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 the while, he falls in love with Connie Stewart, his one-date high school classmate who may conceal a secret or two herself.
Chapter 18
Mother’s funeral was Saturday morning. Late Thursday afternoon, shortly after her body arrived from the hospital, McRae’s Funeral Home called and said that Mom had called less than two weeks earlier and added a note to her long-made arrangements. She had requested her funeral be no later than the second day after she died.
If there was anything I hated more than a Southern funeral, I couldn’t think of it, unless it was a root canal. Apparently, Deidre and Mother had spent quite a bit of time planning her final goodbye. As the service waned on I got the feeling the planning was more of Deidre’s idea than Mother’s. Gabby sang two songs, and Jacob read a poem that supposedly Mother had asked him to read. Pastor Caleb eulogized Mother as though he had personally known her all his life. As is customary, even required, he finished his time with a literal altar call encouraging all those present who were not yet in the fold to surrender today to the mighty Christ and be saved. Both before and after the funeral, I bet I heard at least two dozen well-intended friends say, “I know you’re going to miss your mom but she’s so much better off, she’s in such a better place.” Unsurprisingly, this popular Southern Baptist statement, had an opposite affect from what was intended. It didn’t give me comfort. It just made me mad that otherwise intelligent people could truly believe such malarkey.
After enduring the unnecessary stress of the funeral and after being cooped up all day yesterday at Martin Mansion greeting and meeting with friends and long-absent family members, I was ready for a break. I had to find a way to absent myself without seeming cold and insensitive. We all retired to Martin Mansion after the funeral and graveside service, where we found a mountain of food prepared by the Keenagers, the church group Mother had spent years enjoying and supporting. If there was one person, there was at least a hundred: including distant family and friends. As I ambled down the long buffet line set up in the side yard, Deidre came up and softly whispered, “can you go fishing with Luke? He’s having a very difficult time and asked me if I would ask you.” I almost hugged her neck.
Fifteen minutes later, after downing my plate of food and rushing to change clothes at my cabin, Luke and I were sitting under the shade of the old oak Papa Stonewall had set-out in 1899, the year he built the pond and Papa Fredrick was born. Luke was rewashing his hands at the water’s edge after having dug a mound of bait from Dad’s fifty-year-old worm farm nestled underneath the overhang of the old barn behind my cabin.
“Don’t you think you’ve got them clean?” I asked as it seemed Luke was taking extra-long to wash off the rich and foamy dirt.
“Granddad always digs the worms when we go fishing. It was fine at first, the top layer, but when I got down to the wriggly things, the soil got slimy. If that wasn’t enough, the goo made me think about myself and how disappointed Nanny would be if she knew what I had been thinking.” All the kids, grand and great-grand, called my dear mother, the family’s matriarch, Nanny. I’m not sure how that came about.
“I assume you are speaking of your doubts, maybe the things the three of us, Tyler, me and you, have been talking about. I suspect Mother would think two things. She would agree with you that it is natural to have questions. But, unfortunately, she would disagree with you if you concluded anything other than what the Bible says. No doubt, she would try her best to keep you focused and dedicated to her God.”
“I was talking to Tyler at the cemetery, after the graveside service. He said that Nanny was better off as everyone was saying but it was because she wasn’t suffering, not because she was sitting with Jesus or strolling streets of gold.” Luke finally was satisfied with his hands but didn’t seem to want to fish with the slimy creatures. He started attaching an artificial worm to the end of his line.
“I suppose you are asking yourself the age-old question: ‘what happens to a person when she dies?’ Am I close to correct?”
“That’s pretty much dead-on.” Luke said, moving closer to me.
I was hesitant to head down the track it appeared mine and Luke’s conversation was headed. Maybe I should pull out Dad’s trick and spend my time walking around the pond, casting my line for a hungry bass. Sometimes, my love for truth came at a price. “In a sense, funerals are no different than everyday life around a Southern Baptist Church. To an outsider, it’s like visiting a foreign country. I bet you’ve recognized that your world, youth group at church and probably your home life regarding things of God and church, includes a heavy dose of a particularized language.” After I said this I remembered I was talking to my ninth-grade grand-nephew.
“Tyler has said something similar. He’s always asking me things like, ‘what do you need saved from?’ And, ‘do you think virgins can really have a baby?’”
“Like I’ve said, it took me years to break free from the clan.”
“More like a club or a gang, according to Tyler.” Luke said adding another weight to his line.
“You and Tyler are pretty close I gather?” I meant it as both a statement and a question. I really didn’t know much about him and certainly didn’t want Luke to be led into drugs or alcohol, or something even worse.
“He’s now my best friend.”
“How did that come about?” I thought this might lead us away from a slimy discussion of some sort.
“I met him this past summer. He and his family had just moved here from Seattle, Washington. We both tried out for football. We both were cut. Coach Sullivan said we needed another year of conditioning and for us to try out again next year.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, is the coach kin to your dad?”
