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 Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman.  Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune.  She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.

Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs.  One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates  is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective.  The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation  and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?

Chapter 11

Regina arrived at The Reporter early Tuesday morning, only the night janitor was there, and he was coming out of the rear entrance as she removed her briefcase from the backseat of her Nissan Maxima.

“Morning Miss Gillan.”

“And good morning to you Ned.” She said wanting once again to remind him he could call her Regina and abandon all the formality.  Instead she reminded herself this was the South, and nothing would change Ned’s instinct for respect and honor.

“I hope you have a nice day.” He said walking towards a big dumpster at the back of the employee parking lot, toting two huge garbage bags. “You gonna have a busy one given how the phones started

ringing at midnight.  Your article gonna be hot.”

“What do you mean Ned?”  Regina said turning with her briefcase walking towards Ned.

“All night, all over the building, ever since today’s paper hit the streets at midnight, phone buttons look like a Christmas tree.  My break time at 3:00 a.m., I always read the new edition.  I like your approach of telling things straight, but this ain’t New York City.”

“Chicago, Ned, not New York.”

“Not much difference to folks around here. No disrespect intended Miss Gillan.”

“None taken Ned.  Now, you go on home and try to get some sleep.  I’ll probably be here late again, so see you around 9:00 tonight.”

Just as Regina poured a cup of fresh coffee, thanks to Ned, she heard her phone ringing from her office down the hall.  It kept ringing as she half jogged, being careful not to spill her coffee.  On the sixth ring, she answered.

“Thanks baby sister.”  Belinda, her twin, only used this phrase and tone if she was extremely happy or upset.  For some reason, Regina knew it was the latter.

“To what do I owe this early morning surprise big sister?”

“Frankie called from Grumpy’s parking lot.  Your article has our little diner and my husband out of every sort imaginable.”

“Why is that?”  Regina asked, not intending to play dumb but to hear Belinda’s exact words and response.  It wasn’t like Regina didn’t expect an uproar.  She knew her brand of journalism would mix in Boaz, Alabama about as well as a gay bar or a black city councilman.

“People round here like Kane.  Frankie worships the man.  Your article made him, and the other members of Kane Tribe, look like idiots last Friday night at Brewer’s Town Hall.  The way I read it, seems like you are insinuating Frankie is a likely suspect in Brewer’s murder.”  Belinda said, cursing Regina without using the actual words.

“Belinda, you know I write it the way I see it.  I don’t have to tell you that my philosophy has always, well, since journalism school anyway, been to follow the facts, pursue truth no matter where it takes me.”

“But, I’m family, Frankie is family.”  Belinda’s voice calming some, Regina feeling her beginning to play another version of her victim’s card.  Big sister, as Regina often called her, was born two minutes before Regina, thus, she was the older sister.  However, Belinda always believed she got the raw end of the duo.  She always had to play second fiddle to Regina.  It was ‘baby sister’ who won the Spelling Bee eight straight years in primary school. It was ‘baby sister’ who was elected a varsity cheerleader in tenth grade.  It was ‘baby sister’ who had the best figure and dated the best-looking guys.  It was ‘baby sister’ who stole Walt Shepherd away from Belinda.

“Dear, are you forgetting our conversation we had the first week I moved back?  I thought we hashed through this every possible way.  We ended that little chat with us agreeing I had a job to do and that had nothing to do with our love and friendship.  I told you, and I meant it with all my heart, I want us to get back to how we were at the beginning of ninth grade, before, well, high school.”  Regina said now feeling the pressure to end the call, Claire had arrived and was standing in her office doorway waving her right hand back and forth across her throat, indicating Regina needed to kill her call.

“I do remember, but I didn’t realize that your job could affect my marriage, like accuse Frankie of murder.”

“Belinda, please don’t accuse me.  I in no way did that.  I simply wrote a chronology of the events that occurred Friday night after Kip and his wife arrived in Boaz at 4:30, all the way until he was found murdered early Saturday morning.  It’s not my fault that Frankie and crew made such a scene at the Bevill Center.  Surely, you’re not accusing me of that.”

