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 28
It was just a dream but at the time I didn’t know that. It seemed so real. It had to be early. Someway, probably with some exceptionally exacting high-tech camera or air-sniffing DNA nebulizer, the police had learned I was the man in the black suit inside the Rawlins mansion. They were nice enough not to knock down my door, but they were still pounding and yelling. That’s when I realized it was a dream. “Uncle Fred, get up. Let’s go fishing.”
I reached over and activated my iPhone. It was 7:20 a.m., Saturday morning. I hadn’t returned from Connie’s until almost 1:00. “Hold on, I’m coming.” I could barely speak, much less yell. It certainly wasn’t from all the kissing Connie and I had done. I got up, slipped on a pair of running shorts and walked to the door.
Not only was Luke standing there, but Dad also. Both were smiling. “You’re going to lose a crop.” It was one of Dad’s favorite sayings ever since I was a kid. He kept on smiling. I had to be patient. At least he was doing something besides moping around, going through Mother’s things, and sitting at the kitchen table crying.
“We spent the night with Papa. He promised to take me fishing and thought you might want to come. Do you?” I couldn’t tell if Luke was play-acting just for Dad. The kid was 14, no 15 years old, and could go fishing on his own. No doubt, he loved his great-grand.
“Let me get dressed and grab a pop-tart.” I so badly needed to go back to bed but I simply couldn’t miss this opportunity to be with Dad. My going surely would reflect how much I cared for the grieving old man.
“Skip the food. We have a ton. Mama D got up and cooked us biscuits. Mom helped but she sucks at everything but French Fries and Chicken Fingers.” Luke was full of words today. I wondered if he was on Ritalin or something. Dad just smiled and kept his mouth shut.
After we arrived and set-up our fishing lines, Luke handed me a sausage biscuit and asked if I’d follow him around the pond. He said he wanted me to watch him catch a big bass off the special lure his dad had given him. My mind was still half-asleep, but I figured Luke had another one of his unending questions. I tried to opt out for now and stay with Dad under the giant oak, but he insisted I go.
When we walked outside of Dad’s earshot, which wasn’t far given his hearing loss, Luke said, “Tyler is trying to get me to ask Brother Robert to provide some evidence that God exists.” Luke sure didn’t waste any time.
“Do you think you’re ready for that?” I said, casting Dad’s green frog lure towards the shallow end of the pond.
“What do you mean? Ready for what?”
“Luke, it’s one thing to talk privately about your beliefs, especially about your doubts, but it can open a whole can of worms when you start asking the wrong questions, especially to your youth pastor.” Vivid and not so satisfying thoughts jumped into my mind from my own youth where I had come-out as the saying goes. Funny thing, I had shared my doubts with Brother Robert’s grandfather, youth pastor Randy Miller.
“You’re saying I’ll be labeled an atheist?” Luke asked.
“Possibly, but for sure you will become a focus for prayer, restoration, and revival. It might get embarrassing. Isn’t that still how it works? The straying sheep gets attention, special efforts to win the weak back to the fold.” I knew the routine.
“For now, what do you think Brother Robert would tell me, that is, if I asked him to provide evidence for God?” Luke was a good kid, having never given his parents, my niece and her husband Brad, a minute’s trouble. I feared what earthquake could be coming.
“I suspect he would point to both the Bible and nature. He would call these things, special and general revelation. Probably he would say something like, ‘Luke, God has revealed himself throughout the ages and continues to do so today. All you must do is look around. All nature, plants, animals, humans, scream out that they are created. That’s enough alone to know God is real. But, God loved us so much He gave us His written word. The Bible reveals the heart of God. It is infallible and inerrant.’”
“Yea, I can hear him now. It’s almost like you were reading from his memorized text. Let me ask, if Brother Robert responded to you just like you said, what would you say?” I was hoping the small bass Luke had just pulled in would divert his attention. I didn’t answer him but kept easing along casting. “Next one will be a giant. I just know it. Hey Uncle Fred, did you hear me?”
