Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Stenographer, Chapter 6

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 Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman.  Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune.  She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.

Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs.  One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates  is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective.  The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation  and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?

Chapter 6

I was just walking into the kitchen from the back porch when my cell phone vibrated.  It was DeeDee.  My one and only sister.  The one I loved and loathed.  

“What’s up?  You had supper?”  I could hear road noise.  She had always loved driving with her window down, no matter the weather.  It took a hard, driving rain for her to keep her window up.  She rarely ever turned on the car’s air-conditioner.  Of course, she didn’t need it now.  I was freezing outside.

“Just got here.  I have a Supreme pizza, hot and ready.  Where are you?”

“In front of Boaz Walmart heading home.  Been with Mom.”

“How was she?”

“Sleepy, listless, hopeless.  She said very little.”

“I’m going to see her tomorrow.  I hate she is so depressed.  Come by if you want.”  I instantly regretted my invitation.  I really didn’t know why.  DeeDee and I had always gotten along, if we didn’t talk about God and religion.  We had never been close, close but had great respect for each other.  One thing that kept us in the same ditch together was our mutual love for Mom, and Dad too when he was alive.  

“I’m starving.  I’ll be there in five.  Got any beer?”

“No dear.  You know I don’t drink.”

“I’ll pick some up.  You need some milk?”

“You trying to be funny?”

“See you Walton.”

Walton Alec Shepherd.  No one ever called me Walton anymore.  Also, no one called me ‘Was.’  In ninth grade, Vann had dubbed me, ‘the

Was.’  This came about in an English class where Mrs. Stamps taught us the importance of tenses in our writing.  She was concentrating on the verb ‘be.’  After she stated the past tense of ‘be’ is ‘was,’ Vann, almost instantly, said, “hey Walt, that’s you.  You, Walton Alec Shepherd, is a ‘was.’  Of course, the class burst out laughing.  Everyone except Mrs. Stamps.  Thus, the beginning of a nickname that spread like wildfire through high school.  It never failed, nearly every day, walking the halls, someone would meet me.  Their greeting was always, “hey Was, you are the past, man.”  I was (there it is) glad ‘Was’ died shortly after graduation in 1972. 

I was hungry, so I sat at the counter and was working on my second slice when DeeDee walked in with a six-pack of Coors Lite, and two gallons of milk.

“Thought you might want to make some ice-cream.”  She said looking at me with her left dimple more pronounced than I could remember.

“Thanks.  All afternoon I’ve been planning an ice-cream party.  It will take two freezers, one vanilla, the other grape.  You’re not invited.”

“Move over.”  She nudged me, and I scooted my barstool toward the wall.

We sat for the next ten minutes or so and ate pizza.  She drank a beer.  I drank a glass of milk just to play that card.  With only one slice remaining, I left it for her and walked to my chair in the den.  It was part of the kitchen, what they call a great room.  It was only an evolving idea when Mom and Dad had, in the early 1950s, remodeled the house his grandfather had built in the 1890s.  Most folks those days stuck with a separate kitchen/dining room, a separate den, and a separate living room. 

I’m glad they broke that tradition.  I loved this pine-paneled room.

DeeDee joined me and flipped on the TV.  I made her turn it off after five minutes of Fox News lauding President Kane’s loyalty to his supporters.  Apparently, this afternoon, he had signed an Executive Order commanding the Immigration and Naturalization Service to start rounding up illegal aliens, especially Hispanics, and shipping them back to Mexico.

I figured DeeDee would make a supporting comment to Kane’s action but instead she said, “I hear you and Regina may become a thing again.”

“What, what are you talking about?”

“I ran into Vann at Walmart and he told me about you guys having breakfast at Grumpy’s this morning.  Said, he had to move to another table when you started undressing Regina.”

“Oh, he’s such a jerk.”

“You know Vann, always the jokester.”

“Now, I’ve got good reason to pull a little prank on that retard.”  I said.

“Seriously, he did say that you had seen her the other night at

Walmart.”

“I did.  We talked just a few minutes.  I also saw her this afternoon.  At the Reporter.”

“You have business there?”

“She is the new editor and invited me to drop by.”

“I can see it now.  The smoldering fire erupts.  I knew those embers had never gone cold.  Is she as gorgeous as ever?”  DeeDee said moving over on the couch and propping her feet on the coffee table.

“No, actually.  She is more so.  I’m completely blown away that I still have feelings for her.”

“I’m not.  You know I never could understand why you chose Jennifer over Regina.  Jennifer had played the field before she latched on to you.  I think she wised up and knew it was time to find someone with a future.  It took her a while, but she finally realized spread-eagle in the back seat of a car wasn’t likely the best way to make a living.”

“Don’t talk about her that way.”  You have her all wrong.  She made a mistake with a guy that was three years older than her.”

“Believe what you want my dear Walton.”

“Stop calling me that, okay?”

“I’m sorry, I was out of line.  I must admit Jennifer was good to you.  You will probably never find someone more loyal and faithful to you.  She died way too young.  I do miss her.”

“I do too, but most days I try to think as she wanted me to think.  As she was dying she made me promise her that I would move on with my life.  That, I would know that she was in a better place.  I can’t believe that was nearly forty years ago.”

“Do you believe she is in a better place, in Heaven?”  DeeDee knew this was a touchy subject.  She knew that I had long given up my childhood faith.

“No.  Jennifer is dead.  She’s in the same place she was in, mentally, psychologically, before she was born.  I now, more than ever, believe that when you die, you die, and that’s it.”

“Mother still doesn’t know, does she?”

“Know what?”  I said looking and feeling perplexed.

“That you no longer straddle the fence as she called it when you were a teenager.  She doesn’t know how, what, thirty years ago, you pulled the other leg over that teetering fence?”

“I doubt it.  And, I’m not telling her.  You either, okay?”

“You know you don’t have to worry about that.  I could never hurt our dear Mother.”

“I think you are rather ignorant to continue believing in God and Christ and the Bible, but I know you have good reason.  You just know one side of the story.”

“Walton, don’t start.  I don’t want to hear it.  I know God is real. 

He talks to me every day.”

“Sis, I know you believe that.  And, I know you believe He has everything under His control.  He has a plan and it’s all good.  I get it.”

“I’m not mad but I do have to go.  Kevin’s plane should be landing in Birmingham about now.  I want to be home when he arrives.”

“He still traveling a lot?”

“Too much.  Thanks for the pizza and I hope you get serious about your Regina stalking.”

“Get out of here you lamebrain.  Love you sis.”