“I got to go, Frankie just walked in.  Bye.”  Belinda said with a whisper, almost as though she was afraid.

As Regina listened to the dial tone, speculating the unfolding scene at her sister’s house, Claire shouted, “Regina, the call has ended.”  Regina just then realized she had Belinda on speaker phone all along.

What is it Claire?  What is so urgent?”

“Delton texted me and said Frankie Olinger was a suspect in Kip

Brewer’s murder and was about to be brought in for questioning.”

“How did he know this?”

“Well duh, you know he is our crime reporter and spends half of his time in Guntersville, hanging around the Courthouse and Sheriff’s

Department.”

“Sorry, I’m still learning everybody’s name and role around here.” Regina said, feeling nausea making an emergency landing in her gut.  

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 Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman.  Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune.  She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.

Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs.  One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates  is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective.  The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation  and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?

Chapter 10

Sunday morning, patrons of Grumpy’s Diner were weaving a Kip Brewer story that was sure to land in Hollywood.  Their imaginations were ignited by an article in The Birmingham News, “Shots Heard Round the World; Second Revolution Begins?”  The two reporters introduced their story by reviewing how in the first American Revolution, the “Shot Heard Round the World,” had been fired just after dawn in Lexington, Massachusetts, the morning of the 19th of July 1775, and quickly described the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Siege of Boston ten days later.

In the second paragraph, drawing from a New York Time’s article, the reporters, described, in detail, how U.S. Senator Ralph Evanston from Malden, Massachusetts, was found dead yesterday morning in his luxury suite at The Kendall, the oldest hotel in Boston.  His wife, Julie, had previously attended three other Town Hall meetings but this time she had stayed at home, nursing the flu.  However, the New York Time’s article did not answer the glaring question: How did the killer get inside a highly guarded and secure U.S. Senator’s room at The Kendall?

Evanston, had come out of nowhere on the national political scene.  In November 2016, he had defeated multiple-term Democratic Senator Ed Markey.  For the prior eight years Evanston served in the General Court, Massachusetts’ law-making body.  There, he had been a virtual parrot of Markey. He even heralded from Malden, Markey’s hometown, although Evanston moved to Springfield when he was thirteen.

To Kane’s base, Evanston was a true turncoat. He had ridden into office on Andrew Kane’s coattails.  It had been shocking to most Massachusetts citizens when in July 2015, Evanston had switched parties, from Democratic to Republican.  It was a gutsy move, and surprisingly, won him a U.S. Senate seat.  Kane didn’t do so well in Massachusetts, losing to Hillary Clinton by a 2 to 1 margin.

However, after arriving in D.C., it didn’t take long for Evanston to reveal his true colors. He voted against Kane’s legislation at virtually every turn.  Even worse, he appeared often on national news programs castigating the President’s ‘deplorable tweets and elementary intelligence.’  This riled nearly a third of Massachusetts’ citizens, the 33% who had voted for Kane.

The New York Times article, in its fourth paragraph, recited the Alabama shooting of U.S. Representative Kip Brewer.  The NYT was arguing for a connection between the two deaths.  Both men were discovered within a few hours of each other.  Both men had been shot, although one from a long distance and the other from close range.  Both men were, “on the wrong side of Kane.”  And, what had 75 diners stirred almost into a frenzy, was The Times’ accusation that the shooters “most likely were embedded into the growing ranks of Kane Tribe, which, up until now, was thought to be a rag-tag group mostly comprised of rednecks.  The New York Times ended its article describing how Frankie Olinger in Alabama, and Albert Lawrence in Massachusetts, had both led a near-riot at the Friday night Town Halls Kip Brewer and Ralph Evanston had held in their respective states.

