Summer has started here in small town America. Memorial Day Weekend. No one has a clue what it represents, but everyone knows it is a three day weekend. Here in tiny little southern suburbia nothing is out of the ordinary. Happy hour started promptly at five. The bar was awash with kids, parents, and grandparents. Chats about babysitters, weekend visits from family members, and summer camp plans for the young one drifted throughout the room as alcohol was poured.

Outside, on the historic mall, locals milled about. Perfect weather. Teenagers around the pizza place discussing this folk singing crap hole of a city. Parents talking while holding the leash of the family dog. Baby carriages everywhere.

In another two hours the vast majority of people will climb in their cars and drive back to their homes just outside of town in a lovely little complex. The downtown will be left with bums, cops, and teens looking for quick fun. Two hours after that it will just be the bums. The perfect evening will be over. Summer will be here.

During this evening I would love to have enjoyed a martini sitting under a darkening sky, a gentle breeze, and a half moon. Fireflies in the air. Single people over the age of 18 talking about work and the future. Instead the locals all have a vaporous cloud made up of small particles of carcinogenic matter hanging around them as they chatter about kids and diapers. The distinctive twang of incomprehensible southern vowels and consonants grates at my nerves. Ashtrays are neatly placed on every outdoor table, and everyone is using them to maximum capacity.

This tiny little cesspool of the south makes me wonder about the exact moment when my life got flushed in to this cesspool. Was there one decision that got me in to this situation, or was it a combination of things? I guess I still need more hindsight before my vision gets even close to 20/20 once again.

Due to lack of options I’m sitting here on my own porch, watching locals wander by and stopping to pick up a pack of smokes. Fireflies are in the air. A gentle breeze in blowing. It is a perfect evening in southern suburbia.