The Cellar Called It Summer

I pulled the cellar cord. The bulb gave one tired blink. A red rubber patch clung to the handrail, the same red oval from all my childhood drawings. (where was I?) Behind the freezer, a little tune turned over. Come around... come around. I knew the next note before it arrived. I remember an ice cream truck, white paint, blue menu boards, the tune coming through the laundry vent. I ran beside it without moving. (come closer) Vanilla striped my wrist, but my hands had nothing in them. At the curb, the road ended in cinderblock. The swimming pool came next. Blue squares pressed through my socks. The ladder rose toward copper pipes. No sky, only yellow insulation. (under the blue) I counted each splash. The sump released one when I said, again. Under the blue... under the blue. Then the jumping castle. Its towers brushed the ceiling joists. Every landing made the boiler answer. The painted playground wrinkled at the seams. (up, down) I found my name beneath a vinyl flap, backward in my own block letters. The floor lifted before I jumped. Again... again. Now the red oval waits on the cellar wall, beside a strip of blue tile and the cart's paper menu. They aren't souvenirs. They're alignment marks. (I remember now) A freezer cart follows a worn circle in the floor. The sump sends water across the tiles. The boiler fills the yellow vinyl room when the cassette says, Summer. These weren't summers that ended down here. This room assembled them. (again, again) The cassette turns over. My younger voice begins the first lesson: When you hear the tune, run outside. Come around... come around.