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 28

December 28, 2017

The Auburn beanbag chair had performed exceptionally well.  The late-night hours after Olivia had left were seemingly productive.  It may have been the combination of the three-brick heater and the body-fitting contour of the chair.  Whatever it was, my mind was alert and fed me enough ideas to drive my investigation to hopefully find the answer to my newly refined question, ‘who is the father of Paul Cummins?’

At first, I thought it crazy and a waste of time to attempt to obtain Robert Miller’s DNA.  Someway my mind had seen a connection before I had, certainly before I realized that it made sense.  Was it plausible to consider that Brother Randy’s suspicious death had something to do with Olivia’s pregnancy.  I had recalled a couple of times during the youth group, after all the other kids had left, that I had lingered behind hoping to talk with Olivia.  When I was young I hadn’t thought much about it, but now, looking back, it seemed to fit.  Brother Randy had some type of special interest in Olivia.  Could it have been a sexual interest?  It certainly wouldn’t be the first time such a scandal had occurred in a Southern Baptist church, but usually it didn’t involve a minor.  I had set aside this pursuit when I recalled that Jerry’s Christmas week schedule was unpredictable at best.  He had told me to make sure I had carefully tracked any sample I sent him since he was going to be in and out of his office and lab all week.

As soon as my mind closed the door on this idea another one arose.  My mind was drawn back to an earlier thought I had.  One, which at the time, seemed so out of place.  It dealt with Franklin Ericson and whether he might be the father of John Cummins.  It seemed my mind was truly acting as a computer, allowing garbage that had been fed in to create and allow garbage to flow out.  I almost got up to stretch my legs and walk out to the porch.  The fire stopped me.  It was as though I could see red hair blowing forth from the middle of the glowing heater, but it wasn’t burning up.  This is where and how the idea of Reba Ericson came to me.  I settled back into the beanbag’s present contour and two memories sprouted.  The first one was about Reba, Franklin’s wife and John’s mother.  She always sat with Betty Tillman during the worship hour at church.  The second was from Spring Break during April of my eleventh grade.  I had visited Olivia three or four times at her home during that week, usually in the evenings after we had returned from Aurora Lake.  Betty had seemed happy, the happiest I had ever seen her.  Looking back, it may have been that with both their husbands far out of town, they had more freedom than they were used to handling.

Late morning I had dropped by the Boaz Post Office on a hunch.  Freda would likely know where I could find Reba Ericson.  She was busy with a long line of folks who obviously had procrastinated too long to ship Christmas packages.  When it finally came my turn, I walked up to her counter, she smiled, and blurted out, “Hey Matt, you got any more DNA samples to mail?”  I was taken aback.  How did she know what I had been overnighting?  She apparently caught my confused look and said, “I’m always curious.  I read up on you and your work.  I’d really like to meet Jerry Coyne.”  I was glad she was pressed for time.  I returned her smile and whispered, “I’m looking to visit an old friend.  One I haven’t seen or heard from in nearly half a century.  Can you give me the address for Reba Ericson?”  Freda quickly responded that she could not give out this type information.  I thought that odd, but I thanked her and was nearly to the exit when I heard her calling out.  I looked back and saw her motioning me to return.  I did.  She handed me a folded sheet of paper and said, “Sorry I’m late, but Merry Christmas Matt.”

Early Thursday afternoon I had driven to Brookdale Senior Living in Albertville.  I was surprised that Reba had agreed to see me.  I was more surprised that she had remembered me and was eager to talk without any reservations.  It hadn’t taken long for me to realize her and Franklin, her husband of nearly seventy years, were, to say the least, estranged.  Someway I had forgotten that he, like Walter Tillman and the other three fathers of the Flaming Five, were in deep trouble, all facing criminal charges.  Reba shared her disappointment that the federal trials had been postponed, continued.  I hadn’t heard this.  I wondered if Olivia knew.  It was the very reason that the two of us had separately returned to Boaz.  Reba said she would probably die before the trials took place.  She seemed anxious for Franklin to go to prison.

After nearly an hour of nodding affirmatively to Reba’s statements, interjecting a simple question every time her paced seemed to slow, I finally decided to explain to her why I was there.  I filled her in on selected portions of my little mystery, enough for her to know that I wanted to know about two children who were born to John and Olivia at about the same time but who were completely unrelated.  To be nearly ninety years old Reba’s memory was remarkable.  “That time was probably the darkest days of our lives.  Darker, in a way, than what is going on now.  John got Jessie Dawson pregnant.  Walter had his own problem with Olivia’s pregnancy at the same time.  At first it seemed John was responsible for that child also.  That turned out to be false.  Pastor Tillman quashed that rumor.  I never knew who the father of Olivia’s baby was, but I do know that Walter and Franklin took care of things.  Long story short.  Jessie and Olivia both gave birth to healthy baby boys.  I think after the girls arrived in Birmingham, labor was induced for both.  The babies were given up for adoption.  The poor girls never got to hold their babies one single time.”

The last question I had asked Reba concerned Randy Miller.  She shared there was a letter that had circulated around town in the late eighties that alleged Brother Randy had fathered a baby with Olivia back in the early seventies.  Reba said he had denied it and Pastor Walter had believed him.  She said nobody will likely ever know the truth but there was another rumor that several members of First Baptist Church of Christ took justice in their own hands.  They gave Brother Randy a flaming departure. 

