Category: Novels

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 18

My classroom was freezing cold.  I could have sworn I had turned the thermostat to 80 degrees when I left Thursday afternoon, just like I had been instructed the first day of school.  Instead, it was set on 60.  I selected heat and reset the pointer to 80.  This was weird since it was probably 90 degrees outside.

Off and on for several days I had been thinking about the best way to administer the novel writing project.  There were twenty students.  I would divide them into five teams (there’s that five again).   Each team would be required to complete one chapter per month, maybe one scene per week, knowing at least one would be discarded.  I would create another Facebook group to enable contemporaneous communications.  If everything went according to plan, at the end of the year we would have five novels, each with four authors.  I had never seen a novel with more than two authors, but this did not dissuade me from my idea in the least.  In detail, I scribbled the administrative component of the project. 

How to generate the words, words fit to line up to create a story wouldn’t be so easy.  I had always liked Mark Twain’s first rule of writing: ‘a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.’  I think what he meant was that the best stories offered some form of meaning.  This characteristic of a story is normally referred to as the theme.   Stories require characters, although they did not have to always be of the human type.  Real Justice wouldn’t be about a dog or a whale, but about Stella Gibson (I’d worry about a different name later), the new editor of the Times-Courier newspaper in Ellijay, Georgia and how she balanced the scales for five local and prominent businessmen who had traumatized her (for now, my idea was to leave it to each team to describe how Stella was mistreated).  My subconscious mind was working on me and asking why I was not using the word, ‘revenge’? I knew that it meant to avenge oneself, and normally it included retaliation to some degree.  Right now, I didn’t think this was what I was after in my own life, but Stella, for sure, was after blood.

Again, I took out a notebook and began to write.  The name of the project and novel would be Real Justice (at least for now).   Setting: Ellijay, Georgia, Gilmer County.  Stella would be the protagonist, the main character.  The antagonists (all residents of Ellijay) would be: Mason Campbell, Mayor; Noah Fletcher, President, South Citizens Bank & Trust; Aiden Walker, Pastor, First United Baptist Church; Jackson Burke, Founder & President of Burke Manufacturing; and Daniel Taylor, Chief Judge of the Superior Court.

I was just about to provide introductory details concerning the book’s main conflict when I heard a knock at my office door.  After turning up the heat I had come into my small office and closed the door.  I now realized that I was sweating.  “Come in.”

I was hoping it might be Earl Chambers the School’s chief custodian.  He often worked crazy hours like me.  I was deeply disappointed.  “Katie, it’s like a sauna in here.  I walked by your room, noticed the light, came in and thought there must be a fire.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being intentionally melodramatic.  I began to sweat even more as I stood and walked past him to the thermostat in the opposite corner behind my bookcases.  “I must have left the air-conditioner on when I left Thursday.  I had flipped the thermostat over to heat and had gotten sidetracked.”  All I could think about was what had happened with Cindy.  Patrick Wilkins was a sexual predator.  I hadn’t seen or heard Earl since I arrived over an hour ago.  I was alone with the man who had already sexually harassed me on several previous occasions.

“I’m sorry about your mother.  I couldn’t make it to the memorial.  Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you through these dark days.”  He sounded so sincere.  No doubt I was hearing from his better personality.  I hoped the darker side didn’t appear.

“Katie, I hate to bring this up now, but we can’t allow your personal statement to remain on the website.”  Each member of the faculty was required to maintain a single web page on the School’s website.  Before a week ago, Mr. Harrison had already reminded me twice to create my page.  “You don’t have to write a dissertation.”

Tuesday night I had reviewed the other teacher’s pages and had gotten rather pissed with a couple of them.  One was Patrick Wilkins.  He and Coach Haney, Bryan Haney, were proselytizing, pure and simple.  Their pages were nothing more than Christian billboards.  I had become so pissed, I had written on mine: “I am an honest and devout Muslim.  There is no God but Allah.  Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.  I receive deep peace and hope from my five daily prayers.  I practice alms giving to the poor and sick.  Join me on my next pilgrimage to Mecca.”

“Why?”  I said coming back into my office with him still standing by the door.

“I thought you were a Christian.  I have seen you several times at church.”

“You are correct.  At least about seeing me at First Baptist Church of Christ.  I’m not sure if I’m a Christian, but I’m working on it.  No, I’m not a Muslim.”

“Then, why did you write what you did?”  Could the Assistant Principal be this dense?

“Can I ask you the same thing?  You wrote, let me think, that you are the Education Director at First Baptist Church of Christ, that you are a deacon, and that you sing in the choir.  I can nearly quote it, ‘I want my whole identity not to be with all of the other things I’m involved in, but in Christ and Christ alone.’  Boaz High School is an educational facility.  A public school, not a private school.”  I said wanted to get back to my novel project.

“That’s who I am.  I’m not ashamed of it.”

“That’s perfectly okay but keep it to yourself at school.  Haven’t you ever heard of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?”

“Of course, I have.  Again, I’m not trying to establish a religion.”

“But you are.  The First Amendment, as to religion, not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another.  You, as a government actor, like Coach Haney, are favoring Christianity.  Students have a right not to be subjected to this.”  I said recalling how adamant the administration at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City was about this issue.

“What’s Haney got to do with this?”

“He’s doing the same thing you are.  Except, he is even more egregious than you.  I walked over to my laptop and searched for Coach Haney’s web page.  This is what he says, in third person: “He is first and foremost a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, ‘…my glory, and the lifter up of mine head’ (Psalms 3:3).  His priority is to bring glory to Christ’s name in any and everything he does.  Because he loves Christ, his love for his students and players grows more and more.”

“How does this hurt anything?  Especially the students?”  Wilkins asked, likely being totally honest.  He didn’t have a clue he was so brainwashed.

“Haney’s statement, nor yours, has any place in a student’s mind.  He likely will conclude that he must play the Jesus card to make it in Haney’s class, and probably even worse, to succeed and excel at Boaz High School.  What Haney writes is atrocious, ‘my priority is to bring glory to Christ’s name in any and everything I do.’  That obviously includes his teaching, every lesson, every activity.”

“Kids need to hear the gospel.”  I must give Patrick credit.  He was a true evangelical.

“That’s your opinion.  Even if you are correct, school isn’t the place.  At church is one thing.  There, young people choose to go and to hear.  Every student at Boaz High School is here, in the main, because they are required to be here.  Of all places, school should be where the student is taught to think critically and to be exposed to every side of an issue, not force-fed someone’s religious beliefs.”

“Islam is a religion of violence.  There’s no way it’s true.”  At least Patrick wasn’t trying to make a move on me sexually, but he was still showing his true colors.

“How do you know Christianity is true?  I would bet you have never honestly investigated the claims against its veracity.”  I said looking at my iPhone as though I had just received a text.

“Katie, you can think whatever you want, but if you don’t remove your little Muslim post by the start of school on Tuesday it will be taken down for you.  This is not Turkey or Indonesia.  This is Alabama, the heart of the Bible Belt.”

“I’ll certainly remove my improper statement if you and Coach Haney will do the same.”  I felt the sweat returning to my forehead.  I was in no position to be demanding.

Wilkins didn’t respond but turned to walk out.  Without looking back towards me he said, “I like your tee-shirt.”  When I heard my classroom door close, I looked down at my chest and only then understood what Wilkins was referring to.  My shirt had a downward pointing arrow that contained three words, ‘down to ignorance.’  It was a shirt sent to me by an English & Literature organization I contributed to.  Admittedly, their ‘Words are Life’ campaign was more a success than their tee-shirt.  They had received complaints that it had a negative sexual message and had discontinued offering it on their website.  No doubt, Wilkins had picked up on the wrong message.

I tried for the next hour to draft a formal handout on Real Justice to give my creative writing students on Tuesday.  My mind simply couldn’t settle.  All it wanted to think and ponder was how actions have consequences.  If I hadn’t reacted so negatively and quickly to Haney’s and Wilkins’ web page postings, the confrontation wouldn’t have taken place, and now I wouldn’t be dealing with a conflict that had placed me in a most uncomfortable position.  I had no choice but to remove my Islamic statements.  As I gathered my things and walked to my car my mind offered up a contrary message.  ‘Fighting ignorance and abuse may not be comfortable but it is necessary for a free and progressive society.’  Sometimes, I truly loved that little woman who lived inside my head.

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 17

Sammie’s children, all three in their early sixties, all lived at least a thousand miles away. They dropped by for a surprise visit Saturday morning.  I could see the joy she was experiencing when they arrived and the sadness when, at noon, they were starting to say their goodbyes for the day, even though they promised to return Sunday morning.  I insisted she go stay with them at the Hampton Inn in Guntersville where the three had spent Friday night.  This left me alone with Nanny until midday Monday.

