Character Journal Sample - POV: Johnny Cruson


Kenzie McDaniel is the reason I believe in luck. I was seventeen years old and too shy to get any girl, much less Kenzie McDaniel. She looked like she should've been dating varsity basketball players; the varsity basketball team thought so, too. It baffled us all that she really didn't seem to want anything to do with guys like them. Didn't give a rat's ass that she was popular, gorgeous, smart, talented. Kenzie spent her after-school hours down at Rack 'Em Jack's, the pool hall over on Havers Street. If not for that, I doubt our paths ever would have crossed.

Jack's was the hang-out spot for my crowd. Any crowd was Kenzie's crowd, but the girl had a passion for shooting stick. Whenever I had the money, I was usually holed up in the back room, sitting in on one of Jack's poker games. Smoking cigars with guys twice my age, maybe scoring a beer every once in a while, when Jack took pity on me. But when I didn't have the money, which was usually the case, I hung around up front with my pals. Just watching them play, mostly. 'Til the day Kenzie McDaniel walked up, put a cue stick in my hand, and pointed me in the direction of her table. Me, of all people. Jaws dropped. I could hear my friends breathing. Kenzie either didn't notice or didn't care.

I think what surprised me most is that she knew my name. Sure, she was kinda pushy, but at least it was "Johnny, I need you for a game," – which really bowled me over; Johnny, I need you... – and not, "Hey you. Get your head outta your ass and I'll teach you a thing or two about pool."

She was kinda cocky like that anyway, but it was perfect on her. Perfect like blue jeans and a tank top, and long blonde hair down her back. She had a tattoo on her right shoulder blade – a small angel, kneeling, and I remember thinking she's an angel, for sure. Closest thing any of us would ever come to, anyway, out here in the middle of the Mojave Desert. I figured I could get maybe two or three games of 9-ball out of her before she came up with an excuse to ditch me and move on, but it didn't happen that way. She insisted on one more game, then one more, and suddenly she's manhandling me around the table, pressing her body into mine to help me line up a shot, adjusting my grip and my stance and anything about me that could possibly be improved. She even reached up and smoothed back my hair at one point, an annoyed look on her face like she was ready to attack that damn cowlick if it dared defy her. For no good reason, I was the focus of her immediate attention, and we went on playing for hours. She never let me win, of course, but she tried to shape me up to be a worthy opponent. Despite her best efforts, I'm still a lousy pool player.

Just like everyone else in school, I was in love with her long before the day she picked me out of that crowd, something restless and impulsive in the way she seized my hand and said "Johnny, I need you." We kept seeing each other after that. Met up at the pool hall every day for a couple of weeks. Then suddenly I was feeling it, taking full advantage of the cards I was inexplicably dealt and playing my hand like I was Somebody. We started driving out to the desert together some nights instead of heading home; talking, listening to music, getting high. We laid out on the hood of my grandpa’s ’69 Cadillac DeVille after dusk and kept track of the stars, watched for UFOs. I was holding a royal flush, ace-high the night I made a move on her. It was no secret at school, either – Kenzie would always rush me in the hall, grab my hand and tug me out of the tide. She’d back up against the lockers, grab the collar of my jacket and kiss me hard, until some disapproving teacher showed up and put an end to the shameless performance. Right in front of everyone, in front of anyone. Kenzie didn’t care.

So that’s what it feels like to be the Lucky Bastard. That’s what it feels like to be untouchable. When your grades are shit and there’s no way you’re making it to college, let alone ever making it out of this town. When your family’s dirt poor, your mom’s working two jobs and Grandpa’s the closest thing to a father-figure you have in your life. When you’re not even sure what you’re really good at or what you love or what you want – then for no good reason, or maybe it’s just YOUR time, you hit the Jackpot. I was pretty convinced that I could’ve loved Kenzie forever. I doubt she could’ve done the same for me, though. That girl was going places. Effortlessly. God, she could sing. She owned you on the pool table. She had the smile and the attitude; made good money in tips at her waitressing job. She got into USC and wanted to be an actress. I couldn’t keep up with that. Kenzie could make me feel like a winner; she could never actually turn me into one, though she’d bend over backwards trying. She never gave up on me. Whether it was my hair, my posture, my next math test – she suspected that I could be better, that I could be more. I indulged her. Sure. She was betting on the wrong horse, but you couldn’t change her mind about that. I guess that’s a belief we shared, that if you stick with something long enough, stay in when the chips are down, one day it’ll pay off big. I couldn’t help but feel that each time, I was being set up for failure. If and when I fell short of the mark, if her faith wasn’t enough to carry me through, Kenzie offered up forgiveness and acceptance, loved me all the more fiercely because of it. Like I was some overwatered plant in a windowsill, dying because I couldn’t help it.

I guess I couldn’t take it. All of a sudden, I felt the need to disappoint her. Especially when she asked me to move out to Los Angeles with her. Sooner or later she’d find out she’d been dead-wrong about me, because nobody’s that patient – not even angels. She moved into my trailer the summer after she graduated, staying until she left for school in the fall. I did us all a favor and brought the hooker home in July; that way, she’d know. Kenzie would realize that she could leave me, that she should leave me, because I wasn’t worth the trouble. It felt sick and insane and I did it anyway, terrified that she’d still love me and decide to keep me around, same as she always did. I’d never been with another girl besides Kenzie up until then. The first night, Kenzie drove out to see her mother after work, didn’t arrive home in time to catch us in bed together. I couldn’t afford to keep the girl around ‘til Kenz got back the next morning, so I asked her back a second time. And after Kenzie packed up and hit the road, I invited the hooker back a third time.

Her name was Lucky.