five books that make me think of this time of year

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2.



THE BRADLEYS

"Merry Fucking Christmas"

Peter Bagge, Fantagraphics, 199…5?/2007

In the middle of the story "Merry Fucking Christmas," there comes this one bit:

It's Christmas eve, and Tom, Buddy, and Lisa sneak out to drink in the snow and talk while Buddy's parents and neighbors get loud on a bottle of Johnnie Walker black. Eventually Tom and Lisa make out. It's bookeneded by lots of screaming and yelling. It is, believe it or not, hilarious. Most of THE BRADLEYS, and all of HATE, which follows it, is hilarious.

Parents partying. Sneaking out. Getting drunk outside, at night, in the snow. Finding out about shithead high school friends dying in dumb, startling, ways. Making out with a girl that you'd never have had a chance with when you were in school and never will again. This little scene rings such specific bells in me.

I think there's this magic window of time, after you Leave Town when Come Home for the holidays. You go out, you see some of the old gang, but everything's remixed. The old cliques can't survive the end of senior year, and that first year of college makes it real clear real fast who peaked in high school and who didn't. A couple random encounters, a strange party, and before the fade out on "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), you're making out with girls that'd not give you the time of day the year before.

THE BRADLEYS is peppered with the small realities of life growing up in a town you train yourself to escape. The holiday dry hump victory lap of triumph is a tiny detail in this story, and in life, I suppose, but still. Listen and you can hear the bells ringing.