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 59
Freddie’s next target was Brett Silvers. His ignorance had reached epic proportions just a couple of days ago when he posted to Facebook another one of his childish statements. Two weeks earlier Brett had posted a photo of Obama and called him a buffoon. Two days ago, his post referenced Obama’s Foundation. Here, Brett contended that it was time for Obama to basically, go stick his head in the sand and never ever again show his head to the American public.
Freddie had tolerated Brett for years. He pretty much had to. Brett was the service manager at Freddie and Frankie’s business, Sand Mountain Tire & Muffler, in Boaz. It was not until Brett’s hatred of Obama surfaced during his eight-year administration that seeds of elimination and destruction started to sprout in Freddie’s mind. He had often thought that he wouldn’t feel this way if Brett was an openly evil and stupid asshole, but no, he couldn’t be real. That would be faithful to the truth. No, Brett’s act was secured by the umbrella of faith, the Christian faith that is. Freddie wasn’t exactly sure how involved Brett was in the country church he attended every Sunday but to hear him talk at work, it couldn’t survive without him.
Freddie had learned from his expansive reading that folks like Brett, folks that can easily express hate and love, virtually in the same sentence, hold one thing in common. They are childish. They are normally always uneducated. Even though Freddie hadn’t gone to college, he was self-taught from all his reading and the extensive logic and philosophy courses he had taken online. Freddie knew that folks like Brett were diseased. They believed their thoughts had to be accurate. They were experts in self-deception. What they didn’t realize, because they had never been exposed to truly enlightened reasoning and discussions, was that most every issue is highly complicated. For someone like Brett to call Obama a buffoon (Definition: “a ludicrous figure (like a clown), or a gross and usually ill-educated or stupid person.”) was about much more than an inability to reason and to allow for the shallowness of one’s argument. No, Freddie knew this type statement was born from a mind and heart that was evil. No doubt, Brett was a racist, a stupid racist at that.
Today was the day. Freddie’s plan arose from one of Brett’s routines. He had two boys and two girls. All of them and their families lived locally. Every six months for years Brett stayed over after work and changed the oil in all four of their vehicles. Sometimes he would have six or eight cars and trucks to work on, depending on whether their spouses brought theirs by. Brett’s kids would drop their vehicles off from mid to late afternoon and leave. At 5:30, closing time for Sand Mountain Tire & Muffler, Brett would pull on coveralls and drive the first car onto a hydraulic lift inside one of the shop’s bays.
Frankie was always gone by 5:00 p.m. sharp, leaving Freddie, Brett, and four technicians in the shop. Business was slow because of heavy rain so Freddie told the techs to go on home around 5:15 p.m. Brett pulled on his coveralls and ran out to drive in a 2015 Ford Cruzer. Freddie dropped eight cyanide pills into the pot of coffee Brett had made right after Frankie left. Brett would easily consume all ten cups in the two hours it would take to change the oil in the awaiting five vehicles. Freddie had been careful to watch the coffee pot to make sure neither one of the technicians poured a cup.
As Brett was standing under the Ford and maneuvering the drain stand Freddie hollered, “Brett, you want a cup of coffee before I leave?” “Yea, that would be great. Use my big cup. It’s on my desk.” Brett responded.
Freddie poured coffee to within an inch of the brim of the giant coffee mug. “Hey Brett, I assume you want your creamer?”
“Won’t drink it without it. You know that.” Brett hollered back, standing by the outside door pressing the button to lower it to block out the wave of blowing rain coming into the shop.
Freddie reached in the refrigerator and pulled out the last bottle of almond milk. Everyone knew that Brett bought this himself and it was for his use only. It was not a problem. No one else could stand the smell or the taste. Freddie was pleased that Brett’s taste buds enjoyed almond, since cyanide was known to put off an almond smell.
Freddie knew the next few minutes were going to be rough for the man who had devoted his life to Sand Mountain Tire & Muffler. Brett and Frankie were high school classmates. Freddie, although Frankie’s twin, had failed the sixth grade and therefore had graduated in 1973, a year behind Brett and Frankie. After Brett spent a semester at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa he returned to Boaz to marry Brenda Lester, a sweet but homely woman who made Brett feel like he was the King of England. Brett had taken a job as an oil-changer with Freddie and Frankie’s father who had started Sand Mountain Tire & Muffler.
Freddie handed Brett his mug of coffee just as he was about to change the oil filter. The two men stood and talked about college football. Of course, Brett knew who was going to win and who was going to lose come Saturday. Freddie watched Brett as he walked to the long work table six feet or so in front of the Ford. He reached for the oil filter and then fell to the ground. Freddie knew what was happening. The literature he had read called it ‘internal asphyxia.’ Brett’s breathing was fast, sounding like a make-believe freight train. Although Freddie couldn’t tell for sure, but according to his research, Brett was now dizzy, nauseated. Less than a minute later, Brett was having convulsions.
Even though he was not yet dead, Freddie pulled Brett over under the Ford, directly under the steel racks so they would crush his body when they were lowered. Freddie walked to the closed front door and pressed the button. By now, Brett was totally helpless, still and silent. Freddie walked to the work table for Brett’s coffee mug, walked to the coffee pot, and poured the remaining coffee down the drain. He then scalded and washed the pot several times, before drying it off. Freddie turned off the coffee maker and placed the pot in its cradle.
Two minutes later, with drying towel and Brett’s coffee mug on the seat beside him, Freddie drove away from Sand Mountain Tire & Muffler. He stopped by Little Caesars for a pizza and headed home. He was anxious to relax with Patrick Hurley’s, A Concise Introduction to Logic. Freddie loved it for its clarity and comprehensiveness, even though, now, it seemed rather elementary given Freddie’s more advanced predicate logic textbooks that lined his shelves. No doubt they were much more of a challenge but Freddie never tired of reviewing the basic, simple examples the text included, wondering why and how men like Brett Silvers failed to grasp their truthfulness.
The Pencil Driven Life 