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The intoxicating aroma of blooming jasmine filled the summer air. Night had settled over Liberty City. Familiar sounds of chirping crickets and barking dogs punctured the quiet. Soothing breezes flowed gently through open bedroom windows with shades raised as high as modesty would allow. It was summer in 1950s Miami.

The sleep fairy slowly lulled five-year-old me into blissful unawareness. As mama in her familiar white head tie made from old sheets knelt beside the bed in prayer, my eyes valiantly fought a losing battle to keep her in sight. Mama's presence assured me that nothing could harm me. Always calm and in charge, she worked in the laundry from sunrise to sunset six days a week. But she always made time to sit down and talk with her four children.

My sister kept mama up to date on neighborhood gossip. The hottest topic that summer was the peeping tom. Every night mama heard rumors of the Liberty City projects peeping tom. Mary across the street said he'd been on her block just a few nights before. She didn't see him herself, but someone told her about another neighbor who knew someone who knew a relative who supposedly saw him looking in her window one night. And so on and so on.

Mama was praying as I mentioned earlier, and I was just about to drift off to sleep. Then we heard it - a faint rustling of the shrubbery under the window. Mama kept praying and ignored it at first, but we heard it again. Louder. Then a man's muffled voice.

A shadowy figure rose slowly and ducked quickly as if to avoid detection. We could make out his form in the moonlight but not his features. Well, mama wasn't going to let the peeping tom hurt us, so she set off the only alarm we had in those days.

Mama jumped up, grabbed me, and ran into the hallway, hollering to my sister, "It's the peeping tom, it's the peeping tom." She hollered so loud, it probably woke the dead or at least the nearby neighbors. My sister came running and both of them were screaming. I held onto mama for dear life.

Then, the peeping tom stood up again and stayed up. He tried to stifle his giggles. However, after a while, he was laughing so hard he had to hold his stomach. We knew that laugh. Mama started laughing and fussing at the same time.

"Charles Whitfield Carroll," mama half yelled and half whispered, "get in this house right now!" She only called out my brothers' entire name when she was ready to give a broom whacking. I looked up, totally confused,  and tried to read her face.

My sister opened the front door and our oldest brother stumbled in laughing, hardly able to catch his breath. He grabbed his belly like he had cramps. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or be scared of my brother. So, I timidly asked mama, "Is Charles the peeping tom?" Reassuring he wasn't, mama started laughing and fussing again.

After a few whacks from mama's broom for scaring us, my brother explained that he was hiding from friends who'd followed him home looking for a free meal. Actually, they and my younger brother heard the commotion and appeared at the door in a few seconds. Mama invited them in and my sister fixed sandwiches. We all had a good laugh about the peeping tom - who wasn't my brother.

Thinking back, no one heard any more about the peeping tom or if police ever caught him. For the rest of the summer, five-year-old-me felt more excited about traveling on the train to New York with mama, turning six, getting my first bicycle at my first birthday party, and starting first grade in the fall.