Fri. April 25, 2025 - See Previous Newsletters

When I was twelve, my parents underwent a messy divorce. As a result, my mother moved my younger sister and me from upstate New York to Tennessee.

Needless to say, the culture shock was severe. On top of that, my mom was financially strapped and had no choice but to rent a crackerbox house in a lower-class neighborhood.

Our tiny backyard bordered on a railroad track. On the other side was a markedly higher-income area, with larger houses and expansive, manicured properties. Most of the kids who lived over there actually went to college. Our side was filled with nothing but high school dropouts and juvenile delinquents.

I was a shy and somewhat nerdy kid, but most of that was quickly beaten out of me. I played the clarinet. The first time I brought it to school, its various pieces were tossed out the bus window. Same with any books I tried to bring home. My grades plummeted, and I tried to fit in—and survive.

Despite all this, something magical happened in that godawful place.

A boy who lived across the street, four years older, befriended me. I’ll call him Ben. I will never forget him knocking on our door the first day we moved in and showing me around, introducing the other teenage boys on the street. He was warm, relaxed, and confident.

At first, I was suspicious of why he was being so nice to me, a much younger kid. But over time, when he started spending more and more time at our house, it became apparent. His home life was a living hell. His huge, miserable, ditch-digging father came home drunk every night, and Ben was often the object of his wrath. His mother was a soft hooker whom his father regularly beat up, too. His older brother was doing hard time in Texas for manslaughter, and his other two brothers spent most of their time in “juvie.” One day, I was unlucky enough to be caught at his house when his father came home unexpectedly, and it was a nightmare.

Yet, by some miracle, Ben survived this terrible family, his bright, sunny, positive spirit always shining through. I can still see him standing there on our little front porch, shirtless and barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans, his skin a sunbaked brown, his longish hair raked back to where his collar would have been. With his square jaw and easy swagger, people often said he bore a striking resemblance to Peter Fonda in the motorcycle gang movie The Wild Angels.

Ben was cooler than cool, without even trying to be. He didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of him. Girls swooned over him, but he shrugged it off. From constant tangling with his father and older brothers, he was absolutely the toughest kid in our high school—everyone was afraid of him. But he never fought except to protect the people he cared about, such as his younger brother, who was in my class, and me.

What’s even more amazing was that Ben was a fantastic artist, born with natural talent that could not be repressed. He often carried around a grungy sketch pad and a pencil and would draw whatever inspired him. Art was the only class he made good grades in, and with the permission of his art teacher, he painted this huge, jaw-dropping mural of a sunrise at one end of the hall, which became the go-to meeting place at school.

Ben might have gotten a scholarship to an art school, but the turmoil at home prevented him from focusing on anything like that.

I’ll never forget my thirteenth birthday when Ben recommended an album for my mother to buy for me as a present: Three Dog Night. I hated the group. I was a little annoyed with Ben—as soon as I tore off the wrapping paper, he snatched the record out of my hand, put it on my record player, and started singing along with his favorite song, One (is the loneliest number…).

I couldn’t understand how he could possibly like Three Dog Night, and especially One, which seemed rather “square” to me. After he went home, I mentioned this to my mother. She said, “Mike, don’t you know how lonely a boy like Ben must feel, living in that horrific family of his?”

Looking back, that thought is heart-wrenching for me.

It’s no surprise that Ben harbored a death wish. When we hung out on the railroad tracks behind our house, he often did dangerous stunts, not to show off, but for the “challenge” of it, and the adrenaline rush.

The most terrifying was a trick he called The Tank Car Roll. The railroad track was curved as it ran behind our neighborhood, and the freight trains went slowly along that stretch, no more than five to ten mph. Tank cars are long, with widely separated sets of wheels on either end, and a lot of open space between the cylindrical tank and the rails.

Ben would crouch beside the tracks, preparing himself, waiting for a tank car to come around the bend. A split second after the first pair of wheels passed, he would roll over the rail, across the ties, under the tank, and over the other rail, clearing the tracks a few seconds before the second set of wheels rolled by.

Yes, it was totally crazy. He could have lopped off his arm, leg, or even his head. I couldn’t bear to watch, and neither could his younger brother, who begged him not to do it and was always in tears the whole time.

I wrote a novel about all I've told you, and much more. If you haven’t read it, it’s called The Wrong Side of the Tracks. It’s one of my wife’s favorite novels of mine—she says it’s the book I’ve had to dig deepest into myself to write.

It was painful, I have to admit, but also cathartic for me. I’m glad I did it. Readers tell me that it transports them back to that hell we call high school and that they often remember things they had long forgotten.

I’ve dressed it up with a new cover. Also, here’s a video teaser I made for it:

Blob

New chapters of Blob will be posted tomorrow.  Read the novel free here, serially, untilit is officially published.

Have a great weekend!

Mike

P.S. Have you read all my books?

Catch Up on the Lust, Money & Murder Series With

These Discounted Trilogy Boxed Sets

More 'Unputdownable' Books by Mike Wells
(Click on the photos for full synopses)

International Crime Thriller - Lust, Money & Murder (Series)
The deeper she goes, the more she risks becoming a criminal herself.

International Crime Thriller - Outback Diamonds
In the Outback, trust is the most valuable gem of all.

International Crime Thriller - Marilyn's Secret Lipstick
The past never stays buried.

Crime/Psychological Thriller
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Crime Thriller - The Drive-By Wife
Takes "home invasion" to an entirely new level.

Crime Thriller - Renata's Revenge
They. Picked. The. Wrong. Girl.

Crime Thriller/Serial Murders - With Mother's Approval
A mother's love is eternal. For some, it's lethal.

Romantic Suspense - Forbidden (Series)
Temptation has its price.

New Adult Sci-Fi Adventure - Wild Child (Series)
You don't choose the green water...the green water chooses you.

Horror/Black Comedy
Babies always know...and they don't forget.

Technothriller - The Tesla Secret
Unlocking Tesla’s free energy secret could power the world...or end their lives.

Technothriller - Blind Scorpion
He could walk away a hero...but for which country?

YA Sci-Fi Romance - The Mysterious Disappearance of Kurt Kramer 
Lost in between worlds, will his heart lead him home?

Romantic Comedy - Secrets of the Elusive Lover
He plays the field, but she changes the game.

Coming of Age Suspense - The Wrong Side of the Tracks
First love in the teenage hell known as high school.

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