Half of Saturday afternoon was taken up by our trip to Walmart.  When Sammie’s children had arrived, just about the time she and Nanny were about to leave, I had called HairStyle Salon and rescheduled Nanny’s appointment.  Her world is so different from my own.  She moves about as though she has no regard for time.  Walking from our car in the parking lot she stopped to look at the buggy rack overflowing with grocery carts.  I was trying to rush her on when she called me to come stand beside her.  She took my right hand and turned it up flat.  “Visualize a grain of sand on the palm of your hand.  That’s the sun, our star, and your palm is our solar system.  North America is our Milky Way Galaxy with billions of stars.  Our galaxy is only one of billions, each with hundreds of billions of stars.  You get used to the loneliness.”

I asked her how she knew this.  She responded that Sammie had read this to her yesterday after Darla’s funeral.  “Darla’s gone. She’s gone to God, whereever He is.”  With that she tried to climb over into a buggy an older, sharply dressed, woman had pushed beside us.

I finally made Nanny understand that Walmart didn’t allow adults to ride in the grocery cars, that right was reserved for small children.  She said, “I’m a child.”  We finally made it inside HairStyle and time again was nothing.  The kind stylist, Liz, said it would take about an hour if I wanted to walk around.  I decided to sit out front in the small waiting area and watch Walmart’s customers coming and going. 

Nanny was in her late eighties but believed she was just a child.  Or did she?  Was she being honest or was she still trying to protect me?  And, she felt all alone.  If I lived, would I relive my childhood?  Would I feel all alone in a vast universe?  Were we all alone?  I leaned my head back against the wall above my chair.  I closed my eyes.  I thought, ‘God, I want to believe you are real.  If you are, why are you so silent, so mysterious, so hidden?  If you hear me, if you can, please comfort Nanny.  She needs to know that someone more powerful than Sammie and me are taking care of her.’  I kept my eyes closed and I continued my attempt to reach out to God.  I was thinking of how I wanted to spend more private time with Cindy, asking her how she knows and experiences God when Liz came out leading Nanny and holding her hand.  “She’s been telling me about how her and Papa adopted you and how you loved playing in the barn loft.”

Grocery shopping was a frustrating adventure.  Nanny would alternate between putting things in our grocery cart and then removing things, all while I was concentrating on our grocery list.  The unique difference was what she added wasn’t on our list, but the things she removed were.  At the milk coolers she held my arm and made me stand beside her as she counted the half-gallon milk jugs while attempting to tell me how Papa had tried to teach me to milk a cow when I was only ten.  I noticed several people became frustrated when we didn’t move out of the way.

Saturday afternoon and evening were consumed with putting up the groceries, cooking supper, and watching what seemed like a half-season of The Walton’s.  At least I got to drift in and out of sleep while Nanny was virtually receiving, intravenously, an extreme dose of her favorite and most effective drug.  Her bath took over an hour and was humiliating for her and humbling for me.  She made me play a Gathers Gospel Trio CD on a boom-box that was hidden on the top shelf of the linen closet.  She said, “Sammie’s idea, counters the nakedness.”  She then joined Bill and Gloria as they were singing “How Great Thou Art.”  I couldn’t do anything but laugh.  Nanny was an education.  It was like she lived in two worlds.  One akin to mine, where the words and concepts I dealt with and understood were natural, but then at unexpected times she would slip over the edge or around a corner and become a child.  That world was one whose language was that of curiosity, intense self-awareness, and almost a supernatural imagination.  I had first noticed the latter while grocery shopping as Nanny created a conversation between a can of whole kernel corn and a bag of Tortilla chips.

Saturday night was peaceful.  At 10:00 p.m., we went to bed.  Nanny in her room and me in Sammie’s next door, complete with the latest high-tech baby monitor on the nightstand.  With the help of two prescription sleep-aids, Nanny did not make a sound.  I rested but caught myself awake at the top of every hour, looking at Sammie’s digital clock anxious for her 5:30 a.m. alarm.

Nanny was enjoying toast and eggs (she had made me throw away my pancakes) when Sammie and Grover, her third son, walked in the back door.  “My boys want to go with me and Nanny to church.”  I knew instantly this wasn’t true but had never been so thankful for such an act of unconditional kindness.  I had heard about Sammie and Nanny’s planned trip to Liberty Baptist Church in the Rodentown Community.  Something about Darla’s funeral had triggered Nanny’s desire to visit her and Papa’s church home and the cemetery where he was buried.  The only thing Nanny had said about going, before Sammie and Grover arrived, was “I’m glad you got your bath last night.  As slow as you are we would never make it to church on time.”

I didn’t resist Sammie’s offer.  If I weren’t so selfish I would have gone along with them, mainly to see Sammie’s methods of dealing with Nanny outside her household.  Instead, I simply followed Sammie’s orders to clean the kitchen and let her dress Nanny.  “She wants to go early and walk the cemetery before Brother Eugene starts preaching.”  If a two-plus hour respite weren’t enough, as Sammie was leading Nanny back to her room, she had turned and said, “if it is okay with you, Nanny is going to spend the afternoon with me and my three boys.  We have a little road trip planned.  We won’t be back until sometime tomorrow.” 

Again, I was pleasingly accommodative, to say the least.  Thirty minutes after the three of them left I realized I wasn’t a good caregiver, not even a temporary one.  Sammie was fully invested in her job.  Unless she was the best actor in the world, she truly enjoyed her time and tasks with Nanny.  Just one day of nothing else but focusing on Nanny had completely exhausted me.  What made it worse was that I felt guilty; to me, at least subconsciously, I had viewed the extended time with Nanny as a dreaded chore.  Over forty years ago Nanny and Papa had not been so selfish.  They had altered their lives forever by choosing me.  They had sacrificed their dreams of traveling the world to raise a one-year old child.  I had never heard either of them voice any type of regret.  Instead, I had experienced unconditional love, the love I hoped I was giving to Cullie, even though, deep down, I knew it did not compare with the patient and kind love Papa and Nanny had given me.

I slept the next three hours and woke up nearly as exhausted as when I had laid down.  I tried for another hour to return to sleep but couldn’t.  I kept tossing and turning feeling like I had neglected my classroom and my students, especially since I was off Friday for Darla’s funeral.  At 12:45 p.m., I slid out of bed, showered, dressed, and drove to Boaz High School.  I had to figure out how best to introduce Real Justice to my twenty creative writing students.  More troubling and difficult, I had to devise a way to inspire them to not only write their first novel, but to unknowingly guide me in my quest to balance the scales for the Faking Five.

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 16

I decided to have Darla’s funeral Friday afternoon, mostly because of Labor Day and Cindy and her family’s plans to visit Six Flags in Georgia over the long weekend.  Steve had planned the trip several weeks ago and it was going to be a surprise.  After Darla’s body arrived Thursday afternoon he had to tell Cindy because she was brainstorming ideas how to support Nanny, Cullie, and me at the funeral I had decided would take place Sunday afternoon.  After I changed the funeral times Cindy had invited Cullie and me to come along.  I declined, but Cullie was ecstatic.

It really wasn’t a funeral.  It was a memorial service.  And, there was no casket or body or flowers, just a couple of songs, a few words by Pastor Warren, after an hour of public viewing, but without the viewing.  This was what Darla wanted.  At least that’s what we all learned from Ryan as relayed by Raymond who was still in jail.  This wasn’t the only surprise from Ryan.  Darla’s desire was to be cremated.  “Granddad said he and Darla had discussed all this type stuff before they married and agreed on it.”  Darla’s body hadn’t stayed long at McRae’s Funeral Home.  They didn’t perform cremations but instead shipped the body to a crematorium in Huntsville.  Her ashes wouldn’t be back in town until several days past Labor Day.

Cullie spent the night, again, at Alysa’s.  It was becoming a tradition.  Steve wanted to leave early.  A good enough excuse for Cullie to be there and let me sleep in.

At 2:30 a.m., I shot upright in bed.  The little woman in my head who had no respect for time or tiredness plastered a thought across the stage of my mind.  She hadn’t done this, at this time, in quite a while.  I was thankful for that.  She wanted me to ponder something that Ryan had said when he and I discussed and planned Darla’s memorial service Thursday evening.  “Granddad said he and Darla had discussed all this type stuff before they married and agreed on it.”  This type stuff.  What did that include?