My investigation had stalled shortly after my visit with Reba Ericson.  I put everything on hold until after Jerry’s vacation.  Olivia and I had spent the past three days in our normal routine except for Saturday when we had gone Christmas shopping in Birmingham.  I hadn’t bought Christmas gifts in years, probably not since Mother died when I was ten.  I hated the whole idea of exchanging presents around a mythical story.  Olivia was different.  She said “You don’t have to believe in Christ’s birthday to enjoy the holidays.  I love shopping and exchanging presents.  We have good reason to celebrate this year since John and Paul are sharing themselves with us.  It’s our first Christmas together as a family.”

I arrived at Warren and Tiffany’s at four p.m.  She had asked me to drive to Gadsden to a bakery she loved for a huge Christmas cake.  John and Paul, along with all of Warren’s family, including the eighty-eight-year-old Betty Tillman, and Olivia were already gathered around a huge tree in the great room when I arrived.  Judith Ericson and Randi Radford were both in the kitchen when Tiffany directed my cake delivery.  I wondered why Phyllis Billingsley, Fred’s widow, wasn’t also present.  She, like Judith and Randi, had mysteriously lost their husbands over the past year.

Christmas carols were playing through the house’s P.A. system.  It appeared to be a perfect time to spend with friends and family.  I almost wished I hadn’t known a few select details of the underlying mystery. 

After an uncomfortable thirty minutes of my passive involvement in the group’s attempt to sing, “Oh Holy Night,” we spent the next hour gathered around Tiffany’s huge dining room table with foods fit for a king.  I hated clichés, but the thought seemed to fit my feelings.  After gorging ourselves, half the group migrated towards the great room except for Olivia, John, Paul, and me.  If as though by plan.  Warren asked Olivia to check on the fire in the fireplace down in the basement.  He also suggested that I take John and Paul down there to show them “what a real man-cave looks like.”  I think Warren was simply trying to give the four of us a little privacy.

I couldn’t help but notice that Olivia and Paul paired off quickly.  She asked him to go outside and help her bring in some firewood.  After they tended the fire they gravitated to the large closet next to the big screen TV.  The media closet, the one protecting Walter’s valuable music collection.  John and I, almost by default, hung back and settled in.  Him on a leather couch, me in a matching wingback chair.  Both encircling a round oak coffee table.

John spent thirty minutes sharing with me what he and Paul had done after I left Ellijay.  They seemingly had mustered up the strength and determination to hike nearly 150 miles in eight days while never leaving the trail to enjoy a bed and breakfast respite.  Just as I was about to ask Olivia and Paul to join us she stood and asked, “Paul and I are going upstairs to see the shrine that used to be my high school bedroom.  Anyone else want to go?”  I had hoped to spend some time alone with John, so I quickly responded.  “John and I will join you two in a bit.  I need to hear more about the bear story.  The bear he and Paul saw in North Carolina.”

Paul and Olivia left.  It was a little awkward, but I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to waste.  I asked John, “I hope you understand my need to know more about you and Paul.  Olivia has had the advantage of knowing what happened all those many years ago.  I haven’t.  What can you share about your earliest memories and, if you don’t mind, how exactly did you learn about Olivia and make that connection?”

“Matt.”  I noticed he didn’t address me as ‘Dad.’  “I think it is only natural for you to ask questions.  I really feel bad for you.  Not even knowing you had a child, children.  That must have come as the shock of a lifetime.”

“It was.  I’m still reeling, although, at the same time, feeling blessed to now have you and Paul in my life.”

“Can I ask you a personal favor?”  John asked.

“Sure, anything I can do.”

“Would you mind, at least for now, keeping what I’m about to tell you a secret from Olivia?”  I again noted John’s failure to call Olivia, ‘Mom,’ like he had done ever since our first meeting at the Birmingham Airport. 

“You must think it rather important, something that might really bother her for you to ask me.  I will honor your request.”  I said shifting in my chair, clueless as to what John was about to say.

“I haven’t been exactly truthful with you and Olivia.  I have shared only the summary version of how Paul and I learned that Olivia was our mother.  Let me rephrase.  How I learned that Olivia was Paul’s mother.  Our adopted mother was no doubt obsessed with keeping a journal.  After her death and while Paul and I were going through her private things we found several leather journals.  At first, we didn’t give them much thought.  After we discovered Olivia’s name, Paul didn’t seem too interested in journals, so I took them back home with me.  A few days later I began to read them.  This is what I need you to keep secret, for now.  It seems, from the beginning, Mother knew that John and I were not twins.  Her journal laid out the entire story.”

I had to ask.  “Does Paul know that the two of you are not twins?”

“No, I haven’t had the courage or heart to tell him.  Back to my story.  Mother was clear about how they had come to adopt Paul and me.  Walter Tillman knew the pastor in College Station, Texas, the home of Texas A & M.  It seems he knew my mother and father and knew they could not have children, and were heartbroken by their failed attempts to adopt.  Out of the blue one day, the Texas pastor called Mother and wanted to know if she and Dad would adopt two little baby boys from Alabama.  The catch was they had to promise they would never tell the boys they weren’t twins.  Mom and Dad were Christians and highly-principle people.  They agreed only if they were told the complete truth about the babies, their backgrounds, and the need for such secrecy.”

