Prologue

As I gaze into the camera lens I can only imagine how things will turn out. She smiles in earnest but I can tell something is up.

“I don’t know what I want, John. Part of me wants to just fly away, far away from here. Another part wants to do crazy things that no one else knows I want to do. Another part of me wants to stay here, with you. But it’s gong to be awhile. I just don’t know.”

Ann. Long ago, or so it seems, her smile caught my eye. I haven’t quite been able to get it out of my mind since. Did you ever meet someone that you were so sure was “the one” that it made your head spin? My head was spinning when I had that conversation in my living room with the brown haired, blue eyed gal named Ann.

A year later I would be singing songs in front of small crowds about how bad she broke my heart. It’s kind of strange how things work out. I would be lying if I said I never think about her. I try though. But everything was fine until I met her. In fact, life was absolutely grand….

Chapter 1

“Get your tub of lard ass up and let’s go to the movies! Come on you loser, get up!”

This is often how I would get woken up on a weekend during those first two years after dad died. My brother and I were movie fanatics. In fact, I don’t know how we would have gotten by without them. I was an outsider, and my brother was an outsider simply because he lived so damned far away. I guess he might have been guilty by association as well. I still have most of the ticket stubs. I stopped counting at a couple hundred.

Suddenly things changed. Two years went by. We moved. We had made it into the big leagues at both church and high school, and holy cow, I was somewhat popular. I couldn’t explain to you how it happened even if I wanted to. I was so sick of cliques. I was so sick of people. I guess I just found others like me. Carson and his minions quickly joined up, and there we were. A big bunch of freaks, geeks, and whatever else decided to come by with nothing else to do except cause trouble every once and awhile and run around like madmen. That first year was by far the best. Things were simpler then. Amber had a lot to do with it too. She had a station wagon; a very big station wagon.