JOSH KEYES, RAINBOWS END A myriad precedents have been set for stories where the travails of comingof-age are represented by otherworldly forces. Buffy, Wednesday, Harry Potter and The Blue Balls of Angst. Sure, the last one is slash fanfic (Hermione Granger/Luna Lovegood causes a great deal of confusion in the timely throes of an updated Jane Austen). But they nonetheless draw back an essential fear of the hormonal unknown and speak to the generation currently vise-gripped by biology most foul. So it should come as no surprise that in October 1979 an entire school actually had what the police deemed a riot. Cause of riot? Why, Satanic possession, natch. Because when the Lord of All That Exists Unholy whether on Earth or in Hell wants to raise an army, he’s thinkin’ troubled teens and not, say, all the burned-out souls suffering from severe PTSD having been in, y’know, an actual army. It just makes sense. No. 130 While seemingly devoid of logic there may be some reasoning to Old Nick’s summation of the students of the Miami Aerospace Academy. A) It’s in Miami. He lives there nine out of 10 months in any given year. Slightly more during the television run of Miami Vice, during which the consultations of the Prince of Darkness provided every other plotline involving a speedboat. It’s common knowledge that Satan loves speed (synonymically, even — you’d think more of the daguerreotypes about him would involve an alchemist offering him a hot Erlenmeyer flask and a “smoking pipette,” the gross lightbulb of the late alchemical era). B) The Academy was being run by a narcissistic lunatic named Evaristo Marina who fled Cuba with a price on his head and demanded his staff and students refer to him as “El General.” A position which he had not previously occupied during the Cuban Revolution, but just kinda figured he would have gotten away with it too, if not for Castro and those meddling kids. NO WOMAN NO CRIOT
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