I felt John was having trouble getting to the point he really wanted to make, as though he was delaying sending a poison arrow in Olivia’s direction.  “John, I’m a grown man and feel I’m able to weather any shocking news you may have.  Why don’t you deliver the bad news?”

“Matt, brace yourself.”  John sat on the couch and looked out the glass windows that covered the entire outside wall, into the darkness, as though he regretted the posture our conversation had taken.  “Randy Miller is Paul’s father.”

For a moment I thought I would faint.  I wanted to say, ‘you’re joking, that’s sick, why would your mother write such a thing.’  I got up and walked over to the fireplace contemplating sticking my head into the flames and letting the roaring fire burn away every fiber of my thoughts and memories.

After a while, John joined me and put his arm around my shoulder.  We didn’t talk for quite a while.  When we did, he seemed to confirm some facts I had learned from Reba Ericson.  John Ericson was his father, Jessie Dawson was his mother, biologically speaking.  I recalled Reba saying, ‘I never knew who the father of Olivia’s baby was, but I do know that Walter and Franklin took care of things.’

The rest of the evening was divided between a visit to the second floor and Olivia’s bedroom, and another hour crowded around the huge Christmas tree in the great room exchanging presents.  I was in a trance, one no doubt that Olivia noticed.  I didn’t have much to say as the party disbanded and the four of us, Olivia, John, Paul, and me stood outside on Warren and Tiffany’s front porch.  I exchanged our customary man-hugs and acted as best I could that I would miss my two boys.  John was a better actor than me and was almost effusive with his goodbye words to Olivia, calling her ‘Mother’ more than once.  As the Cummins boys drove away in their rental car, Olivia seemed to know I needed to be alone.  She said she was tired and would see me in the morning.  I have no doubt Olivia could read me like a book.  She knew me inside and out.  As I drove home I had a feeling she knew I was onto her forty-six-year-old secret. 

Another sleepless night, another night in a beanbag chair.  I didn’t care which one.  I finally dosed off as the sun’s rays were coming through the half-closed blinds.  One thing now I knew for sure, Olivia had lied to me.  She knew the truth, that the loving and well-liked youth pastor, Brother Randy, had impregnated her.  I couldn’t be mad at Olivia.  Looking back, I would never in a million years have suspected that she was the victim of sexual abuse.  My dear, my cherished Olivia, had been raped by the man she outwardly loved and respected, the man who not only had stolen her innocence but who had used his position of authority and a mythical story to close her mind.  She had kept all this a secret from me, to protect herself no doubt, but mainly to preserve us, the two of us and our once in life love.

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 27

April 1971

Normally, Spring Break is in March.  This year, with the two big snows in January followed by three days of being out of school with each storm, the break had been initially pushed into early April.  A week before the break would normally take place, the Marshall County Board of Education had voted to eliminate this year’s vacation.  This didn’t set well all over Marshall County.  Growing protests, by both parents and teachers, had persuaded the Board to reinstate the holiday.  The Board finally acquiesced but delayed the break until the second week of April.

It was a week I will never forget.  Pastor Walter and the other four fathers of the Flaming Five had taken their sons on a trip to the Northeast to watch three NBA games in the Eastern Conference playoffs.  The New York Knicks and the Baltimore Bullets were playing the best of seven games, alternating between New York City and Baltimore, Maryland.  Even before the Valentine’s dance this was a frequent topic at the table from hell, although the Flaming Five didn’t yet know which teams would make it that far.  To them, all they needed to know at that time was they were going to see and learn, up close, how real basketball was played.   The five young superstars had wanted to attend the NBA Western Conference vs. Eastern Conference playoffs, but those games had conflicted with the schedules of Pastor Walter and Raymond Radford, Randall’s father, and some important meetings in New Orleans and Dallas.

Pastor Walter’s absence left the care and management of Olivia to Betty, her mother.  She was much more lenient with her daughter than Pastor Walter, although she didn’t have much opportunity to exercise any authority.  Betty was, no doubt, the perfect Christian wife.  Submissive, in all things, respectful, kind, and loving.  Christ was head of the church and the man, the husband, was head of the household.  So, it said in the Bible.  So, Walter said in his home.  The thing that helped swing the pendulum in my favor was, I think, the impression I had made on Betty.  For some reason, she trusted me.  I think it had a lot to do with what had happened at the Valentine’s dance.  She saw me as almost a quasi-parent, with Olivia’s best interest at heart.  Her protector from the dangers lurking all around.  Also, I think Betty simply liked me.  I realized this more during Spring Break than ever.  It seemed Betty was starved for contact with any outsiders.  I almost think, given the chance, she would have enjoyed talking to me about Chicago and my mother and my foreign beliefs, as Olivia often called them.

It wasn’t like Betty gave Olivia and me unlimited freedom.  I picked up on her strategy almost from the beginning.  Olivia had to always have a cover, meaning, she was given the permission to be doing something Pastor Walter would have approved.  For example, spending time with Randi Bonds, at her house, just hanging out.  It would have been too dangerous for Betty, an all-out violation of that submissive thing, for her to authorize Olivia and me to go to a movie, or to do something else so notoriously sinful for a 14-year-old girl to do with a 16-year-old boy.  Even though it was less than a month until Olivia’s 15th birthday, rules were rules.  Pastor Walter had said, according to Olivia, that she could start supervised dating when she turned 15.  I think Olivia still doubted he would keep his promise.  She anticipated something coming up, like ‘God has said for you to wait until you are 16.’

