Mo Laethanta Saoire: 'Fragments, July 1977, NYC', by Jayson Carcione
Jayson Carcione, originally from New York, has been based in Cork for many years.
Summer dawns, dark and dirty. The sky is heavy, but the rain will not come. Heat rises from the dead rivers, the manhole covers, the stinking city streets. You can fry an egg on the sidewalk. Your brother told you this, so it must be true. You close your eyes and can almost hear the sizzle of bleeding egg white on the pavement. You close your eyes and see a yoke burning brighter than the sun.
Your grandparents have not ventured outside for days. Grandma sips pinot grigio, a damp washcloth around her neck. The apartment is sealed tight, blinds locked. Spluttering fans circulate dead air. Pops is stuck to the TV, there is baseball to watch. Grandma tells you about the old days, how they slept on the fire escapes of the tenements on sultry summer nights. She tells you about glorious lazy days on the beach at Coney Island. Pops tells you about the time he snuck into Yankee Stadium with grandma after dark, how they sat in the sweet grass of centre field and watched the moon rise over the Bronx. You love their stories. They are your best friends. You don’t have many friends. Yours is a lonely world.
