Today I miss the smell of fresh tar.
Remember those days growing up when your dad would lay down a fresh coat of tar on the driveway? You'd leave in the morning to go ride bikes with the kid down the street who moved away just before your interests grew apart (but just after you started to think his older sister was cute). When you came back from the park, there would be those buckets sitting at the end of the driveway, twin plastic sentries, maybe with a two-by-four set across them, letting you know where not to step. No basketball today. No kickball. No setting up shaky, makeshift ramps at absurd inclines to launch your skateboard off of. Take your R/C car--your Grasshopper or RC-10 (if you were really lucky)--out to the street and hope the battery didn't run out just as someone in their Dodge Caravan came driving by. You want back into the house? Navigate the periphery of the driveway by way of the side lawn and use the back entrance near the grill, sidestepping the old green turtle-shaped sandbox with its cracked lid half off and the sand overgrowing with grass and weeds. Maybe inside mom will have a fresh jug of Wyler's grape drink ready for you, made just the way you like it, with a thin skin of sugar scuzz floating on top that lets you know there's just enough sugar in it to keep you going until sundown. After dinner you watch Real People or That's Incredible before you go to bed. The windows are open and all you can smell is the tar cooling on the driveway below. Tomorrow it will be okay to walk on. Tomorrow it will be okay to play on. Tomorrow you'll find a spot at one of the edges where the tar isn't fully secured to the pavement. And you'll start to peel.
