The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.
Ever since I became the Boaz scorekeeper I heard more and more about Club Eden. It apparently was this mythical place where the Flaming Five hung out on weekends. The Tuesday after my first visit to First Baptist Church of Christ, John Ericson invited me to camp out with him and the other four Friday night since there wasn’t a basketball game. He said Club Eden was a private club and I had to swear not to disclose its location or what happens. He told me to meet him at San Ann #1 at 5:00 p.m. When I arrived, Fred was with John in his big red Chevy Blazer. They made me sit between them with a black hood over my head. They told me that I couldn’t know where Club Eden is until I became a full member. I asked how I became a member and all they would say is, “we have to know that you are a true believer. Don’t worry, it will take a while but we believe you have what it takes.”
It was not until much later that I learned why I had even been considered for membership. It was Fred’s dad, Fitz, who had suggested to the other members they give me a try. My Dad had told me at least a hundred times since the middle of the 9th grade how proud he was of me for transforming Fred into a good student. Dad also had told me how thankful Fitz Billingsley was and had often asked Dad how he could repay me.
Now, riding along, bumping and weaving, I tried to visualize where John was taking us but after a couple of turns and Fred’s loud impression of ‘Imagine,’ I quickly became confused. After twenty minutes or so, John parked and Fred pulled the mask off my head. We were sitting in front of an old log cabin in the woods that sat beside an overflowing creek. Fred told me to check things out as he and John unloaded the coolers, several boxes of food, a couple of lanterns, and a host of other gear.
The cabin had a porch across its front with five big oak rocking chairs. I walked around to the back of the cabin and saw a fire pit encircled with big rocks and an assortment of chairs and benches. Thirty feet or so beyond the fire pit was a twenty-foot-wide creek that revealed the effects of the big rains we had had the last several days. Upstream to the left I could see an old army tent. I walked the 100 feet or so to it and raised the front flap and peeped inside. There were two large beds set up, one on the far left, the other on the right. They were both partially covered with what looked like bearskins. The floor was covered in a green bristly carpet that reminded me of a hairbrush my mother had—but it was brown.
I walked back outside and heard another vehicle driving up. As I came around to the front of the cabin I saw Wade getting out of his blue Chevy Blazer. I never did know why Wade and John chose the same type vehicle. At least they were different colors.
Randall hopped out the other side and opened the rear hatch. Out poured James along with two girls. I could tell they were girls even though they had black masks over their heads. I didn’t know either one of them.
Over the next several hours we grilled burgers, built a big fire in the fire pit, and listened to James’s boombox. Fred told a ghost story that made me want to go home. Around 10:00 p.m., Wade and Fred walked away with the two girls, which I never knew their names, and wound up in the tent. About an hour later Fred and Wade returned to the fire pit and Randall and James went to the tent. As far as I remember, John stayed at the fire and never went to the tent, but the other four were persistent in taking their hour-long turns. No one said anything about what was going on in the tent but I figured I was learning firsthand that the rumors I had heard about the underlying meaning of ‘the Flaming Five’ was apparently true—they were as determined to score with the girls as they were to fire up the nets.
Around 2:45 a.m., Wade and James left with the girls. I caught a glimpse of them before Wade pulled on their masks. They didn’t look near as happy and gleeful as they did when they arrived nearly eight hours earlier. Wade and James returned in about an hour and we all pulled out our sleeping bags and slept under the cold starry sky. After a breakfast of eggs, sausage, toast, and coffee, and ten minutes of packing, I was again sitting between Fred and John under a damp and black hood heading back to San Ann #1, my car, and with a new understanding of the real Flaming Five.
The Pencil Driven Life 