Westside Story – On the Road 75 Years Later – Alternate Ending

If you missed Westside Story – On The Road 75 Years Later – Part 4, consider clicking on the colorful (PGE approved) link to catch up.

One of our faithful The Suburban Times readers, David Wilson, submitted a comment to my August 4, 2015, article, Westside Story – On The Road 75 Years Later – Part 3 as follows.

David Wilson says (August 6, 2015 at 6:35 AM) “Spoiler alert…he dies Joe Boyle is a ghost writer.”

How ever did David know Joe Boyle has a ghost writer? His conclusion or would it be more accurate to say premonition, turns out to be at least partially true.

All of this leads me to the following line of thinking.

Big-time wordsmiths, like Stephen King, and big time movie moguls, like Steven Spielberg, generally have alternate endings to their artistic works.

As you might imagine, I too wish to become at least a big time operator if not a mogul. Accordingly, I have a ghost writer who has written an alternate ending along with an alternate cartoon for my tale of attempted homicide on the Chicago beach of death.

This alternate ending started out as a private note to me from one of my creative friends. After thinking about it, I thought it would be fun to share his imaginative piece with you as an alternate ending. Feel free to compare the two endings.

Here is my ghost writer’s alternate ending.

…so I (Joe Boyle) was so fast and fleet of foot that I initially kicked sand in the face of the main bad guy when I took off. This was a real character-revealing event, because he immediately started crying. Then, when he realized that he would not be able to catch me he said, “Okay, you don’t have to give me your house key, but would you at least invite me over once in a while?”

I kept running because two of the gang members were determined to catch me. I ran until I came up against a six-foot chain link fence with barbed wire strung across the top of it. I had to think quickly. Fortunately for me, a passing German soldier on motorcycle patrol proved to be the solution to my predicament. I waylaid him with a cable I strung across his path and I grabbed his motorcycle. (At this point I should tell you about my motorcycle riding prowess, but I don’t want to lose your on-the-edge-of-your-seat attention so I will have to tell you about it another time.) Anyway, I rode back and forth until I found a geological formation that allowed me to jump the fence. The bad guys couldn’t believe it as I now celebrated on the other side of the fence from them with a couple of passes doing “wheelies”.

As I said earlier, none of this would have happened in bucolic Puyallup. I experienced it on the mean beaches of Chicago. The “survival of the fittest” mentality that I developed from this incident has served me well. I wish I had employed this attitude when I was supposed to return my house key to my landlord when I finally left Chicago, but I just couldn’t part with the key because we had been through too much together. Like me however, the key is now retired and living with me and every so often we look back at this incident and laugh together heartily.

Again, most of this story is true.

Wow, my first mogul like artistic alternate ending. The last line should be changed from, “Again, most of this story is true.” to “Again, little of this story is true.”

My ghost writer, 50 years after my near death experience, uncovered a missed tactical opportunity I had never thought of until today. When I was knocked to the ground and rolled over in the sand, I could have jumped up with two hands full of sand which could have easily have been tossed into the mugger’s eyes. My adversaries would not only have been blind drunk, but drunk and blind.

Some of you might think my writing is frivolous, but if you pay close attention to my carefully crafted word combinations, you will discover life lessons to be learned the easy way.

You are now prepared for the next time it is your turn to suffer a savage attack on the beach. Remember to provoke your adversary enough to get them to punch you in the face. As you roll and jump back up, grab two hands full of sand. Don’t miss their eyes. Warning, this tactical defense plan will not work well if they knock you unconscious with that first punch.

While this serves as an alternate ending, I use the term ending loosely. There is more to this story.