Short Summer

Girls are wearing summer dresses or the latest short shorts (which are just like the old short shorts but a bit shorter), yellow cab drivers are leaning on their horns like depraved Roman Emperors on silk cushions, mobster’s moms and street-smart old-timers are setting up camp on the sidewalk, sunglasses continue their bid for face domination, and the sky is that deep, endless blue that promises nothing but idle heat. All this can only mean that summer has plonked his old suitcase in Manhattan and means to rest up awhile. Not before time, I hasten to add. Having survived my first full New York winter, I greet the sun on my face as a thirsty man salutes a crisp, cold beer, and have decided we shall see much of each other over the coming months. Central Park, that vestige of nature holding back the dusty grey metropolis, beckons, and my compadre Tom knows Eden the wheeler-dealer with the ice box of beer. Never would have thought Tom held the key to Paradise! The other great thing about the park is the assortment of eccentrics who gather there - from the oddballs who’ve just roller skated out of the 80s, to the mostly naked fiddle player who stamps around under the bridge like an man-eagle doing a rain dance. But my favourite is Turtle Man, Defender of the Innocent. He wears a mask and cloak and even has turtles, though whether they’re innocent or not is hard to say. If you ask me, those little guys look shifty, like they know something you don’t.

So, all hail the New York summer. It will squash us like ants and send us scurrying into shops, cinemas, bars, even gyms, anywhere that boasts Mankind’s greatest invention… air-conditioning. But for now it’s all about the summer dresses. And the short short shorts.