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 Safecracker, written in 2019, is my seventh novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Fred Martin, a 1972 graduate of Boaz High School, returns to his hometown after practicing law and living in Huntsville for over thirty-five years with two goals in mind. First, to distance himself from the loss of Susan, his wife of thirty-seven years who died in 2013 of cancer. And second, to partner with his lifelong friend, Noah Waters, to crack the safes of Elton Rawlins and Doug Barber, two men who got under their skin as high school football players.
Little did Fred and Noah realize the secrets the two old Mosler safes protected. Who murdered three Boaz High School seniors in the fall of 1973? Is a near-half-century-old plan to destroy Fred’s sister and steal the inheritance from a set of 44-year-old illegitimate twins still alive and well? How far would Fred’s mother go to protect her family?
What starts out as an almost innocent prank, turns life-threateningly serious the more Fred learns and the more safes he cracks. All, while he falls in love with Connie Stewart, his one-date high school classmate who may conceal a secret or two herself.
Chapter 6
It took nearly an hour with Cynthia Lang at Sand Mountain Tire. She was the new business manager and was determined to increase morale. I agreed with her that a comprehensive medical plan for the employees would help, especially if the company paid the monthly premiums.
I missed the fellowship meal but made it just in time for prayer meeting. Normally, at 5:30 p.m., I meet in the Church’s fellowship hall with Deidre and Ed and one or both of their children and spouses, and we share a spread of food almost as good as Mother’s.
To anyone who really knows me, now only Noah since Susan is gone, would think I was weird. Why did I continue to regularly attend church since long ago I had shed my belief in the supernatural? I thought prayer was a total waste of time. But, my comeback, other than it was simply a habit and a long-since expired duty owed to the faithful Susan, was always the same. I enjoyed the fellowship and feelings of belonging to a loving and caring family. Secondarily, it was a good place to network for business prospects. I almost laughed out loud when the thought that church was a good place to pick up women slithered alongside my business reason.
Maybe Noah knew me better than I knew myself. If he were sitting here on the back row with me as Pastor Caleb was updating the thirty or forty folks scattered across the center section of the main auditorium, he would argue it was time for me to move on with my life. It was time I started dating. He would contend that Susan, dead now for over four years, wouldn’t have a problem at all with me pursuing another woman, in fact, she would encourage it. Noah would be correct. Susan was all heart and soul, faithful to God, Jesus, and Christianity. To a fault. She was the best I knew at picking out the good parts of the Bible and emulating them to a tee.
I heard Pastor Caleb give an update on how Eugene Lackey, the Boaz High School basketball coach with cancer, was doing. My mind skimmed past the Pastor’s words and focused, along with my eyes, on Connie Stewart. From where I was sitting I could make out a part of her right-side profile. For some reason she was a subject Deidre had focused on during our church meal last Wednesday night. Deidre, and no one else as far as she knew, had a clue why the still-gorgeous Connie never married. I had my own opinion. I had dated her one time during the late Fall of my junior year, with my little sis to blame. To me, Connie was sophisticated and stuck up. She simply never found anybody she though worthy of her time and attention. I figured she still grouped me with the peasant clan.
I was equivocating between thoughts of Connie teaching high school English for probably forty years and whether she wore a two-piece bathing suit in her private swimming pool when I heard Pastor Caleb say “Elton Rawlins.” Immediately, my attention focused forward. Caleb continued, “we don’t know exactly what happened. Rebecca was apparently driving. She wasn’t hurt. Elton may not make it. He is in surgery now.”
During his prayer for Elton, Pastor Caleb asked God to bless the Foley, Alabama surgeons who were working to save “our Deacon’s life.” My mind put the pieces together. Rebecca and Elton were returning home from Gulf Shores and had a wreck. I almost lost my supper thinking how much pain Rebecca was probably experiencing and my responsibility for adding to that when she got home and discovered her home had been burglarized, although that news might not be instant since the only sign of an intrusion would be the missing coins and jewelry.
After another forty-five minutes of testimonies and prayers for everything from missionaries in Africa, to traveling mercies for the Keenagers adventure to Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky, I slipped out the rear entrance to the auditorium. I walked across the vestibule and down the long hall to the rear of the church leading to the parking lot. I was about to get in my car when I heard, “Uncle Fred.” I turned, and it was Luke walking with a large group of young people back toward the church basement. They were coming from the newly completed amphitheater the church had built, alongside a sand-filled volleyball court. I raised my hand and waved. He said, “thanks,” and continued walking beside Tyler. I guessed he liked the fellowship as much as I did.
When I arrived home, I booted up my computer to see if Tina Graves had sent me the birth dates for her six grandchildren. I had met her yesterday when she had walked in the Alfa office inquiring about setting up a financial plan for her son’s children. As promised, she had sent the requested information. I spent an hour preparing life insurance illustrations and was drafting a cover letter when I received a Gmail notification that I had received a message from Luke. This was quickly evolving into a routine.
Once again, Luke started with something he had heard. “Tyler said that Brother Robert speaks as though the Gospels are historical and eyewitness accounts of Jesus and His ministry. According to Tyler, that’s simply not true. Uncle Fred, what do you think?”
I wanted to tell Luke that it didn’t matter what I thought, that he would have to make up his own mind. That was not what I did. I was too tired to go into a lot of depth. Luke’s question was a good one. It made me want to meet and get to know Tyler. I’d love to know his background and how he had come to learn so much as a young teenager.
I shared with Luke that most Bible scholars claim the book of Mark was the first of the four Gospels, with it being written around 65 or 70 of the Common Era (CE). Matthew and Luke were composed, independently of one another, sometime in the 80s or 90s. There was some disagreement as to the Gospel of John, but most agreeing it was written between the year 100 and the year 120 CE.
I told Luke that none of the Gospels were written by the named person. They were simply later-added titles. The man named Mark in the Gospels did not write the book named Mark, and so on. It was the same with all four of the Gospels with the likely authors being one or more well-educated Greek scholars.
As to eyewitnesses, I shared with Luke that it was very unlikely the authors interviewed anyone who had known Jesus (who allegedly died around the year 30 CE) since average life expectancy during the first century was most likely half of what we experience today. I admitted that it was certainly possible for the Gospel authors to have talked with people who had heard stories that had been passed down from generation to generation but explained how unreliable such accountings typically were.
I ended my email to Luke with a question. “Why don’t you ponder the following: how did the Gospel writers know what Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane since he was all alone?” I asked him to read the passage from Mark 14:32-42. I then asked him to ponder two reasons that I had heard often given for this seeming dilemma. The most often cited reason was that the Holy Spirit told the authors what Jesus had said. The second reason was that after Jesus was resurrected and before his ascension he spent time with his disciples and told them the contents of some of his prayers and conversations that had occurred out of their earshot. I assumed, maybe hoped, Luke would assess these reasons the way I did. I believed they were simply a guess. A guess wholly unsupported by the evidence.
In closing, I relayed to Luke that my ultimate decision to walk away from the Christian religion did not occur instantly, and that it was a multi-year journey. I encouraged him if he was serious about learning what I described as ‘the other side,’ to become like a heat-seeking missile and go after the truth with a vengeance, reading everything he could. I suggested he try to get a hold of Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, offering my assistance if he couldn’t find a copy.
Before going to sleep I wondered how Elton Rawlin’s surgery had turned out.
The Pencil-Driven Life 