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 79
Last Sunday’s round of national news interviews in New York City had set off a firestorm. No matter the hour or the day, whenever I turned on the TV all I would see and hear were a news host talking with pastors, philosophers, professors, politicians, and private citizens discussing the pros and cons of a Biblical-based government. What had happened during the passing of this week was almost a miracle. The evangelical right and their quest to transform our government into a theocracy had seemingly been the key to uniting every other non-Christian group in the country. I was glad a lull in my interview schedule had occurred.
It was now Thursday, and I was in Chicago for the second of six Presidential debates. CNN, the debate’s host, had asked me to do something that had never been tried in any national debate. Stupid me had agreed to moderate the portion of the debate that centered on the theocracy issue. I would be present at the moderators’ table and would ask the two candidates a carefully scripted list of questions. I would have a limited amount of leeway in asking follow-up questions.
During the first half of the debate I was kept backstage in a tiny room with a desk and chair and a small TV. I watched the debate even though I wasn’t focused given my level of anxiety. I didn’t catch much details of what was discussed as the moderators asked the candidates their platform and visions concerning the economy, health care, and foreign policy. The latter consumed an inordinate amount of time given the rising tensions between President Kane and Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader.
At 9:30 p.m., and after nearly ninety minutes in the tiny claustrophobic room, I was led to the moderators’ table where Megan Kelley sat. The other two moderators were milling around the front of the auditorium stretching their legs during the ongoing ten-minute break. Megan reviewed once again the protocol and encouraged me to relax. She was gracious, kind, and respectful, and along with her beautiful smile, cut away most of my anxiety and gave me the courage for my next national appearance.
The first question was for President Kane. “Mr. President, I’m Walt Shepherd and ….”
As I expected, he interrupted me and said, “We know who you are. The nation knows you. You are an embarrassment to true patriotism.”
“Mr. President, I may be a lot of things but right now I have a question. It is up to you whether you answer it. If you are reelected will you attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman?”
“I certainly will. Everybody with half a brain knows it can’t be any other way. God created man and woman, Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
“Good evening Mr. Salers, I ask you the same question.” I said gaining just a little confidence since Kane had answered my first question, albeit in a way that truly reflected he is dumber than a First Grader.
“Thanks Mr. Shepherd for asking a very important question. There is no need to amend our Constitution. The real issue is whether this country will follow it. Our Supreme Court has already ruled on this issue. Even though their opinion didn’t discuss the origins of life, science is clear. We humans are part of the animal kingdom. We evolved from a common ancestor. We are cousins to every plant and animal on this earth. Unlike what President Kane says and possibly believes, God did not create Adam and Eve. In fact, there is no God at all.” I could hardly believe a candidate for the President of the United States would have the guts, on national TV, to state such a bold truth, to go against virtually every politician before him and deny the very existence of God.
Salers continued, “homosexuality is common throughout the animal kingdom. I see no need to go against nature. I agree this is not what a large percentage of the American people want to hear, but it is the truth.”
I decided to take a risk here in using my limited power to create a question. “Mr. Salers, let me ask you a follow-up. I’m sure you are aware that many proponents of a Biblical theocracy are calling for criminalizing homosexuality and as punishment, administering the death penalty.
What do you say to that?”
“The very sound of that makes me cringe. What on earth have we become, as Americans, the land of the free and the home of the brave? Are we willing to destroy two-thousand plus years of progress? It is absurd. It is an affront to humankind. Let me just say, anyone who would support such a policy is so brainwashed and indoctrinated they are both a danger to themselves and to the rest of us. It is imperative all truth-loving voters in this great land stand up against this barbarism.”
At that moment President Kane jumped in. “Don’t I get a chance to respond? I will whether you like it Mr. Salers or not. This nation has done quite well building its house on the Bible. Our Founding Fathers were Christians and risked their lives to create a country deeply rooted in the Bible. If the Bible was good enough for them it is good enough for me and all true believers. I can’t help that homosexuality exists, but I can damn well put a roadblock in its path.
God deplores homosexuality.”
I knew I needed to move on, but I was not sensing any resistance from Kelly. I turned back to Mr. Salers. “Do you want to respond to President Kane?”
“Absolutely, if we are interested in truth, we have to reconsider the veracity of the Bible. It has too long been held up as a beacon of hope and light. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to recognize the Bible is simply a man-made document. It is time to recognize that we do not have the original manuscripts. The first full manuscripts of the Bible date to the ninth century. Let’s be grownups here and admit that all we have are copies of copies of copies of copies of manuscripts. No one person in the world knows what the originals said. Bible scholars agree that even the manuscripts we have are all different from each other. They contain many conflicts between each other. We have no way of knowing that what we see in a modern Bible is in any way like it started out. Of course, that makes the huge assumption itself, that there was a real Jesus to begin with. Many scholars doubt even this. One other thing, and it is the most damaging thing at all to the truth of Christianity. I’m speaking of evolution. We know for a fact it is true. All life has evolved from a simple single-cell organism over billions of years. Obviously, the Bible says life came about in a six-day week by God speaking it into existence. Science and evolution dispute this. Science and evolution destroy this. It is time we as a nation move on and leave the Christian myth in the dust. If we don’t, we are going to destroy ourselves.”
It took another forty-five minutes to get through the original four questions I was given. The deeper we got into the fight over whether a theocracy was good or bad for America, it became clear that the crowd behind me was equally divided. Even though the moderators continually reminded them to hold their verbal response until the debate was over, it was all in vain. The crowd erupted in boos and yeas throughout the remainder of my moderating. It finally got so bad that Megan called for a break immediately after both candidates responded to my last question.
As the program went to a commercial Kelly congratulated me on a job well done and asked me if I would consider an interview on her new program, Megyn Kelly TODAY in a week or so. I agreed and thanked her.
As I was outside the auditorium hailing a cab my cell phone rang.
It was Thaddeus Colburn.
“I thought you had been told not to spread this garbage. Tonight, I see you on national TV giving Eric Salers an opportunity to sway millions of voters. Let me put it to you one final time. If you make one more national statement concerning anything remotely close to the Bible and theocracy controversy, I promise you will regret it. You will not like what happens to you.”
As I got in my cab I responded. “Are you threatening me?”
“No, I’m promising you.”
I immediately ended the call and grew madder and madder during the twenty-minute drive to the airport.
The Pencil Driven Life 