Vain

The torrential rains that doused Baltimore this week may have brought misery to most, but Baltimore police Officer Joseph Donato can thank a muddy puddle for saving his life.A drug suspect got hold of the officer's gun during a fight, stood over him and pulled the trigger from three feet away. But the gun, which had fallen into the mud during the scuffle, jammed. The trigger mechanism had become clogged.The suspect fled, dropping the gun as he ran."Every day before I come to work, I pray," said Donato, 29, a lifelong city resident who joined the force three years ago. "God was with me that day. I know I was lucky."

A 16-year-old East Baltimore youth who had been shot in the chest died last night despite the efforts of two city firefighters to save him, police said.Detective Donald Steinhice of the homicide squad said Govante Daughtray of the 2200 block of E. Preston St. in Collington Square was in the 1300 block of N. Montford Ave. about 6: 20 p.m. when he was shot.Steinhice said Officer John Carroll of the Eastern District heard the shot and was trying to find out where it had come from when he saw the unidentified firefighters trying to revive the youth, who was pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Hospital at 6: 47 p.m.Two boys had gone to Truck Company 15, in the 1200 block of N. Montford, to report the shooting to the firefighters, Steinhice said.

Less than 24 hours after Anne Arundel County officials tried to close the county's only go-go club because its dancers lifted their bikini tops, the girls were back on stage wearing nothing at all.As if to taunt the county's liquor board, the owner of McDoogal's in Pasadena raised a sign advertising the price of his five nude "chicks": "10 legs, 10 thighs, 10 breasts, 1 can of coke. $12.50!"This backfiring of the battle against nudity has been repeated in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Howard County and elsewhere as clubs freed of their liquor licenses also shed the clothing requirements for dancers as imposed by state liquor laws.

A spirited Charles Village crowd, some dressed in Victorian-era top hats and clothes, protested the planned closing of the century-old Enoch Pratt Free Library branch in the 2500 block of St. Paul St. yesterday.The early-morning sidewalk spectacle consisted of about 100 Charles Village residents and attracted stares and waves from passing motorists on their way to work.Several speakers expressed outrage at last week's announcement by Carla Hayden, library director, that the city will close two neighborhood libraries, the St. Paul Street and the Morrell Park branches, denouncing it as a "behind-closed-doors decision."

Natural Resources police searched without success yesterday for a 39-year-old Severna Park man who was thrown from a 23-foot speed boat Sunday as it bounced through the wake of a passing boat at about 70 mph near the mouth of Stony Creek.Mark C. Linton, a passenger in the high-performance boat, was missing and presumed drowned.His father, Lloyd E. Linton Jr., 65, of Pasadena, who was at the helm of the Scarab boat, was treated at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center and released.The Scarab was heading out of the creek shortly after 8 p.m. when it crossed the wake of an in-bound cabin cruiser and briefly went airborne.

BY DEFINITION, fiction is the creation of the writer, but several recent books and films raise the question, do novelists and playwrights have a literary license, or a moral right, to transmogrify real people and events in their works?Four years ago, the film director Oliver Stone produced an outrageously spurious account of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, essentially presenting that tragic event as a vast conspiracy by the highest officials of the government to carry out a murderous coup d'etat.

TORONTO -- Orioles manager Davey Johnson waited for the phone from the bullpen to ring last night, wanted the phone to ring, like a teen-ager hoping to hear from a prospective prom date.Left-handed starter Rick Krivda was tiring and right-hander Jimmy Haynes was warming up and Johnson wanted the right-hander, with Toronto designated hitter Ed Sprague coming But the phone didn't ring in time, and on Krivda's third pitch, Sprague hit a grand slam and the Blue Jays went on to win, 5-2. Cal Ripken was responsible for the second run, a bases-empty homer.

AMERICAN POLICY in Bosnia is built upon a shaky framework of political fiction, unrealistic deadlines and military muscle. Only the latter category is succeeding. The NATO-led force of heavily-armed troops has separated the Serb, Croat and Muslim armies along 1,000 kilometers of ethnic hostility. But the danger remains that this huge effort may be in vain -- that once international peacekeepers depart, Bosnia's warring tribes will resume their struggle.The chief political fiction is a Croat-Muslim federation that Gen. George Joulwan, the supreme NATO commander, charitably describes as "very fragile."

AFTER ALL THE legal wrangling, the days of national media attention and the years of complete quiet, on Halloween night Jacqueline L. Bouknight stepped from jail, ending a seven-year battle of wills. She never produced her young son, Maurice, as a judge had ordered, nor was she ever charged with a crime against the child. Her release left an overwhelming question: Why did it take so long to get nowhere?Listen to Baltimore Circuit Judge David B. Mitchell, facing the bickering lawyers in front of him Feb. 13, 1991.

75 years agoThe activities of plainclothes patrolmen in rounding up owners of untitled automobiles is causing considerable uneasiness among those who have neglected to comply with the title law, and some of those who have obtained titles are disturbed by the unhappy experiences of others who have confused body and chassis numbers with engine numbers in making out their applications. P.W. Wiedenmeyer, of Baltimore, who was fined $500 in the traffic court Thursday on a charge of giving false information, claims that he is a victim of such confusion and has appealed his case to a higher court.