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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School . Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie. Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.
Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.
For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal. In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget. Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.
Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice. And, eternal friendship.
Chapter 6
Sammie Teal was no doubt the glue that kept Nanny in her home. Paid for by Raymond, at the insistence of Darla, Sammie had been a godsend. Until five years ago she had lived in the apartment above the garage that Papa had renovated for Aunt Maude, his younger sister. The world’s greatest aunt was nearly ten years younger than Papa and Nanny. I think my granddad was clairvoyant or something. After Aunt Maude’s husband died of brain cancer at age thirty, Papa offered her a deal. It was really a joke. At first. Papa offered his childless sister a place to live if she would take care of him and Nanny when they got old. He had turned a junkie, seldom visited, storage room above the garage into a darling apartment. I have fond memories as a young teenager sitting with Maude reliving a life of love and adventure. All virtual experiences. She was probably the main reason I’m now a teacher. She certainly instilled in me a love of reading.
It was less than a month before Nanny was diagnosed with Parkinson’s that Papa’s plans fell apart. Aunt Maude was killed in a one-car accident a few days before Valentine’s Day. On a snowy and icy late afternoon, she had gotten out to buy candy and a card for Papa and Nanny. It was the second worse day of my life. Looking back, I have evidence that out of tragic circumstances roses can grow. At least one.
Sammie was the perfect replacement and if it hadn’t been for the generosity of Raymond Radford, Papa would never have been able to afford her. She too had lost her husband to cancer. A couple of weeks after we buried Aunt Maude, Sammie’s house had mysteriously burned to the ground. She could have afforded to rebuild her large sprawling house on North Main Street but was easily persuaded by Darla, at Raymond’s behest, to move in Aunt Maude’s apartment and care for Papa and Nanny. She was a retired nurse with the bedside manner of what all patients sought from a doctor: time and compassion. All of Sammie’s children were grown and gone which made her decision easier.
Sammie lived outback upstairs until Papa died three years ago. His death had nearly destroyed Nanny. Her health took a nosedive. I will always believe the effects of her mourning for Papa triggered her dementia. Sammie now lived in a bedroom across the hall from Nanny. She would retreat to her apartment when assured by me or Darla that we take care of Nanny. Of course, that was rare, especially with Darla. I’m thankful she was the conduit for the funds to pay Sammie, but it was difficult to observe how little affection existed between daughter and mother. Other than my own tragedy’s ability to motivate me to love, cherish, and protect my Cullie, Darla’s near full-absence drove me to be present and engaged with the little girl who was quickly evolving into a young woman.
When Cullie and I returned late yesterday afternoon from the Gadsden Mall, we had found Sammie and Nanny sitting in the den watching reruns of The Walton’s. Nanny was almost the real Nanny during these times. Her and Papa had loved this 1980’s TV program about John and Olivia Walton, his parents, and a small army of children, struggling to survive on Walton’s Mountain, Virginia during America’s Great Depression. I’m not a doctor but the Walton drug, as I called it, gave Nanny more benefit than most of the dozen or so pills she took throughout the day. I think even Cullie noticed a real difference in the smile and relaxing hands of Nanny when she was absorbing an hour or two of the Walton drug. Cullie would rarely sit and endure, her words, the ‘silly show about backwoods people,’ but last night, I think maybe for the first time, she realized that youth is so transitory and that she herself, if she was lucky, would someday be old like Nanny, and suffering from two horrible conditions. I was torn between watching Nanny and watching Cullie watch Nanny. Cullie was just now getting to know her great-grandmother. Until less than two weeks ago, the two of them had never spent more than the equivalent of a few days together, with those being spread over fourteen years of one visit every couple of years when I made myself return to the little town I had sworn I would never make my home.
Before we had gone to bed, I had promised Cullie we would go to First Baptist Church of Christ in the morning. I had to keep my promises to the most important person in my life. Even if it nearly killed me. My desire to be a good mother to Cullie was justification enough for us to waste a perfectly good opportunity to sleep in and relax, maybe even have one of Sammie’s breakfast feasts when other folks were eating turnip greens and cornbread at Grumpy’s Diner after church. Sammie, once again, had someway known what to do. At 7:45 she had knocked on my door and whispered, ‘breakfast at 8:00 if you are interested.’ I was. Especially since I hadn’t eaten anything but a little oatmeal Debbie Cake since popcorn at The Glass Castle.