During the week that I will never forget, Olivia had set aside, or so it seemed to me, every thought about her father and her home life living under a virtual dictator.  Using the ruse of being with Randi, Olivia and I spent every afternoon the entire week at Aurora Lake.  I had heard of this tranquil body of water sitting at the table from hell.  Olivia had been there a few times on family picnics.  We were fortunate the weather was perfect.  Cool mornings and warm afternoons.  We had wanted to ride our bicycles every day but realized that was too dangerous.  We almost opted for me to drive us in my Corvair but again realized this too was a thin-iced plan.  There were simply too many local eyes loyal to Pastor Tillman.  We couldn’t risk being seen.  We knew word would get back to Olivia’s father, and he wouldn’t be happy.  Randi enlisted the help of her older sister, my classmate Ricki.  She, like me, had her driver’s license and was, no doubt, a little, a lot, on the wild side.  She indicated that she didn’t have a problem at all violating Christian rules.

Around 1:00 p.m. each afternoon Ricki would drop Olivia and me off on the north side of Aurora Lake.  She let us off on Lawson Gap Road and we walked south to, what to us, seemed to be the most remote part of the lake. The giant reservoir had been built just a couple of years earlier and wasn’t the hangout you would expect.  All the land around the lake was privately owned but not yet occupied with cabins or permanent dwellings.  I also knew that a huge portion of the land around the south side of the lake was owned by an organization the Flaming Five referred to as Club Eden.  This was the last time I intended to think of those five guys and the table from hell all during this week.

Our afternoons at the lake were spent laying on a blanket that we had carried on Monday but had left hidden, wrapped up in a piece of plastic that Olivia had confiscated from Randi and Rickie’s house.  We also waded out into the lake.  We only did this two times.  The water was freezing cold.  We skipped stones across the water and shared jokes and played Trivia and even got pretty good at our form of charades.  Without doubt, for me, and I fully believe for Olivia, our lives were eternally changed the five days we spent sharing our hearts laying on that old cotton blanket.  The weird part of our private activities was the absence of sex, although Olivia and I did engage, every day, in some heavy petting.  Our kissing was passionate, and our hands explored each other from head to toe, but one rule we always obeyed.  Our clothes stayed on and our hands stayed outside.

It was Friday afternoon that talk of our future came up.  We had spent the other four afternoons revealing how we felt about every issue under the sun.  The central theme was my salvation, or the lack thereof.  But, Olivia was getting pretty good at compartmentalization.  It was like she was two persons.  She suffered, or maybe enjoyed, two personalities.  I enjoyed the side of Olivia that seemed to allow herself to be free, to love life, to laugh, and enjoy the mystery of the universe.  At one point, although it didn’t go as far as I would have liked, she seemed seriously interested in my take on how unbelievers were happy without God, how they created their own purpose, and how focusing on the here and now was so much more satisfying than believing in an afterlife.  She seemed to love my statement, ‘this is all the life we have, let’s enjoy it.  We are fortunate to be here at all.’

I was laying on the blanket in Olivia’s lap.  She was leaning back against a tree.  She loved fooling with my curly hair, always trying to train it to go against what she referred to as a cowlick.  Only in Alabama.  “Will you write me every day?”

“How many times?  Per day.  Whatever you want.  Whatever we need.”  I looked up into Olivia’s eyes.  Tears were forming and just beginning their descent down her cheeks.

“Matt, I don’t think I can live with you not here.  Let’s run away.  I will do anything to be together.  Forever.”  She was as serious as I had ever seen her.

“You have to know that I want to, that I would, but I’ve read enough novels and seen enough movies to know that it wouldn’t end well.  We must stick to our plan.  Does this make you think I don’t love you enough to risk all?”  I needed to know that she wasn’t doubting me.

“I want to believe God has a plan for us, that His purpose is for us to be together.  Sometimes I think He is testing me, seeing if I truly love Him.  Like He is saying, ‘Olivia, I know what’s best for you.  Do you think I would keep you from what’s best for you?’”

“I was hoping we could leave God out of this.”  I probably shouldn’t have said that.

“Matt, God already knows everything.  He knows your future and mine.  He knows about every hair on our heads, and He knows what we will be doing five years from now.”  Olivia was locking up the personality I loved the most, letting the one formed by years and years of brainwashing come forth.

“So, our future cannot be changed?  It’s already set in stone?  Since God knows every aspect of our future, everything we will ever do, then He has no power to change anything.  It seems to me what happens in our lives should be our decision.”

“It is confusing, isn’t it?  I don’t begin to understand God.  He is mysterious.  He wouldn’t be God otherwise.”  Olivia, bless her heart, was the perfect Christian.  She had been perfectly programmed.

“Dad has promised me I can call you once per week.  I know three years, you’re tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade years, right now seem like a very long time.  It is a long time, but I will come to your high school graduation and, if you want, we can run off and get married, or we can wait on that formality and just enjoy being together.  I will have two years of college under my belt.  I will be settled someplace, probably Harvard.  You will move that fall to Cambridge and nothing will stop us.”  It seemed I had it all planned out.

