#no bulletproof chapter update does not mean no bulletproof content!

[literary-mafioso]

My working backstory for Max Durocher, very Seize The Day, cobbled together with fragmented Mann commentary over the years: of mixed Black American [father's side] and Haitian immigrant [mother's side] heritage, raised middle class in Ladera Heights, high-achiever, beloved by his teachers, private school and college degree both subsidized by GATE programs/scholarship, piano lessons and high school business plan competitions… now gunning for the Black Diamond of downward mobility slopes; guilt-infested Mama's Boy of the Resentful Trauma-Bond typology; raised by a nurse and an insurance salesman with all the damage that entails; youngest of three brothers with all the Malcolm in the Middle shenanigans that entails; emotionally distant father absconded with another woman when Max was in grade school, started a second family with whom he leads an apparently happier and more prosperous life; brothers financially successful white collar go-getters, now geographically distant, largely to get away from their mother (but there is far more love among them than sibling rivalry, and his brothers are protective of him); once an in-demand child actor for television specials and commercials — Ida encouraged this and doted on him in a Munchhausen's-by-Proxy Dance Moms sort of way, with the hopes that he would break into eventual Hollywood stardom (when the dream dissolved, so too did her favor); neurotically convinced as a boy that his failure caused his mother to fall ill; was obsessed with Golden Age Hollywood as an adolescent and spends much of his downtime as an adult watching Turner Classic Movies with a newspaper in his lap; though his mother discouraged it, he spent his twenties/early thirties trying to make it as a Vegas lounge act while working a variety of odd jobs on weekdays; made some lousy "friends" and on his 34th birthday gambled away his grandmother's inheritance (which was going to be that down payment on a Town Car. He has still not told Ida about this); subsequently developed a pathological aversion to risk; has done so many crosswords in his life that he is, unbeknownst to himself in all his modesty and naiveté, a puzzle savant and walking trivia encyclopedia; the type of nerd who was picked last for gym class but didn't warrant enough attention come middle school to even be properly bullied; grandparents owned a candy store but they were never allowed to have candy in the house — Ida warned it would ruin their health. I could go on!