The Birmingham News (TBN) elaborated mostly on Frankie Olinger and the North Alabama Chapter of Kane Tribe.  Someway, TBN had unearthed news from Kane’s inaugural weekend in January 2017 that revealed a secret-meeting of sorts between Andrew Kane, Jr. and nearly a hundred men and women who had been hand-selected by the Kane team.  Most of these were uneducated white men.  Each of them had attended a Kane event in their home-state during the election campaign.  Each of these one hundred were openly anti-Hillary, virtually, antigovernment.  And, most important to President Kane, was that each of these had openly and consistently supported him for at least six months before he won the election.  TBN had no knowledge of what took place during that inaugural weekend meeting, but it identified both Frankie Olinger and Albert Lawrence as attendees.

Vann and I arrived at Grumpy’s Diner as the crowd was dissipating.  When I saw Frankie and four of his parrots getting up from the same table I had seen them the first time Vann and I were here, I wished we had gone to McDonald’s.  We took a seat near the far-left corner, as far away from the Olinger table as possible.  This didn’t keep the five stooges from coming over, probably to invite us to church.  I must say, Frankie looked better than the last time I had seen him with his greasy coveralls.  Now, he was dressed in a pair of clean khakis, and a blue button-down shirt with a green and yellow-striped tie.  All four of them could have been members of an older, boys band.

“You boys going to church?”  Frankie said placing his left hand on Vann’s back.

“Sorry Mr. Olinger, we gave up on myths a long time ago, although, Walt here still hangs on pretty tight to Santa Claus.”  Vann said removing Frankie’s hand.

“Typical tongue from a liberal.  Anyway, know Pastor Warren and all of us at First Baptist Church of Christ, are always extending an invite to all, even to you liberal atheists.”  

“What are you teaching today, Frankie?  Civil disobedience?” I said, recalling how close Frankie and I nearly came to blows during the last time we were together here at Grumpy’s.

“God’s for it, under the right circumstances.”  Frankie said raising his chin slightly, like he was a Bible scholar.

“Vann, you and Walt ready to order?” Gloria Brown said nudging Frankie out of the way.

“See you boys later.”  Frankie said as he and his four buddies walked away.

After Gloria left, I told Vann, “please shoot me if I ever come back to this place.  Really, shoot me if I ever mention or agree to coming here.”

“I agree, seeing those clowns doesn’t do wonders for the appetite.”  Vann said pushing his chair back and reaching for The Birmingham News laying on the table closest to the window.

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 Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman.  Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune.  She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.

Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs.  One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates  is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective.  The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation  and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?

Chapter 9

Saturday, six hours after Sean Miller had called 911, the search began.  Twenty-eight officers from an assortment of local law enforcement personnel, including Boaz, Albertville, and Guntersville police officers, Etowah and Marshall County Sheriff deputies, and FBI, and ABI (Alabama Bureau of Investigation) agents fanned out and walked south from the Brewer’s backyard, across the open pasture, and towards the tree-line a quarter of a mile away.  Information from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences conducting Kip Brewer’s autopsy indicated he had died of a gunshot wound from a long distance.  To Marshall County Detective Darden Clarke, an average-ability shooter could have made the shot from within the front half of the pasture, the half closest to the Brewer’s back deck.  A highly-skilled shooter would have chosen the cover from within the tree line.  For two reasons.  It was a comfortable shot, and for cover.  Given Kip Brewer was a public figure with obvious enemies as well as friends, Detective Clarke concluded the shooter would more likely be a professional, therefore opting to concentrate along the entire 700-yard tree line south of the Brewer resident.  Clarke knew the shooter had to have taken his shot somewhere along this line since the contour, slope, and elevation of the pasture prevented a straight-line shot from both the east and west sides of the nearly one hundred-fifty acre pasture. 

Thursday afternoon, a Marshall County Sheriff’s deputy found one shell casing.  It was a 30-06 cartridge. It was found in clear sight but tucked slightly under the edge of a decaying oak tree 644 yards from Kip Brewer’s back deck.  The location was accessible only by foot, four-wheeler, or horseback.  It was three-quarters of a mile from the dead-end of an old logging trail that began at Highway 179 just beyond Clear Creek Snacks & Spirits. An expert at Forensics confirmed a 30-06 cartridge could not be excluded as the bullet that killed Representative Brewer.

