I've had some personal "hardboiled" experiences, but I'd like
to hear
yours.
Have you:
had shotguns pointed at you?
pointed a shotgun with that "special" intention?
robbed a bank?
been robbed?
kidnapped someone?
been kidnapped?
kicked someone's teeth in?
had your teeth kicked in?
stolen a car?
been falsely accused of a crime?
plotted against someone?
been addicted to dope?
You get the drift.
To get you off the nut, I provide this: I've stolen cars for
adolescent
joyrides; I've broken into a safe -- a real safe, not some
tincan safe;
I've had shotguns pointed at my head twice -- once by the
cops and once
by an irate father; I've been in fistfights where teeth were
lost (not
mine). On the other hand, maybe Willeford (and Peter Walker)
were right
that Americans are 50 percent loopy/mad.
I realize that asking such a question is like cracking open a
rotten
egg. You might not want to rehearse your past, and I urge you
to not
disclose anything needlessly. Hell, you might even think I'll
blackmail
you, which I won't, which is no reassurance whatsoever. On
the other
hand, you can e-mail me your hardboiled stories and I'll
post,
disguised, what I get. Shit, make something up, if nothing
else.
I'm testing a theory here: That hardboiled readers are
hardboiled
people.
-- Ned Fleming # # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.