Young Hearts be Free Tonight

Time is on your side.

As a little girl, I had promised my mother I wouldn’t marry someone presently pursued by police dogs.

But promises, like the locks on escape vehicles, were made to be broken.

Freddy Young walked into my life like he ran into that bank: shouting threats. Freddy stole more than money that day: he also stole watches and a nun’s crucifix.

Johnny had the confidence and grace of a swan on cocaine: he commanded the room like he owned the place, or at least owned a sawed-off shotgun.

Despite what he said about being face down on the fucking ground, you should have seen him.

You should have heard his laugh as he broke the nose of the cashier, and dragged me out in the street.

It was fate.

Of all the people Freddy could have taken hostage, he choose me, and three others he would over time shoot.

Our romance was the stuff you read in fairy tales, especially the unedited eastern-european ones Disney gave a firm pass on. Maybe it was closer to the stuff you read in homicide reports, it’s hard to focus after Freddy struck me with the butt of his gun.

Those precious next few nights together were a breathless sleepless foodless whirlwind, the kind of whirlwind that rips the doors off houses and strip searches the occupants for valuables.

When Freddy proposed he didn’t even have a ring that wasn’t in his sack of rings and bloody gold fillings.

Instead, in a church surrounded by our friends and family and state troopers, the very church Freddy had set fire to moments before, Freddy made a solemn vow. Nay; a solemn threat, that even if it took him lifetime or consecutive lifetime sentences, he would rip my throat out if I squealed.

Despite what I said on the witness stand, I still remember our time together. They call it Stockholm syndrome but a better word would be boot of a stolen jeep syndrome. I prefer to see our love as a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, or an early day Me and a Columbian torture cartel.

Here’s to you, Freddy Young, wherever you are, since you escaped from that prison transfer bus and was last seen two towns away.

Here’s to you.

This is an excerpt from My Parts on Film, the forever-unpublished memoirs of Hollywood sex kitten Madame St Van St D’Marcasite.