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 38
I had never had an English class be so proactive. And, I had never allowed any class to create and execute a lesson plan. Until now. It was two classes. My tenth and eleventh grade English classes persuaded me, Monday and Tuesday, to play only a secondary role in class instruction.
Tenth graders, Ben Gilbert, Joanie Kittle, and Clara Ellington, did an excellent job in describing the interrelationships between plot and character. “Plot is the events of a story, just what happens along the way. Plot-driven stories can be interesting and keep your mind wondering what will happen next. But, if you want a real story, one that provides a deeply emotional experience, you have to have one or more characters who trigger a reaction in your heart.” Joanie had said right off the bat Monday morning. It wasn’t an inaccurate statement at all. I only added, “a good story includes both. Plot drives character and character drives plot.” Ben and Clara next presented a lesson and the class interacted with their young teachers for nearly thirty minutes.
It was not until almost 8:15 that I learned what they were up to. After Ben said, now let’s talk about how Judge Taylor’s true character is revealed, it hit me that the three class leaders and likely the entire class, had read and pondered the final drafts of the outlines my five Creative Writing teams had prepared. I initially resisted an attempt to regain control, but Ben did a good job of persuading me to “sit back and trust them” for the rest of the class. I really didn’t have much choice. The whole class was engaged, and the three instructors were relaying critical elements of story structure.
During the final fifteen minutes of class I learned their plan, what these outliers had up their sleeves, at least concerning the relationship between Stella Gibson and Chief Judge Daniel Taylor. These want-to-be writers intended to follow Team Five’s outline. With one exception. They were creating a character who, behind the scenes, was like a puppeteer to the Judge. He was a real estate tycoon of sorts, one who was prone to use extortion and blackmail to get what he wanted, whether it was money, an abandoned but potentially valuable property, or an invitation to an exclusive private party. The still-unnamed tycoon had also contributed heavily to Judge Taylor’s campaigns. It seemed Georgia, like Alabama, elected their judges. Right before the bell rang I learned from Clara, that Stella Gibson had discovered that Judge Taylor had issued a ruling in a hotly-contested case that would benefit the tycoon. Stella smelled a rat.
My eleventh-grade class pulled the same trick. I again submitted. This time, Travis Bryant, Brandi Skylar, and Renee Preston did an excellent job teaching. It was like they had spent all of Fall Break refining the trio wave as they called it. They, like the tenth-grade class, had been smart enough to know they had to provide something substantive. They, likewise, stuck with story structure. I was surprised they had chosen mood and theme. Of all components that make a good story these were often the most difficult. “Think of Miss Katie when you hear the word mood.” Brandi had said. This certainly had gotten my attention. “She seems always happy, is often serious, and is rarely bitchy. If your protagonist, let’s say Stella Gibson, our story version, is as sexy as she is in the The Fall, the TV series, then we might want to add that mood. That’s a side of Miss Katie we don’t know. Not to say she’s not gorgeous.” The class burst into laughter and I sat silent pondering the disjointed statement I had just heard about mood. Brandi had used improper reasoning. The character’s physical characteristics and personality normally are not what sets the mood of a story, although they can accentuate it. Mood comes more from setting and plot. It took me ten minutes to gain control of the class but only to again succumb to their pleas for the trio wave to continue. Unlike the tenth-grade class, it seemed the eleventh graders were dead set on following Team 4’s outline. Jackson Burke, the founder and president of Burke Manufacturing, would attempt to control Stella Gibson via his manipulation of her teenage daughter. As the class ended, it seemed the trio wave was headed toward revealing their story’s midpoint. However, they stopped short and spent the remaining few minutes of class describing how fiction readers expect a major directional change around the middle of the story, something that is both surprising but expected. When the bell rang I don’t think there was any agreement among the seventy-five students exactly what that meant.
After school Tuesday, Cindy and Alysa met Cullie and me at our house. The teenagers had been wanting to prepare a complete meal for both families. Two girls in Cullie and Alysa’s English class had sisters in the eleventh grade. Both were taking a culinary class. Someway this had inspired our girls. The new stove that Wayne had delivered last week seemed to be the trigger for today’s request. At 7:00 p.m., all seven of the Sims and Barkers would assemble in the dining room around Wayne’s antique table for a meal of made-from-scratch tacos, enchiladas, burritos, and for dessert, a German-Chocolate cake, also fully-constructed by the creative chefs.
