A Sequel to Embrace

How many good movie sequels have you seen? How many were disappointing? And, how many were left unmade?

Part of being a fiction writer is being vigilant, looking for story lines, weaving and interweaving lives that never were into characters that readers enjoy. It isn't something that can be turned off, then on again. It is a presence.

Before this gets too weird, let me go a little Andy Rooney on you. For many, that reference is obscure. I'll be right here after Google or Bing is through with you.

Okay. Did you ever wonder what happened to Zack Mayo? He was the lead in An Officer and a Gentleman, a Naval aviation officer candidate who falls for one of the "townies." The plot gets dark for a while, and there is tension between Zack and their senior instructor, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Foley. Foley thinks Zack is going to defect with an F-14. Zack is doing the things that have always worked for him - when Foley labels him a "slick little hustler" it's not far off the mark.

Zack makes it, graduates with his class and becomes an officer in the US Navy. His career path includes basic flight school and then... What?

An adorable WWII movie, made more so because of the cast, is Operation Petticoat. Cary Grant plays a sub captain whose boat is caught up in the first days of the war. It is damaged and sinks at anchorage. He enlists (after a fashion) the talents of another "slick little hustler" - Lt. (jg) Nick Holden - played by Tony Curtis. Holden joined the USNR because a uniform gets a person into all the right clubs. The film ends with... Well, it's now Commander Holden, whose next command is a nuke boat.

Is it like that? Does Zack Mayo win his wings? Does he fly the F-14 in combat, maybe become CAG on a carrier? Does he lead his pilots into war on 16 January 1991? Was Mayo pulling Pentagon duty on 9/11?

Or, does he fail, wash out? Did he lack the delicate touch and nimble mind necessary to fly a military aircraft? Maybe he said the wrong thing to the wrong person and, to quote Top Gun's Commander "Stinger" Jardian, ended up "flying rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong." 

Maybe there was a night when his Tomcat was acting up, the weather sucked and he was bingo fuel, that he and his RIO never made it back to the ship. Wife Paula was left with a folded flag, and kids to raise.

Zack had that "slick hustler" side that would have come in handy when all of the book answers failed. When the airplane was having a day, when things looked bad, when there was somebody out there who needed a bomb put in exactly the right place... When a Marine who sounded a lot like Gunny Foley was on the radio saying things like "danger close" and only Lt. Commander "Mayonnaise" Mayo had the balls to do what had to be done, because he'd once been the man with no place else to go. A Marine had given him the chance to prove what he had, when no one else believed in him.

We have a start, don't we? This is one of the reasons I love being a writer.