Other than the shell casing, the crime scene offered little else.  Just over the fence from the pasture there was a man-size depression in the grass.  At the southern end of the depression the ground was semi plowed.  Likely, the shooter’s boots, while he was laying down scoping his rifle, created two, inch deep and three-inch-wide indentations.  After the depression was photographed, videotaped, and evaluated for DNA material, an FBI marksman arrived to attempt to simulate the shooting.  After less than five minutes laying with a 30-06 Springfield rifle equipped with a Leupold VX-2 3-9x40mm Rifle Scope with Duplex Reticle, Agent Tedder declared, “easy shot for an expert, assuming he could see Mr.

Brewer standing on his back deck.  Must have turned on the porch light.”

Detective Clarke was thankful for the cartridge discovery, but knew it was frighteningly little to mount an extensive investigation.  The shooter’s motive would hold the key.  Frankie Olinger appeared centerstage in Clarke’s mind.  “Damn, Olinger had declared Brewer an enemy at the Bevill Center Town Hall.  Frankie, Frankie, you are one fucking dumbass.”

Halfway during Clarke’s return trip to his office in Guntersville, sitting, waiting for a train to pass in Albertville, he said to himself.

“Maybe I’m the dumbass here.  How could Frankie Olinger have made such a shot?  The word professional and Frankie seemed to go together about as well as oil and water.  There was no doubt the shooter was an expert marksman.  As the last train car rumbled by, Clarke asked himself, “why would a professional marksman, in this case, a professional assassin, leave the one and only cartridge he had fired?”

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 Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman.  Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune.  She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.

Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs.  One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates  is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective.  The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation  and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?

Chapter 8

I decided to get up early and visit Mother.  I was ashamed that I had only visited her five times during the nearly two months I had been back in Boaz.  Other than the first visit, where she did smile at me when I walked in and whispered a goodbye when I left, our visits had become routine.  I would gently knock on her door, receive no response, go in, walk-over to her sitting in your lounging chair, take her right hand, hug her, and then sit in front of her in a straight-back chair, and talk about old times, hoping and waiting for any response.  There had been none, so far.  I hoped today would be different.

I signed with the receptionist at the information desk and walked two long halls back to Mother’s room.  I lightly tapped on her door and heard, “come in.”  I was temporarily encouraged but then realized when I opened the door that the words had come from a nurse’s aide.  Mother sat in her chair and looked at me.  No smile, but at least she had looked my way.

“Are you Harriet’s son?”

“I am.”

“Please tell her she needs to leave the air-conditioning set on at least 78 degrees.  I know it’s winter-time, but these rooms don’t know that.  I came in a few minutes ago and it was nearly 90 degrees in here.  If you click over to Heat, the thermostat doesn’t work, and it thinks you want to boil.  If you click over to Cool and turn down the thermostat to

78 degrees or below, the unit will keep the room temperature comfortable.  These old units need throwing away.”

“I’ll remind her when I leave. Would you be so kind, along with your team-mates, to look in on Mother?  By the way, when is Brookdale going to address the heating and air-conditioning issue?”

“We’ll try.  We have a full-house right now.  Talk to the Director about your last question.”  The aide said walking towards the door. “Don’t forget to remind her.  Her getting too hot and breathing all this stale air can cause pneumonia.  She doesn’t want that.”

“Me either.”  I said as the short and wide woman left Mother’s room.

I walked over to Mother, took her right hand and hugged her, this time kissing her on her forehead.  I pulled over the straight-back chair and sat down in front of her. She was dressed in a navy-blue jogging outfit, pants and top, the top being, to me, an overly thick sweatshirt.  I looked her in the eyes and saw a glimpse of my real mother for the first time since I returned from D.C.  I may have been simply imagining.  I’m not sure.  But, it seemed we were back on our back porch, sitting in the swing, that Sunday night, me at fifteen, and her at thirty-eight.