Raymond Radford was 44 years old when he married my 19-year-old mother. That was Thanksgiving 1973.  Darla was high school classmates with Randall Radford, Raymond’s son.  During the same graduation party where Darla became pregnant with me an even more horrible thing had taken place.  Two girls from the party, twins from Douglas, had gone missing.  A Micaden Tanner, who also was at the party, was falsely accused of the girls’ disappearance.  He was later charged with their kidnapping and murder, even though at the time their bodies had not been found.  Within a few months of the party, Raymond had met Beverly (aka Nanny).  She had learned how Raymond and the other four fathers of the Flaming Five (Randall and his basketball playing teammates) were attempting to force Darla and the other Boaz cheerleaders who had attended the graduation party to lie.  He knew they would be called on as witnesses to the events of that night.  Someway that I will never understand, a romance between Raymond and Darla had blossomed over all those horrible events and deplorable manipulation.

I had forgotten about the two journals Darla had packed in her suitcase.  I had hidden them, along with the videotape, behind my collection of literature textbooks.  Before this morning, my mind had decided they could wait, that I was simply too busy with school and Darla’s death.  The little woman in my head had just decided otherwise.  I got up and slipped on a nightgown, a long-ago present from Nanny.  It was flannel and it was late summer, but the house seemed unusually cold.  I slipped downstairs to the kitchen, made a pot of coffee and returned to my room and the elaborate little writing desk Papa had made me in high school from the giant oak in the front yard that had fallen during what many believed was a rare winter tornado.

I wanted to spend a few minutes without the journals; forecasting, I called it.  It was my way of predicting what I would see.  It connected my brainstorming or free-writing method with a purpose.  After a timed fifteen-minute session I had concluded Darla’s journals would reveal her two biggest regrets: not going to college and not being a real mother to me.

The first journal was current.  It covered the last several months.  Almost a year of Darla’s life.  I scanned half the pages, skipping every two or three.  It appeared to be an accounting of Raymond’s legal troubles.  Along with a sobering sage of how money, wealth, and other material things did not produce happiness. 

The second journal was old.  The first entry was dated, Thursday, May 24, 1972.  It read, in part, “Mother gave me this journal as one of my graduation presents.  She made me vow to record my innermost thoughts for at least a year.  After that I would either be hooked or hate it.  Sorry Journal, I must go party.  My buds are here, Rickie is blaring her car horn.  Nyra Sue and Gina, I’m sure, are screaming at her to stop.  Later my dear.”

At 4:30 a.m., I was tired.  I had read every entry and was only on page 128 out of 200 pages from the second journal.  I had read more details than I could ever remember.  Darla had chosen, since returning from her graduation party, to focus on the activities of that night and the events that led to her maturing romance with Raymond.  I placed a pencil inside the journal to hold my place and was about to return Darla’s writings to their secret spot when I decided to read the last entry.

It was dated, Wednesday, November 21, 1973.  Darla had written nearly a page about her wedding, even though it was taking place the following day, Thanksgiving.  All three of her paragraphs were filled with little snippets of how Raymond had been so kind and generous and had showered her with jewelry and clothes.  Darla was convinced Raymond truly loved her.  The last sentence, a one sentence paragraph, followed the first three.  It took a different route, “The only thing I regret is the damn prenuptial agreement.”

The final page in the journal, a continuation of the 21st entry, laid out Darla’s concerns and the details of the unwelcome agreement.  If her and Raymond ever divorced she would leave the marriage with only what things she had owned when they tied the knot, which wasn’t much no doubt.  Darla’s words showed some relief when she turned her attention to something other than divorce (she had written, “we’ll never divorce.”) because they revealed that if Raymond predeceased her in death and at a time the two continued as husband and wife, Darla would inherit all of Raymond’s property. 

In the next paragraph, Darla described how Raymond had joked since he was 44 that his age when they married would be their number. It raised my question, “their number, what’s the significance?’  Darla provided the answer.  If 44 years transpire and she passes away leaving Raymond a widower, then he retains all his and her property.  It was a little joke between them.  However, it seemed neither believed that Raymond would outlive Darla.  Why would they?  She was twenty-five years younger than him.

My mind still wasn’t fully engaged.  It might have been that I was running late for my writing session in the basement.  I placed the two journals behind the literature textbooks on my top bookshelf.  I changed into a pair of baggy shorts and a New York Knicks tank-top, overheated from my mental gymnastics.  I poured another cup of coffee as I passed the kitchen and raced down the stairs almost tripping on the thought the little woman in my head held up to me like a flashcard.  ‘Motive.’

Darla and Raymond’s prenuptial agreement was no longer funny.  And, my math skills were not seriously engaged.  Darla was born in 1954 and had married Raymond in 1973 when she was 19.  It was now 2017.  That’s 44 years ago.  Well, not quite, today was September 2nd.  In less than three months, on Thanksgiving Day, Raymond and Darla would have been married 44 years.  And, Raymond is still kicking.  Motive?  Yes, he or someone, maybe Ryan, had a motive to kill Darla.

As I was attempting to set aside these thoughts, one final one kept clawing onto the stage.  What would happen to Nanny?  The funds to pay for Sammie and run Nanny’s household, other than her Social Security check, were being paid by Raymond?

My writing session didn’t go so well.

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 15

The call came during my Thursday morning planning period.

“Ms. Sims?  This is Stanley Vincent with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.  Is now a good time to talk?”

I told him it was.  He said Greta Vickers, the School’s bookkeeper, had given him my cell number after he told her who he was.

“Marshall County Sheriff Wayne Waldrup said I should call you.”

“Have you completed my mother’s autopsy?  Darla Sims, Radford?”

“Yes, the County is here to pick up her body and transport it to McRae’s Funeral Home.  I wanted to confirm that was correct, what you wanted.”  Vincent said.  I could barely hear him.  There was talking in the background.  I imagined several of his peers moving about, opening, and closing doors to temporary vaults.

“It is.”  I semi-yelled.

“I also wanted to tell you what caused your mother’s death.  Of course, you will receive a copy of the autopsy report, but I didn’t want it to be a total surprise.”

“Thanks.  I’m pretty sure I already know.  It was the Clonidin, the Zanax, and the alcohol.  Correct?”  I said, more focused on my review of Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, the story I would be assigning tomorrow.

“That’s what we thought at first.  Sheriff Waldrup had alerted us to the possibility of a drug overdose, although the only drugs he knew about were the Clonidin and the alcohol.  Then, we discovered the Zanax, but the drugs are not what killed her.”

“So, what did?  Did she have a heart attack?”

“I’m sorry to tell you your mother died from a single gunshot to the head.”

“Oh my God.  Why did our Sheriff or the Boaz police or somebody else not mention anything about this?

“They didn’t see it.  It was easy to miss.  We naturally found it because we scrutinize every square inch of the body.  We also conduct multiple x-rays.  The entrance wound was exceedingly small and just inside her hairline above the neck.  Do you want me to give you the details now or do you want to wait and read them in my report?”

“Thanks for being so considerate, but I prefer you just tell me.  I might have a question or two.”

“The low-caliber bullet, a 22 short, entered the cerebellum.  This is located at the rear of the head.  The bullet then almost severed the spinal cord, but virtually missed the brainstem, and lodged itself between the basal ganglia and the cortex.  As I said, the bullet did not exit the head.”

“Would she have died instantly?”  I said for the obvious reason.  I was never close to my mother, but I would never want her to suffer.

“That’s what’s puzzling.  Normally, the subject, sorry to be so impersonal, lingers.  A small caliber bullet shot directly to any area of the cortex doesn’t usually cause instantaneous death, but through excessive intracranial pressure arising from either brain swelling or edema, will no doubt cause death sooner or later, normally within a few days.”

“You are referring to the cerebral cortex?”

“Yes, it’s the wrinkly outermost layer that surrounds the brain.  It consists of tightly packed neurons.  The cortex is divided into four different lobes, the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital, which are each responsible for processing different types of sensory information.”

“You seemed surprised that she died so quickly.  Why is that exactly?  I said feeling sterile when I should be an emotional wreck.

“One would have thought your mother’s injury would have been analogous to that of Abraham Lincoln’s.  He lingered for several days because of the brain injury caused by a low-caliber bullet that didn’t exit his skull after being shot at close range from the back.  What appears to be the cause of an instantaneous death from a gunshot to the brain is damage to the brainstem.  It is the part of the brain that regulates heart and lung function.  As you might recall, the subject bullet barely grazed your mother’s brainstem.  Although my report states the bullet as the cause of death, quite frankly, I don’t know what caused your mother’s instantaneous death.”

“Could the volume of drugs in her system have contributed to her instant death after the gunshot?”

