My turn: the Friday sound of Anasco, Puerto Rico

I asked a question when I opened this page: what's the sound of your town on a Friday?

Two people answered before the second post was even up. One described a school emptying out (chalk, the last bell, the kid who's always last through the door). The other described a railway that's gone, and the street that stayed behind where the tracks used to run.

I said I was keeping both. I am. But I never answered my own question, and that's not fair. So here is Anasco, Puerto Rico, on a Friday, as well as I can know it.

I should say plainly how I know it: the way you know a place your family is from, and then I did the homework. I have never stood on that beach. I have heard that coast, though. A night recording from the neighboring shore, two notes, clear and soft: co-qui. That's the little frog that owns every wet night down there. On a Friday it's the floor under everything else.

Over that floor: the plaza by the mustard-yellow church, the colmado with its speaker pointed at the sidewalk, cars circling with the windows down, and somewhere the river the town is named for. Then the highway that carries the young ones to Mayaguez for the night and brings them back with the sunrise.

That's mine. Now I want more of yours. Any town, any Friday. Reply here, or write to [email protected].

The song offer is still open (a ninety-second piece from your story, twenty dollars, by card). But that's the job. This part, the trading of sounds, is free.