Mark, Phillip and Greg had been out of school just two weeks, but were already immersed in the intoxication of summer. In seven years, they would be part of the 1985 graduating class of Indian Hills High School but that was a lifetime away. The dread of starting sixth grade would hit them maybe around mid-August but, for now, their freedom was unbounded.  

The weather forecast called for no rain that night so, with their mothers’ permission, they gathered up their sleeping bags and set up camp in the vacant lot that was still for sale next to Greg’s house. But the trio would need more than just sleeping bags to get through the night… And so, the clerk at the corner convenience store was soon ringing up a six-pack of root beer, a giant bag of barbeque potato chips and a package of Oreos.

The evening came alive only after the sky had turned from powder blue to slate gray and then to a faded black that was only found for a dozen days each year around the solstice. The stars were their cue to get into sleeping bags and begin the feast. Over the next few hours, lights in the neighborhood homes went out, road noise waned and the last plane of the evening passed overhead. None of the boys had ever been on one, but they all had stories to tell about how the passengers feel motionless and the drinks stay in place on the tray tables. 

Their voices sounded different to each other in the dark; quieter, calmer, coming out of nowhere now. They somehow knew that summer night noises carry. There were no sounds of crickets or cicadas, which would come later in the summer. There was just the silent flashing of lightning bugs in the bushes and an occasional bat overhead.   

Mark’s mother insisted that he take a cot because the damp ground could affect his asthma. He was the first to doze off unannounced. He awoke just after midnight, unsettled a bit by his surroundings, yet somehow feeling safe. The hum of the conversation between Phillip and Greg reminded him that he was in another world, a place with no ceiling—stranger but more real than where he had been earlier that day. The unfamiliar magic around them was taking hold. 

“Mark, you ready?” Phillip’s voice whispered. They had no choice but to connect to the limitless night. It is humankind’s destiny to explore: outer space, mountaintops, the depths of the ocean. They climbed out of their cocoons, barefoot and just a little nervous. The street felt warm on their feet and the streetlights cast long shadows. They knew that any car from any direction was a threat. Headlights were the signal to scatter. Earlier that day, they talked about sneaking into the Reynolds’ swimming pool, so they headed in that direction. They leaned against the chain-link fence—chins against the metal—and stared at the water. No one said anything about going in. 

Back at their campsite, the three boys fixated on the sky as the summer stillness cast its spell. Mystery enveloped them; exciting but scary. Greg told them he hoped Penny Jensen would be in his class next year. Phillip announced that he had seen his teenage sister come out of the bathroom and walk naked down the hall to her bedroom. It wasn’t true. Mark started feeling bad about having screamed at his mother earlier that day when she insisted that he sleep on a cot…but he kept that story to himself. 

They gasped at the sight of a meteor falling through the sky and agreed that its landing location was somewhere in the parking lot between the gas station and Dick’s Diner. 

“We’ll go find it tomorrow,” Phillip assured (alas, they forgot about it by morning). 

The night soothed them to sleep, though each one would wake about every hour and be reminded by the stars that they were in the middle of an adventure.   

The birds woke them at 4:45 a.m. It started out with a few chirps and quickly crescendoed into a full-blown chorus. The calm of the night was gone. They missed their beds. Exhausted, they rolled up their sleeping bags and dragged themselves in different directions toward home, where their families were all still deep asleep. Mark, Greg and Phillip crawled into their beds, in the familiar surroundings of their rooms, and slept.