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 62
Vann and I were supposed to meet at 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning. He was late. It had been three weeks since we had gotten together to work on our book. It wasn’t that we hadn’t made any progress since we both had drafted a separate chapter apiece. Today, we needed to deal with an overall issue that had been bothering me ever since I had read a Facebook post by Franklin Graham, the son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham.
Franklin Graham had asked Christians to pray for a man by the name of Jack Phillips. It seems he was involved with a case that the U.S. Supreme Court was soon to decide. Back in 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, a gay couple, had come to Phillips’ bakery and asked him to create for them a wedding cake to celebrate their marriage. Phillips refused saying he does not create wedding cakes for same-sex weddings because of his religious beliefs. Craig and Mullins sued and the case, after a long journey through the Colorado court system, wound up at the U.S. Supreme Court. Phillips’ legal argument is that to be forced to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple would violate his constitutional rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.
Graham’s prayer request had bothered me. I had hardly slept the past two nights. The first night I tossed and turned bothered primarily by the arrogance of Jack Phillips. Why make the couple’s request a religious issue at all? Wasn’t he in business to make a living? For God’s sake, it’s a wedding cake. The couple wasn’t asking Mr. Phillips to sacrifice his daughter. Also, for hours, between a nap or two, I got caught up imagining what if all the other businesses in the area took the same approach as Phillips. What if Walmart refused to sell groceries to him, because he was a Christian? What if the local hospital emergency room refused medical care to him when Phillips cut his hand and was bleeding to death. Again, that was night one. During the second night, my thoughts turned to the bigger picture. This case represented something much bigger than a baker refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. This case was about the complete reconstitution of Christianity.
During the second night my mind couldn’t get away from the question, what was Graham’s overriding purpose in making the prayer request? He had said in his post, “I like people who stand up for what they believe and don’t back down in this world of compromise.” To me, the most important thing for Graham to accomplish was to win a battle, to make sure homosexuals were treated as second-class citizens, that they, like Black people in the Sixties, were deformed, retarded, or otherwise inferior to God’s chosen. I realized the time had come that Christianity was no longer about the Great Commission of sharing the redeeming message of Jesus Christ. To Graham, the law be damned, the hell with the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
God’s law must triumph over all.
Vann arrived at 6:20 a.m. “Sorry I’m late, the drive-through line was all the way out in the highway.”
“No problem. It gave me some time to organize my thoughts for today.”
“Oh no, I suspect I better sit down.” Vann said handing me a giant sausage biscuit and sitting down at the bar.
I sat across from Vann and started eating. I also briefed him on the Phillips case and how my initial thoughts had transformed. “I know we have a pretty firm outline for our book, but I think we are missing a key theme.”
“What’s that? Do you have any milk?” Vann asked.
I poured us both a glass of milk and sat back down. “Our book title, The Coming Civil War, is grounded on two premises. One is that President Kane has tapped into a voting block that is dangerous, mainly because of their ignorance of American history and the Constitution, and the structure and functioning of our three branches of government. The second premise is that Kane was not legally elected. What I think our book is missing is the driving force behind Kane’s supporters. They support Kane to gain control of our federal government and convert it to a Christian theocracy. Herein, lies the real danger. The coming civil war is between Christians and non-Christians.” I said taking the last bite of my biscuit.
“That’s too broad. I think you want to say, Protestant Christians. I don’t think all Christians have the same ambition.” Vann added.
“Good. Yes, I agree.” I said as I let Vann read the Franklin Graham post about baker Phillips.
“I’ve never liked Graham, Franklin Graham. I always liked his father but until Kane came along there was just something, something I couldn’t really describe, that I didn’t like about him. But, when he became an outspoken, diehard Kane supporter, I knew he would do anything to sell his wares.”
“Good way to put it. I believe he is the dead-on representative of the Kane Tribe. He’s not interested in traditional evangelism, where his controlling mission is to spread Christ’s gospel and see millions come to salvation. He is after his own glory and seeing his interpretation of the Bible becomes the law of the land.” I said.
“Let’s see if we are on the same page here. You are saying that what we are observing through the Boaz Stenographer column comments is indicative of what we are gleaning from Franklin Graham’s Facebook post about the wedding cake case?”
“Yes, but continue, cite an example or two. That will let me know if you’re with me on this.” I said.
“We’re seeing a lot of posts that clearly set out an us versus them attitude. One guy always includes a remark such as ‘stupid liberals.’ What he means is that everyone who doesn’t believe as he does is on the other team, or fights for the opposing army.” Vann said walking his empty milk glass over to the sink.
“Correct, but don’t forget to add. Your guy, like Graham, lives knee-deep in Southern Baptist Christianity. They see they are on a mission. They don’t give a rat’s ass about any human who isn’t a believer in the virgin born Jesus Christ. Everyone else be damned.”
“How does this change our outline? Don’t you think that’s something we better address before we go any further?” Vann said.
“I agree.” We spent the next several hours working on our outline. Deleting, adding, modifying. When Vann left a little before 1:00 p.m., we both agreed the coming war would be between superstition and reason. It scared both of us because we had grown up face-to-face with folks who believed in the literal interpretation of Adam and Eve and the Genesis creation story. No wonder Jack Phillips refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
The Pencil Driven Life 