summer-nights

Even so, there were times I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock 'n' roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights.

In the silence of the ticking of the clock__ minute hand, I found you. In the echoes of the reverberations of time, I found you. In the tender silence of the long summer night, I found you. In the fragrance of the rose petals, I found you. In the orange of the sunset, I found you. In the blue of the morning sky, I found you. In the echoes of the mountains, I found you. In the green of the valleys, I found you. In the chaos of this world, I found you. In the turbulence of the oceans, I found you. In the shrill cries of the grasshopper at night, I found you. In the gossamer sublimity of the silken cobweb, I found you.

Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the coast, sent across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in the red glitter of the illuminated boats.

The dreamy days and sticky nights of summer were already calling, as if anything could happen.

We came out on Coldra Crescent, one of those warm air nights, stars spitting in the sky like firebugs stuck on a big black velvet rump. A summer night to make anybody with standard glands feel that tidy homes, spring mattresses, four guaranteed meals per day, and legalised religion were all criminal to human development.

The summer night was settling upon the neighborhood like a dark lace veil, casting dappled shadows on the roofs and sidewalks and lawns.

These summer nights are short. Going to bed before midnight is unthinkable and talk, wine, moonlight and the warm air are often in league to defer it one, two or three hours more. It seems only a moment after falling asleep out of doors that dawn touches one gently on the shoulder, and, completely refreshed, up one gets, or creeps into the shade or indoors for another luxurious couple of hours. The afternoon is the time for real sleep: into the abyss one goes to emerge when the colours begin to revive and the world to breathe again about five o'clock, ready once more for the rigours and pleasures of late afternoon, the evening, and the night.

I__l save a spot for you on the hood of my truck.

All I cared about that summer were suntans, beaches, boys and booze.

Cabel felt the familiar nostalgic excitement of the endless possibilities encapsulated in a summers' night at Silver Beach. He smiled at himself as a boy and, more ruefully, at the man who now stood on the worn planks of the boardwalk. This night held no possibilities for him, though it was pleasant to remember a time when it did.