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 39
“It’s Ryan Radford.” I said as Cindy walked into my office.
“Smells more like Tuna.” She was nearly an hour later than normal. Another trip to the dentist I suppose, although two weeks ago ‘dentist’ had been code word for doctor.
“Not my lunch. Cullie’s father.” I said, expecting her to stare at me in disbelief. Instead, she sat across from me and started unloading her lunch box. “Did you hear me?”
“I did. Katie, I suspect this has you rocking and reeling. After almost fifteen years you finally learn what will be life-changing news for Cullie. Are you okay?” Cindy was such a mix of things. My favorite side was how caring and compassionate she could be.
“I’m adjusting. Cullie is too. I told her last night.”
“The results came yesterday?” Cindy asked.
“Yes. When I got home there was a notice in my mailbox from the Post Office that I had a certified letter. I knew what it was, at least that’s what my gut was saying. I went for it immediately. After I signed for the letter I walked outside and stood with it by my car. I almost didn’t open it.”
“Can I ask you who you thought it was. You did have a favorite, didn’t you?” Cindy asked, returning from my refrigerator with a bottle of Italian dressing for her salad.
“I wouldn’t use the word favorite, but I had somehow decided it was Pastor Warren. Funny thing is, ever since our conversation Tuesday, I had been subconsciously plotting a way to both embarrass the preacher man while at the same time forcing him to pay a million dollars in past-due child support.”
Cindy had pulled a little notepad from her book bag and started flipping pages like my statement had reminded her of something. She said, “Good thinking, you just have to substitute Ryan for Warren. It’ll work the same.”
“I need to ask you something. It’s a question that woke me up during the night. “Do you think God is trying to tell me something?”
“Probably so, but I’m not following you.” Cindy said, pouring out two dozen Wheat Thins from a box she kept inside my credenza under the window behind where she was sitting.
“You know I’ve told you how Darla never knew who my father was. She didn’t want to know for some strange reason. It was May 25, 1972 at her high school graduation party. The Flaming Five had sex with her and three other Boaz cheerleaders that night. One of them, as you know, was Randall Radford, Raymond’s son.”
Cindy interrupted me. “I know, I know. Now I know what you are talking about. You are wondering whether Raymond some way found out that Randall was your father. He felt guilty and responsible. Therefore, he helped Darla and Nanny all these years? It’s almost as though God made this happen.”
“It’s difficult for me to see the wisdom in that. It’s easier to see humor, wicked humor. Surely, God is not wicked.” I said.
“God works in mysterious ways. Question, if Randall Radford was your father, is Cullie your sister? Sorry, I had to ask.” Cindy said. I couldn’t decide if she was continuing to pursue our wicked humor discussion or was serious. It had to be the former.
“She’s my daughter. Her father would be my step-brother, you idiot.” I said but felt a tingling up my spine as though incestuous lice were crawling from my cells as though they had been locked up and hidden away all my life.
“You mentioned it, but I assume you are going to ask for child support?” Cindy asked, pulling a paper sack from her book bag and lining up five red apples in front of her along the edge of my desk.
“I have to guess your apples are symbolic and they have something to do with the timeliness of your question?” Cindy’s mind was always working.
“Earth to Katie. Can’t you see the opportunity my sweet hunk of a man has given us?”
“Steve’s sleuthing skills produced the perfect segue into your extortion plan?” I knew what she was thinking.
“Yes, but it’s even better than pure criminal. You have a legal right to ask for child support from Ryan. Oh, my crazy thought just arrived. What if we took a little liberty with your newly discovered news?” Cindy’s care and compassion had been folded away nice and tidy in the paper sack she had nearly collapsed inside her book bag.
“Tell each of them, separately I assume, they are Cullie’s father?” I asked.
“Why not?”
“I don’t like it at all. It seems to be insulting Cullie. I’m unsure how to describe the feeling.” I said.
“Okay, forget that. But, so far, the best idea we have for punishing the Faking Five is through their pocketbooks.” Cindy no doubt was not going to keep those five apples at the forefront.
“Other than their breathing those five guys love nothing more than their money, their power, and their stellar reputations.” I said, thinking how throughout history what men (and women for that matter) valued the most therein lay their weakness. I wasn’t interested in interfering with their breathing, but I was fully committed to gutting them with words, words that would scare the holy hell out of all five of the bastards.
