LBDG Commentary 18: A Wife, A Butterfly

Remember when I said my favorite chapter title was If Only No One Won? This one is right there with it and another piece of the AWAB redemption arc. Title rankings aside, it’s one of my favorites from a story and writing standpoint. Four weddings were promised in the part title. You’re about to get two for the price of one.

A key event that got me excited to work on this story was the idea of Local Boy making it to his wedding day only to have the old man arrive and announce it’s the wrong girl. Felt like an interesting time travel take on the wedding objection, adjacent to the original TP but handled quite differently.

Originally there wasn’t a do-over in the middle of the ceremony. In the midst of writing the scene I decided eloping would work better. More in line with the character, not a complete redux of the other wedding we just spent a few chapters at — plus it let me justify keeping Local Boy’s parents out of the country (and out of the story). Partway through the rewrite the little McFly in my head chimed in with “Wait! I’ve got a time machine…” making me recognize the unique opportunity to have it both ways.

Tidbits:

• The “at least that’s what you said I should say” bit sneaks in a lyrical allusion (perhaps unnecessarily) while hinting at the fact this memoir is a ghostwrite if not a co-write. It’s intended to hint his son eventually helped Local Boy recount his adventures after the fact, essentially giving both books the same narrator. It’s also a get out of jail free card on the fact that Local Boy shouldn’t actually remember the first instance of the wedding by the established time travel rules, which in turn becomes a hint towards who the old man actually is.
• “Since this is ostensibly a time travel story, you shouldn’t be surprised” both addresses our three year jump un-aided by time travel while setting up the upcoming wedding reboot.
• We get a nod to how/when young Local Boy first learned “Sunshine” by Jonathan Edwards we saw him cover as an adult in 2002 in TP. Respect the greats!
• Bonus nod to where his son learned to play cards. “You don’t care about the trick I lost with the three of clubs as long as I show you my trumps.” (Writing “trump” in any context feels weird these days.)
• “The rest was in the hands of fate’s wide wheel to borrow from another great songwriter” is a reference to the Quantum Leap episode “Glitter Rock,” implying the songwriter Tonic from the band King Thunder is real and has already released this song in Local Boy’s timeline. (I wonder what he’ll think of “Rock the Redhead” a few years later.)
• “Beyond the mirror image…” is sort of another QL reference, this one as a tribute to expert fan Matt Dale’s series of books about the show. (RIP)
• Since I already had two QL references, I figured I’d go for the trifecta with the old man using Al’s “Ain’t that a kick in the butt” line.

• And as long as we’re still referencing, here’s a tiny nod to L Extreme: “The little man in my heart still needed to take his best ready aim fire before hoping for the best.”
• As the TP book report stated, Local Boy’s wife quotes lyrics like his son and favors posed photos vs. candids. She introduces herself via a Jim Croce line, then asks to take LB’s picture. Took me way too long to settle on a secondhand Canonet as her period appropriate camera of choice. It looked like the camera I imagined, but I worried it was too rare / too expensive to make sense. Giving her a used one put those concerns to bed.
• Bonus fun fact: I partly picked the “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” reference because my mom almost named me Treetop, but my grandmother intervened and shot it down.

• One flaw with the timeline switcheroo plan was wearing a veil at an elopement didn’t really make sense, but it was important to obscure the bride’s face from the old man for as long as possible leading into the final reveal. I tried big sunglasses, walking backwards down the aisle, and him just plain being oblivious but it all felt forced. “She still opted for traditional attire” was the simple solution. Bonus that it gave a reason to bring back Jimmy’s sharkskin jacket (the one with a velvet caller) again.
• You can still buy an appealingly dangerous folk rock shirt.
• Swapping “Here Comes the Bride” for “Here She Comes Now” was exciting even if it’s a little obvious. At the time I thought of it, Lou Reed was on the redhead’s list.
• He saw the old man at different stages of their courtship because the old man is time traveling backwards to figure out when the wrong girl came into the picture. Problem is it’s the right girl every time except at the actual wedding, which will be explained later.
• It’s amazing “Won One” is such a big hit if Local Boy keeps adding cheesy parody rewrite lines like “As I lift that veil from yours girl…”

Check out Local Boy Done Gone, and/or watch a video of me reading this chapter while wearing a Dangerous Folk Rock Appeal t-shirt below.