SUMMER OF ’77 — KAREN CRAWFORD
/It was a summer of sweltering heat. Of Studio 54. The Son of Sam. It was the Summer a city blacked out. The darkness came in one long wave, disappearing an iconic skyline along with it. And, for a moment, the neighborhood was still. The kind of still you see in movies before a big scare. When my sister sneaks up on me, I almost scream.
Minutes ago, I was heating Arroz con Gandules on the stove, my sister dancing in front of the air conditioner to Donna Summer's I Feel Love. Now, I'm lighting the sainted candle Mama keeps in the sink while the cockroaches scatter. The apartment becomes an oven. My sister opens the kitchen window, and the stench of garbage that hasn't been picked up for days slips in. It smells like the forgotten. We're suffocating, glued to the window because Mama isn't home from night school after working all day. Sweating bullets as trash cans blaze, and the streets fill with shadows. The silence shattered by breaking glass and pop, pop, pops.
Later, I'll want to remember this night like my father does—in his midtown apartment with his midtown wife and tell his story like it's my own, where neighbors share candles and meals and cocktails. But up here on 116th street, Mama doesn't have a midtown husband. And doors stay locked, and rallying cries of "It's Christmastime!" are bouncing off faded bricks and metal fire escapes.
From our window, we witness the wilding. Friends. Neighbors. Thieves. The powerless suddenly powerful. Pillaging storefronts. Running with televisions, stereos, boomboxes... food. We press our sweaty palms together in solidarity until we see Mama racing up the block, dodging looters being looted. Her long caramel hair flying. A beacon in the dark.
Karen Crawford grew up in the vibrant neighborhood of East Harlem in New York City. She is a writer with Puerto Rican roots and currently lives in the City of Angels, where she exorcizes demons one word at a time. Her work appears in Anti-Heroin Chic, Rejection Letters, A Thin Slice Of Anxiety, Six Sentences, Unfortunately, Literary magazine among others. You can find her on twitter @KarenCrawford_.
