July 30 2007, 10:54 PM Fizz, Summer

It is hot. We are in the process of trading one heat for the other, here; the air is turning from a warm licking of syrup to the hot dry heat of ovens. The night sends teasing breezes through the window, and the ceiling fans prove more reliable. There are few lights on, and the kitchen is still hot from cooking. A good time for the porch.

I have touched on this before: growing up, there was a soda shop at the end of the alley from my Grandmother's house, and we would often find ourselves there on nights like these, all those years ago on the other side of the Commonwealth. I remember seeing the word "Phosphate" in the corner of the menu board, over a small collection of flavors. I asked the counter lady for a chocolate.

She leaned over the counter to look down at me with a stern face. "It's not sweet," she said. "You won't like it".

I drank it anyway: seltzer, chocolate syrup, and and a touch of phosphoric acid. She was right: it was bright, and tart, and while I wasn't sure I liked it, I drank it anyway.

I make them these days with seltzer water from the store (there was an unfortunate brush with a seltzer bottle some time ago: the store bottles are easier). I should be using U-Bet syrup, and I can occasionally find it here, but I always use Hershey's: this is a drink of place, and I do not live in New York City (I will admit, too, that I more likely use Hershey's because I always have - the drink is like that, too). I do not have any phosphoric acid, but that's all right. I'm not even sure where to get some, at this point (that is to say: I've not get gotten around to looking). Pour seltzer into a glass: glop syrup in, and stir gently. The drink is crisp, refreshing, and deeply strange. Add some milk for a dessert with a stranger name. In the clutter of the cabinets, I could find no straws, but that's all right, too.

So I sit on the porch with a chocolate phosphate, the air rattles in the trees, the lantern sways a little, and a fat red moon rises in the sky.