1
Quentin
There was nothing like a summer night. The North Carolina heat searing away the edges of the day and stinging on your skin the instant you walked out of the house faded and softened. As the sun seemed to melt and slip down the edge of the sky until it pooled on the horizon, it took the miserable humidity with it. In its place it left relief and a welcome breeze. It was like the temperature hovered so high it finally reached its capacity and cracked, and I felt like I could breathe.
Even better was a lazy summer night when I had nothing hanging over me, no expectations. When I just got a chance to relax and enjoy it. Those were rare. Life was busy and it felt like far too often my plans to just take in a night and savor it got steamrolled by something. I could spend the day absolutely determined to take a break and head out into my backyard for the evening, then get wrapped up in something and by the time I was able to pull away from it, I realized it was the middle of the night. Not that it stopped me from still wanting to head out. There were plenty of times when midnight found me tempted to wake up my fire pit and sit out there in the dark.
I stopped myself from doing it, willing myself into bed instead, but the longing was still there. But not that night. I finally had some time when I didn’t have responsibilities and urgent needs pressing in around me, and I could actually have one of those coveted lazy summer nights. And I fully intended on absorbing every minute of it. Grabbing the tray of food I’d put together, I carried it outside onto my deck, then down the large staircase that led to my lawn. Despite not being able to spend much time in it, it was entirely possible my backyard was actually my favorite feature of my house. A lot of time, energy, and money went into creating the exact space I wanted, so when I did get the time to enjoy it, it was everything I could want.
That included the massive stone fire pit surrounded by large custom-created log benches and stools. They reminded me of the camping trips my family used to take when I was younger. My brothers and I would sit around the fire for as long as our parents let us, roasting anything we could figure out how to impale on the end of a stick or stuff into a sandwich maker. While we ate scorched hot dogs and stuck our fingers together with the remnants of s’mores, we told increasingly disturbing ghost stories with the singular goal of scaring the hell out of each other. There was the ongoing challenge to see which one would sneak up closer to the fire to get in more of the light, which would turn on their flashlight first, and which would try to make enough “accidental” noise to lure our parents out of the tent to stop the story.
This pit was a bit more sophisticated than the ring we built from whatever rocks we could find scattered around in the woods, and I rarely had to worry about critters scurrying out of the logs when they lit. Our snacks had gotten less messy and were usually accompanied by beer. We hadn’t told ghost stories in years. But the spirit and sentiment were still there.
My brothers and parents were already sitting around the blazing bonfire. My father occasionally prodded the logs, sending cascades of sparks up into the darkening sky.
“Here we go,” I said. “A few more things to dig into.”
My youngest brother stared at the tray as I set it down.
“Seriously? We’re going to make snakes?” he asked. “Are you sure you’re the oldest brother?”
“I hate when you call them that,” my mother said, shuddering. “I never hear the whole sentence, and it always gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
My brother Nick lifted up from the seat beside Darren and grabbed one of the pieces of dough stretched out on a plate in the middle of the tray.
“What are you talking about, Darren? These things are delicious,” he said.
They were nothing more than canned biscuit dough wrapped around the end of a stick and roasted over the fire until done, then rolled in butter, but they were always a favorite treat on those long-ago camping trips. Cheap and fast, they were an easy way for my parents to feed their brood of four boys, and because they could be dipped in either cinnamon sugar or salt once buttered, they pleased everybody. As we got a little older, we’d graduated to adding garlic or sometimes chili powder to the savory ones, but the cinnamon sugar option was left untouched, a sacred part of summer.