The tree friends ask him when they can pick him up, but he said 'never' and walked away to some friends of his. Everything goes well, but when Bryon, Mark, M&M and Cathy are going for a raid at the Ribbon, M&M don't want to go home. After a while they seem to 'get over' it. But before they knew what was happening one of the Texans made a drive for the gun and fired at them. Charlie 'saved' them by holding a gun at the Texans and tells them to drop the gun. When Charlie said that it was closing time, it seems that the Texans were gone, but when Bryon and Mark came to the door, the Texans were holding a gun at them and telling them how stupid they had been. Mark and Bryon were losing but later that night Bryon started winning. Charlie also said that they have to be careful. They ask Charlie for any possibilities, he nodded towards a couple of guys (Texans) in the poolroom.

A few weeks later Mark and Bryon are at Charlie's. And he went to the hospital for ten stitches in his head. But when one of those good friends from Mark, Curtis, yelled at Bryon that Mark's hurt, he went cold. They really want to have a good time together so if later that evening there has been an accident they don't want to go and see what happened. The evening of the dance Bryon picks up Cathy. There was a dance coming up where Bryon really wanted to go to.

After a while Bryon and Cathy are going steady. When Mark and Bryon are at Charlie's (that's a pub) M&M remind Bryon of Cathy, M&M's sister. But Bryon prefers asking somebody if they can lent his/her car. Sometimes they 'borrow' a car from somebody and bring it back later. Because of the money problems Mark and Bryon had to sell the car. One of those good friends is M&M (they give him that name because he is always eating these candies), he's a really smart kid. Mark and Bryon have a lot of good friends, but also enemies. They're going to a lot of tough times together, but they always seem to get over it. She needs to have quite some surgeries what brings Mark and Bryon in a lot of money problems. Bryon's mother is really sick and she's spending most of the time in the hospital. From that moment on they're even more closely. Mark used to live next to Bryon, but when his parents killed each other in a drunken argument, Mark moved in at Bryon's. Mark and Bryon are lifetime friends and they're like brothers to each other. The story mainly deals with the main characters, Mark and Bryon. The point of view was told in first person by a character named Bryon. It took place in an inner city in the early seventies.

Hinton is a story about teenagers growing up too fast in a society that is too slow.

Hinton that was then this is now