“Possibly, but I doubt it.  I first thought the information I had received from Sheriff Waldrup was inaccurate.  His incident and offense report had mentioned both the approximate time of your phone call with your mother on the morning of her death and the exact time she was found by a Mr. Williams.  If we did not have such a tight timeline, I would have guessed your mother had died a slow death over a period of hours, maybe a day or more.  Of course, we know that’s not what happened.

“Can I ask one final question, Dr. Vincent?”

“Sure.  I have a couple of more minutes before I have to go.”

“What happened to the bullet or bullet fragment?”

“We extracted it and will be sending it to Sheriff Waldrup.  I suspect he has a homicide on his hands.  There is no way this was a suicide.  Again, Ms. Sims, I regret having to share such horribly stressful news.  I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you for your kindness.  I’m sorry, but one more quick question.  How would you describe the condition of the bullet fragment?”

“It’s not a fragment.  The bullet is fully intact, in near-perfect condition.”

“Thanks doctor.  I appreciate you calling.  Goodbye.”

“Goodbye to you Ms. Sims and God Bless.”

“Thank you.”

I had been sitting at my desk in my little office all during the conversation with Dr. Vincent.  When our call ended, I walked to the window and looked to a gray and dreary sky.  I was praying that mother had not suffered when Cindy came in with her book bag and her normally eager desire to plan tomorrow’s lesson.  I was thankful to have a good friend, especially one who, after seeing my sad face and serious tears, engulfed me in her arms and held me like I was her Alysa.

“I love you and so does God.”  Cindy said looking directly into my eyes.  I couldn’t help but think of Emily Fink in New York City, my best friend in the world up until now.  Slowly, Cindy Barker was nudging to the head of my best-friends line.

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 14

“Mother, when are you going to let me start dating?”  It was a question I had repeatedly heard from Cullie since the first of her eighth-grade year.  Until now, she had said it, smiling her gorgeous smile and telling me with her eyes that she knew she was too young.  Today was different.  It was the first time she had asked the question since we arrived in Boaz.  I had come out to Papa’s barn late Tuesday afternoon.  The loft had become her favorite spot on the forty-acre plot to hangout and ponder her future.

“When you are old enough?”  I said settling back against a stack of hay bales Mr. Crocker kept stored above a half-dozen abandoned cow, pig, and goat stables.

“You always say that but never discuss.  I am old enough.  All the popular ninth grade girls and probably half the mediums are dating.”

“Mediums?  What the heck is a medium?”  I said, looking over at Cullie stretched out on a bed of unbaled hay.  She was tall, lean, and shapely.  She was no longer my little girl, the one in pigtails in middle school, especially the sixth and seventh grader who secretly spent hours alone playing with Barbie dolls.  Now, her too-tight jeans revealed a female who had evolved and shed her baby flab.  I predicted within a few months her body would be as perfect as that of Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon.  I still could not understand why I had watched this 1980s movie two nights ago on Netflix curled up in my bed after midnight.

“Alysa explained to me those are the girls, midrange if you will.  They are not popular or gorgeous.  Not all popular girls are pretty, you know.  And, the M’s are not homely either.  They make good grades and show promise of someday transforming into a prospect.”  Cullie said shifting backwards and up on her elbows.  “Mediums are always girls, prospects can be boys or girls.”

“Prospect?”

“Someone who’s a real candidate for dating.”

“My gosh, I’m so out of touch.  Now, I semi-understand more of the snippets I’ve been overhearing from my tenth Graders.”

“Grandmother was dating when she was in the ninth grade.”  Cullie surprised me.  Not so much that she had referred to Darla as her grandmother.  That was truly accurate but also rare.  Cullie did this when she used her subtle ability to play with my emotions.  She knew how I had always longed to have had a normal, maybe an extraordinarily wonderful, relationship with my biological mother, like Emily Fink had with her mother in New York City.

“Did you hear me?”  Cullie prompted as I sat beginning once again to feel sorry for myself.

“How exactly do you know that my dear?”

“Nanny told me.  You know, sometimes when I get home from school and after you have visited a few minutes, I sit with her.  About every other day she seems normal.  Yesterday, I had asked her when she had let you start dating.  She didn’t hesitate and said at the Valentine’s Dance in your tenth-Grade year.  I didn’t like her answer, so I said, ‘what about grandmother?’  Her words, exactly, ‘that was Papa’s doings.  Beginning of the ninth grade and it was the worst thing we did.  She spread her wild oats and never stopped until she was pregnant with your mother.’”

“Nanny said all that?”

“Yep.  Now that I know when grandmother started dating, isn’t it time I know who your real father is?”  And I thought the, ‘when will you let me start dating?’ question was what I feared.

“Honey, I’ve told you a hundred times that I don’t know.”

“Katie, I’m not as dumb as you sometimes think.  Miss Cindy told Alysa and me that most people tell you the minimum.  She said this over pancakes Saturday morning when we were discussing A Good Man is Hard to Find.  She said they rarely tell you all they know.  Miss Cindy gave the grandmother in O’Connor’s story as an example.  Said the old woman was highly manipulative with her son.”

Cullie sometimes called me Katie, always when she wanted to have a full conversation, one uncolored by our mother-daughter relationship.  “I’m confused, are you studying Flannery O’Conner’s most popular story?”

“No, but Miss Cindy was lab-ratting us.  Some angle she intended to explore with her students.  So, show a little respect for your only child.  Tell me who got Grandmother pregnant.  I wish I’d tried out for cheerleader.”  Cullie was now standing up and doing knee bends and arms rolls and kicks that looked like they would touch the weathered tin overhead.

Oh, the mind of a teenage girl.  “Darla was wild no doubt.  Believe me my baby, I don’t know, and I don’t know if Darla ever knew, who got her pregnant. It was during her graduation party.  She was at a place where she shouldn’t have been doing things she shouldn’t have been doing.  There were six guys present.  The story is that Darla had sex with five of them.  That’s where I got started.”

“Only one of the five can be your father.  His little sperm found Darla’s little egg.  Humans can’t have multiple fathers.”

“You now are an expert embryologist?”

“Something like that.  No, but Alysa and I are pretty good researchers.”

“Honestly, I don’t know why Darla never sought a paternity test.  I think she would have if she hadn’t gotten involved with Raymond Radford.  It was her way, I think, of showing a weird sort of respect.  You asked so I will tell you, but please keep it very secret.  Raymond’s son, Randall, the one who is still missing or simply ran off, was one of the five who Darla slept with that fateful night.”  I said not believing my little girl and I were having this conversation.

“Who were the other four?”  I knew this was coming.  Cullie had for weeks been revealing the makings of a future attorney.

I hesitated.  What good could come of Cullie knowing who her grandmother had sex with and who might be her grandfather?  On the other hand, being truthful, even when it hurt, couldn’t hurt the most important relationship in my life, one that needed to be grounded on a deep and wide foundation of trust.  “Wade Tillman, Fred Billingsley, James Adams, and John Ericson.”

“And, Warren Tillman, Fulton Billingsley, Justin Adams, and Danny Ericson are their sons.  So, Wade Tillman could be my grandfather, and his son, Pastor Warren, could be my cousin?”  Cullie asked.

“In that scenario I think he would be more like a step-brother once removed, but I’m not really sure.  I’d have to sketch that out.”  This conversation was going nowhere fast.

“I think you need to find out who your father is.  I’m glad I know Colton is my dad.  Is he still coming for Christmas?”  I almost envied Cullie’s ability to pivot.  Her mind was so alive and spontaneous, hungry for knowledge.  I hoped she someday found a real purpose to channel her intelligence and energy.

“We’ll have to see.”

“You never answered my question.”  Cullie brought us back full-circle.

“Now if you want to, but with rules my dear, strict rules.  Maybe a double date with Alysa at a cook-out.  Cindy and I are getting pretty good at grilling chicken.”

“Yuck.  To the chicken and the six-way. I’m okay with Alysa, me, and two prospects, but no parents allowed.”  Cullie said, headed for the loft’s ladder.

“Rules my dear.  I’m not about to turn you loose.  No way.  Men can be animals.  Boys are just less imaginative and brave.”

