Seeking the Cool Side of the Pillow: A Wayward Youth's Awakening

The Cool Side of the Pillow is a coming-of-age story that begins with my life among the aristocracy in Mexico, and concludes in a courtroom in El Paso, Texas. Arrested in Mexico City and after three months in prison, I am on the edge of my seat waiting to hear a judge decide my future. Mine was a life of privilege --My British father, a pilot during the First World War, and my beautiful mother are ill-matched, but they have forged a life together in a privileged society.I have no memory of the death of my first-born brother, but I recall vividly the day my younger brother Christopher, who was one year younger and my best friend, died at the age of four. Two weeks later, blaming incompetent doctors, our parents packed up my sister "Billie," who was six years older, and me, and headed to Los Angeles. My sister figures out her life quite quickly, while I, on the other hand, become, in the words of one teacher, "incorrigible." In my mind, I am the lonely, bright boy who struggles to form an identity as my parents divorce, and I am moved from a safe and responsible farm life and a one-room schoolhouse, to one of the biggest high schools in Los Angeles. I develop a persona that enables me to manage in a tricky world. Soon I am introduced to the darker realms of society, where I try to create a balance between a normal life of dating and fun hijinks and the almost uncontrollable urges to outwit the system. As one who had learned to cover his fears and anger with a patina of arrogance and callousness, I had to be brought to the absolute edge of terror before I would begin my adult life with an attitude of gratitude and responsibility.