Chapter 1 – Pretty, pretty good short fiction.
8th Grade Halloween. I meet Johnny.
No more free candy from strangers. No more running wildly around the streets in the deepest of darkness…screaming and hollering to your friends…stuffing candy in your mouth as fast as you can…yes, yes you heard right…even while you are running…and hollering. It was…after all…1960.
All gone. Forever…just because you got one year older.
In 1960, our suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota was new but growing fast. There were acres of new housing developments with miles of streets that we could dash up and down…filling old pillow cases with candy and money and whatever else strangers were willing to give us. Home-made fudge was the best. Remember…1960.
There were no parents standing in the streets with glow lights or flashlights to guide us…or umbrellas to shield us from the rain. If it rained, we got wet and we lived. If we fell down…we got up. And…we came home.
Oh…we knew it was coming. We had heard the whispers and had actually paid attention when the moms had dropped little hints…so we knew.