Nine-Thirty + 

People sat on porches rocking and talking in low tones, enjoying the warmth of April, people passing beneath dark trees along the street, old and young, men and women, making comfortable, unintelligible sounds, like cattle going to barn and bed. Tiny red eyes passed along at mouth-height and burning tobacco lingered behind sweet and pungent. Spitting arc lights, at street corners, revealed the passersby, temporarily dogging them with elastic shadows. Cars passed under the lights and he recognized friends: young men and the inevitable girls with whom they were “going”⁠—coiffed or bobbed hair and slim young hands fluttering forever about it, keeping it in place.⁠ ⁠… The cars passed on into darkness, into another light, into darkness again. + 