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 20
I had just come to my bedroom after watching three episodes of The Walton’s with Nanny and Cullie. Sammie was unnaturally tired, so we let her relax in her apartment while Cullie and I watched Nanny. After brushing my teeth, I had just sat on my bed when I received a text from Cindy. “Can you meet me at school?”
I couldn’t imagine why she wanted or needed to meet. It was almost 10:30 p.m. on Monday night, the end of the long Labor Day weekend. We both had a habit of being at school by 6:30 each morning so I would see her in eight hours. “Why? Can it not wait until morning? But, if you need me, I can.” I almost hadn’t written the last sentence. It was my friendship with Emily Fink that reminded me of the importance of having one person in my life who was there for me no matter. Emily had been that person. She had been the only one in my life who had come close to caring for me more than I cared for myself.
“I hope you know I wouldn’t ask you at this time of the night if it wasn’t important. You are the best friend I have, and I need your wisdom.” Cindy was the type of woman who appeared to always have it together. To me, she was the perfect role model for Cullie. Cindy was educated, happily married with three wonderful children, and was a teacher’s teacher. My description wouldn’t be complete without saying she was as dedicated a Christian as I had ever met. She had faith like a mountain and believed prayer gave her a direct line to God and His son Jesus.
“What time? Where?”
“11:00 p.m. Your classroom.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thanks for being such a wonderful friend.” I was glad to see that Cindy felt the same as I did.
I was waiting in my little office when I heard the hallway door open. It had one of those little dinger things mounted on the top. During the school day I usually left the door open but closed it at most other times.
“Katie, it’s me.”
“In here.”
When Cindy appeared in my office doorway I could tell she had been crying. Her face complexion was much redder when I had seen her in the afternoon and her eyes were not only dark green but puffy. I had never seen her without eye makeup. She was still attractive in a redhead type of way but hardly looked the same as the vibrant and exuberant Cindy I was accustomed to.
“All weekend I’ve been mentally drafting and redrafting my little talk with you. On the drive in tonight I burned all that up and threw it out the window.” I liked the image Cindy created. She was a Literature and Writing teacher. She thought in word pictures.
“Okay, so you have something to tell me, but you don’t know how?” I asked, worried that I had done or said something that offended her. Maybe she had taken something I had said about Alysa the wrong way. I didn’t have a clue what that could be.
“I do. Patrick Wilkins raped me. Last Wednesday night. After church.” Cindy delivered the four short statements like a first grader reading a book from the top shelf, meaning she shouldn’t be reading it. She started to cry and walked into my office. I stood, speechless, but open-armed. I held her for what seemed like ten minutes, although it was probably no more than one. Just as she seemed to gain control of her sobs, a rush of fear and hatred poured from my mind and pushed tears from my eyes. My breathing almost ceased. It was like I was smothering. I had never experienced anything like this.
“Oh Cindy, my dear friend. I’m here, all I know to say is that I am here for you and always will be.” I had never been so sincere. It was strange, but it was like Cindy’s pain launched my feelings for her, my belief in her, to the next level in friendship.
“I know. That’s why I asked you to come. I was dying. I had to talk.”
“Have you told Steve?” I asked.
“No. I haven’t told anyone, and I don’t plan to. Other than you.”
“Cindy, this is a hundred times worse, infinitely worse than his assault on you last week. You have to report this to the police.”
“I can’t. It will ruin my life. It will change everything, especially my relationship with Steve.” On one level, Cindy made sense, but no doubt her and Steve’s relationship was strong enough to weather this.
“Steve is the best friend you have. You two are true soul mates if there ever were such a thing.” I said, trying to persuade her she could not remain quiet. Then, it dawned on me. That’s exactly what I had done. Who was I to be giving Cindy advice?
“You’re right and I want to keep it that way. I’m afraid he will, deep down, think that it was my fault, that I somehow had done something, maybe the way I dressed, I don’t know, something to cause Wilkins to come on to me.”
“Steve wouldn’t think that. He knows you to your core. Aren’t that what soul mates are all about?”
“Even if Steve handled the news perfectly, that’s just the beginning of a whole new life, one I have no desire to live.” Cindy had now recovered enough to return to the other side of my desk and sit down.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I know the right thing in one sense is to report this to the police and see that Wilkins is convicted of rape. I’ve watched enough Law and Order, SVU, to know I can’t go through that.”
“He is a criminal Cindy. He is a sexual predator. Don’t you think if he gets away with this he will be emboldened? I’m going to be direct and blunt as needed. What if he turns his attention to young girls, even Alysa and Cullie? I know you don’t want that.” I knew I was treading on sensitive ground. I sure didn’t want to put a world of responsibility on her precarious shoulders.
