The Squeeze

It’s not summer until I’ve had a proper Italian Ice. I don’t mean the kind that comes from those scrape-able paper cups with included flat wooden spatulas from the grocer’s freezer. I’m talking about the real deal. It’s like frozen puffs of a lemon ice cloud scooped from Micalizzi’s in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Until you’ve had one, you don’t know what summer tastes like.

The first time I tasted one was in the summer of 1980.

“You wanna hump?”

I was ten years old, and I wanted something; I didn’t know what to call it. Up until that day, my summer had been spent re-reading the latest edition of MAD magazine and throwing triangles ripped from roof tiles down at cars from the second-floor porch with my three best friends Joey, Dino, and John.

I met Nikki after sneaking into the activities room at the Boys and Girls club. The counsellors didn’t care that I was not officially enrolled. I was participating, so they left me alone. They probably figured I needed to be there. Nikki was at my activity table. She was an older woman; she had to be at least 11 or 12. She had a wide, smooth face with full lips and a happy, happy smile. Her hair was a pom-pom of multiple braids that clacked together when the balls on her elastic bands met.

“I dunno – what’s humping?”

It was clear that Nikki liked me. She is probably the first girl that ever said so. I couldn’t imagine why she was interested in me. Nikki was tall and lean and sassy as hell. She had dark brown skin and scuffed knees and she was dressed for the heat in striped-orange, green and white shorts and a red tube top. She was at least a head taller than I was, but she didn’t seem to mind.

I was a shorter, frumpier version of myself. I was poor as hell and technically I was crashing the summer program.

Nikki explained what humping was - it was when a girl kissed a boy with her tongue in his mouth.

At that moment, I definitely wanted to hump.

We ‘humped” for about eight seconds in the sun by the picnic tables at the Boys and Girls Club. We were standing in the parched dirt on the side of the building, away from the prying eyes of the other day campers. Joey, John, and Dino had left a long time ago. From the side of the building, I could see the inmates at the Bridgeport Correctional Center, shirtless in the heat. Some were playing basketball, others huddled in some shade, and still others gazing out from the fence and staring straight at us. All I could see was stars. I was getting drunk on the sticky, warm salt and coconut oil that surrounded Nikki’s mouth.

“Let’s go get an ice – my mom gave me money.”

We walked across the street and ordered two small squeeze cups from Micalizzi’s. She had lemon, I had blue-raspberry. She paid for our ices and I grabbed us some napkins.

Nikki sucked in her teeth at me, “Tsk, you should have got lemon,” she chided. “Blue isn’t even a flavor.”

We sat down on the curb and dug into our squeeze cups.

“Here – try the lemon…”

Before I knew it, she had leaned over and kissed me. It was a softer, longer, and simpler kiss than before. This was definitely not humping. I could taste all of the flavors of that July afternoon mingled together. Lemon, salt, blue raspberry, coconut oil.

I was probably in love for the first time, maybe that is what summer tastes like.