In a sense I was trapped.  We were now into the third week of my first-year teaching at Boaz High School.  After my long and scary conversation with Cullie, and nearly two hours watching The Walton’s and eating from TV trays, I had come to my room, propped my pillows up on the headboard and started reading.  I both loved it and hated it.  I was caught in a schedule that required at least an hour, often two, per night, reviewing and commenting in the five Facebook groups I had created.  I had been surprisingly pleased that the majority of my 150 students were actively participating.  I enjoyed learning.  I enjoyed being surprised by how teenagers thought, sometimes revealing intelligence that I could only envy.  At midnight, reading and responding to the final student comments from my Creative Writing class, I was glad I hadn’t yet disclosed my plan to add five more Facebook groups, all focused on one class’s major writing project.  Lying back and dozing my subconscious kept telling me it was too much, ‘just limit this novel writing project to your Creative Writing class,’ and one more Facebook group.  Stick to short stories or even some flash fiction with your other four classes.’

I didn’t know where she came from but by Wednesday morning I was in full agreement with the wise and wonderful subconscious woman who resided deep inside my head.

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 13

The idea had come early Monday morning as I was drafting a scene in Real Justice.  Stella Gibson (a place-holder name I had temporarily borrowed from The Fall, a British-Irish crime drama television series filmed and set in Northern Ireland) my protagonist, was the new editor of the Times-Courier newspaper in Ellijay, Georgia (in a prior scene I had described her as simply ‘a secretary.’  Oh, the fluidity of fiction writing).  Stella, my Stella, made The Fall’s Stella look like the grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find.  I, as her creator, wasn’t the only one who had taken notice of the stunningly beautiful Stella Gibson.  The five most influential leaders of Ellijay, Georgia also were noticing and commenting on the Chicago transplant.  Why did it always have to be five?  This is what had triggered my idea. 

I was at the beginning of writing another book.  It seemed I simply couldn’t get away from my own life experiences, especially the barbaric attack I had endured.  My first book, Out of the Darkness, had its roots in what had happened to Darla, but it had, unknowingly to me at the time, foreshadowed my own traumatic experience during the 2002 Christmas holidays.  Out of the Darkness II or Real Justice, whatever I ultimately decided to call it, seemed deeply rooted in not only the gang-rape I had suffered, but what followed.  I didn’t know what was coming.  Just like my Stella didn’t.  Just like real people in real life don’t.  This was only part of my new idea. 

A most exciting component was to cross-pollinate the thought into my teaching.  I had been struggling over what type of writing project I would assign to my Creative Writing class.  For nearly twenty years I had guided my students in two major projects for the school year. I had guided them, a semester at a time, to create a publishable-quality short story.  Now, as the thought of what Stella might have to do—I already knew her life in Ellijay would not be enjoyable to put it mildly—to serve real justice on five prominent men in her community, I felt compelled to involve my students.  Why couldn’t they help write a novel instead of a short story?  Why not let this assignment be an all-year project?  I would have about 150 co-authors.  Better put, each student’s novel, Real Justice I could call it now, would no doubt be unique. 

As I left the basement I liked my idea, but it was a little premature to announce to my classes.  I had to further analyze the pros and cons.  A discussion with Cindy would be a good place to start. 

I didn’t see Cindy until lunch.  We normally saw each other for at least ten minutes during our separate planning periods.  She said she had been summoned to Assistant Principal Wilkins’ office during the break at 10:30 a.m.  I could tell she was not herself.  Her face was more red than usual even though she was a natural redhead, meaning she had a few freckles, each one adorable and uniquely beautiful.  She also seemed a little disheveled.  Something totally unlike the prim and proper Cindy.

“Where have you been?  I missed you during planning.  I had a world-changing idea to run by you.”  I said as I unpacked my lunch box continuing to eye Cindy sitting across my desk looking at a bottle of Sprite, as though she was trying to figure out how to open the lid.

“It finally happened.”  She said ignoring her Sprite and looking at herself in a little compact that appeared from nowhere.

“What are you talking about?  What happened?”

“The sex pervert Wilkins assaulted me.  In his office.”  Cindy was fighting a losing battle.  She was trying to freshen-up her face but was overcome with the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh my God. Are you okay?”

“I am, but it was the most horrible thing I’ve ever endured.”

“What can I do to help?  Go with you to report it to Mr. Harrison?  Go with you to see the police?”

“No, I’m not doing anything.”

“Cindy, you have to.  This confirms it.  He is a predator.  He’s been grooming me.  I think that’s what it’s called.  Almost since the first day of school.  Nothing overt, but definitely improper words, touches, looks.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?  I thought we were friends, real friends, and could tell each other anything and everything.  Don’t you see what I’m doing here?”  Cindy said, starting to gain control of her crying.

“I should have.  I now wish I had.  And, we are friends.  I am so thankful for you, Steve, and your triple A’s.”

“I need to tell you how he pulled this off.  I’m not talking about my blouse.”  Cindy said standing up and straightening her top, tucking it deeper into her skirt band.  “Since I’m not telling Harrison or the police I want someone to know what happened before time passes and my memory fads.”

“I understand and I’m listening if you want to talk.”

“At the end of Third he sent a note by one of the student volunteers for me to come to his office at the end of class.  The note didn’t say anything else.  Just as I walked into his office the fire bell rang.  You know that.”

“I do.  It was a madhouse.  Our second fire-drill of the year.”

“Wilkins ignored it as everybody in the main office was rushing out.  He told me to come in that it was urgent and would only take a minute.  I walked in and he closed his door behind me.  Locked it and looked at me from foot to head.  I can’t describe his eyes, but they were like those of a shark racing to devour an injured child, thrashing about in the ocean, bleeding and helpless.  I knew right then I was in trouble.”  Cindy sat down, as her face turned white as snow.

“Cindy, you don’t have to do this right now.  You look sick.”

“I’m okay.  He then pushed me against the wall across from his desk and planted a big sloppy kiss on my lips.  I tried resisting but he was way too strong.  His left hand pulled up my blouse and, in an instant, was fondling my breasts.  I tried to scream but he kept kissing me.  I tried to knee him but the way he had me pinned I was helpless.  Then, he switched hands.  His left did most of the pinning and his right pulled up my skirt on my left side.  He was trying to pull down my panties when two things saved me.  His desk phone rang, and someone knocked on his door.  One of the student volunteers said, “Mr. Wilkins, are you okay?  Mr. Harrison is looking for you.”

“What happened next?”  I said not wanting to be too anxious to hear.

“He said, ‘organize yourself and sit down.’  I didn’t do either.  At first.  He then said, ‘you better not report this, or you’ll regret it.  I’ve known for over a year that you’ve been wanting me.’”

“Oh my gosh, the arrogance and evil of the man.  To think, he is always playing his Christian card.  On top of that, he’s the Education Director at the Church.  I said, not sure why I told Cindy what she already knew.

“Do you mind if I say a prayer?”

It wasn’t a statement I expected.  Something like, ‘I’m going to kill the bastard,’ or worse, whatever that would be, was much more anticipated.

“Sure, if that’s what you want.”

Cindy called for us to bow our heads.  She breathed a beautiful prayer, even asking God to help her forgive Mr. Wilkins.  The part I could not agree with was Cindy’s confession of all sins she had committed including someway teasing Mr. Wilkins by how she had dressed and acted.  It was like Cindy was blaming herself.  She also asked God to help Mr. Wilkins surrender his urges and walk the high road of decency and respect.  Cindy was a beautiful example of a child of God.  Certainly, she was unlike me and probably most women who, placed in similar shoes, would be sharpening their knives.

When she ended her prayer, she looked over at me and said, “let’s eat, I’m starved.”

We did not get much planning done during our remaining twenty minutes.  She continued to talk about how good a friend I am, and that she was always there for me, always available to listen.  Something shifted inside me, like a tectonic move.  I believed her every word.  I was relieved when the bell rang because I was as close to divulging, for the first time, the biggest secret of my life.  I was that confident I could tell Cindy anything and she would guard it with her life.  Thankfully, I resisted.  Today wasn’t the day.

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 12

It was Saturday morning before I watched Darla’s videotape.  I had been so eager Wednesday afternoon coming home with the School’s VCR I hadn’t considered the how and where.  How was I going to watch it?  I think I had that part figured out.  I had researched how to connect the VCR unit to the TV.  I was thankful Patrick had handed me the cable even though our hands had touched.  The bigger question was the where.  Where was I going to watch it?  There were only two TV’s in the house.  One was in the den, the big screen TV.  The other was in Nanny’s room.  That was easy enough.  I rarely thought as good as I wrote.  Writing is the tool of thinking someone had said long ago.  I wished I had taken the time to explore the simple activity of me watching Darla’s tape.  I would have discovered earlier there was a third relevant question.  When was I going to watch her video?

