Drifting through the dog days
a SUIT column by Chris Jungle

It's that time of year again. The time when weather outside is as hot as temperature inside your body. The time when the kids at the lemonade stand actually turn a tidy profit. The time when we understand what it's like to be the dog lying on the ground who's only movement is to flick its ear in a feeble to get the fly off. The time to do nothing in particular.

The days drip by with the stock market soaring as much as the thermometer, and everyone wishes they could all just sit back and watch as their stocks pay as much as their regular salaries. Higher, higher, higher, everybody cries as if the stock exchange was just a young boy stacking blocks upon blocks hoping they never fall down.

Sweat drips off the faces of young boys and girls who can dream of going into space realistically again. We're on Mars, we're on Mir, we're on miles of open empty space the universe holds for us. Running around the yard with a miniature shuttle, the children make noises as if the ship can go into second and third. The heat raises our hopes beyond our atmosphere, and there seems to be no end to where our dreams can drift.

For a full night of entertainment, people only need to sit in the back yard, or porch, or veranda with a tall and wide glass of ice water listening to the symphony of the summer dusk. Insects chatting, wind sliding, clouds hanging. The moon and stars complete a free picture everyone can partake in with slight changes every few minutes. Nothing good on TV. All of the new shows are going on outside and with a lot less glare.

The code word for clothing is casual. Ladies in summer dresses that move as freely as the waves in the deepest sections of the seas no one travels. Men going shirtless and in sandals as the heat overpowers inhibitions. Kids running around in swimsuits as they jump in and out of the eight dollar plastic pool in the yard. No school tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day, or the next. Nobody knows what tomorrow's plans are, but the blankness on the schedule offers possibilities not thought of during any other time of year.

Latin and Caribbean music serves as a sounds for the weather. Bob Marley chants down Babylon, War spills the wine, Los Lobos rides the train, and Santana plays and plays. Little light beats turn into long sliding riffs, and lyrics of inconsequence have the most meaning. There's always another record or tape or CD to put in as the makeshift soundtrack changes every night. Everyone sings along or taps a toe.

Politics seem irreverent, issues become tedious, and conflicts are unnecessary. No one solves their problems in this kind of heat. Even the dogs stop barking during this time of year. Arguments are for the air conditioned. The GOP is fighting among themselves? Send them all outside. Those who do not accept the weather for what it is just hide pretending they live in an artificial igloo.

Baseball games last three and half hours, but it doesn't seem to matter. The games write and rewrite the end of the script until one team has the final say so. Pick up basketball games fill the concrete courts. Jungle ball, call your own, play to twenty, loser leaves the court. Talking trash no matter what the score is. Frisbees fly, softballs bounce, and soccer balls bend. Even footballs are starting to pop up here and there. Grass stains, bruises from elbows, raspberries on knees, and sweat. Enough sweat to drain the body of any tears. At least for awhile.

There are only two or three weeks a summer when the heat slows everyone down so much it could be considered a narcotic, when the sun rays coming down feel heavy on the body and mind, when an entire nation ponders if the greenhouse effect is truly going on, when all written phrases start to look and read the same.

It's the time for far off dreams to be on the forefront of a person's mind searching for something that makes them unique by their actions instead of their genetic make up while reaching for another glass of lemonade to quench the dryness that has creeped into the back of their throat so they ask say out loud if only in a slight volume "What is the point of me doing what I'm doing?"

Chris Jungle has been caught hiking on several occasions in high 90 degree weather which has the equivalent effect on the mind as many Schedule I Narcotics. He is currently in treatment to avoid jail time.

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