Summer wanes. The days are still hot, but the nights turn deliciously cool. Windows remain open and air conditioners are finally unplugged.

In the heat of the day, a verdant vista remains. Not a tree has turned to blaze yet, not a-one. The school year, though, has begun, and my mind turns to yesteryear.

You’re a kid, in the old days of NYC. It’s hot and humid and you have no a/c, because your apartment is wired for 60 amp service. Fifteen amp glass fuses blow with great regularity. Plus, who has money for a/c?

Your dad is working late, your mom is working too, and your sister? Who the hell knows where she is.

Homework is done. It’s dinner time, but there’s no dinner. So you go to the arctic a/c of Pizza Haven, on Kingsbridge Road, your local pizza place, and order four slices to stay, very hot, and a large orange drink. This is a beverage that has as much in common with real fruit as Spam has with a porterhouse steak. But it’s cold, it’s sweet, and it tastes great, and: you’re a little kid, so what do you know from nutrition?

Gino, the pizzeria owner, slides your slices from a countertop “house pie” onto his scarred wooden peel and slips them into his Baker’s Pride oven. He gives them a nudge and flips the oven door closed. It will take a while. Your sweat will turn to icicles. It’s a 65-degree meat locker in there.

Your stomach growls.

As you wait for your dinner, you fish a dime out of your sweat soaked jeans and pop it into the juke box. You press buttons to make racks and racks of record titles flip over. A-side. B-side. You finally find your selection. G15. Press the white key for “G”, then another key for “15”. A small vinyl disc, a 45, flops over and slides into place. It’s a song you dream of playing someday, while on your first date with Felicia Abramoff, prettiest girl in the class, prettier even than the Mouseketeers’ Annette Funicello.

You tingle to the sound of the sexy saxes that herald the wall-of-sound introduction, and then nearly swoon with excitement when Little Eva beckons: “Everybody’s doin’ a brand new dance now-owww…”

At last, Gino calls you over to the counter. Your slices are placed on a battered aluminum pizza tray.

You sprinkle your dinner with a blizzard of garlic powder and hot pepper flakes. You reach for a straw from a dispenser on top of the glass counter. “Just take-a one,” Gino chides.

“Do it nice ‘n’ easy now and don’t lose control…a little bit of rhythm and a lotta soul….” Little Eva explains. You float back to your table on the wings of puppy love.

You sit down, fold your first slice, take a big bite of molten goodness, and sigh, for Little Eva is convincing: “There’s never been a dance that’s so easy to do. It even makes you happy when you’re feelin’ blue….”

Jeez, it’s fucking hot out there, you think. You hope that someday, life gets easier. For now, though, this is as good as it gets.