After church Wednesday night (my promise to Cullie), a parent-teacher open house at school Thursday night, and pizza and a movie at Cindy and Steve’s last night there hadn’t been any good time for me to sneak inside the den after everyone had gone to bed.  I was glad Cullie had stayed overnight with Alysa.  I was also thankful that Saturday morning had two other routines: Sammie’s pancakes, and her and Nanny’s weekly trip to Walmart.  The when had been answered without a hitch.

The VCR/TV hookup was easy.  The tape was clear.  And, shocking.  For some reason I had contemplated the tape would be a copy of an old movie, maybe something one of Darla’s friends had recorded for her.  Darla had packed it in her suitcase to share with Cullie and maybe even me.  I had been wrong.  Thoughts often are.  Darla’s tape was almost as horrible as the time it happened.  It made me relive the worst two to three hours of my life.  Ryan did all the taping.  He was the only one not visible at any time on the video.  That certainly didn’t mean he wasn’t there.  It would have taken much more than a black hood over my head to prevent me from knowing it was his body, his big, hairy body, that hurt me the most.  His voice, not his words, but his groans and moans, breathing into my ear was nearly as bad as enduring the two times of unprotected sex.  The first of the taping was done outside the tent, like Ryan was recording a scene in a horror movie.  He followed behind Warren and Fulton and Danny and Justin.  All of them, either leading me by the hand or groping my butt.

I watched the tape two times, often fast-forwarding.  That itself showed I was an idiot and once again intent on leaping off life’s track into the abyss below.  Why did I choose to watch certain portions of the tape and avoid others?  Wasn’t it all equally horrible?  A glass-breaking sound from the kitchen was the disturbance I needed to refocus.  It turned out it was only Sergeant Tibbs, Nanny’s cat, named after the cat in 101 Dalmatians.  He had knocked over Cindy’s bouquet that I had brought home from school and placed on the kitchen table.  After rearranging the flowers and mopping a half-gallon of water off the floor, I returned to the den and disconnected the VCR.  After returning it to the trunk of my car, I hid the videotape in my room behind my collection of Literature textbooks I had collected over my twenty-year teaching career.  Sammie and Nanny would return within an hour from their weekly trip to Walmart’s Smart-Style Hair Salon, and grocery shopping.

I grabbed a Blue Book, my standard 12 sheet, 24-page stapled notepad I had used both in and out of the classroom since I first started teaching.  Many of my college professors had used these for student exams but Emily Fink had, as usual, expanded my thinking, learning, and teaching horizons.  Emily had said to keep a healthy supply of these, at home and in your classroom.  When a question arises that isn’t as simple as whether to buy vanilla or chocolate ice-cream, pull out a Blue Book and find yourself a quiet and private corner.  Write your way to solid rationality.  I descended the basement stairs and headed to the most stable corner of my world.

Only writers would know the feeling.  Writers write.  Many things can prompt them to write but when something startling happens, the need to make sense of it is something, I suspect, akin to the chemicals at work in an athlete just before the start of a championship game.  Testosterone?  I’m not sure.  Discovering this video was life-changing.  That became the first sentence I wrote in my Blue-Book.  Words came.  I let them flow out of my mind, through my hand, and onto both sides of every one of the 12 sheets of paper.  Some writers called it free-thought writing, others called it brainstorming, and even others called it stream of consciousness writing.  I called it framing.

After nearly an hour of near none-stop writing I sat back and closed my eyes.  For five minutes.  Then, I reread what I had written.  Yes, not only for me, but also for the five men, those I now readily referred to as the Faking Five.  Obviously, they had known about the video, at least of its original creation.  But, they had never known that I had known of its existence.  They still didn’t know.  The second time re-reading my Blue Book scribblings I stopped on a question that I had underlined, ‘do the Faking Five now know I have the video?”  I had tried to answer this question over the next page and a half.  I had not reached a definitive answer, but I realized the likelihood that Darla had somehow discovered the video and had intended to share it with me.  Why else would she have packed it in her suitcase?  My second rereading spawned a new question.  ‘Had Darla actually watched the videotape?’  My answer leaned towards a no.  How would she?  Had she had access to a VCR?  Now, I was seeing the possibilities she had.

Was this tape what Ryan and Justin had been looking for?  Was it why Darla had called, almost begging me to come get her?  I recalled the urgency in her voice.  She had truly wanted me to come immediately to get her.  If I hadn’t been so selfish, Darla might still be alive.  As I walked slowly up the basement stairs all I could think about was how the lives of five local leaders, highly respected Boaz citizens, would never be the same.  I didn’t have a clue what I would do with or about the videotape but now I had proof, tangible proof, that I had been raped during the 2002 Christmas holidays.

Sunday morning came too quickly.  Even before the discovery of Darla’s videotape I had a nagging feeling of regret, of regretting promising Cullie I would give church a try.  Her interest started the last year in New York City.  She was in the eighth grade and several of her friends had inspired her to start attending St. Bart’s on Park Avenue, an Episcopalian church that was not only architecturally beautiful, but in all appearances, was fully committed to providing comfort, challenge and inspiration to a growing crowd of people in search of meaning and hope for their lives.  I had attended a few times but had always let Emily shoulder the responsibilities of carting her daughter Ellen and my Cullie to and from the historic church.

As I drove Cullie to First Baptist Church of Christ I recommitted to fulfilling my promise.  Promises were vital to a healthy mother-daughter relationship.  Following through was even more important.  As I dropped Cullie off for Sunday School youth group I told her I loved her and that I would be back for preaching after an hour in my classroom.  “When are you going to come to Bible Study?”  She had asked while grabbing her Bible and getting out of my car.  “Soon, maybe.  I promise I will ask Cindy about her Sunday School class.”  Driving to Boaz High School I realized I had made yet another promise.  I had to be careful what I said, the commitments I made.

The worship hour took on a whole new meaning.  Sitting in the balcony with Cindy and Steve gave me the perfect vantage, one any assassin would envy.  Although I wasn’t a killer physically, I was beginning to cozy up to the friendly characters who had slithered into my head since watching Darla’s video.  Everywhere I looked, I could see one of the Faking Five.  Ryan and Justin sat on the back row in the choir loft, probably singing bass.  Fulton sat on the second row in the section to the right of Warren behind the pulpit.  Danny was one of ten men who took up the offering, and the only one a few minutes later who stood by Warren and prayed that “Christ be honored through our pastor today and that many would surrender to His loving promises.”  I let it go but was confused whether Danny had referred to the pastor’s or Christ’s loving promises.

The sermon was from the book of Acts and Saul’s Damascus Road experience.  I only half-listened.  I kept trying to determine whether I needed to make any type promises.  To myself.  Should I promise myself that I would carefully consider whether to take Darla’s videotape to the District Attorney, or whether to simply let it be?  These were the first two options that sprung quickly to my mind.  I knew there were others.

As Warren concluded the altar call, unsuccessful from my vantage, I reached the temporary conclusion I wouldn’t do anything.  That changed when I palmed Warren another message as I followed Cindy and Steve out the front door.  This time, eight words.  “Videotape quality is amazing.  Perched like an assassin.”  The reason that convinced me I needed to update Warren and thereby his other four comrades was to lessen the danger to Cullie and me, and possibly Nanny and Sammie.  After my “I know” message (which was rather stupid of me) they would have every reason without caution to eliminate me.  Now, they might be reluctant.  If they knew I had the tape and that it was strategically located they might keep their distance, worrying that if they harmed me they would automatically be exposed.

This time, I investigated Warren’s eyes after I handed him my note.  No deer in the headlights had ever looked so frightened.  It was priceless.

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 11

Wednesday morning, I got up at 4:30 a.m. as though yesterday hadn’t happened, and I had slept soundly for my usual four or five hours per night.  I had hardly slept at all, but I knew the more I allowed my routine to change the more likely I would slide off track, into the abyss that had almost destroyed me more than once.  I grabbed my coffee and descended the basement stairs.  It was one of those glorious mornings.  They didn’t happen every day but when they did I already knew the gods had favored me.  I already had a scene bouncing around in my head.  It had come forth during the night, gently settling into my subconsciousness.  The scene virtually wrote itself.  My only regret was it was only 700 words, 300 short of my daily goal.  I would accept it with unconditioned thankfulness.  My justification was I needed to ponder what had prompted Darla to choose Out of the Darkness as one of the novels she had packed inside her suitcase.