“What worries me is those three years apart.  You will be a senior next year.  You will be so tempted by all the pretty girls at school you will forget me.  You’ll convince yourself that this little country girl was fun for a season but is easily forgotten with all those sophisticated young ladies around you.”  Olivia was forgetting the real us, the couple who were virtually inseparable in mind and spirit.

“Olivia, you are letting fears move in.”  I sat up on my knees and kissed her lightly.  I lay back down and pulled her on top of me.  “Look at me.  Don’t you see my heart?  Don’t you see your reflection.  That’s who I see morning, noon, and night.  You are my world.  You are all the woman I will ever want.  I love you.  Don’t you know that?”  I said, as truthful as I had ever been.

“I do.  Yes, I know all these things, but I’m still scared.”  Olivia sat up on her folded knees, took both my hands, and pinned them back to the old cotton blanket like we were in a wrestling match.  “Can I ask you something?  Sorry, I already know that I can.  How many children do you want us to have?”

“Now?  I mean in nine months?  I said.

“Matt Benson, we better keep our clothes on.  I’m not ready for a baby.”  Olivia had misinterpreted my question. 

“No, silly.  I mean after we are married?”

“Four.”  Olivia jumped in before I finished sounding my last word. “I have always wanted children.  Since you walked into my life I have thought a lot about that question.  Four, five, six, the more the better.  We have a lot of love to give.  And, I kind of like the idea of a lot of lovemaking.”

“Which kind?”  It seemed the perfect question.  I wanted to be prepared.

“I suspect that kind would be the skin to skin type.”  She said and for a moment I could almost visualize Olivia standing beside our big bed in our small apartment at college.  Her letting me unbutton her blouse and remove her pants.  I could see every wonderful beautiful curve.  Our skin to skin lovemaking would be out of this world.  I hated temptation.

I overpowered Olivia’s grip and rolled us over onto our sides.  Our lips met, and we didn’t come up for air until we heard the three short beeps from Ricki’s car horn.  I would have preferred lying beside her all night, under the stars, on that old cotton blanket.  She was, no doubt, my special angel.  There was nothing I wouldn’t do for the girl I loved with every cell of my being.  That word, love, seemed so unworthy to describe how I felt as we stuffed our blanket into the plastic bag and hid it behind two prickly bushes next to an outcropping of rocks.

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 26

December 27, 2017

If my calculations were correct, Jerry would email me no later than Wednesday night.  I intentionally didn’t check my iPhone before Olivia and I walked into the Fellowship Hall.  There couldn’t be anything weirder, more unpredictable, even retarded.  Here Olivia and I were, unbelievers, virtual atheists, meaning we simply didn’t believe the God, Jesus, Christianity story because we didn’t have sufficient evidence to conclude these ideas were true.  Yet, we were drawn to church.  Maybe it was because this wasn’t just any church.  It was the one and only place where I had met Olivia and had grown to love everything about her when I spent a year here beginning in June 1970.  I even loved her zealousness for Christ and how she never once gave up, that entire year, on her dogged determination to talk me into God’s Heavenly Kingdom. 

As we sat down at a table with a man who looked eerily familiar, I couldn’t help but remember one of the five major findings that I had shared with Dad, the main things that I had learned during my undercover year with the on-fire youth group at First Baptist Church of Christ.  It was, fellowship and a sense of belonging.  That was the mighty force that religion, at least the version I had experienced, had to offer.  It had seemed to me, then and now, it wasn’t at all about the God of the Old Testament.  Who on earth would find benefit, trusty life morals, from stories like the one where Lot, Abraham’s nephew, had offered his virgin daughters to the men of the quaint little town of Sodom, to do with as the dirty old men wished, instead of sexually abusing the two male angels who had showed up earlier that afternoon?  As to the New Testament, I had to admit, it was a little better, but one had to pick and choose among the many stories to find a few fit for committing one’s life to.  Many, if not most of the other stories, such as Jesus upholding the practice of slavery and the Apostle Paul’s hatred of women, were unfit to teach one’s children.

The man was Robert Miller, Brother Randy’s grandson.  Over a shared dinner of fried chicken, creamed corn, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and chocolate cake, Brother Robert, as he requested we call him, told us about the final chapter in his grandfather’s life.  I doubt Robert would have brought up the subject, but Olivia had.  She already knew from Warren that the recently hired youth director was Brother Randy’s grandson.  Robert shared how difficult it had been to accept the position here at the church where his grandfather had served from 1969 until the late eighties, just a couple of years before Robert’s birth.  I was unfamiliar with the story.

After I left Boaz in June 1971 Brother Randy had continued to lead the Church’s youth group and to manage the activities at the Lighthouse.  For the next eighteen years nothing much changed, other than the ever-increasing number of youth that Brother Randy could reach out to and involve in his continuing creative activities.  A tragic event happened in August 1989.  The Lighthouse burned.  Later investigation revealed that Brother Randy, found among the ashes, had been brutally beaten.  It was never determined whether he died because of the beating or the fire.  According to Robert, this event had shaken the small, virtually crime-less city of Boaz, and had rocked his family.   The stories that Brother Robert had grown up hearing, all encouraging, enlightening, had inspired him to commit his life to Christ, attend Seminary, and devote every waking moment to the youth, just like his grandfather Randy.

