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Show Car Baseball Butch and Fenn Stories 67 9 The last thing you see in the sky above my neighborhood before stars is the vague haze of Mr. Wilkes' garage burning. Sometimes we lie back and have first-star contests where we stare up so hard and so long that smoke lifts us slowly in its trance and slides us toward the Wilkes' house. Then we have to blink hard, clench our eyes, and start again, so that it is again the smoke moving and not the earth. If you really want to play well, you should turn on an elbow and look west, because Venus will pop right out even in the blue-black and spoil the whole contest. Fenn and I are on our backs, floating in the near dark, when; Butctr~sneaki3~across the field^and rakes the fence with a stick so hard that Fenn screams and throws his hands across his face to protect himself from the crashing Plymouth. Butch wears a high grin, an expression he always has after slipping away from home at night. Budd, Butch's father, expects Butch to stay home and, being the oldest, protect the property,-such as-rt-is-; Never-mind-that-Budd-himself has ruined three vehicles, one by ramming the corner of his house; nor that he has ruined the yard by ditching three vehicles in it. Nor that there's no back door, bathroom window, domestic shrubbery, or anything. But, Butch is supposed to protect it. I guess somebody could steal Tiny, thinking that he was a rare breed. No matter - as soon as Barbara calls him, Butch |