Jam Tops, The Fonz and The Pursuit of Cool (1)

Today marks the start of a brand new serialisation. As before, this will run for sixty days with a new excerpt posted every day.

This one is from my light-hearted rom-com, ‘Jam Tops, The Fonz and The Pursuit of Cool’, which is about the growing pains of small-town life in the 1970s and 80s – a synopsis of which follows, together with the very first instalment.

I really hope this funny, laugh out loud story brightens your day – if so, please

like share and spread the word but, above all else, please keep reading!

Anyway, enjoy – and look out for excerpt two tomorrow.

Synopsis

It’s 1978 and comic-collecting, TV-obsessed, sci-fi geek, Gordy Brewer, dreams of transforming himself from super nerd into super cool.

Being cool is the only sure way he can think of to get Pippa Wilson, the girl of his dreams, to go out with him.

But Pippa’s only got eyes for her ultra trendy, extremely good-looking boyfriend.

Not one to be put off, Gordy joins forces with music mad Daisy Flynn – his pretty but equally geeky best friend – and using ’The Fonz’ as his guide to ’all things cool’, sets out to win Pippa’s affections.

However, the road is perilous with potholes and from disco disasters to holidays from hell Gordy soon learns that the journey to finding true love is not as smooth as he hoped it might be.

Fun filled and warm-hearted, this rock and roll rom-com finally proves that nerds can be cool after all!

Excerpt One:

Part One: The Seventies

Bradley, Northamptonshire 1978

On the surface, Gordy Brewer would surely be most people’s idea of a nice, normal, fourteen-year-old.

Aside from being slightly chubby and somewhat short-sighted, he was probably about average.

Yet there were things about Gordy that he thought best to keep secret from the outside world; things which he feared might set him apart and cause those very same people to view him quite differently.

These included the fact that he picked his nose at every given opportunity and often wore the same pair of underpants for days on end.

Another little secret was that he frequently took his mum’s Grattan catalogue up to his room and, with a torch under the duvet, lusted over the busty ladies in the ‘lingerie’ section.

Yet even though he would not have wanted any of these rather embarrassing details about himself shouted from the rooftops, they were certainly not the things he was most afraid of becoming known.

Because Gordy had much more shocking secrets that he wished never to be unearthed.

What is more, if his school friends even caught so much as a whiff of the things he did behind closed doors it would surely be the end of him – at least in any socially acceptable capacity.

At school, he was by no means one of the ‘in crowd’ but nor was he down amongst the nerds either. In fact, Gordy occupied the middle ground; on nodding terms with the elite, but only a step up from the plebs.

Yet Gordy knew he was standing on the precipice and one wrong move could send him tumbling backwards into school obscurity.

But Gordy longed to be something more, even though he was not entirely sure what.

He just knew that he wanted to be different from the way he presently was, because at fourteen, he was just starting to notice girls, but they, unfortunately, were not noticing him.

Nonetheless, he felt sure that if he could somehow make himself more appealing, then they possibly would. Although, looking in the mirror and staring at what he had to work with, he suspected it might be an uphill battle.

However, even if he could somehow make himself more attractive, once a girl found out the things he got up to in the privacy of his home, then she would surely run a mile.

Of course, he could try not to pick his nose quite so often and, if forced, he could even change his underpants on a more regular basis, but his other secret pastimes would be much harder to give up.

The first of these was that instead of playing football on a Saturday afternoon like the other boys of his age, he preferred to sit in front of the telly with his mum watching old musicals starring the likes of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

Which, Gordy was almost certain, was not the sort of thing the average fourteen-year-old lad did.

Yet, he and his mum would spend many a happy hour dancing around the living room singing show tunes at the top of their voices. Their combined vocal stylings belting out numbers such as Surrey With a Fringe on Top from ‘Oklahoma!’ and June Is Bustin’ Out All Over from ‘Carousel’. This was all to the considerable dismay of Gordy’s father who was not at all comfortable with that sort of thing. In fact, he would much prefer Gordy to be playing football, as he considered that to be more manly behaviour.

Yet Gordy was just not interested in sports of any kind. However, he would have been mortified if any of his friends found out that he was a bit partial to a show tune and knew all the words to I Feel Pretty from ‘Westside Story’ off by heart.

Another thing he was keen to keep quiet was his collection of comics. Most of the people he knew had grown out of reading comics long before hitting their teens but Gordy was still an avid collector and had stacks of them piled up all over his bedroom – and nothing quite screamed Nerd! like the words ‘comic collector.’

Yet the musicals and the comics were not the worst of his embarrassing secrets as that honour was reserved for his love of toys.

Whilst he still hankered for things like the Airfix Super Flight Deck or Ricochet Racers, his peers had all moved on to more grown-up things.

This was particularly highlighted the previous December when a couple of his classmates asked for the Spenby Musculator for Christmas. This pole-like device had handgrips each end and a big coiled spring in the middle which, when bent, was supposed to give the user biceps like Charles Atlas.

However, it was bloody lethal and could easily take someone’s head off if they accidentally let go of one of the handgrips, but, nonetheless, was still considered to be a ‘must have’ for all self-respecting young lads.

Another of Gordy’s mates got a new racing bike for Christmas and someone else a portable transistor radio – another even received a Philishave electric razor, no doubt from his particularly proud father.

Gordy, however, had rather rashly asked Santa for the Evel Knievel GT Stunt Set and low and behold it duly appeared under the tree on Christmas morning.

The moment of unwrapping was missed by Gordy’s dad who had chosen that precise moment – purposely Gordy felt – to go for a ‘Christmas poo.’

However, his father’s absence aside, the quality of the toy, which consisted mainly of an ‘Evel Knievel’ doll and his aforementioned stunt cycle, was very disappointing and far from looking like something suitable for a teenager, it was clearly aimed at younger children.

The only thing of substance was Evel’s head which was made of cheap plastic whilst the rest of him was made of sponge – tightly sewn up in a white nylon jumpsuit. His hands, meanwhile, were just white hooks that clamped onto the brittle plastic handlebars of his motorbike.

The cycle itself was set in motion by winding a handle on the ‘energiser’ it locked onto. When released, the cycle was supposed to zoom off at ‘death-defying speed’ whilst doing wheelies and jumps with Evel clinging on for dear life.

Unfortunately, this ended in tragedy for Evel on his maiden voyage.

As he and his stunt cycle shot out of the blocks, they ploughed straight into the dog’s backside, scaring the poor thing completely shitless.

Upon being so rudely awoken, it leapt up, farted and bolted for the backdoor like a rocket, his feet skating on the newly laid Cushionfloor. The cycle then rebounded off the kitchen door, causing Nan to spill her sherry, and headed off towards the cat who, absolutely terrified, bounded up the Christmas tree, bringing it crashing to the ground and scattering baubles and chocolate coins all over the living room carpet.

On top of all that, the impact with the kitchen door had snapped the stunt cycle’s handlebars and Evel had been thrown from the saddle somewhere between the dog’s arse and the Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

By the end of its first fateful journey, the broken cycle lay mortally wounded beside a now dented tin of Quality Street.

What an utter let-down.

To read on, please download the complete novel here.