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 36
I was sitting at my desk in The Thread by 4:00 a.m. For obvious reasons, I had missed yesterday’s early morning writing session. There had been plenty of time after I returned home from Cindy’s to conduct an extended make-up session, but I hadn’t. My habit is too ingrained. There’s just something about the predawn hours that spurs my imagination.
The Real Justice scene I was drawn to write contained Stella Gibson and Nancy Fletcher, Noah Fletcher’s wife. For years, I hadn’t doubted that my subconscious mind and my imagination were two separate entities. But I also believed they lived together in the same neighborhood. This morning, they partnered to inspire me to explore Nancy, the fictional educator, to attempt to determine whether there was any connection with Paula Wilkins, the living and breathing wife of the breathless Patrick.
As I was brainstorming and drawing on a pink 5 x 8 note-card, I laughed out loud, and acknowledged the weirdness of what was happening. My twenty Creative Writing students and I were engaged in writing a fictionalized story that was growing more and more like not only one I had experienced but was moving rapidly towards a new world that Cindy and I had just entered. The weird part, part of the weird part, was that my twenty students didn’t have a clue about the darker edges of my past or present private life. I was unable to resist asking myself, “how on God’s green earth was this happening?” I knew it was happening because I had spent over two hours last night sitting at the kitchen bar reviewing the final drafts of the five outlines the five teams had submitted to me Friday afternoon before school was out for Fall Break.
The good part about my role in the Real Justice project was that I was free to follow my imagination where it leads me while I’m in The Thread. Later, I can modify my drafts as needed before distributing the sanitized versions to the five teams in my Creative Writing class. There is nothing like this freedom, the ability to be boundless, allowing my mind to explore, create, and destroy lives, places, relationships, and whole cities. It was this freedom I pursued as my imagination fed me connections between Nancy Fletcher and Paula Wilkins.
Both women had husbands who were unfaithful, and they knew it. It was part of the deal. But neither of them minded because they both realized their lives could be far worse. Both had married up as they say. Of the two women, only Paula had ever strayed from her marriage vows. After her and Fulton had their one and only tryst, she vowed to never stray again. Although Nancy Fletcher had on several occasions helped Noah extricate him from a potentially scandalously public affair, this was Paula’s first experience. Her and Patrick’s relationship was unique, likely rare. Her orgasms were accentuated when her loving husband whispered to her his quests and conquests as he ravaged her body four or five times per week. She now had made him explore with her the same fantasy on three different occasions. The last time being Sunday night. It was then she discovered the sex between her loving Patrick and the slutty Cindy wasn’t consensual. This was bad enough, until early yesterday morning, as he was getting ready for his run, he divulged even more shockingly disturbing and life-changing news. Cindy Barker was pregnant.
I continued to explore the lives of Nancy Fletcher and Paula Wilkins for nearly an hour, ending shortly before 5:30 a.m. in near-complete confusion over what was fiction and what was real.
Wednesday afternoon was spent at Guntersville State Park with a relaxed Steve, a carefully choreographed Cindy, and four beautiful, naïve, but wonderfully blessed kids. Cullie and I fished from a pier. Thankfully, the wind picked up around 3:30 and the four rambunctious teen boys sharing our real estate left us alone. Ever since mine and Cindy’s talk at Wayne’s pond over a week ago, I had decided on three or four different ways to tell Cullie the truth. On the drive down, I had abandoned each of them. Just make it plain and simple. That’s what I finally decided. And did. “Cullie, I’m sorry but I have lied to you all your life. Colton Brunner isn’t your father. I don’t know for sure who is.”
Her response was surprising. “Thanks for admitting what I’ve known forever.” I determined then and there never to underestimate a teenage girl.
It turned out Cullie didn’t know much at all but had stumbled toward the truth when her New York City eighth grade science teacher had asked her students to create a list of the physical characteristics they shared with their fathers. Cullie had discovered that her and Colton were as different as her and her pet hamster. “I figured it must have been painful for you and that you would tell me the truth when you were ready.” I hated the thought that her biological father had unwittingly shared such wisdom with his daughter. I knew for sure she hadn’t inherited the wise-gene from me.
Our conversation over the rape wasn’t so easy. This was the part I had struggled with so much. Should I lie and say that I had slept around, and the father could be one of five men? Should I tell her the names of the prospective fathers? I hope I haven’t made a mistake. At the time, I didn’t think I had. I virtually had Cullie swear that she would keep every part of her conception secret, other than the name of her actual father, once we discovered the truth. I told her everything, including the names of the five men, and that we would soon know which one had impregnated me and was her biological father.
