The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.
I never told anybody about what happened that night. But, I never forgot. The next week football season ended and basketball season became the talk of the town. There was much anticipation and hope for a winning season. Wade, James, Randall, Fred, and John became an almost unbeatable team. They only lost to Etowah and Guntersville but went on to win the County tournament and made it to the final four in the State playoffs.
Before the quarter-finals and after school on Thursday, Wade Tillman approached me as I was closing my locker. He said that he was sorry about what happened in October and invited me to church on Sunday. As other students were leaving, James, Randall, Fred, and John walked up and apologized. They said they were ashamed how they had treated me and hoped that I would forgive them. They said they had rededicated their lives to God during the youth revival that had been going on all week at First Baptist Church of Christ.
Now, right before my seventeenth birthday I wasn’t as religious as I had been in Elementary and Junior High school, but I rarely ever missed a Sunday at Clear Creek Baptist Church listening to a Brother G sermon. I had never been to First Baptist. It was the biggest church in town and had the reputation for being a little too uppity-up for me and my blue-collar family. I told them not to worry about what had happened and said I would think about coming to church on Sunday.
The Pencil-Driven Life 