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The Time My Best Friend And I Were Killed By Charles Manson
Maybe I exaggerate.
Some people are just beautiful. There’s no debate about it, it’s just a fact. And the rest of us have to drag our disfigured carcasses through life without complaining too much because, hey, them’s the breaks.
Jackie was beautiful. She had flawless skin with a hint of natural blush and jet black hair. She was like a living, breathing Snow White. Next to her, I was one of the acne-ridden and deeply unpopular dwarves.
I lived on a 76-acre farm in the middle of nowhere, an only child with middle-aged parents who were too busy working at the automotive plant (my dad) and taking care of the farm (my mom AND my dad) to pay a whole lot of attention to what me and my little friends were up to.
This was before helicopter parenting and the internet, or video games, or cell phones, or any of the techno-clutter that keeps kids busy today. The mall was almost an hour away and constituted the kind of major outing you planned for weeks in advance. You strategized a trip to the mall much as you would an attempt on Annapurna.
The mall’s central fountain was base camp. Spencer’s Gifts was a dark, incense-laden cave that you could only explore if you ditched your parents. Sears was a featureless plain of nothingness you had to…
