Summer Ghosts

That summer the air was humid, hot and heavy but the rain just wasn’t coming.  Its god-like, invisible presence was palpable in the breeze that ruffled the dry Midwestern grasses out on the front lawn and in the agnostic, doubtful glances that we were all casting up at the ceaselessly blue sky.  I was still dreaming in French then, passing afternoons in the local coffee shop and nights drinking wine at my writing desk in my childhood bedroom.  Nothing was happening, everything was looming like the storm that we all hoped break.  In August I would move to New York, but it was still June and Time was a holy ghost.

On a Saturday afternoon, after attending the funeral of a man we hardly knew, my brother and I drove down to Chicago.  It seemed like the only thing to do.  His car’s air-conditioner was broken so we rolled the windows down to let the highway’s dusty air cool us.  We bought Mexican Cokes at a gas station.  And we played all our favorite songs; we sang to the dashboard, the wind and the passing cars.  And every song was “Hallelujah” because we were both searching for the same kind of grace.