While Cullie and Alysa were knee-deep in flour, Cindy and I ran an errand. We were moving the 2005 Nissan Quest from Nanny’s barn to an old logging road like the one that led to Patrick Wilkins and his decaying body. But, this one was in Dekalb County. I had found it Sunday afternoon after Cindy and I left Boaz High School and she had returned home. Google Maps helped a lot. I had returned home to my iPad and WiFi. Google’s satellite feature saved me hours, maybe days. I first picked out two remote areas within a thirty or forty-minute drive. I could see that the second area was the least populated, having only one house within what I calculated to be nearly a mile. The second feature that convinced me this was the better spot was this multi-hundred-acre area bordered DeSoto State Park. To me, this would provide an extra barrier for potential visitors since the best access to the logging road was across the southern edge of the Park.
Everything went like clockwork. Cindy had dropped me off at Nanny’s driveway and drove on to our designated meeting spot. I was able to walk to the barn and drive away from the sad and lonely burned-out home on Bruce Road without seeing a single car pass in either direction. Cindy had pulled in behind me at Aroney and we had driven without incident to the State Park. By 4:20 p.m., the van was nestled in a grove of trees on a rough and rugged trail, one hundred feet beyond the end of the old logging road. After turning left off State Highway 89 we had not seen a single car, at least not one operable. At the entrance to the logging road, we had seen two old rusted-out pickups, both Fords, sitting quietly as though taking detailed notes on who was coming and going. The thought left me almost as soon as it had come. The eerie feeling it produced lingered until we returned home.
During the return trip in Cindy’s car, she had asked, “one apple down and five to go. What’s your thoughts?”
I didn’t have any thoughts. I was still reeling from the past week’s activities. It seemed the debilitating stress from killing Patrick and confronting Paula would be enough to put Cindy and me both in bed for a month. Surprisingly, she was eager to march forward with our Six Red Apples plan. “I don’t have any. But, if I did, I can assure you they wouldn’t be centered on kidnapping and killing the Faking Five.” I wanted Cindy to know I didn’t have it in me to become a serial killer.
“I agree. In part. Our plan for Wilkins was a near disaster. There’s no way he suffered the way he deserved.” I speculated that Cindy could easily become not only a cold-blooded killer but a monster who thrived on watching her victim suffer. I was overstating her evil, but I wasn’t the one who was carrying a baby I hadn’t chosen to have.
“Okay, you’re scaring me some but please share.” I said, stretching the word ‘you’re’ for emphasis.
“You have, we have, enough evidence on those five bastards to cause them to dance to our music. I say we drain them dry financially before watching them die a slow death by their own hands.” I had to give it to Cindy. She had a vivid imagination. My creative partner in crime continued. “You have one videotape of them committing a horrible crime. Why not give them another one? Not actually give them a tape but make them think another one exists. This one from our make-believe camera showing an arson being committed.”
“You’re recommending we squeeze their balls until they cry for mercy, mercy enough to pay us a tidy sum. Correct?” I said, a little surprised that I wasn’t as eager as Cindy for real revenge. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see them burn, I just was too scared to light the fire.
“Why not? Two struggling school teachers should get paid for making the world a better place.” Cindy had a point. The Faking Five were far better off than me and Cindy, although Steve made a wonderful salary at Marshall-Dekalb they likely spent everything they made with three kids and a sizable mortgage according to prior comments by Cindy.
From Collinsville, through Rodentown, and all the way back to Smith’s Chapel, Cindy and I brainstormed multiple ways of extorting cash from the Faking Five.
After a surprisingly delicious meal from Cullie and Alysa’s skilled hands, Wayne called. I guess Cindy had seen the excitement in my face and motioned me to enjoy myself. As I walked away from the kitchen sink where Cindy was finishing up washing the final dirty pan, she whispered, “we’re about to leave. Cullie can go with us. Ask him to come kiss and caress you.” I thought she would die laughing. She had tried to be funny and carefree. To me, it was the best idea she had all day.
The Pencil Driven Life 