“I know. You’re right. And, we certainly don’t know what he has been doing. Isn’t it unlikely I’m his first?” I was glad Cindy was asking a question. She was engaged, thinking.
“This leads obviously to the health risk he may have exposed you to. You need medical attention. You said you hadn’t told anyone. Not even a doctor?” I asked.
“No one means no one. Sorry, that sounded wrong. I didn’t mean to be a smart ass.” I was surprised Cindy said that. I had never heard her say a single cuss word, dirty word of any kind.
“You don’t have to answer this, but you said this happened at church Wednesday night?”
“Actually, it was after Wednesday night’s prayer meeting. Steve had taken the kids and gone home. I had driven separately knowing our Sunday School Department had scheduled a time after the prayer service to talk about the upcoming social. Every quarter all four Sunday School classes in our Department get together for a meal and a speaker. The meeting didn’t last thirty minutes. Everyone else had gone but I had walked to the Education Department to pick up our new Sunday School quarterlies. The teacher in me wants everyone to have their new lessons at least a couple weeks before the start of a new quarter. When I was walking out, Patrick Wilkins met me in the hall outside the elevator. You know he is the Church’s Education Director.” Cindy’s words stopped. It was like a spicket had been turned off. Her tears returned. She just sat there, frozen, with her head looking at her hands in her lap.
“You don’t have to give me any details.” I walked around my desk and sat down beside her in the other chair I always had under the little window.
“You already know the horrendous details.”
“He sure was bold. Right there in the church office.” I said trying to rid my mind of Wilkins overpowering Cindy. Probably pulled her into his personal office, closing and locking the door, and forcing Cindy across his desk.
“That’s not where he raped me. He forced me to walk out to the parking lot. That’s where I screamed when I saw Pastor Warren headed on foot to the Parsonage. He turned around and stood there looking our way. I know he could see us and know who we were. We were standing under one of the big street lamps along the edge of the parking lot. It was like Warren yelled out something but by that time Wilkins had me in the front seat of his vehicle.”
“You’re sure Pastor Warren recognized you?”
“He had to. He was probably less than a hundred feet from us.” I turned my chair to face Cindy and took both her hands.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you. It’s like a nightmare. I know what you’re going through.” The words just appeared, in my mind, milliseconds before they slipped past my lips.
“Katie, I love you, but please don’t tell me you know what I’m going through. I know you’re trying to help but that rings a little hollow. Right now, I need bald-faced truth. Just say you can’t imagine what I’m going through.” Cindy said, softly, with her green eyes lightning up just a shade. She was so kind and respectful.
“Cindy.” I clutched her hands more tightly, my mind teetering atop the highest mountain, unsure which way to fall and kill itself. Which way was less painful? Head first or feet first? Either way, the distance into the abyss was the same. I doubted the pain would be radically different. I chose head first. “Look at me. I have a secret I have never divulged to anyone. I do know how you feel. In 2002, I was raped. The only difference with your horrible experience is that five men gang-raped me. I did, and you do, feel helpless, totally powerless. I know. I’ve been there. I’m still there.”
“Oh my gosh. Katie my dearest. I would never have guessed. You seem so happy and complete.” Cindy was doing her best to console me.
“Believe me, some days, inside my head, I’m a train wreck.”
“The lowdown bastards.” Cindy again surprised me. She was beginning to sound like me, at least my words below my breath. Sometimes. Sometimes not. “Did you know who raped you? Sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.” I now knew how I had sounded to Cindy. We both were being a little artificial. Real friends were much blunter, simply asked anything and everything they wanted to know.
“You can ask me whatever you want. Just like I can with you. I know that for sure. You are real. We are real for each other. Oh, by the way, yes. I knew who raped me. And, you know them too.”
“Oh my gosh. I keep saying that but oh my gosh. It happened here in Boaz? When? Who are these guys?” Cindy now was operating in full friend mode.
“I was home for Christmas holidays. From California. I had never thought of Boaz being a place where a single woman, alone, had to be wise, be smart about where she was. I had always loved the downtown fountain. I had driven my rental car there from Birmingham’s Airport before I drove on to Nanny’s. I was abducted returning to my car after having walked into the Mall from the parking lot across the street from First State Bank.”
“Katie, I have to know who they are. For mine and Alysa’s sake at least.”
“Hang on to your hat. Warren Tillman, Ryan Radford, Fulton Billingsely, Justin Adams, and Danny Ericson. Those five men repeatedly raped me in a tent somewhere, I suspect, twenty minutes or so from here, out in the country, down a long gravel road.”
“You couldn’t tell where you were, where they took you?” Cindy asked. I hoped she would keep this our secret. Someway, I knew she would.
