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#WIPsnips "power" Chapter 8 of "My Electromagnetic Romance" opens with P.I. Lu Volasko remembering one of her dad's typical "lessons" when he would bring her on a job as a kid. #MyElectromagneticRomance🧲💕 #WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #Writesky #WIP
May 16, 2025, 5:51 PM
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"text": "#WIPsnips \"power\"\n\nChapter 8 of \"My Electromagnetic Romance\" opens with P.I. Lu Volasko remembering one of her dad's typical \"lessons\" when he would bring her on a job as a kid.\n\n#MyElectromagneticRomance🧲💕\n\n#WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #Writesky #WIP",
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"alt": "[Excerpt from Chapter 8 of \"My Electromagnetic Romance\" (by me):]\n\n“Bullies ain’t the biggest guy in the room,” Joe Volasko had told his daughter as they drove his crappy old El Camino through a relentless downpour. “They ain’t the strongest or the toughest. They could be big—they could be strong, or tough—but that ain’t the point. That ain’t why they’re bullies.”\n\nHe snapped his fingers twice, not impolitely. Lucija handed over the can of beer she was holding for him, and he chugged some down, smacking his lips happily as he handed the can back and manufactured a loud belch that would easily have won the gold in an elementary school cafeteria. His daughter was a bit past the age where she’d found it amusing, but she obediently returned a tight-lipped smile and paid attention as the lesson continued. The wipers scraped a funky beat back and forth across the windshield—one of them was sorely in need of replacement.\n\n“Bullies are the ones *in charge*. The ones who *like* it that way.” Joe scratched absently at his three-day stubble and sniffed, keeping an eye on the cross streets as they went. “Somebody said to ’em: hey, *you* get to call the shots. Everybody’s gotta do things *your* way.” He shrugged. “Sometimes God says it. He makes ’em the biggest and strongest, and they think big and strong’s all there is. They figure if you’re worth a damn, you’ll be big enough and strong enough to knock ’em down a peg. And if you can’t do *that*, well...you *ain’t* worth a damn. They figure.” He leaned forward and squinted through the windshield as their headlights flashed on a street sign, but he shook it off like a cocky pitcher vetoing the catcher’s suggestion. “Sometimes it’s a company man—the *company* says they’re in charge. Like some guy at the post office. Or a bank or something. Bureaucrats, right? He’s gonna trip you up in all the red tape he’s got, and if you’re not the guy with the right pair of scissors, well, you ain’t worth a damn. *He* figures. And [continued…]",
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"alt": "[Continued excerpt from Chapter 8 of \"My Electromagnetic Romance (by me):]\n\n[…] sometimes, it’s the guy at the top. He gets voted in, or he gets chosen, or he gets lucky, or his pop croaks and he gets the job—y’know, whatever, if you’re American or in some other damn place. And it’s the *law*, or maybe just a hell of a lot of *money*, says *he’s* in charge. Politicians. The mayor, the governor, the president. Celebrities. *Cops*. If you can’t change those laws, or you ain’t got that money, then you’re nobody. You ain’t worth a damn. He figures.”\n\nLucija squirmed in her seat and stuck the beer can between her knees. Her finger roamed over the passenger’s side window, tracing squiggly trails through the mist condensing on the glass.\n\nJoe Volasko grinned at her. His speech was blunt and crude, like every cop and fireman and construction worker in their neighborhood, but his habit of spouting home-brewed philosophy often gave him away. “The thing is,” he said, “bullies can only push you around if they think they’re in charge. Soon as you show ’em you’re worth a damn—even if you’re *not*—they fold like your Uncle Boz when I go all in with a pair of threes. Yeah? Bullies think they got power. But there’s really only two kinds of power, Lu.” He patted the dashboard. “There’s *horsepower*.” Then he pounded his chest.\n\n [continued…]",
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"alt": "[Continued excerpt from Chapter 8 of \"My Electromagnetic Romance (by me):]\n\nLucija almost gagged, worried he was going to invoke the Power of Love or something cartoonishly sappy like that. She was past the age where she’d found *that* amusing, too.\n\nBut he narrowed his eyes fiendishly, saying: “And there’s pure fuckin’ guts.”\n\nHis daughter perked up, interest rekindled. Whenever her father dropped an F-bomb, she knew it was more than just a meandering fairy tale.\n\n“You don’t gotta be the five hundred pound gorilla in the room,” Joe Volasko explained, flicking a look at Lucija out of the corner of his eye. “But if you walk in on a two hundred pound gorilla throwin’ his weight around, just make sure you’re packin’ enough to hit two-oh-*one*.” He stopped to think, checking the road ahead. “Reminds me—I oughta teach you to shoot. You’re, what—fourteen? Fifteen, now?”\n\nLu Volasko shook her head, remembering—she’d actually been thirteen at the time. That conversation took place three years before her mother died. Despite Rose Volasko’s flatly stated and poorly timed “Over my dead body, Joe,” he *did* take their daughter out to the firing range a few weeks later.",
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