Candy

In the opening pages of CANDY, Joe muses: "It's hard to imagine life before Candy. Sometimes I sit here for hours, staring into the past, trying to remember what it was like, but I never seem to get very far. I just can't see myself without her. About the best I can manage is the last half hour before we met, the last few moments of my pre-Candy existence, when I was still just a boy. I was innocent then."

Joe is pretty much what one would call an "average Joe." He's a high school student from the suburbs of London. He's not exceptional at school, but he gets by. Plus, he has his music. Joe plays guitar in a band, The Katies, with some boys from school. They play in clubs, sometimes even in London clubs. Joe's parents are divorced and he lives with his father and older sister, Gina. Joe is still trying to figure out who he is and where he will go in the world. Maybe that's why he is so easily drawn in to Candy.

Joe first meets Candy when he goes to London for a doctor's appointment. She's standing outside of a drugstore and she notices him. "Nice hat," she says. Joe is wearing a new wool hat with a star on it. He stands motionless, shocked that this beautiful girl he had been staring at has spoken to him. She disappears as he tries to muster up the nerve to say something in return. Then fate strikes again. Joe runs into the same girl in McDonald's, and she helps him out of an embarrassing situation. As a thank you, Joe buys her a chocolate donut. The girl tells him her name is Candy.

Joe and Candy are enjoying their time in McDonald's until a dark shadow is cast over the table. It's a huge guy who sits down between them. He has "the emptiest eyes I've ever seen --- empty of feeling, empty of hearing, empty of everything but himself. His face was a death mask." His name is Iggy, and Candy is obviously very, very afraid.