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 24
December 23 & 24, 2017
The email arrived at 4:19 a.m. Saturday morning. I didn’t see it until sunrise. I was sitting out on the front porch in the swing in two layers of clothes and my sleeping bag draped over me. There was a light dusting of snow on the untraveled street and sidewalk. It was the coldest I could ever recall from my time here in the South.
Jerry’s lab time had been delayed until yesterday. Jerry was as terse as always, ‘match and no match.’ What the hell did that mean? I almost missed it. Two lines below his professional signature including the University’s address, two phone numbers, and a web address, he had written, ‘Call me. Now.’
Then, it made sense. I hadn’t been able to sleep inside. Earlier this morning, I had awoken. At first, I thought I had been dreaming, a mysterious hand was writing on the side of the house. It turned out it was a tree limb screeching against my bedroom window. The dream had returned quickly. It was like the walls were shrinking and compressing against me. I believed I was smothering. That feeling had led me out here. Now, I knew someone, something, had been trying to communicate with me, motivating me to read what, no doubt, was a life-changing email.
My hands were too cold to call Jerry. I had barely been able to read his email on my iPhone. I walked back inside and threw my sleeping bag back into my bedroom and returned to the den to stand by the three-brick gas heater. I warmed my hands and then pulled my phone from my pocket.
“You’ve got yourself a little mystery.” Those were Jerry’s first words. He didn’t say, ‘hello, how are you, or don’t you know it’s nearly Christmas.’
“How can the original two samples I sent you both match and not match the last one, the one I overnighted you two days ago?” I said stepping back from the heat and sitting down onto the Alabama beanbag chair.
“Matt, you’re sounding like a first-year graduate student. Think. It’s simple. One sample matches, the other one doesn’t.” I’m normally not this slow. I was almost mad at myself for missing the obvious. Either John or Paul’s DNA matched John Ericson and the other one didn’t.”
“You still there?” Jerry asked.
“Was it sample A or B that matched sample D?” I had not disclosed names to Jerry. I had simply labeled the four samples I had sent him, A, B, C, and D. John Cummins was A, Paul Cummins was B, I was C, and Danny Ericson was D. In Jerry’s first test he had determined that neither John or Paul Cummins’ DNA matched mine. In this second test, John Ericson wasn’t the father of the twins. Twins? I still wasn’t thinking. John and Paul Cummins cannot be twins.
“Sorry Jerry, my mind is frazzled. It’s the cold. No, probably it’s Alabama. Reasoning is nearly forbidden when you cross the line from Tennessee. It’s always been two things and only two things, God and football. More recently, it was three, Roy Moore’s brand of Republicanism, football, and God.”
“I suspect you want to know. A matches and B doesn’t. A and D are as perfect a match as you will get. There’s only a 1 in 65 billion chance they don’t match.” Jerry said. I knew he was tired and certainly wasn’t a chatter.
“Jerry, I owe you my firstborn child and half my next lottery winnings. Is there one more big favor buried deep in your heart?” I had to ask.
“You’re a little old to father children and I suspect you are not the type to play games of chance. You’re asking me to conduct one more DNA analysis. Right?” Jerry was thinking as usual.
“Yes. Would you?”
“What are friends for? Send the sample on up.” I promised myself as Jerry’s generosity spilled forth that I would buy a hundred copies of his latest book, Faith vs. Fact, Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible, and donate them to a worthy cause, maybe Boaz High School. No, there they would be burned.
“I don’t have the sample yet but hopefully will by tomorrow. You should have it by Tuesday afternoon.”
“No problem. Just make sure you track the package and let me know when it arrives. I’m not working all week, instead I’ll be in and out of the office and lab beginning with Christmas day Monday.” Jerry as usual painted a clear picture.
“Got you. Thanks. I’ll never be able to repay you.”
“You’re right, but I’ll come up with a few ideas when you get back in town.”
“Can’t wait to see you. Merry Christmas.” I knew Jerry didn’t celebrate a traditional Christmas holiday, but no one enjoyed good fellowship with good friends around a huge table of good food as much as he did.”
“Merry Christmas to you. Please don’t let your little mystery interfere with those around you who matter.”
The remainder of Saturday went by as though I was in a fog. I finally caught up on some much-needed sleep. By 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning I had slept as many hours as I normally did in two days. Sometime before daylight my phone vibrated. It was a text from Olivia. “Are you up for Church? I’m especially worried about Warren and wanted to show my support. And, I need your support to sit through the service and battle old memories.”
What was I to do? No matter how crazy things seemed to get, the more I realized that all I wanted was Olivia. Even the bad news didn’t seem to divert my heart’s quest. For sure, Olivia and I were not the parents of John and Paul. It was looking like Olivia was the mother of John Cummins, but all I really knew was that he was the son of John Ericson, even named after him.
I almost cussed out loud, something I rarely did. My mind. Was I losing my ability to think professionally? It dawned on me that I didn’t know for sure that Olivia was John Cummins’ mother, nor if she was the biological mother of Paul Cummins. Another truth, just because John Cummins’ DNA matched Danny Ericson’s, doesn’t mean it would match Olivia’s. I couldn’t believe that I had omitted the DNA test that should have been conducted right up front, along with the one Jerry did comparing my DNA to that of John and Paul Cummins. I knew what I had to do, what sample I had to obtain, and it wasn’t the one I had been thinking of when I had asked Jerry if he would be generous enough just one more time. I knew I had to find out if Olivia was the biological mother of John Cummins.