It was the copy I had given her when she and Nanny had flown to Washington, D.C. to see me awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in the Great Hall of the Folger Shakespeare Library.  That was April 2002.  I couldn’t recall a single time Darla had ever mentioned my first and only bestseller, much less ever had engaged in a discussion of its contents.  I had always assumed she hadn’t read it.  I almost hadn’t brought it down to the basement with me.  For some reason I had willingly violated my most important rule: never get distracted before you’ve written your daily goal.  The rule was negative.  Don’t do this, don’t do that.  Don’t check my email.  Don’t check Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.  And, even more negative than that, don’t carry anything into my writing space that could tempt me to distraction.  This morning, Out of the Darkness had figuratively blocked my bedroom doorway before I could head to the kitchen for coffee (not a distraction).  It’s like the book had jumped from the old rocking chair beside my bedroom door, spread its wings, and leaped into my arms.  It had said, ‘I’m here for a reason,’ and then it had asked, ‘is it a positive or a negative reason?’  I never ceased to be amazed at how my mind worked.  How it seemed I had little control over my thoughts.

The dust jacket had been removed.  I could have easily spent the remaining thirty minutes in my writing closet pondering why.  What was it about the long, winding driveway leading to the faint image of a cabin in the woods that Darla hadn’t liked?  She had thrown away the full colored, thick covering.  Or, maybe it had just gotten lost.  Either way, there was a message or two here, one I would likely never discover.  Inside the hardback book, on the first blank page, Darla had written, “But for the darkness I would not recognize the light.”  I quickly concluded this was a quote, but Darla hadn’t used quotation marks.  Unsurprising.  She likely was unconcerned about the niceties and nuances related to the rules of grammar.  She had read the phrase somewhere, maybe heard it on Oprah or some other talk show she loved.  Or, it was Darla’s attempt at being religious.  I did seem to recall from my long-ago days in youth group at Tillman Temple (another phrase that hadn’t entered my mind in over twenty-five years) Jesus had said something similar. ‘The light penetrates the darkness; it can’t resist it’ or something like that.  I think it was in the Gospel of John.  I’d check later.

On the next blank page Darla had written.  “Unlike Trevor, I will never escape the darkness.”  She had read the book, at least enough to know my protagonist and how my story had ended.  After I was so viciously attacked in December 2002 I often had thought that Out of the Darkness had been an omen of sorts.  I had written it and received national awards and acclaim for it months before the worst experience of my life, yet the entire book seemed to foreshadow what I would endure.  It was like I had a premonition all during the years it had taken me to create the novel that had spent ten weeks on the New York Times Best Seller’s list.  Ultimately, I had concluded it was a mere coincidence.  Doesn’t everybody have a dark time in their life?  One emotional trauma, often one born out of physical trauma, that defines that life?  An event that changes everything about them?  Even though Trevor’s experience, being falsely accused of killing his girlfriend and spending ten years enduring sexual abuse in prison, was radically different from Darla’s, it seemed from her statement that her nightmare continued.

“I can’t believe you are here.”  Cindy said at 7:00 a.m. coming into my classroom.  She was carrying a beautiful bouquet with white lilies, white roses and white mini carnations, all interspersed with some lush greens.  The blue glass vase was stunning.

“The last thing I need is sitting around feeling sorry for myself as I wait on the autopsy.  That may take a week.”

“I hope you are okay with flowers.  I also hope you know how truly sorry I am.  The bouquet was Steve and Alysa’s idea.”

“They’re beautiful.  Thanks for caring.”  I hugged Cindy and gave the flowers to Cullie coming out of my office.  “Honey, please put these on my desk.”

“Did you know that Darla was sick?”  Cindy asked.

“She had told me yesterday morning that she couldn’t drive right now, that her doctor had told her it was state law after a person passes out.  No driving for six months, then only if no further incidents.  She had called me to come get her at Raymond’s house.  I’m hating myself this morning for not caring enough for my own mother to fulfill one simple request.”

“Don’t beat yourself up.  God is mysterious.  He already knew it was Darla’s time.  You couldn’t have stopped Him.”  Cindy said as though she had just gotten off the phone with the God of the universe.

“I wish I had your faith.  It looks as innocent and beautiful as those gorgeous flowers.”  When I said this, my ‘I wish’ statement, I truly meant it.  It shocked me.  For nearly twenty-five years I had been like Jonah in the Old Testament, running from God.

“It’s coming dear.  You just wait.  I’m praying for you every day.  I got to run.  See you at lunch?”  Cindy said walking towards a growing crowd of noisy students beginning to interact around opening and closing lockers.

“Lunch it is.”

My first three classes were good in two respects.  Many of the students had heard about Darla’s death.  They had shared their condolences, Clara and Ben had even come to the front, hugged me, and asked if there was anything they could do.

The second good thing was from a literary standpoint.  Student participation in our class discussion of O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find was widespread, something I had not seen or even imagined so far in nearly two weeks at Boaz High.  I think it might have had something to do with the teams I had established, student assistants as secondary teachers.  More likely it was the Facebook groups I had set up, requiring one-hundred percent student participation.  I owed the idea solely to Emily Fink, an award-winning English teacher at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City.  She had shown me the art of student engagement by revealing how she interacted with every one of her students.  She said it was like having a one-on-one private session.  The gist of it was a private group was formed for each class.  Every student was required to join.  I would pose a question to the group.  Initially, responses were voluntary.  The hope was for viral like participation.  If that didn’t occur I would call on my student teachers to weigh in.  At least half of them had to or I would start calling names.  At the end of a student-teacher response (the Facebook term is ‘Comment’) she would simply tag one of her assignees.

Yesterday’s question was, ‘what makes a person good?’  I had added, ‘if you choose, comment on whether the grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find, was good?’ Emily Fink was not your typical Literature instructor.  Nor was I.  Neither of us believed a student had to deliver an answer, one that reconciled with most literary scholars.  Each student’s thought ignited a conversation that made Emily Fink the envy of the most creative high school English teacher.

Tenth-grader Clara Ellington had been the first to respond, “it depends on who you ask.  I suspect everyone thinks herself good.  It’s easier to say the Misfit was bad, pure evil.  Good and evil are opposites.  Treating everyone with respect makes one good.  The grandmother was not evil, but she annoyed me to death.  Therefore, she wasn’t good, or, at least, was missing some necessary ingredient.”  Ben Gilbert had responded.  He was one of Clara’s students.  “Asking a person whether he is good is like asking the fox if he is guarding the chickens.  You won’t receive a reliable answer.  There must be a standard.  For me, the Bible sets out what makes a person good.  Without it, all is relative.  It is subjective.  The grandmother was not good.  But, she did think she was good.”

From there, forty other students had chimed in.  Before coming to class this morning, I was speechless over the response from my first Facebook question.  I made a mental note to email Emily and thank her.  This new teaching method wasn’t going to be easy.  If I did my job right, I needed to read every comment and reply often when it seemed some thread was going derailing.

By the end of the day, I decided to expand my newly discovered teaching nugget to my other two classes.  Cullie was already in my room after the last bell rang when I remembered I wanted to borrow a VCR to watch Darla’s videocassette tape I had found in her suitcase.  For once, I was glad to see Patrick Wilkins.  He was more than eager to accompany me to the dark little room behind the drama department’s stage. After ten minutes of the two of us alternately climbing a step-stool, reaching up and over a dusty inventory of mostly antiquated stereos, reel-to-reels, and RCA camcorders, he eyed me from the tips of my shoes to the top of my head as he peered down at me holding an old Panasonic.  Walking to my car with the heavy VCR with Cullie complaining it could not be as heavy as the book-bag she was toting, I no longer doubted Patrick Wilkins entertained erotic desires for every inch of my body.

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 10

“You two dumb asses.  In broad daylight.  Are ya’ll just itching to go to jail for the rest of your lives?”  Fulton said as he walked inside the cabin.  Ryan and Justin were sitting at a round, hundred-plus year oak table.  Warren was still outside on the porch finishing a phone call on his cell.

“We didn’t have time to plot this out.  When Justin and I discovered the tape was missing we knew that Darla knew.”  Ryan said standing and leaning against the kitchen sink.

“I think we got lucky.”  Warren said appearing in the open doorway from the porch.  “My contact in Germany says the combination of Clonidine, Xanax, and alcohol in the right proportions can be a deadly cocktail for anyone, but more so for someone suffering from Syncope.”

“Well duh.  We already knew that.  She’s dead as old Abe.”  Ryan said looking over at Justin.

“Where’s Danny?”  Justin asked sipping the last drops of his third Bud Light.

“He had a late closing and was running by to see Ralph Williams.  Don’t worry, the visit won’t raise any suspicions.  Danny said Ralph had asked him last week about the ten-acre pasture for sale across the road from him.”  Warren said accepting a beer from Justin.

