THE INGREDIENTS JASON REYNOLDS
Summertime in Brooklyn means doing whatever you can to stay cool. Cool as in not becoming a melted version of yourself in the heat. Also, cool as in not sitting inside doing nothing, which means being outdoors, socializing in the midst of the buzz of the sun, that which serves as a heat lamp looming over the land of lizards—tough-skinned chameleon kids who blend into the browns and reds of the row homes and the jagged grit of the concrete. Kids who, in an effort to be cool and stay cool, can only hang out at one place—the swimming pool. For Jamal, Big Boy, Flaco, and Randy, it’s Kosciuszko Pool, a name they butcher effortlessly because they’ve never met a Kosciuszko—or a Polish person at all—to tell them how to pronounce it correctly. Plus, to them, it’s just the pool. And on any given sweltering summer day, when Bed-Stuy becomes a microwave, the pool might as well be called heaven.
3RD_9780008326555_BlackEnough.indd 106
28/11/2018 11:07