Bittersweet, slightly short: an excerpt from GOOD & LOUD

Revisiting the last Good Friday I celebrated

In my senior year of high school, my friends and I had a bonfire in the woods behind my house. The wooded preserve was tucked behind a road called Tuclor Lane, which later became the name of a chapter in my memoir. I started writing that chapter the night of the first Cabinet of Wonder at Mechanics’ Hall in 2023, where I began hacking away at it live, in front of an “audience.” It was a weird pressure-cooker writing experiment, but surprisingly, a lot from that messy first draft stuck.

Maybe this could be a fun idea for an event: collect a bunch of writers, ask them to pluck away at their pages while people observe them, like they would art in a gallery. Nodding and watching while they sip champagne and eat canapés. It’s so ridiculous, it might be great? Photo by Kat Moros.

Anyway, back to that April in 2004. Everyone was allowed to attend a “Tuclor Jam.” Hockey players, popular girls, us. In the woods, barely lit by firelight, we all looked the same. We were free to drink, smoke, a co-mingle with other cliques. We only ever felt studied, watched, and judged beneath the harsh fluorescent lights of our Catholic school hallways, wooden statues of Jesus grimacing at us from every angle. Tuclor was neutral ground—no crucifixes in sight. That Tuclor Jam was on Good Friday that year, and if you’re not familiar with the Catholic holiday (which is also today) here’s a very quick “catch-up with Coco’s Catholic past through a crappy Bible-study” summary:

Good Friday is a dark day in the Catholic calendar. We re-trace Jesus’ last steps as a living man. He’s betrayed by a best friend, mocked and shamed by his peers, and then terribly tortured and crucified. Despite these awful moments, I always felt like it wasn’t “dark” enough. Most priests and teachers ended their sermon or lesson with some version of: “But wait! It’s all for the good of the human race! His Father, after all, put him on earth for this purpose, this day, to die for our sins. He sacrificed his only son, for us.” It might sound dramatic, but Good Friday and the catechisms that came with it, fanned the flames of my religious doubt. I always felt uneasy that loving your mother and father came 4th on the commandment list, and now this? Sacrificing your only kid? Parents leaving their children was already a pattern in my family’s ancestry, which I was eager to break, so this felt like a good place to start.

A quick craft note: Research & fact-checking vs. scene writing

Writing a memoir, I have had to become a log-keeper of time. Every scene needs to stay true to the season, date, and people who were present at the time. I have learned to keep this kind of writing session separate from scene writing. They access such different parts of my brain and I end up doing each task half-assed. So now, I dedicate certain days or chunks of time to prepping dates and scanning old journals. Then, ideally on a different day, I write dialogue and scenes. Finally getting organized in this way has lent (teehee) to exciting moments, like today, when I noticed:

1. I have an afternoon free to write

2. It’s Good Friday

3. I’m trying to finish this chapter which happened almost exactly 20 years ago today/Good Friday.

Diving right into a scene without fact-checking or doubting myself is the closest I’ve ever gotten to time traveling: I can scale the eight-foot fence, pour the lighter fluid on the bonfire, swig the horrible Malibu rum.

Something wonderful happens when you write about the same time of year, decades later. On any other day of the year, when I revisit this memory, I feel so much older, embarrassed, a little distant. But this week, I’ve traveled back there again, transported by senses which don’t age over time. The squish and smell of the thawing mud. Evenings that feel like afternoons thanks to the time change. Frustrated glimpses of spring trying to cut through a stubborn winter. Walking through the woods near my house I am 17 again, the whole world ahead of me. Am I walking by Evergreen Cemetery in Portland, Maine, or in St. Andrew’s behind my house, asking my friend Dave to pose for a photo.

Maybe the second or third roll of film I ever took. Dave, sometime in the spring of 2004.

Before I share the piece, a quick note about this first paid-only newsletter. It swells me with gratitude when I see that someone has paid to subscribe to these Echoes. It really helps me keep going. So thank you. I will continue to publish Coco’s Echo for all subscribers, but Bittersweet, slightly short will be paid-only. These will reveal a little more from my works-in-progress, and I will also share helpful craft notes I’ve learned along the way.

Without further ado, happy Good Friday to all those who celebrate (or those who have left the church and weirdly miss the holiday):

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Tuclor Lane (second half of chapter)

“COPS!” Copeland’s eyes shut tight as he opened his mouth wide and yelled across the bonfire in one long exhale. It wasn’t much of a warning. Flashlights zig-zagged across our faces, the party almost twenty-strong. Jay, Quinn, and Fitz leaped like gazelles into the night. Warren and Copeland took off in the opposite direction of home. Jeff grabbed my backpack while I dragged my sleeve across my snotty nose and eyes still wet from tears.

“Idiots,” Jeff started toward the ravine in the other direction. “We live this way. Go!”