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By Root 8733 0

closing time and right away they were out on the street again. They couldn't find any hookers; Wil said he knew a house but they soaked you too damn much, and they were just about going home to turn in when they ran into two high yel ers who gave 'em the eye. They fol owed 'em down the street a long way and into a cross street where there weren't many lights. The girls were hot stuff but they were scared and nervous for fear some-body might see 'em. They found an empty house with a back porch where it was black as pitch and took 'em up there and afterwards they went back and slept at Wil Stirp's folks' house. The Tampa had gone into drydock at Newport News for repairs on a started plate. Joe and Wil Stirp were paid off and hung round Norfolk al day without know-ing what to do with themselves. Saturday afternoons and Sundays, Joe played a little basebal with a scratch team of boys who worked in the Navy Yard, evenings he went out with Del a Matthews. She was a stenographer in the

-47-First National Bank and used to say she'd never marry a boy who went to sea, you couldn't trust 'em and that it was a rough kind of a life and didn't have any advance-ment in it. Joe said she was right but you were only young once and what the hel things didn't matter so much anyway. She used to ask him about his folks and why he didn't go up to Washington to see them especial y as his dad was il . He said the old man could choke for al he cared, he hated him, that was about the size of it. She said she thought he was terrible. That time he was setting her up to a soda after the movies. She looked cute and plump in a fluffy pink dress and her little black eyes al excited and flashing. Joe said not to talk about that stuff, it didn't matter, but she looked at him awful mean and mad and said she'd like to shake him and that everything mattered terribly and it was wicked to talk like that and that he was a nice boy and came from nice people and had been nicely raised and ought to be thinking of get-ting ahead in the world instead of being a bum and a loafer. Joe got sore and said was that so? and left her at her folks' house without saying another word. He didn't see her for four or five days after that. Then he went by where Del a worked, and waited for

her to come out one evening. He'd been thinking about her more than he wanted to and what she'd said. First, she tried to walk past him but he grinned at her and she couldn't help smiling back. He was pretty broke by that time but he took her and bought her a box of candy. They talked about how hot it was and he said they'd go to the bal game next week. He told her how the Tampa was pul ing out for Pensacola to load lumber and then across to the other side.

They were waiting for the trol ey to go to Virginia Beach, walking up and down fighting the mosquitoes. She looked al upset when he said he was going to the other side. Before Joe knew what he was doing he was saying

-48-that he wouldn't ship on the Tampa again, but that he'd get a job right here in Norfolk. That night was ful moon. They fooled around in their bathing suits a long while on the beach beside a little smudgefire Joe made to keep the mosquitoes off. He was sitting crosslegged and she lay with her head on his knees and al the time he was stroking her hair and leaning over and kissing her; she said how funny his face looked upside down when he kissed her like that. She said they'd get married as soon as he got a steady job and between the two of them they'd amount to something. Ever since

she'd graduated from high school at the head of her class she'd felt she ought to work hard and amount to some-thing. "The folks round here are awful no-account, Joe, don't know they're alive half the time."

"D'you know it, Del, you kinda remind me o' my sis-ter Janey, honest you do. Dod gast it, she's amounting to something al right. . . . She's awful pretty too. . . ." Del a said she hoped she could see her some day and Joe said sure she would and he pul ed her to her feet and drew her to him tight and hugged her and kissed her. It was late,