Hot summer night

   It's four in the morning. Eighty-one degrees on the back porch. I just couldn't stand to lay in the heat, besides I've got other things on my mind tonight. In just a few hours I'm to be at the Customs House to leave for Parris Island.
   I'm not going to college, but at least I'm getting out of Patapsco. This morning -- yesterday morning I grouted for hours in an old house over on Roland Avenue. With the bucks Mr. Charles paid me, Bart and I bought two six packs of Carlings Beer. We got drunk in his basement before five o'clock this afternoon.
   When I came home, my father wanted me sit around and talk with him. He wanted to give me all the advice he'd neglected to give me over seventeen years in one sitting. As soon as I could, I thought of an excuse -- my friends are giving me a party on my last night before boot camp.
   Actually there wasn't any party, but I did get drunk again.
   We drank beers as we rode around. I didn't even notice who was driven or what car until our car rammed into a parked car. A fellow came out of the closest house and I

 

realized then that the driver didn't have his license.
   I jumped out of the car. Down one street. Up another. Finally I stumbled across two fences that separated the back yards of two streets. There was a gap of a couple of feet between the fences and the yards. I ran down it until I was halfway between the streets. I laid down and waited.
   It didn't take long. The flashing lights on the roof of the slowly moving cop car encouraged me to flatten myself even tighter to the ground, so their beam wouldn't detect me. There was no doubt they looked for the terrible driver and me.
   It was a good hidden area I had stumbled onto. In a few minutes the cops gave up. I stood up and realized my shirt was torn, my head ached, and I wanted to see Betsy.
   It was midnight by the time I reached Rawlings Avenue.
   When I got near her front porch, I could see the front door open. Two figures stood huddled together. I quickly ducked off the sidewalk and behind a clump of bushes.
   "Yeah, Betsy." It was Josh. "I saw Chet riding around with Sidney. When they went past the Patapsco Bridal Shop, Chet threw a beer bottle. The plate glass front