{"product_id":"whatever-happened-to-baby-wayne","title":"Whatever Happened to Baby Wayne?","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBy:\u003c\/strong\u003e Wayne F. Burke\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePublished by Culicidae Press, 2025-06-02\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou are ten years old. Your stomach aches. Your grandfather's hand rests on your shoulder like a weathered leather glove-silent, steady, and more comforting than any advice ever spoken. You're in a JC Penney, dodging your grandmother's wart-picking scrutiny and your brother's thumb-sucking despair. You're in a swing, singing about your uncle, until he storms out with a belt like a black snake. You stop. You always stop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is not a memoir. It is a field guide to survival in the rusted-out towns of New England, where the church bells ring and the pot roast simmers, but love is frozen solid in second-floor apartments. Where boys become men by slamming into each other on football fields, only to be spit out into factories and bars. Where the All-Star never makes it, the coach laughs when he hits you in the face, and the only glory is someone else's.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou meet Jen in Walgreens. She hasn't eaten all day. You buy her candy. She calls you Duane. You don't correct her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou dream of Nietzsche, of Kerouac, of Bukowski on a bicycle at the Oscars. You write poems like postcards from the edge of memory, where the dead don't speak, but their silence is deafening.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou are Baby Wayne. Or maybe you were. Or maybe you never were.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Phoenix Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47137670103209,"sku":"PHBK-9781683151333","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/9899\/1785\/files\/7216603482787.jpg?v=1780333654","url":"https:\/\/myti.com\/products\/whatever-happened-to-baby-wayne","provider":"Myti","version":"1.0","type":"link"}