Olivia and I skipped the prayer meeting and followed Brother Robert down to the basement.  Even though the Church had built a brand-new auditorium several years earlier, it still used the old building for its Wednesday night meal and the activities of the youth group.  Robert apparently followed a lot of his grandfather’s strategies.  Like Brother Randy, Robert had all the youth sit in chairs that formed concentric circles.  It now took three of these circles to manage the area’s youth who came here.  Just like their parents and grandparents, the youth longed to belong, to experience a connection to one another. It hardly mattered the subject being taught.

I didn’t get much out of Robert’s hour-long presentation where he interacted with Devan Tillman, Warren’s youngest son.  I figured he had been chosen strategically.  Maybe, it was to encourage him not to become like his great aunt Olivia.  Probably, Brother Robert knew the highlights of Olivia’s story.  Everyone in Boaz knew her story.  How she had not controlled her doubts and succumbed to letting her mind’s questions take over the throne of her life, the place that only Christ should sit.  Truly, all Robert had to do was listen to these walls, they told everything.

During the last ten minutes or so of Robert’s presentation, before he dismissed the group for refreshments, I had decided that I would walk Olivia back to Warren’s and tell her that I had a headache and was going home to try to sleep it off.  As we walked down the old building’s outside stairs, the ones I had walked up to read the announcements laid on maroon cloth behind glass the first day I was in Boaz as a kid, Olivia reached out, took my hand, and whispered towards me, “I love you Matt.  I need you Matt.  I want you Matt.”  Her words, mainly the Matt word, always made me melt. 

As always, Olivia had a way of enabling my heart to drive my thoughts.  I didn’t think about Jerry’s email until she awoke me at 1:30 a.m.  Our lovemaking, zipped up tight in my sleeping bag in my old bedroom, was becoming almost a nightly affair.  I loved it.  This night, morning, I hadn’t remembered her unzipping us and leaving me to sleep.  I guess she hoped my headache would be all better now.  “Is it okay if I drive your car home?  I don’t want you out in this cold.”

I let her leave.  Finally, my mind’s curiosity had to be satisfied.  As soon as I saw through the window next to the front porch, my car lights turn eastward, I knew she was gone.  I jumped up and grabbed my iPhone and moved into the den.  Involuntarily, I sat in the Auburn beanbag chair.  The three-bricker was pouring forth heat and providing the only light in the room.  My phone was all I needed right now.  Jerry’s email was waiting.  It was sent at 4:15 p.m. yesterday afternoon, Wednesday.   Jerry, as usual, was terse.  “No: E, F & A.  Yes: E, F & B.”

Jerry Coyne, you are driving me crazy, I thought as I set my iPhone down on the old brown carpet beside my beanbag chair.  I leaned my head back and tried to decipher the world-renowned evolutionary biologist’s fear of excess words.  It was as though Jerry believed the North Koreans were spying on his communications and he hated to divulge our secrets.

I had enclosed a note in the third package, the one Freda at the post office, had taken care of for me on Monday morning.  It had read, ‘Compare E and F to A, and E and F to B.”  Finally, I understood what Jerry was saying.  Neither one of Olivia’s samples, neither the DNA from her hair or from that retrieved from her pewter coffee cup, matched John Cummins’ DNA.  But, Olivia’s DNA matched Paul’s.  Once again, I was shocked.  Olivia wasn’t John Cummins biological mother.  Did this mean she had not born John Ericson’s child?  Not necessarily, but it certainly meant that she had not given birth to John Cummins, the son of John Ericson.  Then, I had the weirdest thought.  What if Franklin Ericson, John Ericson’s father, was John Cummins father?  I quickly rushed this thought out of my mind, always intrigued by the true nature of free will, the lack of it. 

One thing I now knew for sure.  I stopped myself in my tracks.  I realized that I would never make a good detective.  During my entire investigation, ever since I set off for Ellijay, Georgia convinced that one simple DNA test would confirm that Olivia and I were the parents of John and Paul Cummins, I had been truly embarrassed with my reasoning.  It was always after Jerry fed me the truth that I learned something.  It seemed every one of my hypothesis were faulty.  Maybe now I could safely say, it appears, strongly, that Olivia is the biological mother of Paul Cummins. 

I shifted back and forth pushing myself down deeper into the beanbag chair.  I fell asleep breathing out loud, repeatedly, the question, ‘who is the father of Paul Cummins?’

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 25

March 1971

Nearly a month had gone by since the debacle at the Valentine’s dance.  I had never been more surprised.  Apparently, it was some type of dawning for Olivia.  She seemed to change, virtually overnight.  In one significant way.  Her treatment of me.  She enabled us to shed the brother-sister cloak.  Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t start dating.  Officially.  But, we did allow our feelings for each other to creep into our private conversations.  She also had joined me once or twice per week on my daily runs.  For sure, one thing didn’t change.  Olivia, if anything, increased her attempt to convert me to Christ.  Something about not having the freedom to be unequally yoked.  Talking about change, there was something else that miraculously occurred in my life after my losing fight with John Ericson.  My long-dead mother reappeared.  In my mind.

Not my real, biological mother, but the woman who was my Biology Teacher.  I don’t know how it occurred but some way she had x-ray vision, some uncanny ability to know what was going on in my life.  Easily, she could have heard about what happened at the Valentine’s dance.  She could have been there as a chaperon, although I hadn’t seen her.  The following Monday after the dance and after Biology class ended at 10:45, she asked me, outside the hearing of the other students who were making their way out the door, if I would help her on a project she was working on.  She apologized by saying that the only time we could work was during lunch and that it might take a few days.  I jumped at the chance.  I had been worried all weekend about where I was going to sit in the lunchroom since I could never return to the table from hell.