This glimpse and my mind recalling my conversation with the on-duty nurse I nearly bumped into turning down the last hallway on the way here, brought tears to my eyes.  That was an understatement.  I was crying.

The nurse had said Mother’s condition had deteriorated a great deal since she moved in nearly three years ago.  When she arrived, Mother could get up out of her chair, and with the use of her walker, get about in her room.  Now, she can barely sit up in her chair.  And, she has no power to move herself at all.  The nurse said that aides transfer her from her bed to her walker, from her walker to her chair, from her chair to the bathroom, even though Mother now wears diapers.  Also, she said that Mother’s near inability to speak was common for

Parkinson’s patients in the disease’s final stage—something about how it affects the throat muscles.  The biggest shocker came when the nurse said that Mother’s days here may be limited.  When the first of two things happen, inability to swallow, or when she can no longer sit up in her chair, will be the time she must transfer to a nursing home.  The nurse said Brookdale, like all other assisted living facilities, is not equipped to deal with either of these problems.  These issues require skilled nursing care, the type care provided only by a nursing home.

I took out my handkerchief and dabbed my eyes.  It took me a few minutes to suppress my crying.  This alone, that is, my crying, troubled me.  I wasn’t the crying type.  All my experience told me this.  However, I was now dealing with a whole new experience.  One, that broke my heart.  Seeing my dear mother, broken by Parkinson’s, broke my heart.

When I could finally see Mother again, she was half-pointing towards an end-table beside her chair.  There was a half-folded sheet of paper with my name written on it.

“Mom, do you want the sheet of paper?”  I asked feeling more tears about to surface.

She nodded her head, forward and back up just a little.

I took the paper and handed it towards her.  She moved her head sideways back and forth just a little.

“Do you want me to look at it?”

Another affirmative nod, which was hardly a nod at all but I knew her response wasn’t a ‘no.’

I opened the sheet and immediately recognized DeeDee’s handwriting.  It was the same that had printed my name on the outside of the paper, but I hadn’t even thought to question it.  

“Mother, I assume you want me to read this.  Is that correct?” Another affirmative nod.

DeeDee introduced what was to follow by saying that Mother had asked her to write all this down.  I glanced down to the bottom of the sheet and it was signed, “Harriett Shepherd, by DeeDee.”  Written beside her signature was the date, February 10, 2018.  It was now February 25th.

Basically, Mother’s message to me was short and simple, stay open-minded about God.  Apparently, Mother had shared with DeeDee several events that had taken place during my youth, including that infamous meeting on the back porch when I was fifteen.  Another one was the talk we had in my room after I came in at 3:00 a.m., the morning after I graduated from Boaz High School.  That meeting included her having the two of us kneel beside my bed and her praying a rather lengthy prayer which included her pleading God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, to gift me with what she called, ‘Walt’s Damascus Road unveiling.’  At the bottom of the sheet, DeeDee had written.  “Walt, Mother had me help her get down on her knees beside her chair to pray (it took two aides to help her back up after she finished).  These are her exact words, no paraphrasing, ‘Lord, open Walt’s eyes, show him your face, please

God, give me a sign before I die.”

I reread the note and looked back up at Mother.  Now, she was the one with tears.

“Mother, you know I love you and have always respected your beliefs.  For years now, I have had a closed mind when it came to God, but I promise you, right here, right now, I’ll change that.  I’m going to be looking for that sign you talked about.  I am going to be wholly open to having my Damascus Road unveiling.”

The tears kept rolling down Mother’s cheeks.

“Mother, please believe we are back on the porch having just finished the two-hour talk we had when I was fifteen.”