Again, she surprised me as she closed the tackle box Steve had let us borrow. “Mom, people make mistakes. Sometimes the best things result from the biggest mistakes.” I cried. She even let me hold her in broad daylight. I whispered to her she was the best gift the world could ever give me and that I loved her with my whole heart.
“I know you do and I love you too. Please don’t hold a grudge against those five men.” She said as she grabbed her rod and reel, the tackle box, and walked back towards Steve and Cindy’s cabin.
I stayed at the pier, even sat down and hung my feet over the side. I replayed mine and Cullie’s conversation over and over in my head and could only conclude that she was either the wisest fourteen-year-old in the world, or she was a superior actor, keeping buried her true thoughts and fears. I suspected it was the latter.
I hadn’t planned on it but both Cindy and Steve insisted. It was late when we finished eating the wonderful rib-eyes he had grilled, and it had started to rain. I spent the night sleeping on a couch that was made into a bed. My only reservation had been the effect upon my early morning writing. Oh well, one more missed session wouldn’t kill me, but it certainly made me anxious, as it always did. It had always been nearly impossible to explain, the feeling of incompleteness, of virtually leaving my head on my pillow as I attempted to walk forward through my day.
Thursday morning, before anyone else was stirring, Cindy and I took a walk. We were barely out of the cabin when she asked if I had looked at Facebook. I had not, because I intentionally avoided it, other than interacting with my students in the various writing groups.
“It’s all over my Newsfeed.” Cindy said assuming I knew exactly what she was talking about.
“It is? Must be important.” I could be indirect myself.
“People are saying that the police and sheriff’s departments will continue the search today. Yesterday, apparently, there were about a hundred-people scouring every inch of Wilkins’ running path. One guy said Paula, Patrick’s wife, had said he seemed upset when he left their house between 5:05 and 5:10 a.m.”
“I wonder how that guy knew that? That’s one reason I hate Facebook. Most of what you read is made-up shit.”
“I agree, but a lot of it isn’t. It certainly seems natural that folks would be looking for our dearly departed leader.” Cindy said, picking up our pace more than I wanted.
“I’m confident no one saw us. I didn’t see a single car during the whole ordeal. And, there’s no houses close enough on Tanner Road for someone to have seen our spot.”
“I agree. I also know we didn’t leave a trace where we parked. I doubt any of the searchers could connect tire tracks to our van even if they were able to determine where Wilkins met his fate.” Cindy said speaking as confident as a twenty-year crime veteran.
“You’re assuming the bleach we poured on the blood spot on the ground where his head bled for a minute or so, eliminated every trace.” I said.
“Even if an expert crime scene team found that spot, extracted a sample, and ultimately determined it was Wilkins’ blood, that still wouldn’t implicate us. He could have fallen and hit his head during an altercation.” Cindy laid it all out. At least that’s what she believed.
“His blood and a missing body. Don’t forget we have spawned a criminal investigation. They are looking. They are not yet looking for us, but they are looking for a link, any link, that will point them to the perpetrators. I can assure you they know a crime has been committed. As time goes by, this will become unassailable.” I really wasn’t offering anything new.
“I still say the weakest link in our plan is where and how we are storing the van.” Cindy finally said the same thing I had been saying all along. Maybe she was ready to shore up this loose end.
Her phone rang before I could respond. Immediately after taking the call and learning who was calling, Cindy activated her iPhone’s speaker. It was Paula Wilkins wanting to know if Cindy knew where Patrick was. Paula declared she knew about Cindy and Patrick’s affair. After another minute or two of Paula’s screaming threats, Cindy ended the call.
“How in the hell does she know?” I asked.
“Well, no doubt her slimy husband has been lying to her, making it sound like he and I have been having an affair.” Cindy said as though that was her biggest problem.
“Cindy, wake the fuck up. Affair, no affair, kidnap, rape, it doesn’t matter. She knows enough to bury you, the both of us. You are now in the cross hairs of this investigation. You do know this, don’t you?” I said, walking a shallow embankment to sit on a steel rail by the edge of the road.
“Hell, hell, hell, and more hell. Something we never ever anticipated.” She said, following me.
“At least not in real life.” I said, with that same ominous feeling I had already experienced, not remembering when it was.
“You said all along that there would be some issue that would arise. You said they always do. Therefore, criminals get caught. There is no way to plan for every possible variable. Why did you let me talk you into this?” Cindy said, pulling out her iPhone and again scrolling through her Newsfeed.
I didn’t respond. I knew it was too late to make any difference. If only I had stuck to what my head was telling me when Cindy had been playing with my emotions over what I had to do to square things up with the Faking Five. The freedom I had felt yesterday morning in The Thread was now gone. That was fiction. This was real.
The Pencil Driven Life 