The Baltimore city sun had reached its zenith hours ago, baking the breath from the August streets and alleyways. It was Friday. Garbage bags of glistening black plastic bordered sidewalks and permeated the air with odors of diapers and fish.
A small child’s unshod feet slapped rhythmically against the macadam as two ropes swung around her scrawny frame. Chanting a timeless skipping song, the girl’s two best friends watched her feet as they left the pavement and landed again and again. These three offered the only evidence of life on the tired street, and today even the weathered brownstones lining the avenue were unusually quiet. An occasional curtain blew outward, fluttering in the steadfast sun or sometime shadows like a pigeon’s wing on the sidewalk. Hardly discernible, the gentle humming of fans orchestrated a background song that set the tone for the sweltering street performance.
Some distance away, a dog barked and its voice clapped sharply between the stone structures until the sound slowly dissipated into the late afternoon. It was at the edge of this sharp sound, the girls’ voices and the rope slap could be best heard.
The trio switched positions. The jumper now held her end of the twin cords, picking up the chant as a sturdy girl with thick braids entered the ropes. Drops of perspiration ran down her face as her sneakers pounded the blacktop. No grace was here. The weight of her landing flattened tar bubbles leaving pools of hot water that dried quickly against the blistering stone. The steady pounding gave the street a heartbeat; the thump, thump pulsed down the boulevards and avenues until traffic muffled the sound and lost it altogether.
From a fourth floor window, a voice thick with sleepy-too-much-TV overtones shouted, “ Candace, you better not be jumping around in this heat!”
The jumper stopped, head down, and walked to the ropes’ end. She shrugged her shoulders and taking control of the turns continued the song. The third child watched as the braided cotton rose above her and then back down snapping against the ground. Humming the chant as her body rocked, she waited in anticipation for the right moment to enter the center of the game. In she went; and with a vigor that belied the torrid day, she hopped and danced and skipped above the ropes as they persistently beat the patient street.
Above the roof of St. John’s Evangelical Church, the white sun blazed. Almost pausing in its journey above the tired city, it seemed to rest on the ancient structure’s cross, to watch the jumpers in quiet fascination.
A throaty whistle blew somewhere indicating the end of another workday. A bus blowing a diesel cloud in its wake paused at the end of the street to open a squeaking door. Tired passengers emerged in pastel dresses and crumpled suits. Work clothes and uniforms moved down the stairs to the sidewalk weary with swollen ankles and tired eyes. These people spoke quietly among themselves with their bodies gravitating together in lines of gossip or political discourse. Some laughter followed behind them like late day shadows as they walked over cracked slate and cement-patched sidewalks.
One member of the bus group stopped and moved towards the stoop near where the girls were playing. Her eyes flashed to the street and the swinging ropes.
“Jane, get inside now and help me with the dinner.”
The ropes dropped lifelessly to the now almost completely shadowed roadway. The woman watched her daughter as she smiled hard at her friends and gathered the lines around her arm. She ran waving to her mother, who scrutinized the moment with a past memory of the street games.
Slowly the light faded. People continued to return to their homes. TV sounds echoed up and down the block, and lamps cast long shadows of life into the darkness.