The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.
The Boaz Secrets, written in 2018, is my third novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism. Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ. Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.
Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ. Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends. Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends. She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ. Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs.
June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.
The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present. The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018. After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart. However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart. They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.
In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith. Will these religious differences unite them? The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept. Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?
Chapter 5
June & July 1970
Three days had gone by since I had first met Associate Pastor Peter Grantham on the front porch steps of First Baptist Church of Christ, and I still hadn’t met Olivia Tillman. That didn’t mean I hadn’t learned more about her.
That night, Dad and I had walked over for the 6:00 p.m. Wednesday night fellowship meal. He then had attended the 6:30 Prayer Meeting and I had, reluctantly, sat and listened to a Raymond Radford lead a handful of kids, most seemed younger than me, in a short Bible study taken from Genesis, centered on what made Eve eat the apple. I later learned that Mr. Radford owned Radford Hardware and Building Supply Company in Boaz and his son, Randall, and about 40 other members of the ‘Explosion’ team, whatever that was, were in New Mexico on their annual summer missions trip.
Mr. Radford shared with us that six junior high aged kids had already been ‘saved’ during the Vacation Bible School the youth were holding at the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in southern New Mexico. The youth were holding this two-week school while their adult chaperons were helping the Tribe complete three Sunday School rooms on the back of the church building they had been working on the past three summers. I gathered that the team had left last Saturday morning and had arrived late Sunday night. By lunch time Monday, all sixty adults and youth were busy working diligently to spread Christ’s gospel.
Dad dropped by the youth center down in the basement shortly after Mr. Radford had released us for what he referred to as ‘hang time.’ I told Dad to go on home, that I wanted to stay. I whispered to him that I was on a mission. He smiled and winked at me and walked away.
Within a few minutes I was talking with the only other kid who looked older than 13. He was sitting in the corner eating cookies and drinking Kool-Aid from a table I had noticed when Dad had left. James Adams was the son of David Adams, the man who Dad had rented our house from. I wasn’t hungry after the fellowship meal, but I did join him in the red bean bag chair sitting across from him. We seemed to hit it off very quickly. He was laid back and easy going. He asked me where I was from, what had brought me to Boaz, and if I played basketball. I gave him my pat answers to the first two questions and told him I liked basketball okay but had never played except in pickup games in our Chicago neighborhood. He seemed to want to talk about nothing else, which didn’t interest me, so I finally asked him did he want to play ping-pong. One of the two tables on the far side of the large room was unoccupied.
He easily beat me in five games. I think it was his reach. After he stood up, I noticed how tall he was, several inches taller than my five feet ten-inch frame. His arms appeared to be a foot longer than mine. During the games, I learned he had been sick with a virus last Saturday when the missions team left for New Mexico. He said he had planned on going but couldn’t leave the bathroom. “It was coming from both ends.” James, no doubt was an open book type of guy.
I asked him about the youth group and what goes on when everybody is in town. James said that the youth minister, Randy Miller, and Pastor Walter’s daughter, Olivia, were the heartbeat of the youth ministry. “Randy is the thunder and Olivia is the lightning. Even though she’ll only be a 9th grader this year she operates like she is in college. She’s sold out for Christ. Let me give you some advice. Don’t think because you are the new cool guy in town that she will be fawning all over you. I’m not sure Olivia has ever thought about having a boyfriend. Now, that doesn’t mean she’s homely. She’s drop-dead gorgeous, could easily pass for an A-Team cheerleader, that’s the varsity team. Sometimes I think she’s not fully human. She’s so dedicated to God, and her father’s work here at the church.”
James and I had talked for nearly two hours, an entire hour after Mr. Radford had ran everybody out and locked up the basement door. James and I had sat outside on the Church’s front steps. I had learned that he and Wade Tillman, Randall Radford, John Ericson, and Fred Billingsley were five guys known as the Flaming Five and they lived for the basketball court. James invited me to start coming to the Boaz High School gym on Thursday nights to watch them scrimmage. He also said that I was welcome to join them any time. I quickly declined and told him I would just stick to running. He said, “see there, you are a natural, all you would have to do is learn to dribble, shoot, and pass.” I thanked him, told him I might come watch him and the other members of the Flaming Five, and walked the three blocks home.