Apparently, Dr. Ayers knew a lot more about me than I could have imagined.  That first day in her room during lunch she had shared that her husband, Travis, and my father had become acquainted.  It had happened at a little church, Clear Creek Baptist Church, out in the Aroney Community.  It was Brother Gorham’s church, the preacher who had spoken to the students in all four grades on the first day of classes.  I knew that Dr. Ayers was an unbeliever.  She had made that clear, not so much directly, but through her teaching.  She also said that Travis simply enjoyed the fellowship of a group of caring people.  The two of them, Dad and Travis, had noticed each other several times and always sat together when Dad visited his favorite pastor.  I gathered that Dad had shared a lot about me, and Travis, in turn, had passed this along to his wife.

What was to be a few days helping Dr. Ayers turned into over a month.  Every day at 11:45 a.m. I made my way back to her classroom.  These were the best lunches ever.  I didn’t have to bring a Bologna sandwich or anything else to eat.  She always brought leftovers from home and they were delicious, ten times better than the lunchroom’s food.

It had taken me over a week to figure out Dr. Ayer’s project, or at least one aspect of that project.  Five years earlier she had lost her one and only daughter, Ellen.  Dr. Ayers had shared with me how Ellen had a brain tumor and it had caused her to have a car wreck from which she died.  Dr. Ayers had been remarkably strong, but I could tell someway she had a deep inner need to relate, maybe connect, with a young person that reminded her of Ellen.  I became that person.  I think it had a lot to do with me being from Chicago, just like Dr. Ayers and Travis, and Ellen.  I had also learned Ellen had attended the same private school I had during the sixth through eighth grades.

Yesterday, Dr. Ayers had shared with me how Ellen had fallen in love with Ruthie Brown, a young lady who now was in graduate school at the University of Virginia.  Ellen and Ruthie, obviously both girls, had known virtually from first sight they were destined to be together.  I was intrigued that Dr. Ayers had used the ‘once in life love’ phrase that I privately used to describe my relationship with Olivia.  After yesterday’s talk, I had a whole new perspective on love and how, devoid of religious dictates, prejudices, and bigotry, real love is grander, more beautiful, than what is normally permitted in the deep South.  Dr. Ayers shared how on two occasions Ellen and Ruthie had spent a long weekend, during the Fall, in Mentone, Alabama.  It seemed Ellen had been very open with her mother and had shared her innermost feelings for Ruthie.

Today, Dr. Ayers and I had talked about one of the biggest misconceptions in the Christian world.  It concerned the source of our morals.  To believers, especially Southern Baptist fundamentalists, God and the Bible is the source for man’s morals.  God is the only one who is truly good.  He has shared his moral values with man and woman, the ones He created in His own image.  Without God, man cannot be good.  Or, this is what my friends at First Baptist Church of Christ in Boaz, along with their many counterparts around the Nation believed.  Dr. Ayers, according to my worldview and ability to reason, made a lot more sense.  She said our morals are a result of Darwinian natural selection.  They have been evolving for millions of years.  She said we don’t need the Bible to be good.  In fact, she said that in truth, Christians don’t get their morals from the Bible.  “The Bible promotes slavery, and stoning for multiple offenses, including adultery and for a girl not being a virgin on her wedding night.  I don’t think that’s what any Christian truly believes.”  Dr. Ayers shared how scientific studies were showing how our morals, the ability to choose between right and wrong, were virtually universal.  Studies of people throughout the world, including men and women living in tribes where religion had never infiltrated, made similar choices.  She said when various scenarios, what she referred to as ‘trolley car’ questions, were presented, the answers were almost identical.  If a trolley car is rolling down the track out of control, headed to a place where five people are standing who will certainly be killed, is it morally acceptable for a switchman to divert the car to a side track where only one person will be killed?  The answers, universally are yes.  Dr. Ayers shared several versions of the trolley car story, many with changes that called for a negative answer.  The bottom line, to me at least, is that man doesn’t need God to be good.

As I gathered up my things after our lunch and our discussion, I couldn’t help but recognize how close I was feeling to Dr. Ayers.  It brought back memories of my dearly departed mother who, unlike Dad when I was in the sixth grade, took every possible opportunity to spend time with me.  If she were alive today, I had no doubt that we would be having daily conversations about many things, excluding virtually nothing.  Of course, I couldn’t help but wonder what affect her Catholicism would have had upon me.  I didn’t know for sure, but speculated that it would just be an interesting conversation.  I would continue to realize there was simply a wholesale lack of evidence to believe in God.

Olivia had called me last night to see if she could join me on my afternoon jog today.  I had no hesitation in agreeing.  Brilliant me.  March, just a few days away from the official beginning of Spring, seemed to be a time when Olivia wasn’t quite as busy.  There was no football or basketball games to attend.  Although the baseball team was on the verge of kicking off its season, I was grateful cheerleaders hadn’t infiltrated this sport.