Until lunchtime around 11:30, I talked, and Mother listened, slightly nodding up and down, or sideways.  At first, I shared with her the significant moments in our relationship.  My tears almost erupted when I realized the huge gap between a host of wonderful moments growing up, and now, nearly a half-century later.  While I was in college I called Mother every week.  Since leaving Charlottesville in 1976, our contact had been very sporadic, maybe eight to ten times per year.  I realized here, now, how I had broken Mother’s heart, the one person primarily responsible for my life.  

When an aide came in with Mother’s lunch tray she told me she needed my space.  I asked her to give me just a moment.  I knelt down in front of Mother, reached over, with tears in my eyes, kissed her on both cheeks, bowed my head and prayed, ‘Lord, oh Jesus, I want to hear from you.  And please, take care of my Mother.’

I squeezed Mother’s hands and stood with a flush-red wet and sloppy face.  She slowly raised her head and smiled.  I could barely breathe out the words.  “Goodbye Mother, my Queen.”  I turned and walked out of her room and down the two long hallways contemplating my next visit could be at Mother’s bedside in a nursing home.    

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 Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman.  Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune.  She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.

Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs.  One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates  is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective.  The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation  and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?

Chapter 7

Kip Brewer was the U.S. Congressman from Alabama’s Forth Congressional District.  This district covered Dekalb, Etowah, and Marshall Counties, and ten other counties stretching westward to the Mississippi line.  Kip lived with his wife of twenty-seven years in Boaz, west of town in the Red Apple Community.  When he was not in Washington, D.C., or traveling in other parts of his district one would find him mending fences or remodeling the one-hundred-year-old barn his great-grandfather had built in 1919 after returning from World War I six months earlier.

Kip was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996 filling the seat of 15-term Tom Bevill.  Kip had served ever since.  He was a member of the Republican Party, a non-active member of the nonactive Tea Party Caucus, and one of only a handful of Republicans outspoken against President Andrew Kane.  Kip’s opposition wasn’t so much against Kane’s policy ideas, but against his manners and methods.  Kip believed the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, should conduct himself always with honor, humility, and respect.  To Kip, there was never a time the President is justified in calling names like a drunken sailor.  The full truth be known, in the center of his rationality, Kip believed Kane was wholly incompetent to serve as President.

Four hours earlier Kip and his wife Darla returned from a Town Hall meeting at the Bevill Center at Snead State Community College.  It was their last stop from a thirteen-county tour that began two weeks ago on Valentine’s Day in the northwest Alabama city of Tuscumbia.  The Bevill Center meeting had gone well, at first, with difficult but respectful questions from a well-mannered audience including thirty members of the Etowah County Democratic Party who grilled Representative Brewer on whether the Republican Party had any plans of confronting President Kane on his conduct and his involvement with the Russian attack on the 2016 Presidential election.

The meeting got ugly when Kip wholeheartedly agreed with the Democratic group.  Shouting started in the back rows on the far-right side under the balcony.  Frankie Olinger stood up and without microphone, thundered above everyone, “you Rino, don’t you know Kane is God’s man to drain the swamp.  I elected him, we elected him, to get rid of all you talk and no action puppets. You better get on board the Kane wagon or get run over.  The Revolution has started.  You’re the enemy and enemies get killed.”

It seemed every member of Frankie’s gang was present and spoke out.  He was the outspoken leader of the local chapter of Kane Tribe, a grassroots organization that sprung-up in early 2016 after Kane’s train began gaining steam.  The shouting for and against got louder and louder.  The opposition was mainly from the Etowah County

Democratic Party.  The other 600 attendees joined in as Frankie’s group approached the front and attempted to mount the stage.  It took fifteen Boaz police officers and thirty cans of pepper spray to squelch the uprising.  In the middle of the storm, Kip’s secret service team pulled him out the back exit and transported him home.

