got my bag wet.

One minute left. I need to stand up and put my backpack on so I’m ready to get the hell out of here.

“No one moves until the bell rings,” my teacher demanded in a stern voice. I set off her discipline radar because I moved my foot toward the isle in preparation of the bell.

“So hypocritical,” I muttered. Michelle, who was sitting behind me at the time, also anxiously waiting for 2 p.m., must have heard what I said since she softly chuckled.

All I had to do was put the one strap on the left shoulder. I never used both straps no matter how many times I got yelled at about the one-shoulder look being bad for my posture.

I guess there’s 30 seconds left. I can’t tell. The thin seconds hand has been missing since the start of the school year. Some classrooms have it. The one next door has it.

I was wrong – it was 10 seconds. The final bell screams. Summer break is here!

Everyone rushed to the door at that point and I was stuck by the window. My plans to get out first were foiled. Matt took forever to get his backpack on. Kim and Rebecca chatted about their summer plans while blocking the front of the isle and I just wanted to get out of here. I altered my exit strategy and decided to b-line for the back of the room and cut across to the back door. I had to move a few chairs. I pushed a few in, dodged a few lingerers and was out of there.

One minute and 30 seconds later I made it to the hallway. That’s a record! I still needed to weave out of a heard to get to the front door.

No time to stop. Got to keep moving, I thought.

It was out in the hallway than in the classroom and no room to move around. Too many backpacks. Double-shouldered backpacks. What’s the point? You have to take it off to get into the building anyway and sometimes need to swing it around front to make sure no one dips into the front pocket to fish for valuables.

Exit. That’s it! I was almost there. Slow walkers, lookout!

Once I inhaled the freshest air you could get in Brooklyn, the soles of my black converse hit the sidewalk hard. I quickly headed for the gates, briskly walked through them and made a hard left toward the bike rack. I undid my lock, latched it back together and jumped hard onto my peddles.

Summer break is what most kids my age looked forward to once the new school year starts again. The summer is when you get that fresh start. Those new beginnings. And a break from a crowded, judgmental hellhole.

I had to make it out of there in time to get home, put my stuff in the house and ride my bike around to my grandpa’s garage before he wrapped up that day’s work.

I stopped at home first before heading over to the garage that was conveniently nestled nearby the house. It sat in a pit surrounded by a landing strip of tall weeds a few run-down homes, an elementary school and a playground that sat across the street along a one-way street off to the side of it. I coasted down the gravel hill, skidded to a stop just so I can kick up some rocks and make a new path in the driveway. The garage door was closed. Shop wasn’t open that day or grandpa got done early.

Back up the hill I went. You could hear the bike chain clicking and clacking as the tires grinded the tiny peddles into the clay dirt underneath them. The sweat drops splattered onto my bike frame and the sweat from my hands made it difficult to grip the handles. My feet dug into the gravel, leaving sloppy footprints behind, and I hunched over with my hands pushing the handlebars up. My arms were practically straight over my head when I hit the halfway point. Like I said, it was practically a pit.

By the time I made it to the top, you could hear my heart pounding over the sounds of the buses and the groaning of cars driving along Flatlands Avenue.

Wiping the sweat from my forehead and eyes with my sticky forearm, I squinted toward Mario’s shop – it was open. Maybe grandpa was there today, I thought. On hot days like that day, he would bring his customer’s cars over to Mario’s to get out of the sticky heat.

Mario was standing on a ladder right outside the door to take in the birdcage he left hanging outside most days. The sun was just about hitting the front of the shop at that point. It was getting too hot for them to be outside.

“Grandpa there?” I shouted from across the street.

“Yeah, he’s almost done with a set of brakes,” Mario said, as he carefully climbed down the ladder using only one hand.

I jolted across the street, leaned my bike by the front door and rushed inside. I hoped he saved at least one for me.

From the other side of the 1990 bluish-silver Honda Prelude, you could see he was kneeling down on the right rear side because his white hair was bobbing up and down above the trunk of the car. He was taking the right rear tire off.

“Can I help?” I asked.

“Hey, kid,” he said without even looking up or answering my feverish request to assist. “You might want to head back home. I just got off the phone with your dad and your mom should be on her way home soon.”

My parents were divorced for as long as I can remember and even the times that I can’t. My mom and I lived with my grandparents and my dad remarried and lived in a townhouse about an hour outside of the city in New Jersey. I got to see him every other weekend, on some holidays and special occasions.

It wasn’t a holiday, nor my weekend with him or a special occasion. And my mom rarely had an opportunity to leave work early. My grandfather didn’t dare give a hint to what was going on. After he told me to head home, he continued to pop the lug nuts off the tire which hid a grossly corroded and badly worn-down brake pad. It was in such bad shape there was practically nothing left to remove.

Although I didn’t care to admit it then, or at least I didn’t realize it at the time, what was waiting for me at home on that hot summer day was inevitably on the horizon.

That day, watching the minute hand slowly creep along on the partially broken clock as the sweat beaded down my face was like any other last day of school before summer break. When the final school bell tolls it’s a grandiose introduction to summer. You strut out of a musty, dark and crowded building you spent 9 months of your life trying to claw out of to start that new chapter. It’s a time in one’s life when the weight of the world is supposed to be nonexistent. No job. No bills. No real worries.