Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Stenographer, Chapter 78

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 78

 The next three weeks went by in a blur.  Court-reporting three days per week was on auto-pilot, but the evenings were consumed with book interviews.  With Regina and I froze as to what to do about her dilemma and my desire to be as far away from Shepherd’s Cove as I could because of the criminal living in my barn, I was happy to drive two or three evenings per week to Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, Chattanooga, and Atlanta to conduct book interviews.  Also, the last three Sundays I had flown to New York City and Washington, D.C. to participate in multiple nationwide interviews including Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, Face the Nation with John Dickerson, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

Ever since Regina had confessed her devastating news to me during our drive back from my first national interview in Atlanta with Anderson Cooper, I had developed a lackadaisical attitude.  It seemed I had lost my way, especially when it came to my goal of destroying President Kane.  It was like I was seeing everything in a fog and I lacked the clarity and resolve to formulate a plan of action.  That changed last night when I received a disturbing phone call at 1:30 a.m.  I did not recognize the number.

“Hello.”  I started not to answer it because Regina and I had just walked in the door after a long three-hour drive from Atlanta.

“Mr. Shepherd, this is Thaddeus Colburn?  Do you know who I am?”  He said without any attempt at a pleasant greeting or a friendly remark about the weather, football, or, the countless hours of excellent work I had invested in his court reporting company, not to mention my time and efforts playing investigator on his behalf.

“If you are the owner of Rains & Associates and the director of the Constitution Foundation, then I know who you are.”

“That’s correct.  I’m going to demand that you stop talking about Eric Salters in such a favorable light, as though citizens should give him serious consideration.”  I was confused about how I was promoting Salters, the Democratic Presidential candidate.

“In all due respects sir, how is that any of your business?”  I said.

“Mr. Shepherd, you work for me.  Have you forgotten that?”

I normally am calm, but this man was pushing my buttons, buttons that hadn’t been messed with in quite a while.  “I am quite aware who I work for, but I must have missed the memo that I was your slave.”  

“I don’t want this conversation to get out of hand.  It seems you would spend your time during your book interviews focused on President Kane and the dangers he poses if he is reelected.”

“This is very confusing.  You want me to argue against the sitting President but not for his Democratic opponent?  What am I missing?”  I said.

“Your pointing out the problems with Kane stirs up his base and strengthens his chances of being reelected.  This is what I want, what the Constitution Foundation wants, and what is best for our nation in the long run.  Encouraging citizens to vote for Mr. Salers conflicts with our mutual goal.”  

“I hear what you are saying.”  I said.

“Are we then in agreement?”  Colburn asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Mr. Shepherd, you have a lot to lose here.  I suggest you get on board.  I will not take no for an answer.  That’s all I must say. 

Goodnight.”  Colburn ended our conversation.

After Regina and I talked about what I had just heard she went to bed.  I was in no condition to sleep.  I sat in my lounge chair and reviewed my national interviews from the past three weeks.  It dawned on me what possibly had precipitated Mr. Colburn’s phone call.

The presidential election of late was filled with President Kane’s typical bombast and vitriol.  But, something new had crept onto the main stage.  Kane’s Democratic opponent, Eric Salers, was the first major party nominee who was an avowed atheist.  He was a seriously responsible and qualified man.  He was rational and had a dignified and honorable way of presenting his positions.  He was also a savvy politician and a risk-taker.

He had picked up on the possibility that there had to be a large group of folks who were sick and tired of the God mantle that every president in modern history had worn, no matter what true character framed their personality.  Salters knew that President Kane was as far away from being a true and committed Christian as one could get, yet he had become the darling of the evangelical right.  Salters also knew that America was becoming less and less religious.  Every major poll indicated the ‘Nones’ were the largest and fastest growing group in America.  That is, these folks were not affiliated with any religious denomination.

In large part, Salter’s platform was centered on the importance of science and evidence.  In addition, he openly shared his opposition to a theocracy that was motivating and fueling Kane’s campaign.  Salter’s was every day out on the campaign trail warning Americans of the dangers of allowing the Bible to become our guiding star.  He clearly stated that for far too long we as Americans had become lackadaisical in our thinking.  Over the past few weeks Salters had become bolder, even going so far as to say that any reasonably-minded person could not discard the fact that Christianity had two insurmountable problems.  The Bible and evolution.  He encouraged everyone to do a little research.  He contended that such study would lead to only one conclusion.  The Bible is man-made, and evolution is incompatible with the long-held scriptural interpretations by most every evangelical Christian.  Salter’s was adamant that every American enjoyed the fruits of science and President Kane’s assault on climate change alone could lead to the future destruction of our planet.

I was in total agreement with Eric Salters.  In pondering all my interviews, I recognized I had clearly become one of his advocates.  It was natural to one who had been able to break free from the Christian brainwashing of my youth.  But, it was this advocacy that had roiled Thaddeus Colburn and controlled his demands.

The problem was that I had never liked being told what I should believe.  My dear mother and I had had this conversation when I was fifteen years old.  At 3:30 a.m. I turned off the light beside my chair and walked upstairs.  I was ready for sleep because my mind had a renewed purpose that President Kane and the Christian right must be defeated, or America was doomed.