Or like some 1950s Hollywood depiction of a gang of teen-age hoods (duck-ass hairdos, turned-up collars, short sleeves rolled high, Levi’s low-slung and jackboots and acne) gearing up to savage and pillage the clean-cut, crew-top, saddle-oxforded basketball star for Central High who slipped and squealed to the principal about how he had come upon Arnie, Rance and B.J. in the lower-level men’s room smoking strange cigarettes and sniffing “that stuff.”

[I]t was better fun wandering about with the old man at night than moping in my hut, listening to the morepoke.

The drink splattered all over me, the table, and the floor when I knocked it over.

The savings and scrimpings from the cold nights of all his years were ripe to be squandered.