Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Stenographer, Chapter 52

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 52

Over the past several weeks I had become almost despondent over why I was writing my book.  What led to this feeling or belief was all the insanity I saw on Facebook.  Who was I kidding to think that my book, The Coming Civil War, would cause a single Kane supporter to change his mind and vote against the man in 2020?  Certainly, it would have no effect upon the residents of Boaz, Alabama.

Facebook was a marvelous tool for the researcher.  How else could I learn the inner most feelings, the real beliefs, opinions, philosophies, and thinking ability of my subjects—those who would decide whether President Kane went back to be a regular U.S. citizen after November 2020.  Facebook was like a huge neon sign attached to the front of the speaker’s face.  Better yet, it was like a huge open book nailed to the speaker’s face, revealing his inner-most thoughts.

I had spent much of last night exploring my thoughts and my recent Facebook reading trying to get an angle on my next Boaz Stenographer editorial.  My deadline was today at 5:00 p.m.  The subject that had caught my attention was a Facebook Post by a local teacher (I’ll call her Jill).  She was asking her Christian friends to pray for her students.  Jill had developed a unique idea.  Of course, she couldn’t divulge the name of her students.  This would violate the school’s (and society’s) privacy policy and standards.  It would also likely be a source of embarrassment for the student if details about his or her needs were ever discussed online.  Jill avoided the privacy issue by assigning a number to each of her students.  For example, Suzie would be number 25, and no one, except Jill, would know who number 25 was.

My problem was this interesting Facebook post wasn’t the community submission Regina’s committee had selected for the subject of last week’s Boaz Stenographer column.  They had chosen this recording: “Never in our history has a past president acted with so little dignity.” The one who wrote this was a Facebook user and was referring to Barack Obama (that was made clear by the Obama photo that was included with the Post).  The submitter of this recordation wasn’t the Facebook poster.  I was familiar with this person and knew he often posted things that were misinterpreted or most often, untrue.  This guy is a diehard Kane fan, an uneducated racist (not to say that all Kane fans are uneducated).

I knew, without doing any research, that President Obama was truly a man of dignity.  I had served in his White House for eight years.  This Facebook poster, I’ll call him Bill, doesn’t care what the word dignity means (according to Merriam-Webster, dignity is “the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed”).  No, Bill wants two things: to be noticed and to be honored and highly esteemed, to be held as being worthy.  So funny.  I could lay out a zillion examples of why Barack Obama has more dignity than all Kane supporters combined.  No doubt, Bill does not want to see Obama in the news, or to hear about anything he is doing.  Of course, to any rational American, his wisdom is needed to guide us through this dark and dense wilderness Kane has led us into.

Back to my problem, how could I write my response to last week’s Boaz Stenographer column.  I finally figured out a way, maybe one that was just a little mischievous.  What lay at the heart of both Jill’s prayer idea, and the selected recording (Bill’s Facebook posting) was the lack of interest in the truth.  No doubt, both Jill and Bill believed in their positions: Jill believed in prayer, and Bill believed Obama was something akin to a scoundrel.  Over the past few weeks, reading a ton of Facebook posts by Kane supporters (it’s easy, just find one popular post by a local Kane fan and dig into who comments, including exploring their own personal posts) I concluded that there was a direct correlation between Christianity (Fundamentalist Christianity that is), and Kane’s version of Republicanism.  In other words, the most accurate profile of the diehard Kane supporter is that he hates President Obama, he loves God, believes in the power of prayer, believes God has put President Kane in power, and believes he (the supporter) is part of a much-needed revolution that is going to ‘Make American Great Again.’  From this profile, I can easily conclude that the Kane supporter is deluded; he isn’t interested in the truth.

This gave me the ability and justification of speaking about Jill and her insane idea.  I would love to meet Jill and attempt to reason with her.  Of course, that would be impossible because, no doubt, Jill doesn’t have the ability to listen to reason.  She has long ago lost that very critical trait.  Jill probably grew up in a Southern Baptist Church.  She has been bombarded all her life with the Christian message.  God created the world from nothing, in six days.  He created Adam and Eve.  They disobeyed God’s command and were cast out of the Garden of Eden; the perfect paradise God had created for them.  All men have inherited Adam and Eve’s original sin and need a savior.  Jesus, who existed with God from the beginning (whatever that means) took on the form of a man and came to earth as a baby (born of a virgin) to give himself for mankind’s sins.  Jesus died on a cross in full payment of the sins of all who believe on Him.  He died but was resurrected on the third day and now sits on His throne in Heaven by God’s side.  And finally, Jill believes Jesus (and God) hears her prayers, answers them, has a plan for her life (and all Christians), and that nothing happens to a believer without God’s permission or His direct action.

There is no doubt in my mind that Jill has never once truly questioned her faith and her belief that prayer is real.  She has never honestly investigated the validity of praying.  Jill, if she did look and investigate, would have to conclude (if she was being honest) that she had never experienced answered prayer.  This would be difficult for Jill.  She would fight this conclusion.  She would recall many examples of how God had answered her prayers, not just someone else’s prayers, but her very own.  She would say things like, “I know I would not have this job teaching at Boaz High School if God had not heard my prayer and intervened.”  She would go on to trot out how this had come about.  Things like, “I was living in Dothan teaching at Woodhaven High School and was so homesick.  I wanted to move back to Boaz, my hometown.  I was going to First Baptist Church of Dothan and told my pastor about my unhappiness.  Right then and there he led me in a prayer that God would be gracious and merciful to me and lead me to a job in Boaz.  It was the next day that my mom told me she had heard of an opening at Boaz High School, a need for a History teacher.”  And on and on Jill would go, describing how she wound up as a History teacher at Boaz High.  She would raise her hands in praise to God for His love and compassion.  No doubt, Jill would have story after story.  To most any third grader, especially ones who had not been indoctrinated in the Christian faith, how Jill got her Boaz job would likely have nothing to do with God.  These third graders would say, “Jill, that is not proof God answered your prayer.  More likely, it was nothing but a coincidence that you heard about the job after your Dothan pastor prayed for you.”  What I would want to ask Jill if I could would be, “how do you explain the times God didn’t answer your prayers?”  And, “how do you explain the child or adult who you prayed for healing who died?”   No doubt, Jill would have a pat response, “God isn’t a slot machine.  Sometimes he answers with a ‘maybe,’ and he is also mysterious, and His plans and ways are far above my own.  Therefore, he called my Uncle Ted home and didn’t heal him as I wanted.”

Prayer and politics, especially the Kane Tribe type, is all about ignoring the facts, they are all about refusing to ask questions and pursue common-sense rationality.  

After drafting an outline of my editorial, I almost shelved my book writing project.  But something, maybe someone’s prayer, caused me to find assurance in the belief that it would be worth all the effort if I could persuade one person of the truth, if I could persuade one person to vote against the real scoundrel, President Andrew Kane.

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 Help a starving artist.