"...lunch"

*Warning pack a lunch and a sleeping bag as this is a long summer saga.

Once upon a time:

Me my Dad our Buick, and the Faeries. City faeries are neat, but you have to be quick to spot them. This is a tough town, and faerie or not you have to be fast to get over.

City faeries are attracted to neon lights. In summer to see them folks buzzing brightly lit pizza, and ice cream stands. They also like the ruby red lights on da butt end of cars. That's how I saw my first faerie's.

This happened a few thousand years ago when there was no such things as being Homeless. America was fat happy and on the make. Heck my dad got us a house, car, and TV. On a baker's salary! I was even sentenced to catholic school and them things ain't cheap. We'll 'never' see such times again.

Well, one night in that long ago gleeful time I was sitting next to my dad on the front seat of our Buick. A 1958 sky blue, and white two tone. Detroit knew what it was doing in them days.

Anyway, as is the habit of kids on long car rides, I was squinting my eyes to make the passing streetlights look weird. I had just begun to do the same with the car ahead of us when I see something odd.

"Wow that's a big bug!" I thought.

Only when I stopped squinting it wasn't. A bug that is. It wasn't tinker bell either. It was a bleeping Faerie! Thing is faerie's is just like folks. Just a lot smaller...with wings feelers weird colors, sometimes extra arms magical powers, halos, and eh...Well okay faerie's ain't like folks at all, but so what.

So there I am sitting next to the old man as we're rolling through Queens, and there's these little faerie folks darting around the tail lights of the '56 Oldsmobile in front of us. Hey, com'on ya can't make this stuff up.

'See by this time I'm an experienced kid and know better than to tell my dad that I'm seeing tiny bug people on the ass-end of the car he's tailgating. Hey gimme some credit. I still remember the penance I had to do for one of my previous visions.

I foolishly told my folks that I saw flaming bat winged hog demons flying out of an open manhole on Flatbush Avenue. My mom made me kneel on a rod while I said the rosary ten times over for being in league with Satan. Heck I never even met the guy.

So I keep my young trap shut. If dad saw anything he wasn't about to tell me. He knew better too.

Still, they was fun to watch, and they meant no harm.

"Yes, all very interesting" you say, "but Uncle Sidney what the hell are you getting at with all this?"

Ah, I'm glad you asked!

See what with the burning hell of summer in our faces. We has to prepare for "Faerie Time!"

"Da fuck?" you say. ...Hear me out.

As we know from traditions handed down from kid to kid. Like the varied rules of stick ball. These morph from block to block. That and "Ring Around the Rosy" passed from child to child for nearly a thousand years. The knowledge of "Faerie Time" has come to the 21st century.

Come midnight on the Longest Day them faerie folk wakes up!

That Queer bunch opens their eyes and begins their summer frolics! Which is to say it's their mating, and general screwing around w/humanity season. One thing tho' don't mess with'em. Don't be bamboozling or ripping these folks off. They may be cute but they has sharp teeth, and heartless lawyers. ...get da picture?

Otherwise, we're all welcome to dance the summer with them. That business about abducting folks for years is crap told by the Church, Microsoft and the NSA. As for them 'Hell Demons' who are also real...take my word. Ran into a bunch while doing eight balls with meth chasers. Bad idea! Stay da bleep clear of them bastards.

As for 'Faerie Time'. How long has this been going on? How da bleep should I know? Rule of thumbs sez they showed up somewhere between Eve, and Babylon.

"The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers to bed. ...'tis almost fairy time."

(Sez Francis Bacon or Shakespeare, or somebody.)

Legends, and real history, are full of faerie traces and their weird goings on. That Shakespeare/Bacon play kinda got some of it right, but they mixed it up with all their class, and culture bullshit.

I guess every era does that in a way.

But "Faerie Time" is a real deal.

My older cousins told me, and I told my special friends at school, and they told their friends, and so, and so, and so through the years, and ages to come.

An unbroken tradition from kid to kid. Like learning how to jerk off or shoplift.

When I was little, I danced in a faerie circle with the sweet wee folk by the light of a full moon in Harlem. Then again on a warm steamy night in Central Park when I was a happily crazed, and horny teenager. Now in my demented pissed off later years I still hear their songs.

Bless the little fuckers!