At 2:30 a.m. Kip eased out of bed, frustrated over the outburst at the Town Hall and frustrated he couldn’t go back to sleep.  He tipped toed into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.  As it percolated, he recalled meeting Frankie Olinger in 1997 during his first campaign.  Kip’s father, a banker, had done business with Frankie and his father, helping them build a new building for Sand Mountain Tire & Battery, their automotive repair business.  Frankie had supported Kip’s initial efforts to get elected, even sponsoring a three-month radio campaign at WQSB.  Kip poured a large cup of coffee and walked outside on the back deck, flipping on the light as he stepped out into the cold and near-moonless night.  

He stood by the railing and looked out towards the old barn. He was beginning to think he would never complete the remodeling he had started in 2002, at the end of his third term in the House.  Kip started to sit down but as he turned he caught a glimpse of a light in the distance.  It was five or six hundred yards east of and beyond the barn.  It was at the edge of the woods that started along the edge of the pasture.  His mind convinced him it was some odd reflection of the moon, or possibly the aftereffects of a campfire built by a group of teenagers hanging out at the creek, though it seemed too early and too cold for that.  

Kip never heard the shot.  Just as he was sitting his coffee cup on the top rail at the back of the deck, the bullet arrived.  It’s sound trailing by only milliseconds.  The bullet’s impact exploded the mind of one of only a handful of men who stood between a Constitutional crisis, and the most narcissistic man Americans had ever sent to the Oval Office.  Kip Brewer, already dead, collapsed into a pool of brains and blood. In less than a minute Sean Miller with the Secret Service was on the deck with Kip calling 911, and radioing his team-mates to, under no circumstances, allow Darla to come outside.

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 Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman.  Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune.  She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.

Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs.  One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates  is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective.  The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation  and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?

Chapter 6

I was just walking into the kitchen from the back porch when my cell phone vibrated.  It was DeeDee.  My one and only sister.  The one I loved and loathed.  

“What’s up?  You had supper?”  I could hear road noise.  She had always loved driving with her window down, no matter the weather.  It took a hard, driving rain for her to keep her window up.  She rarely ever turned on the car’s air-conditioner.  Of course, she didn’t need it now.  I was freezing outside.

“Just got here.  I have a Supreme pizza, hot and ready.  Where are you?”

“In front of Boaz Walmart heading home.  Been with Mom.”

“How was she?”

“Sleepy, listless, hopeless.  She said very little.”

“I’m going to see her tomorrow.  I hate she is so depressed.  Come by if you want.”  I instantly regretted my invitation.  I really didn’t know why.  DeeDee and I had always gotten along, if we didn’t talk about God and religion.  We had never been close, close but had great respect for each other.  One thing that kept us in the same ditch together was our mutual love for Mom, and Dad too when he was alive.  

“I’m starving.  I’ll be there in five.  Got any beer?”

“No dear.  You know I don’t drink.”

“I’ll pick some up.  You need some milk?”

“You trying to be funny?”

“See you Walton.”

Walton Alec Shepherd.  No one ever called me Walton anymore.  Also, no one called me ‘Was.’  In ninth grade, Vann had dubbed me, ‘the

Was.’  This came about in an English class where Mrs. Stamps taught us the importance of tenses in our writing.  She was concentrating on the verb ‘be.’  After she stated the past tense of ‘be’ is ‘was,’ Vann, almost instantly, said, “hey Walt, that’s you.  You, Walton Alec Shepherd, is a ‘was.’  Of course, the class burst out laughing.  Everyone except Mrs. Stamps.  Thus, the beginning of a nickname that spread like wildfire through high school.  It never failed, nearly every day, walking the halls, someone would meet me.  Their greeting was always, “hey Was, you are the past, man.”  I was (there it is) glad ‘Was’ died shortly after graduation in 1972. 

I was hungry, so I sat at the counter and was working on my second slice when DeeDee walked in with a six-pack of Coors Lite, and two gallons of milk.

“Thought you might want to make some ice-cream.”  She said looking at me with her left dimple more pronounced than I could remember.

“Thanks.  All afternoon I’ve been planning an ice-cream party.  It will take two freezers, one vanilla, the other grape.  You’re not invited.”

“Move over.”  She nudged me, and I scooted my barstool toward the wall.

