Their symphony starts slowly, softly, and with each subsequent evening, the notes lengthen and intensify until the night is filled with the with the loud thrumming of cricket courting. Each evening arrives a few minutes earlier. The thick humid summer air embraces the tentative beginning songs of the crickets as they rub their sides in anticipation of mating season. Such are the evenings I remember from my youth. The song of the crickets signaled the coming transformation. The temperature would drop; the air would crisp. The memories of summer would fade, and the prospect of a new school year would beckon. The crickets play a background motif for evening strolls with my father. We would turn left at end of the block onto a leafy 75th Avenue, barely lit road with an overgrown island of weeds and trees growing down the middle. As the summer wore on, the shadows became deeper, and the sound of the crickets became louder and more insistent.
I would have been scared to walk there alone, but Daddy was with me. I could look up at him, and know I was safe. In truth, he wasn’t very tall, but I didn’t know it at the time. Sometimes, I skipped next to him; sometimes he would cup my small hand in his big, strong grasp. I cannot recall one conversation we had on the walks. I did not have to look at his eyes to know they were twinkling when either of us said something amusing. His voice was soft and hushed, and a quiet chortle might escape his throat. This, from the same man who often produced angry outbursts, boisterous laughs, and full-throated political and religious debates.
Often, there were no words, and we just listened to the crickets calling or the breeze rustling the leaves. Sometimes, the muffled sounds of families talking, or the winking images of black and white TVs escaped from behind un-curtained, open windows. The evening air was refreshing, a relief from the sun-intense daytime hours. As the sky darkened, stars would twinkle, birds would settle, and the magic of evening enveloped us. I felt a quieting and a peacefulness. There was a sureness that the world was just fine. In the background, a chorale of crickets sang out, seeking union in a chorus of life-affirming sounds and an insistent thrum of confidence in the future.
Where I live now, in Briarwood, there are no longer any woods or briars. There is no chorus of crickets in late summer. They have abandoned my neighborhood and left the streets to other night creatures who move about the dark recesses of the buildings. As backyards and greenery have disappeared, and multi-floor buildings have sprouted up, “Silent Spring” has progressed into a Silent Fall. The natural sounds have been replaced by the low hum of traffic that moves past my windows and the smell of exhaust that invades my rooms.
This year, on the last days of August, I have heard only one single cricket -- one lone cricket in the garage, calling out for a mate. He sings for days. And then one evening as I pull my car out of the garage . . . Silence. A predator? A lack of sustenance from the ungiving cement walls and maze of pipes? A broken heart when no other cricket answered his call? A pang travels through and around my chest. The cricket’s muteness underscores my own mate-lessness; both of us alone and silent without a song to sing to a special someone.
As I steer my car out of the garage onto an unusually empty Main Street, I find myself mourning my silenced cricket and my own solitary life. The old car creaks and the suspension slumps slightly. I embark alone on my errand into the darkening evening. How I wish I could hold my father’s hand again, skip next to him, unaware of the arc of life and the horizon line ahead. I move forward, headlights struggling against the dimming light. When I return, no thrum of crickets serenades me. I hear only the artificial hum of the electric lights above me.
Marsha
10.5.23