“I agree. Let’s change the subject, between the smell of your Tuna, and stench of the five assholes, my stomach is turning somersaults.” I was surprised Cindy wanted to talk about something other than getting revenge.
“What did the dentist say?” I could play with words just as good as Cindy.
“Smart ass, you don’t miss a thing. Dr. Ireland is troubled. He’s saying that I’m at much greater risk of complications from my pregnancy since I’m approaching 40. He is concerned about peripartum cardiomyopathy. It’s a very serious condition that occurs when there’s damage to the heart. It affects its ability to properly pump blood. My lungs could fill up with fluid.”
“Does he think you have this condition?” I asked, thinking what on earth would happen to Steve and the kids if Cindy died. I was overreacting and would never have voiced this thought.
“No. Not really. I think he’s just trying to scare me into following his orders. Which consists mainly of laying around all day.” Cindy said, raising her eyebrows and closing her eyes like she was falling asleep. “I’ll submit to bed rest if I have to, but surely to God that’s way down the road, a week or two before delivery.”
“Cindy, please take Dr. Ireland seriously. We all need you to be happy and healthy.”
Without responding, she stood, closed her lunch box, and headed through the doorway into my classroom. Halfway to the incoherent student rumblings from the hallway, she turned and said, “If something were to happen to me, would you marry Steve and take care of my kids?” I almost fainted. I did cry. But not until I had run over to her and held her in my arms.
“Oh Cindy, you can be so funny and serious at the same time. You’re going to be fine. But, you must put your health first. Your family needs you. You’re the only one for Steve.”
“Second thought. You couldn’t satisfy my man. You’re not a redhead.” Cindy said turning away. She was no doubt the most beautiful redhead I had ever seen. I suspected no one, redhead or not, could replace the unflappable Cindy.
“No doubt she’s pregnant. This is the second time in less than three weeks.” Justin Adams said, sitting in his car in the parking lot of Top Dollar Pawn looking across Patterson Street toward the office of Dr. Malcolm Ireland, Obstetrician.
“Interesting she’s using an out-of-town doctor.” Warren said, pushing back his chair from his open Bible and the round table in his hidden study on the third floor of the Church’s Administration Building.
“No doubt trying to keep it quiet as long as possible. It’s not Steve’s. You know he had a vasectomy. He reminded us of that at the last Sunday School social.” Justin said.
“We’ve got to find out if my hunch is right. I would bet it’s Wilkin’s. I just don’t see Cindy having an affair. Warren said looking down at the Church’s side parking lot as two boys rode bicycles. He wondered why they weren’t in school.
“Warren, this situation is giving me a very bad feeling. If Steve Barker finds out, and he most likely will, we are in deep shit.” Justin said turning down the air-conditioning on his new Suburban even though it was the coolest Fall day so far.
“I agree. Steve can be a badass. He’s killed before.” Warren said.
Justin had driven left on Patterson and was sitting at the red light at Gunter Avenue. “That’s probably true but it was never proved.”
“Losing your father and your sister to a drunk driver would bring out the worst in all of us. It sure was convenient for Steve and his mother that the drunk turned-up dead.” Warren said, still looking at the two teenagers on bikes, wishing he was a kid again and thinking how he would just take his own bike and leave town.
“The drunk wasn’t an old helpless man. It was a football coach from Albertville, Watkins, Walters, something like that. Man was beaten half to death before he had his throat slit.” Justin said turning right headed to Burger King.
“I wish to God Cindy hadn’t seen me the night Wilkins raped her.” Warren added.
“You fucked up for sure that night. Man, she saw you. You’ve admitted that. You know you should have rescued her. No doubt she believes you condoned what Wilkins was doing.” Justin said feeling like the ceiling of his big vehicle was pushing down on his head.
“I know I know. Something else I’m thinking and feeling right now. His disappearance. Steve has something to do with Patrick’s disappearance. I feel it in my bones. Cindy has told Steve everything. The rape. Her pregnancy. Steve has abducted and disposed of Wilkins. Probably did to him what he did to that coach.” Warren said returning to his chair and his Bible. Something drew him to the last verse he had read before answering Justin’s call, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.’ Proverbs 1:7. He told himself, “if I were a kid again I would fear God and avoid becoming such a fool.”
“I’ve got to run. We need to deal with this next Wednesday night. Wilkins may have disappeared, but he’s left a shit-pot full of trouble in our lap.” Justin said walking into Burger King.
The Pencil Driven Life 