I had dropped Cullie off at youth group at 9:00 a.m. and driven to my classroom at the high school. I was glad Principal Harrison’s philosophy encouraged teachers to invest ‘a healthy portion of your non-school hours in preparation.’ He was right. The best schoolteachers are like the best attorneys. To get the best results, they both have to prepare. There is simply not enough time from 7:30 to 2:45 to properly prepare. Principal Harrison wasn’t my main reason for coming to my classroom. It was my fear of church, better put, my fear of Sunday School. It was too dangerous. I had loved it as a teenager growing up with Brother Randy Miller as youth pastor. He had made the Bible come alive. Mostly, he was human with his hoard of young people. There was no subject that was off the table. He was genuine. Unfortunately, he was too human. He died in a tragic accident when the Lighthouse, an outreach ministry of the church, burned down the summer before my eleventh-grade year. I hoped his grandson, Robert, would be different in that regard, and his care and teaching would be just what Cullie needed. I could make myself sit beside Cindy during the preaching hour, but I was not ready for the stares and gossip of adult Sunday School.
Cindy met me at 10:55 just like we had agreed. Outside on the front steps leading into the giant auditorium the church had built a few years ago. Something in me longed to go inside the big but old and decaying building next door, the one that created all the memories that were now flashing before my eyes. The first thing Cindy said was, “glad you came. I was worried I would disappoint you. Late night. Steve was especially fishy when I got home.” Only Cindy, the sweet, gentle, and shy around the world Cindy, could talk sexual without saying a word that Cullie would find lurid.
We sat in the balcony with the fishy Steve and their two younger children: Arlon and Anita. Alysa was no doubt downstairs with Cullie and about a hundred-other youth ranging from middle school age all the way to college. Triple A’s; Cindy was no doubt an English teacher. Before the sermon began, she whispered a question: “had I looked at what the girls bought at Belk’s?” I just shook my head in the negative but promised myself I would do that first thing upon our return home.
The song service touched my heart. I hadn’t been to church but a few times since I had left Boaz late summer of 1991, right after graduating in May from Boaz High School. I recalled how I loved the old gospel hymns. I was glad my hometown church hadn’t gone the way of the world and forsaken tradition and instead adopted contemporary Christian. Of course, Sunday morning worship hour was designed to keep the adults, many of them approaching Nanny’s age, satisfied. The youth group, according to Alysa, was another story. If Brother Robert thought loud and fast-beat songs of the savior would keep my Cullie safe and sound here instead of hanging with the wrong crowd, I had no opposition at all.
Brother Warren’s sermon would have given me inspiration if any other preacher in the world had said the very same words. Knowing a dark secret or two about the man who is a master at sharing the Good News was worse than throwing a dripping wet quilt on a small but flaming fire. It was my first time to hear Pastor Warren as Cindy called him. My memories were clear of his father and grandfather’s sermons. Wade and Walter Tillman were every much the masters of storytelling and persuasion as was Warren. Unlike Brother Randy, Warren inherited the criminal gene from his ancestors. I know Warren, at least in 2002, had a dark side, one so dark that he could, along with his four buddies, kidnap and rape a 29-year-old woman. That woman was me. There was nothing I hated more than a hypocrite. Regardless of my lack of inspiration, I would take Pastor Warren’s words to heart. His message from John 15:7 sparked a desire deep inside me to attempt to restore my prayer life. I wanted to see if what he said was true. I had once believed it. It was time I gave it another try.
Pastor Warren was not the only one delivering messages today. At the end of the service, I followed Cindy and Steve, and two of the Triple A’s, through the line to shake the preacher’s hand. His fake smile and smarmy greeting were my final encouragement. I palmed the tall and handsome orator my two-word unfolded sticky note: ‘I know.’ Reluctantly, I kept walking, redirecting my eyes through the open doorway without pausing to delight myself by a facial response to what I hoped was a top-three shock of his life.
The Pencil Driven Life 