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 10
Sunday morning, patrons of Grumpy’s Diner were weaving a Kip Brewer story that was sure to land in Hollywood. Their imaginations were ignited by an article in The Birmingham News, “Shots Heard Round the World; Second Revolution Begins?” The two reporters introduced their story by reviewing how in the first American Revolution, the “Shot Heard Round the World,” had been fired just after dawn in Lexington, Massachusetts, the morning of the 19th of July 1775, and quickly described the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Siege of Boston ten days later.
In the second paragraph, drawing from a New York Time’s article, the reporters, described, in detail, how U.S. Senator Ralph Evanston from Malden, Massachusetts, was found dead yesterday morning in his luxury suite at The Kendall, the oldest hotel in Boston. His wife, Julie, had previously attended three other Town Hall meetings but this time she had stayed at home, nursing the flu. However, the New York Time’s article did not answer the glaring question: How did the killer get inside a highly guarded and secure U.S. Senator’s room at The Kendall?
Evanston, had come out of nowhere on the national political scene. In November 2016, he had defeated multiple-term Democratic Senator Ed Markey. For the prior eight years Evanston served in the General Court, Massachusetts’ law-making body. There, he had been a virtual parrot of Markey. He even heralded from Malden, Markey’s hometown, although Evanston moved to Springfield when he was thirteen.
To Kane’s base, Evanston was a true turncoat. He had ridden into office on Andrew Kane’s coattails. It had been shocking to most Massachusetts citizens when in July 2015, Evanston had switched parties, from Democratic to Republican. It was a gutsy move, and surprisingly, won him a U.S. Senate seat. Kane didn’t do so well in Massachusetts, losing to Hillary Clinton by a 2 to 1 margin.
However, after arriving in D.C., it didn’t take long for Evanston to reveal his true colors. He voted against Kane’s legislation at virtually every turn. Even worse, he appeared often on national news programs castigating the President’s ‘deplorable tweets and elementary intelligence.’ This riled nearly a third of Massachusetts’ citizens, the 33% who had voted for Kane.
The New York Times article, in its fourth paragraph, recited the Alabama shooting of U.S. Representative Kip Brewer. The NYT was arguing for a connection between the two deaths. Both men were discovered within a few hours of each other. Both men had been shot, although one from a long distance and the other from close range. Both men were, “on the wrong side of Kane.” And, what had 75 diners stirred almost into a frenzy, was The Times’ accusation that the shooters “most likely were embedded into the growing ranks of Kane Tribe, which, up until now, was thought to be a rag-tag group mostly comprised of rednecks. The New York Times ended its article describing how Frankie Olinger in Alabama, and Albert Lawrence in Massachusetts, had both led a near-riot at the Friday night Town Halls Kip Brewer and Ralph Evanston had held in their respective states.
The Birmingham News (TBN) elaborated mostly on Frankie Olinger and the North Alabama Chapter of Kane Tribe. Someway, TBN had unearthed news from Kane’s inaugural weekend in January 2017 that revealed a secret-meeting of sorts between Andrew Kane, Jr. and nearly a hundred men and women who had been hand-selected by the Kane team. Most of these were uneducated white men. Each of them had attended a Kane event in their home-state during the election campaign. Each of these one hundred were openly anti-Hillary, virtually, antigovernment. And, most important to President Kane, was that each of these had openly and consistently supported him for at least six months before he won the election. TBN had no knowledge of what took place during that inaugural weekend meeting, but it identified both Frankie Olinger and Albert Lawrence as attendees.
Vann and I arrived at Grumpy’s Diner as the crowd was dissipating. When I saw Frankie and four of his parrots getting up from the same table I had seen them the first time Vann and I were here, I wished we had gone to McDonald’s. We took a seat near the far-left corner, as far away from the Olinger table as possible. This didn’t keep the five stooges from coming over, probably to invite us to church. I must say, Frankie looked better than the last time I had seen him with his greasy coveralls. Now, he was dressed in a pair of clean khakis, and a blue button-down shirt with a green and yellow-striped tie. All four of them could have been members of an older, boys band.
“You boys going to church?” Frankie said placing his left hand on Vann’s back.
“Sorry Mr. Olinger, we gave up on myths a long time ago, although, Walt here still hangs on pretty tight to Santa Claus.” Vann said removing Frankie’s hand.
“Typical tongue from a liberal. Anyway, know Pastor Warren and all of us at First Baptist Church of Christ, are always extending an invite to all, even to you liberal atheists.”
“What are you teaching today, Frankie? Civil disobedience?” I said, recalling how close Frankie and I nearly came to blows during the last time we were together here at Grumpy’s.
“God’s for it, under the right circumstances.” Frankie said raising his chin slightly, like he was a Bible scholar.
“Vann, you and Walt ready to order?” Gloria Brown said nudging Frankie out of the way.
“See you boys later.” Frankie said as he and his four buddies walked away.
After Gloria left, I told Vann, “please shoot me if I ever come back to this place. Really, shoot me if I ever mention or agree to coming here.”
“I agree, seeing those clowns doesn’t do wonders for the appetite.” Vann said pushing his chair back and reaching for The Birmingham News laying on the table closest to the window.
The Pencil-Driven Life 