Hot Summer Neighborhoods

Summer has hit Detroit big-time. It's been over 85 degrees for daytime highs since before the Red Wings won the cup, with only occasional rain interrupting the hazy muggyness. I've begun speaking often of my desire to install central air conditioning in my house, which I plan to do when I replace the furnace. The current furnace is as old as the house, so I expect to need to replace it soon. These days, I have a smallish window-mounted air conditioner that cools off the kitchen fairly well but doesn't reach much deeper into the house than that. I find myself glad to be able to go to work, where the air conditioning is at least present if not particularly hyperactive.

Last night I went for a walk in my neighborhood. Amazingly enough it was the first time I had done so. But on a warm muggy night the need arises for an ice cream drumstick, and so I went to the gas station about three blocks from my house. A drumstick, for those who don't know the particular brand, is an ice cream cone that comes pre-packaged, and usually has a coating of chocolate and peanuts on the ice cream part. The attraction, I suspect, is that I usually have to walk a little bit to get one. I doubt I'd eat them regularly if I had a box of them in my freezer.

Everything is more relaxed when it's hot and night and muggy. I set out in t-shirt, shorts, and shoes where a few months, even a few weeks ago, I'd have been wearing two shirts, a leather vest, and boots. The neighborhood is quiet, and the few people who are outside are either quiet or make quiet comments to you. "Watch the sprinkler," one man said. I remarked back "Thanks... though it might be a good thing tonight," referring to how a nice shower would be a good thing. Windows and doors are open, and I surreptitiously glance inside to see what's on the television, whether they have panelled living rooms or painted.

I learned a few things about the neighborhood. The main street on the way to the gas station is lined with grubby little industrial buildings—welding shops, car repair joints, a tax service stuck in the corner of what looks like it was a factory. The one house that I passed was burned out, a little sore in the middle of the scruffy grass between two factories. I had the realization that this might be the worst neighborhood I've lived in since my parents moved out of Detroit's lower east side in the mid 1970s. The residence motel I passed just before the gas station did little to change that impression even considering it was upgraded to chain-motel status just a month or so ago.

I got the drumstick—well, it wasn't the Drumstick brand, but it was the same concept—and headed back. I took the long way back to my block so I could pass by the houses belonging to neighbors I hadn't met yet. The street I live on is a lot less of a bad neighborhood than the main road two blocks south would indicate. In a way it looks like the kind of place where you'd find garages with $15,000 motorcycles and $2,000 pickup trucks or station wagons. In reality, there's only one Harley owner on the block near as I can tell. The vehicle of choice seems to be the conversion van—one yard has two parked in the driveway. Boats can be found in a couple of driveways too. This is Macomb County, after all, bordering on Lake St. Claire and convenient to freeways that let you get away to camping and boating up north.

And the dogs. You seem to find a dog in every third yard in my neighborhood. One barked before he got up, and came up to the fence barking but wagging. I looked back at him, and he didn't seem unfriendly, but I don't know exactly what he'd do if I had stopped next to the fence. Another dog a few yards down reached up to the top of the driveway gate and barked, just as his owner was coming out. I wondered how fast the dog would go if she opened the gate and didn't keep him from taking off.

It wasn't a long walk, really, and by the time I was in my house only about a half hour had passed. Twenty minutes later thunder boomed and the rain started. I sat in my kitchen and played guitar, insulated from the outside by the noise of the air conditioner, the closed windows, the darkness. I'm not sure central air conditioning is a good thing after all. It will raise the value of the house, and it will give me refuge from the suburban heat. I just hope I remember to go outside after it's installed.

—Charlie Songdog
June 1998