“I heard you. Luke, I’ve been on both sides of the divide, believer and non-believer. There is far more evidence for the absence of God than His existence. Christianity is a myth, a story that someway got started. There’s no real solid evidence there ever was a Jesus but even if there was, that doesn’t mean he was who the Bible claims He was. A good myth, and Christianity is probably the best one ever, builds a made-up story around something that is claimed to be historical. In my opinion, the Bible itself, how it came to be, with all its inconsistencies, strongly denies the existence of the Christian God. Keep in mind we are speaking of only one god, there have been and continue to be tons of gods people believe in.”
“Like Allah.”
“Right. I would also say, since you asked, that although there are a lot scientists who still don’t know, there is no reason from what is known to conclude God, or any god, is needed. All we can really speak to is our own universe. We know so very little about the cosmos, what’s beyond our own giant world. It could be that the natural world has always been here.”
“That’s where Brother Robert would go crazy. He would say, ‘that defies common sense. Everything must have a beginning. Scientists themselves tell us the world came into being at the big bang.’”
“I don’t doubt him saying that. Even though scientists don’t know what happened before the big bang there is, again, no reason to say, ‘God did it.’ Another universe could have birthed ours. Christians like to argue that God is the first mover, the initial cause. They often say, ‘something can’t come from nothing.’”
“Except, God. Brother Robert would say that ‘God has always been, there has never been a time when He didn’t exist.” Luke was trying to free his line from one of the underwater trees Dad had placed in the shallow end several years ago.
“There’s no evidence for that. You could tell your youth pastor that maybe the universe, even the cosmos, has always been. Here’s the thing. There is no doubt many people sincerely believe the Bible story. They love to talk about the miracles. Truth is, all of them are fictional but they do make for a great story. Even if the miracles occurred, say, Jesus did turn water into wine, if the details were truly known, there would be a natural explanation. I always found it odd, especially when I was your age, that Jesus someway stopped performing miracles.” I said.
“Brother Robert would say that God, Jesus, is still in the miracle-working business.” Luke, no doubt, was a good listener. He had spent fifteen years being filled with the great myth, while being kept away from the other side, the side that had some real evidence.
“I agree. He would say that, but he couldn’t prove it.”
“Maybe not but he would say ‘to be a Christian requires faith.’”
“Luke, have you ever really thought about that statement? Faith is belief in the absence of evidence, even belief despite contrary evidence. Do you think if you had proof of something you would need faith?” I probably was saying more than I should.
“That’s interesting. I’ve never heard that. The church makes you believe faith can move mountains, and that we should constantly pray for more faith.” Luke could be a preacher right now.
I heard Dad yell. I turned and looked back. He was still seated and was struggling with a big fish. “Luke, go help Papa. He may have caught Jaws.” As Luke handed me his rod and reel and jogged towards Dad, I recalled how the big fish myth in the Martin pond had started and grown. Granddad had admitted it wasn’t true, yet I had believed it, probably still do.
I continued around the pond for another thirty minutes, not getting a solid strike. Dad hadn’t caught Jaws but from my view it was a nice bass. Thoughts of Connie sprang to mind every time I threw out my line. It was a good analogy. I had gone fishing last night too. With Connie. I hadn’t caught anything then either. I had to get control of my urges. Even though I was sixty-four, I still wanted sexual pleasure. More importantly, I still needed intimacy of another sort, the kind that only comes from deep conversation, walks in the rain, and sharing chocolate cupcakes in the dark.
After a great meal at Oh-So-Good Barbecue, we returned to Connie’s. She invited me in for coffee. We sat on her couch in the great room and looked at old high school albums. We both were littered across the pages. The photos made for some good laughs. The highlight of the evening, at least for me, was when she walked me to the door and gave me a quick kiss on the lips before I left. We both smiled. I wanted to say thanks or something else stupid, but I kept my mouth shut. I could still taste the sweet strawberry lip gloss she was wearing.
The Pencil Driven Life 