I arrived at Olivia’s at 3:30 p.m.  Since late November, when the weather had started turning cold, I had driven my Corvair to school.  Today, as usual, I had gone home to change clothes, eat an orange, and see Dad for just a few minutes, before my daily run.  For months, it had become routine.  It seemed he was always at home after my school day.  I think he felt guilty about how much he had missed by semi-forcing Mother to manage me and my time all the way from Kindergarten until she was diagnosed during the middle of my sixth-grade year. 

Dad first asked me about my day, about my classes, and since a few weeks ago, how things were going between Olivia and me.  Finally, right as I was trying to get out of the house and onto the pavement with my run, he would request an update on what was going on with the youth group and what I was learning.  Today, I didn’t have anything to offer but did ask him what Mother would say to the question, ‘do we as humans get our morality from God?’  He rambled for a minute or so.  Finally, I told him to hold his response for later, that I had to run.  Literally.

Olivia and I jogged through downtown Boaz and south on Highway 205 towards the golf course.  For nearly a mile she didn’t say anything.  This was unusual for Olivia.  As we approached Pleasant Hill Road on our right she said, “let’s turn here.  We’ve never made the 179 loop.”  After she described Highway 179 and where our feet would take us, she said, “Matt, I’m growing more and more depressed anticipating your leaving.  I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

I almost cried, something I rarely did.  Her words were said with such sadness.  I was moved beyond description.  Olivia was going to miss me.  As I was her.  “The good thing is it’s nearly three months away, but the bad news is, it’s nearly three months away.  I try not to think about it.  It’s so unfair.”  I said speeding up enough to match Olivia’s pace.

“Do you ever think about running away?  Just me and you?”

“Not really.  But, I have thought a lot about staying here, continuing to live in Boaz.  I’ve even talked to Dad about it.  That conversation isn’t working out too well.  Yet.”  It made me nearly sick to talk about this subject, but I knew, sooner or later, Olivia and I would have to deal with it.

“Matt, I can’t say too much but my home life is not what you think it is.  On the surface it probably looks idyllic.  You just don’t know.  Inside the walls of our house things are not so good.  My father and brother are very unpleasant characters.”

“I’m sorry Olivia.  You seem so free and happy.  If I didn’t know differently, I’d think you are this way because of your Christianity.”  I said.

“Don’t go there.  If it weren’t for Jesus I couldn’t survive.  Matt, when is it okay to say I love you?  How do two people know this and have the courage to say it?”  Olivia was a mess today no doubt.  She had never talked like this.

“I’m no expert on love and relationships, but I believe it’s okay to use those words, to say those words and mean them, when you get to the point that you know your world could never be the same without that other person.  You cannot stop thinking about them.  Probably, a lot of people tie that phrase to sex.  Sorry to bring that up but you asked your question.”

“It’s okay.  I feel comfortable talking about most everything with you Matt.”

For the next couple of miles our conversation ended.  We were battling a steady uphill climb that was working hard on our lungs.

At the intersection of Pleasant Hill Road and Highway 179, we stopped a minute and caught our breath.  “Olivia, I didn’t mean to imply that if there is no sex then there can be no love.  I hope you don’t think that I think that.  To be completely truthful with you, I’d love you if we never had sex.  Of course, that’s for marriage and I didn’t mean that I was wanting us to have sex now, anytime, you know?”  I was becoming a blabbering fool.  My words made no sense.  Olivia would now know, or think, I was interested in her because of her sexy body, just to hopefully fool around.

“Matt, you can be so funny.  That’s one thing I love about you.  Gosh, I said it and didn’t know that was coming.  You are such a gentleman.  You try so hard to always be respectful.  You are so different than John and Wade and about every other boy I know.”

“Thanks for associating me with John Ericson.  I would hope you know by now that I care about you Olivia, the real you.  Of course, you are beautiful and gorgeous.  Did I say beautiful?”

“You did.  Go on, continue.  You were just getting started.”  Olivia said reaching for my hand and pulling me into her body, my sweat and hers merging like I envisioned our lives would someday.

“Your outward beauty drives me crazy most of the time but it’s your heart that keeps me sane.  It’s a very trite statement.  But, you are real, genuine.  You aren’t an actor.  You never try to deceive.  At least I hope I’m not standing here, holding you, all while I have been deceived.”  I said, holding my head back and considering Olivia’s eyes.  Me melting once again.

“You’re pretty gorgeous yourself Mr. Matt, although you could use a few more curves along your biceps.  Ha, just kidding.”

Olivia laid her head on my shoulder, holding both my hands with hers.  “I want you forever as my boyfriend.  I need your heart always.  I can wait on your body, but I cannot wait to hear your heart as it walks alongside me.  I love you Matt Benson.”

Two pickup trucks pulled off Highway 179 into the little graveled area where Pleasant Hill Road ended.  There were two old codgers, friends it seemed, just settling window to window beside each other to talk.  Their timing interrupted the most intimate talk Olivia and I had ever had.  “I love you too.”  I said to Olivia as I pulled her left hand and directed us northward.

The two plus miles back to Boaz, along Highway 179 and then right and onward on Highway 168, were filled with wordless chatter.  It was all about love, our love for each other.  Her look, her smile, told me endlessly that we had crossed into new territory.  What had been coming forth, like new shoots of corn breaking through fertile soil in the spring, what had not been verbally expressed, was now out in the open.  Olivia Tillman and I were officially girlfriend and boyfriend.

I hoped it was for always and forever.

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.