“You know I want to be with you. Church it is. I’ll drop by Warren’s house at 10:45.” Olivia replied to my text with a Jerry Coyne style terseness, ‘k.’
I killed the next few hours sitting at the Waffle House eating pancakes, my favorite breakfast food, along with bacon, and drinking coffee. My mind, finally in gear, worked hard and fast but still couldn’t piece together a viable hypothesis for what had happened over forty-six years ago. I now knew for a fact that John and Paul Cummins were not twins, they were not even brothers. From all indications, they fully believed they were brothers. Unless there was some conspiracy at work, which I didn’t believe was the case, John and Paul Cummins had been adopted by a set of parents in Texas and had been told all their lives that they were twin brothers. They certainly weren’t identical twins, but they looked enough alike to pass for fraternal twins. When I left the Waffle House I was leaning strongly towards believing that sample E, a DNA sample I would use my best stealth to retrieve, would prove to be a match to that of John Cummins. Olivia had given birth to John Ericson’s child, a single child.
I could barely listen to Warren’s sermon. I caught about every three sentences. My mind was locked onto the evolving mystery. As Olivia and I were greeting folks after the service and making our way to the back of the auditorium my subconscious pushed forward a thought that I had no way of incorporating into the mystery of Olivia Tillman. It concerned Warren’s sermon. His subject had been wisdom. What it is and how we get it. He had used a story about Solomon, King David’s son. It was a story I had never heard or one that I didn’t recall. I hadn’t paid much attention to the details, but I remember two women were fighting over the custody of one baby. They both claimed to be the child’s mother. The case was brought before Solomon, who Warren, and I guess the Bible, claimed was the wisest man who ever lived. Solomon was most likely just a story, a fictionalized man himself but the writer had a great lesson. Solomon apparently knew a lot about women. I think he had bedded a few in his day, fictionally of course. He also knew a lot about mothers. His wisdom, his advice, was to divide the child between the two claimants. Obviously, this required the baby to be cut in half. I loved the story’s ending. The child’s real mother told Solomon to not dare harm the child but instead to give him to the other woman. Solomon, in all his wisdom, had known that the one and only true mother could never have allowed his command to be carried out. Solomon knew the love of a mother for her child was possibly the most powerful force in nature. I couldn’t help but know that my own mother would have done the same.
The afternoon was spent with the beautiful Olivia. We rode bikes. Our intention was to take a long ride down College Avenue. It was too cold. We opted instead to come back to my house and sit by the gas heater in the den. We pulled the two beanbag chairs just close enough for them not to catch fire. We held hands and talked. I had no problem allowing my heart to lock my mind’s door. Olivia’s words danced around struggles she had as a teenager, especially after I had left Boaz in June 1971, but she never would get too specific. I mainly listened. Late afternoon, as the sun went down we made our way into my bedroom, and danced our way down deep into my sleeping bag. At first, we just held each other and snuggled, whispering the sweetest words in each other’s ears. Serious words for serious people. Kissing Olivia always made me melt. And dream. Ever since that first kiss, so long ago, on her couch, in her living room, after the deaths of the four teenagers, I imagined that if two people were destined to be together, if fate had it that these two people were meant for each other, they would know it by the kisses they exchanged. I knew my lack of romance knowledge was infecting my imagination. But, I also knew that when Olivia had leaned down towards me, with her left arm propped on the back of her couch, in that moment when our lips touched, my world changed forever. I knew it as much as I knew my name, Olivia Tillman was my once in life love.
We got silly trying to remove our clothes while still zipped up tight in my sleeping bag. A little more laughter would likely have immobilized our bodies. It was that type of humor that rarely happens, but when it does, it paralyzes the human frame. Finally, Olivia gently pulled my face into hers and pushed me back just enough to crawl on top of me. Someway we managed to remove our clothes, allowing our bodies to touch. I felt her soft and tender legs move over my thighs. It was an indescribable sensation, one that drove our minds and bodies beyond sex, to that land of mystery and romance that few, I believe, ever know. Words could not describe it, it was something so much more than ‘making love.’ It was these times with Olivia, when we became one, that I came the closest to opening my mind to the idea of a Creator. Surely, if there was one, He, She, whatever it was, had made Olivia for me, and me for Olivia. There was no other match for either of us.
Once again Olivia wouldn’t spend the night. I drove her home, to Warren’s, at almost 2:00 a.m. When I returned, I carefully removed three long, silky blond hairs from the top of my sleeping bag, and placed them in one evidence bag, and in another, I inserted Olivia’s favorite pewter coffee cup she had drank hot chocolate from at midnight. I would have to craft a carefully believable story to respond to Olivia’s certain question that when she learned the cup I had bought her at the Gadsden Mall only two weeks ago was missing. I would be at the Boaz Post Office when it opened in the morning to overnight the two samples to Jerry.
The Pencil Driven Life 