“No. They had grabbed me from behind, just as I was walking past the little public restrooms building next to the parking lot. They slipped a black hood over my head at the same time I first felt their hands on me. I never saw them. After it was over, they threw me beside my car with my hands loosely tied behind my back. It was only then that I was able to remove the hood. By then, they were long gone.”
“Sorry, but how did you know who raped you?” Cindy said, asking a question I wished she hadn’t.
There was no use turning back now. I was in for the full trip. “Two ways. I somehow, subliminally maybe, knew from their smells, touches, groans, that it was them. I know that wouldn’t hold up in court but trust me. I knew. The second way was from the tape. They had recorded it. I’ve recently come into possession of that tape.”
“The bastards. Dumb asses for sure.” I had never heard my New York friend Emily Fink say a single word off-color, and she was a wonderful friend. Now, I knew, a real friend is not prohibited from stepping one foot inside the muddy gutter.
“They truly are but that makes them even more dangerous. Funny thing is I have let it be known to our fine pastor that I know they were the ones who raped me.”
“Do they know you have the tape?” Cindy asked.
“I’m not sure, but if I were to bet, I would say yes.”
“Now I’m wondering. It just hit me. Pastor Warren and Patrick Wilkins. He, Warren, may have known what Wilkins was up to. My scream would have told anyone else in the world that it was a scream for help. Yet, he ignored my cry. Just looked our way, registered seeing Wilkins with Cindy Barker, then turned and walked away. They are despicable.”
“I certainly agree. Cindy, it’s too late for justice for the five men who raped me, but it’s not for Patrick Wilkins. Please reconsider reporting him to the police, hey I know, talk with Sheriff Waldrup. I spoke with him this morning about Darla’s case. He is a kind and compassionate man, and no doubt, strong enough to take on your case.”
“Katie, I’ve been totally serious with you. I’m not going to the police but thank you for caring so much. But, I will help you get justice of sorts if you will help me. I’ve been thinking of how I was going to deal with our fine Mr. Wilkins. I must confess, what’s crossed my mind is contrary to the Bible, the verse that talks about vengeance being the Lord’s. I can’t do anything. He needs to be punished somehow.” Cindy was breaking all records now, surprising me like I would have never imagined.
“Be careful my friend. Revenge is a dangerous animal, like a boomerang, it can come back to cut off your own head.” I said trying to plant a contrary opinion in Cindy’s mind. To me, she was straying into the wrong side of town.
“You and I both have watched movies and read novels about this very thing. Where the criminal justice system can’t or won’t do anything to balance the scales, to mete out punishment where it has clearly been earned. At least think about something we could do to embarrass these six men.”
“I have been thinking about it for years. For the five men who raped me. I have tried to stay away from the thoughts that have appeared in my mind over the years, thoughts to cut the you know what off the five bastards, or better yet, to take a gun and blow off their fucking heads. Sorry for the F word.”
“It’s okay. What has held you back?”
“Easy answer. My writing. I’ve forced myself to channel my anger into words. Since it happened, I’ve been working on another novel. Unfortunately, it grows and grows and is going nowhere. It’s like I hadn’t found my true passion. Instead, I’ve resisted a deep and innate need for revenge. Now that I think about it, maybe that’s what’s missing, that’s why my novel has been floundering.” I wanted to explore this issue. I was shocked that I hadn’t been able to recognize this potential before.
“Katie, promise you will join me in thinking honestly about real justice for these men. It’s only right. I would like nothing more than keeping my life with Steve just as it is while at the same time seeing perfect Mr. Wilkins burn in hell.” If I had reason to doubt whether a sincere and committed Christian had feelings and thoughts the rest of us animals do, that was now history. Cindy was sounding genuine, genuinely human.
“I promise. But, for now, we best go. It’s only three and a half hours till my alarm goes off and motions me to my writing desk.
We walked outside my room together. As I was locking my door, Cindy asked me to go with her to her Sunday School Department’s quarterly social. I told her that it was funny she had brought that up because I had promised Cullie I would ask her about her Sunday School class. I committed to going. I even halfway promised I would join her and a dozen or so other women in their late thirties in the Ruth Sunday School class.
As I drove home, I had this wonderfully sick feeling. It was wonderful to know that Cindy and I had exchanged our blood. Our two-hour talk had been a blood pack of sorts. My feeling of sickness was from the existence of the shared experiences between Cindy and me, and how we had so easily agreed to consider and ponder stepping into the shoes of those committed to breaking the law. I hoped Cindy would somehow herd the camel back into the tent and forget she had ever opened the barn door.
The Pencil Driven Life 