For the next two weeks I had developed a routine. Jog or ride my bike around town early every morning during the week. Divide the rest of my day between watching TV and reading. Thursday nights I hung out at the gym watching the Flaming Five devour every five-man team that challenged them, except last week when a group from Emma Samson High School came up from Gadsden. This was a close game but, so far, it was the only time I saw James’ team suffer a loss. Wednesday night and Sunday mornings, Dad and I went to First Baptist Church of Christ. Last night, I had thought I would finally meet Olivia since the mission’s team had returned yesterday on my birthday. I had, as usual, gone down to the basement after the fellowship meal and was astounded by the number of kids. I could feel an electricity in the air that was clearly absent the other times I had attended. I was disappointed to learn that Olivia couldn’t make it. Seems like she had caught a bug like James’ on the return trip from New Mexico. Word was, she was holed up next door in her bedroom at the Church’s parsonage where she lived with her parents, her brother Wade, and her sister Juanita. I learned that Wade and Juanita were close to my age and would also be in the eleventh-grade.
Dad and I had spent nearly all day yesterday looking for me a car. He had told David Adams at Adams Chevrolet, Buick & GMC that we would return today and make the final decision between a 1964 Pontiac Bonneville and a 1965 Chevrolet Corvair. I had instantly fell in love with a 1965 Chevelle Malibu SS396 hardtop coupe. I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Dad confirmed that when he said, “too much car, way too expensive. You’d kill yourself with that much power.” Dad was insanely particular, about most everything. This certainly didn’t preclude him from wanting to test drive the Bonneville and the Corvair one more time. I knew there was no use in trying to argue that nothing likely had changed since yesterday and that he already knew he was going to buy the Corvair. Why? It was cheaper on gas.
After we returned to the dealership with the Corvair, and after Dad and David Adams spent another thirty minutes talking about the reliability of the rear-mounted air-cooled engine, we drove Dad’s truck to First State Bank of Boaz and met with Fritz Billingsley. I quickly learned that Dad had, two days earlier, gone to visit Mr. Billingsley who had approved a $1,000 loan with Dad signing as co-signor and guarantor. As a birthday present, Dad was paying the difference between the car’s cost and the money I was now borrowing. I liked Mr. Billingsley. He was personable and seemed interested in me. He asked if I had met his son Fred. I told him we had met at church and that I was enjoying watching him play basketball on Thursday nights along with the other four members of the Flaming Five.
After signing my life away, Mr. Billingsley gave me a $1,000 check made payable to me and Adams Chevrolet, Buick & GMC. Dad and I returned to the dealership and signed a few more documents. Dad was glad David Adams had someone on staff to bind the insurance coverage. He handed me the keys and I quickly sat down in my very first car. Dad made me take him for a long ride towards Attalla and back before he would let me drive all by myself. Even though we had spent weeks in Chicago with Dad teaching me how to drive. He even had borrowed cars from half of his fellow professors just to expose me to different vehicles. As I drove down Main Street I let irrationality control my thoughts. I was now a quasi-adult. Cool. Had bought my own car. Owed a bank money. I could feel the eyes of the three girls that crossed Highway 168 in front of me as I sat at the red light. They were thinking, ‘I sure would like to meet that good-looking guy in that cool car. I wonder if he has a girlfriend?’
By the time I got home, reality set in. Having my own set of wheels now, not just bicycle wheels, but those of a real car, didn’t mean I wasn’t still a full-fledged kid. My little car didn’t mean I was any smarter. In fact, trying to go to sleep at midnight, all I could think about was how on earth I would ever be able to befriend Olivia Tillman. It seemed from what James had said, she would never even notice me, certainly she wouldn’t become human enough to think I was cool with my new car. My five-plus year-old car. As my subconscious rose up to take me towards my dreams, I wished tomorrow was Wednesday and it would be the day I finally got to meet the gorgeous Olivia. The dreams started with a question, ‘how had she become some sort of goddess to me?’
The Pencil Driven Life 