Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols

The first short story that I wrote that I ever thought "worked" in any way had the uninspired title, "Expectations, Great and Otherwise." It was about a high school girl who had a mad crush on one of her classmates, a hellion in a Dead Kennedys t-shirt who had a propensity for carving anarchy symbols into desks, as well as a wife, a new baby, and a mistress. As implausible as all of these factors seemed, I fall back on the writer's defense that it was actually true! In the story, our narrator who bore more than a passing resemblance to yours truly, meets her beloved crush at childhood fort with a Sex Pistols poster as a gift and the vague hope that something will happen. This is where I went into the land of make-believe -- I wouldn't have known where to buy a Sex Pistols poster (the Mineral Wells Hallmark did not carry them), much less had the courage to present it as a gift.

Nothing much happens in the story -- surprise, surprise (Hee-Haw voice), but there was the remant of a plot, more than I had accomplished before. Our intrepid narrator shows up for the meeting in the rain, the poster is a little worse for the wear. She meets her boy, and they share a cigarette while getting eaten alive by mosquitos and discussing the future in that desultory, cynical way that teeangers sometimes have. I left her in that dark woods, but in real life, I got my ending. My crush joined the army and eventually became a cop like many a reformed bad boy, got a divorce, got remarried. I remembered his last comment to me at school, something about being interested in the physics of accidents. Years later, I see my title, even if I'm not sure what it means.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"When I was your age they used to say you could become cops or criminals. What I'm saying to you is this... When your facing a loaded gun, what's the difference? " Frank Costello, The Departed

Cocktail Hour

Drinking movie suggestion: Miller's Crossing

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy All Saints Day!