We sat for the next ten minutes or so and ate pizza.  She drank a beer.  I drank a glass of milk just to play that card.  With only one slice remaining, I left it for her and walked to my chair in the den.  It was part of the kitchen, what they call a great room.  It was only an evolving idea when Mom and Dad had, in the early 1950s, remodeled the house his grandfather had built in the 1890s.  Most folks those days stuck with a separate kitchen/dining room, a separate den, and a separate living room. 

I’m glad they broke that tradition.  I loved this pine-paneled room.

DeeDee joined me and flipped on the TV.  I made her turn it off after five minutes of Fox News lauding President Kane’s loyalty to his supporters.  Apparently, this afternoon, he had signed an Executive Order commanding the Immigration and Naturalization Service to start rounding up illegal aliens, especially Hispanics, and shipping them back to Mexico.

I figured DeeDee would make a supporting comment to Kane’s action but instead she said, “I hear you and Regina may become a thing again.”

“What, what are you talking about?”

“I ran into Vann at Walmart and he told me about you guys having breakfast at Grumpy’s this morning.  Said, he had to move to another table when you started undressing Regina.”

“Oh, he’s such a jerk.”

“You know Vann, always the jokester.”

“Now, I’ve got good reason to pull a little prank on that retard.”  I said.

“Seriously, he did say that you had seen her the other night at

Walmart.”

“I did.  We talked just a few minutes.  I also saw her this afternoon.  At the Reporter.”

“You have business there?”

“She is the new editor and invited me to drop by.”

“I can see it now.  The smoldering fire erupts.  I knew those embers had never gone cold.  Is she as gorgeous as ever?”  DeeDee said moving over on the couch and propping her feet on the coffee table.

“No, actually.  She is more so.  I’m completely blown away that I still have feelings for her.”

“I’m not.  You know I never could understand why you chose Jennifer over Regina.  Jennifer had played the field before she latched on to you.  I think she wised up and knew it was time to find someone with a future.  It took her a while, but she finally realized spread-eagle in the back seat of a car wasn’t likely the best way to make a living.”

“Don’t talk about her that way.”  You have her all wrong.  She made a mistake with a guy that was three years older than her.”

“Believe what you want my dear Walton.”

“Stop calling me that, okay?”

“I’m sorry, I was out of line.  I must admit Jennifer was good to you.  You will probably never find someone more loyal and faithful to you.  She died way too young.  I do miss her.”

“I do too, but most days I try to think as she wanted me to think.  As she was dying she made me promise her that I would move on with my life.  That, I would know that she was in a better place.  I can’t believe that was nearly forty years ago.”

“Do you believe she is in a better place, in Heaven?”  DeeDee knew this was a touchy subject.  She knew that I had long given up my childhood faith.

“No.  Jennifer is dead.  She’s in the same place she was in, mentally, psychologically, before she was born.  I now, more than ever, believe that when you die, you die, and that’s it.”

“Mother still doesn’t know, does she?”

“Know what?”  I said looking and feeling perplexed.

“That you no longer straddle the fence as she called it when you were a teenager.  She doesn’t know how, what, thirty years ago, you pulled the other leg over that teetering fence?”

“I doubt it.  And, I’m not telling her.  You either, okay?”

“You know you don’t have to worry about that.  I could never hurt our dear Mother.”

“I think you are rather ignorant to continue believing in God and Christ and the Bible, but I know you have good reason.  You just know one side of the story.”

“Walton, don’t start.  I don’t want to hear it.  I know God is real. 

He talks to me every day.”

“Sis, I know you believe that.  And, I know you believe He has everything under His control.  He has a plan and it’s all good.  I get it.”

“I’m not mad but I do have to go.  Kevin’s plane should be landing in Birmingham about now.  I want to be home when he arrives.”

“He still traveling a lot?”

“Too much.  Thanks for the pizza and I hope you get serious about your Regina stalking.”

“Get out of here you lamebrain.  Love you sis.”