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| couldn't find a cover image to steal for this one, so here's my copy |
You can't get much more late 70's than Wonder Wheels. This book reads like an afterschool special that I could only imagine John Travolta starring in. I'm not well-versed enough in 70's starlets to cast the female lead unfortunately. Maybe one of the former Brady Bunch girls?
Mick is a good looking seventeen year old guy who lives with his parents in Newark, New Jersey. When he's not working at the local supermarket, Mick spends most of his free time at a skating rink called Wonder Wheels where he is what his friends call "magic on wheels". Mick is looking forward to auditioning for a skate competition being held at the rink. The twelve winners will have an opportunity to show off their skills at a show in a nearby theme park next summer. Mick looks forward to being able to leave his job at Foods-For-You if he wins. Mick talks to his friend J.P. about music for his routine. They discuss a fictional song and how it's not good for the spins Mick wants to do. Mick jokes about skating to Barbara Streisand's People, a song they are all sick of. Ro, Wonder Wheel's organ player, will occasionally play People just to mess with Mick and his friends.
Mick has begun to feel a sense of disillusionment because he doesn't know many people well in his life. He has a conversation with his father likening life to a carousel.
Mick's main competition for the audition is his friend Lisa, who is constantly coming on to him. Mick just doesn't like her enough to date her. While skating around the rink with Lisa one day, Mick sees a girl who does catch his eye. After the song, he goes over to meet her and offer to buy her a Coke. The girl says her name is Kitty, but is rather icy toward Mick. Undeterred, Mick asks if Kitty will skate the next Couples Only with him and she agrees.
The story switches to Kitty's point of view and we get to see her crappy home life. Mom's a mentally abusive nut job, Dad's AWOL, little brother is angry and Grandma's stroke has altered her sense of reality. Kitty's mom freaks out when Mick calls. She tries to talk Kitty into seeing an older boy named Kenneth. Kitty's mother talks up Kenneth, calling him mature and responsible and bragging about the fact that he is about to become a deacon, but the thought of the boy "sent a shiver down Kitty's spine." Foreshadowing.
Mick tells his mother that he's really starting to fall for Kitty. Kitty warns Mick not to call her house because her mother is crazy. After weeks of seeing each other at Wonder Wheels, Mick and Kitty finally plan their first date.
Ro pulls Mick aside because she has some criticism for him...she thinks he should wear jockey shorts instead of boxers because you can see them sag under his pants. This is not important to the plot, just thought I'd mention it.
Kitty and Mick have their date, which entails sitting under a tree talking. Kitty tells Mick all about her home life, but she leaves out any mention of Kenneth. Kitty met Kenneth at a church picnic months ago, but right away he began asserting his authority over her. When Kitty accepted a date from another boy, Kenneth became so enraged that he twisted her arm and threatened to break it if she didn't cancel the date. Kitty avoided Kenneth after that incident and has been trying to completely eliminate him from her life.
Kitty can't wait until Wednesday (the next day they planned to meet at Wonder Wheels) to see Mick again, so she surprises him by showing up at Foods-For-You while he's working. "Hey, I wonder if anyone ever told someone something-something important-in the spaghetti section of a supermarket before." Kitty tells Mick she loves him (the "something important") and of course he reciprocates. Kitty somehow managed to get the whole day off from watching her grandmother and Mick invites her to his house for dinner.
During dinner, J.P. comes rushing over, excited about a new song he just heard that exists only in the world of Wonder Wheels. The song is called Calliope Girl. Everyone agrees that this is the perfect song for Mick's performance.
A furious Kenneth meets Kitty at her bus stop on her way home from Mick's. Kitty's mother told him what she'd been up to and he demands an explanation. Kitty is frightened but she bravely informs Kenneth that he does not own her. Kenneth begs to differ, and says he'll prove it to her. He grabs Kitty's hand and burns it with his cigarette. Then he throws her out of the car and makes her walk home.
Kitty tells her mother about what happened. Incredibly, Kitty's mother rationalizes the attack on her daughter as being typical male behavior. Is it a sign of this woman's mental problems, or were we really that stupid in 1979? Luke raped Laura on General Hospital the same year and everyone went on to ship them. Crazy. At least in this book, the abusive behavior is portrayed as being wrong and not at all romantic. Anyway, Kitty's mother continues to push the relationship. She blames Kenneth's anger on Kitty's spending so much time at the skating rink. She doesn't seem to be giving poor Kitty a choice not to date this guy.
The next night at Wonder Wheels, Mick makes an innocent remark about Kitty's belonging to him and she becomes upset. She tells Mick she will discuss what's bothering her on Saturday.
On her way home, Kenneth stops her again. This time he's in his car and demands that Kitty get in. He doesn't show any remorse for what happened before. Kitty says she'll talk to him over the phone, but she doesn't "want anymore scenes." He gets out and physically forces her into the car. Kitty hits him with her skate box, which really sends him over the edge. As they drive along away from Kitty's house, it occurs to her that Kenneth treats her much the same way her father treated her mother before he left.
Mick talks to his mother about Kitty again. He asks how you know when a relationship is right. His mother tells him he will probably feel this way about lots of girls and it will be different each time. She and Mick plan a party to celebrate his and Lisa's potential win at the auditions. They plan to invite all Mick's friends, including Kitty of course. Then Mick asks his mother's advice on the jockey shorts situation. As Mick and his mother discuss love, parties and underwear, it's really apparent how different his family is from Kitty's.
This pleasant conversation is interrupted by J.P., who rushes in the house in a panic, clutching a newspaper. Mick's first reaction is, "Don't tell me another president was shot." J.P hands over the newspaper and Mick reads an article about a "couple" (Kitty and Kenneth) who were found dead in Kenneth's car. The cause of death was determined as accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.
Mick talks to Kitty's little brother on the phone. Billy tells everything he knows, which only further clouds the picture because he reveals that Kitty hated Kenneth. Mick doesn't understand why she met him Wednesday night if she hated him.
Mick decides to attend Kitty's funeral alone. He even gets permission to view her body before the relatives arrive. Mick buys a single yellow rose and places it in Kitty's hands as he bids her a tearful farewell.
The day of the audition comes. Lots of people show up, but the Wonder Wheels manager gives Mick and Lisa the royal treatment. They each have their own dressing room and Ro even bought Mick a pair of jockeys (he forgot to get them) as a good luck present. Maybe Mick's underwear was more important to the story than I thought.
Mick introduces himself to a nine year old girl, a fellow competitor who is dy-no-mite on wheels. Mick thanks Lisa for helping him in the past few weeks since Kitty's death. Both Lisa and Mick wow the crowd with their routines and are called aside by the judges. Mick, Lisa and the little girl will all be performing at the theme park the next summer in a show called "America On Wheels."
Mick waves off congratulations and offers of celebratory pizza dinners. He wants some time alone at Wonder Wheels. Mick lies on the bench where he and Kitty often sat and remembers snippets of things she said to him during their time together.
How was this never made into a move? It had all the earmarks of a 70's hit. Death, drama, roller disco. Did it come a little too late, in 1979, when the country was beginning to get a little tired of such things? I would've liked a little more closure and perhaps some information on how Kitty's family dealt with her death, but Wonder Wheels is still a very touching story of first love and tragedy.
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