“No, different branch of the tree I guess. Anyway, I guess you could say, mine and Tyler’s friendship was born out of failure.”
“I’d encourage you not to look at it that way, the football failure as you call it. Give yourself credit, you gave it a try. That took some real gumption.”
“Tyler’s dad said the same thing.”
“What’s he like?”
“Mr. Larson?”
“Tyler’s father.” I said.
“He’s kind of a nerd. Tyler calls him Mr. Brain.”
“What does he do? For a living?” I was full of questions, again thankful the elephant in the room had wandered off.
“He’s a scientist with Boeing. In Huntsville.”
“I’m curious. Why did they move to Boaz? Why not live in Huntsville?”
“I’m not really sure. I think there are a lot of people around here that work in Huntsville.”
“Right, but I bet most of them have roots in Boaz. That’s why they make that long drive every day.”
“Uncle Fred, can I ask you something?” Luke had cast his line a few times but didn’t seem too interested in fishing.
“Again, you don’t have to ask me that. You can always ask me a question.”
“Do you believe Nanny is in Heaven?” No doubt, this was the heart of Luke’s motivation when he asked his mother to ask me if I would go fishing with him.
“No.” I sat down in one of the two lawn chairs Dad always kept under the giant oak. I pulled the tackle box closer looking for Dad’s green frog.
“Is that all you’re going to say? Just, ‘no’?”
“Sorry, I was kind of hoping you didn’t want to know why I feel this way.”
“Sorry, but I do.” For a moment, I saw Luke as a peer. I don’t remember me being so bright when I was in the ninth grade.
“Let me back up just a little. You know we were talking about the unique language that goes with being a Southern Baptist Christian? Until you are free from that culture you don’t really realize how foolish you sound. Here’s an example, one really close at hand. You heard Pastor Caleb say today at Mother’s graveside service, ‘Harriet wouldn’t want any of us to be sad. She’s finally home and in the presence of her precious Jesus, praising him. She’s happy and no longer suffering.’”
Luke couldn’t stay quiet. “I think I see why Tyler pokes fun at me. He’s always saying, ‘Luke boy, think a minute. How do you think that sounds to me?’
“He’s right. Think rationally for a minute. Mother was eighty-nine years old. She died of a stroke. At the hospital, the doctors explained what happened to her. They said a stroke was like a brain attack, it’s when blood-flow to an area in the brain is cut off. They said Mother had a hemorrhagic stroke. This occurs when a blood vessel in the brain breaks or ruptures. The result is blood seeping into the brain tissue, causing damage to brain cells. A lot of research has been performed that clearly reveals that when a person’s brain is damaged there are predictable results. For example, if a stroke occurs in the left side of the brain, the right side of the body will be affected, often producing paralysis.”
“I think I already know where you are going with this. A person’s brain can be damaged and there are predictable results. The more damaged a brain, the less the person is like a real person. I mean a normally healthy person.” Again, I was impressed with Luke.
“Right. And, continuing with your illustration, when a person dies, their brain simply stops functioning. Yet, Christians, at least the Southern Baptist breed, believe that even though the brain has died, the conscious soul simply flies off in perfect condition and easily capable of seeing love ones long gone and recognizing Jesus.” I said, recalling one of my favorite statements by Sam Harris, a world-famous neuro-scientist and atheist.
“That’s another thing I simply don’t understand. Souls and new bodies. Don’t we believe, Christians, my family and church, don’t they believe that humans consist of body, mind, and soul, and that when Jesus returns all believers, including those already in Heaven, will get a new body?” Luke was asking some age-old questions. Of course, Southern Baptists have known the answers for years. At least, they think they have.
“We’re in murky waters now, if you ask me. Research that I’ve read holds that a person’s mind is like software running on the person’s brain. Although there is much scientists do know, there is no evidence that a person’s mind or consciousness, or soul if you want to call it that, survives death. You asked a while ago, whether I believe Mother is in Heaven. I answered no. It is my full belief that when someone dies they die. That’s it.”
“That sure makes me wonder why on earth anyone could believe Nanny is still alive, just missing her earthly body.” Luke said, reeling in one of the smallest bass I had ever seen.
“That’s easy. Because they believe the Bible says so, and they’ve been taught this from the cradle. In short, it’s called indoctrination.” My stomach almost turned sick as my words flowed off my tongue. If Deidre, Dad, Pastor Caleb, Youth Pastor Robert Miller, or any one of them, could hear me, they would be calling for my expulsion from the church.
“And, you believe the Bible is just another man-made book.” I wondered whether Luke was making a statement or asking a question.
“Yes.”
For the next hour, Luke and I walked around the pond, sometimes together, sometimes separately, casting our lines. Close to 4:00, he snagged a big bass and wanted to go show his father. I decided to let Ed help Luke clean the ten-pounder. I gathered up our fishing gear and walked the long trail back to my cabin, wondering if, beyond all odds, Mother was looking down on me and frowning.
The Pencil Driven Life 