“Okay, let’s sit down and review every detail of what’s happened.”  Fulton said looking around the room and imagining his ancestors gathering around this same table to discuss business deals and unfortunately, things more sinister.

Club Eden, as it was called, was not only the name for the private 289-acre tract of land on the southwest side of Aurora Lake, but also the unofficial name of the organization formed in the 1890’s by five families who had immigrated from Georgia and settled in Boaz ten years earlier.  Five generations separated Fulton, Warren, Ryan, Justin, and Danny from their original forebears.  Each of them hoped the crazy evil stunt they pulled in 2002 wasn’t about to be revealed.

“Let’s start with the tape.  I thought it was destroyed fifteen years ago.  That was the agreement.”  Fulton said, looking over at Ryan.

“Maybe he forgot.  Granddad, Raymond, was a pack rat.  No one would have ever known about our private little session with Katie if Raymond hadn’t been coming out of Aurora Market when we left here.  You all remember.  We had to confess.  Damn, he followed Justin’s van and saw us toss Katie out at the deserted end of town.  This was just one of a dozen mistakes we all made that night.  I’m talking about how and where we left Katie.  More stupid than that was videotaping our little romp.”

“Why in the hell did Raymond keep the tape?  I doubt it’s because he’s a hoarder.”  Warren asked.

“Maybe he was into porn.”  Danny said, like Warren earlier, silently appearing in the cabin’s open doorway.  “You guys might want to be a little more careful.  I parked on the other side of our bridge just to see if I could sneak up on you lamebrains.  Guess what?  I did, and I just heard you talking about the tape.”

“Point taken.  Right?”  Fulton said looking first at Danny and then at the other three sitting around the table.

“I’ve heard Dad talk enough about Raymond to know he was as cunning as they come.  Granddad probably believed the tape was some type of insurance, that he could use it to protect me if need be.  You do recall that I’m not shown in the video.”  Ryan said.

“You were doing the taping and turned it off when you were having your turns with Katie.  You are as cunning and disloyal to the rest of us as Raymond was.”  Warren said.

“Whatever reason Raymond had for retaining the tape, it was a bad decision.  The bottom line is the tape still exists.  Back to Darla.  Are you sure you didn’t leave any evidence that can come back to haunt us?”  Fulton asked, looking at both Ryan and Justin.

“No. None.” Ryan declared.  “By the way, there is a limit to loyalty.  You all know that.”

“I’m confused as usual.”  Warren said writing something on his notepad.  “Why were the two of you at Raymond’s to begin with?”

“I had visited granddad two days earlier.  He asked me to visit Darla but also to bring back his will.  When I opened the safe I saw the videotape and started to take it but for some reason didn’t.  When I went back to see Raymond yesterday, to take his will, he gave me another one, a new one I guess, and asked me to store it in his safe.  I guess he had his lawyers make a change or two.  I didn’t read it.  This time I took Justin along to occupy Darla.  When I was in his study and opened the safe I noticed the videotape was missing.  I knew it had to be Darla.  I confronted her about it and she blew up.  Apparently, she either knew the safe combination or figured it out after seeing me there two days ago.”  Ryan looked at Justin as though to prod him to take over describing what happened next.

“We had hoped Darla would still be in bed and wouldn’t know we were there.  That’s why we had gone so early.  After her and Ryan got into their screaming match, Ryan and I walked back to Raymond’s study.  Then, we heard her on the phone.  We figured she was calling Katie.  We couldn’t let her get the tape to Katie.

“I doubt if I would have done anything different.” Danny said.  Darla was clearly a threat.  If it weren’t for the stupid tape, we were in the clear.  Even if Katie came forward and accused us all of rape, we could simply deny it.  It would be her word against ours.”

“Unless, she knows which one of us is the father of Cullie.”  Justin added.

“That still wouldn’t be our downfall.  If I were the father I could say that Katie and I had an affair.  Not good for my reputation but a hell better than going to prison.”  Danny said.

“So, you fed Darla her prescription meds?”  Fulton asked.

“By the handful.  Also, made her drink nearly half a bottle of Jack Daniels.”  Ryan said popping open another Bud Light from the twelve pack on the table.

“That’s all you gave her?  The Clonidine, Xanax, and alcohol?”  Warren asked.  Nothing else?

“We’re apparently all dumb asses.  Maybe it’s the beer but here’s the million-dollar question.  Where in the hell is the videotape?”  Fulton asked throwing a half full bottle of beer into a garbage can.

“We didn’t have much time to look, but it has to still be at Raymond’s.  We know from a review of the security system that Darla never left the house after Ryan first removed Raymond’s old will, two days ago.”  Justin said.

“Other than leaving the house dead when we took her out yesterday morning.”  Ryan added.

“That was assumed dumb ass.”  Justin added, confident that his best friend knew he was only joking about his mental acuity.

“We darn well better find that tape.  I suspect that if anything suspicious turns up in Darla’s autopsy that law enforcement will be searching her house.  We cannot allow that tape to be discovered.  It could ruin us all.”  Warren said scribbling rapidly in his notebook.

“Ryan and I will go back to Raymond’s tonight soon as we leave here.  We’ll find the tape.”  Justin said attempting to assure the others there was nothing to worry about.

“One other thing, Danny, what did Ralph Williams say?  Any problems there?”  Fulton asked Danny who had walked over and plopped down on a leather couch while typing a text.

“We lucked out.  Ralph said he was in the house on the phone with his son in Houston for over an hour.  Said he came out to his barn around 8:15 and had just gotten on his tractor to move a bale of hay to the pasture when he saw what he first thought was a bunch of ducks lined up along the edge of the pond.  He said he drove on down and before he got through the gate he could tell it was a body.  He also said he hadn’t seen any traffic going past his place.”  Danny said just as his cell phone rang. 

It was Tuesday night, near midnight, two hours after everyone had gone to bed and the house was finally still, that Katie walked outside, opened the trunk of her car, and rolled Darla’s stuffed suitcase inside.  After removing clothes, shoes, a large toiletry bag, three novels, a couple of journals, and a videotape, Katie went to bed hoping the Audio-Visual Department at school would have an old eight-track video player she could borrow.

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 9

Yesterday afternoon after Cullie and I arrived home from school, we sat with Nanny and Sammie in the den.  I was contemplating exactly how to break the horrible news to my 89-year-old grandmother when Sammie said, “she already knows.  That damn police scanner that I thought I had hidden from her.  She must have dug it out while Verna was here.  Early afternoon Nanny had said, ‘no need to go get Darla, she’s dead.’  The scanner was tucked under a blanket beside her chair.  She must’ve had the volume turned down when I wasn’t doing chores.”

In a way this had not surprised or alarmed me.  Two weeks ago, when I had tagged along with Sammie and Nanny to see her doctor, he had said that at times she would seem normal, but this would become less and less frequent.  Usually, she would be a mix of bizarre and mundane.  If Nanny’s conduct last night was normal she sure didn’t seem to possess much love and sympathy for Darla, her only daughter.  If her conduct was bizarre her statement to Sammie about no need to go get Darla fit the bill.  The only thing that seemed like the mix the doctor mentioned was Nanny’s statement, “turn on The Walton’s, I want to see if Ike Godsey kills Mary Ellen, my darling Darla.”  Mundanely bizarre indeed.

After the four of us ate Sammie’s delicious chicken salad on TV trays in the den I excused myself and went to my room.  Cullie disappeared to the front porch to listen to her iPod and text Alysa.  Ryan Radford’s wife Karla answered on the second ring.  I was a little surprised their home phone number was listed in the phone book.  He didn’t seem to be the type who would give his customers at Radford Hardware and Building Supply easy access to him, especially after business hours.  I had told Karla who I was and asked to speak to Ryan.  I could hear him in the background.  The two of them talking.  I thought I heard him say, “tell her I’m busy.”  After a minute or more, he said, “hello, this is Ryan.”

“Ryan, this is Katie Sims, Darla’s daughter.”

“Katie, I know who you are.  I’m sorry about your mother.  I just got back from telling granddad the horrible news.  I’m hoping the District Attorney will finally grant him a bond, at least to come to the funeral.”

Raymond Radford was one of five local men who were facing criminal charges.  Everything from sex trafficking to murder.  The news had shocked the community since these were the deep-rooted leaders that seemed to control every aspect of religious and business life around Boaz.  I couldn’t help but recall the other time Raymond Radford had shocked local folks.  In 1973, he had ditched Cynthia, his wife of twenty years, and token-up with Darla, my mother.  She was still a teenager, the same age as Randall, Raymond’s son.  I suspected that in many places these type events would have ruined a man like Raymond, but not in Boaz.  It was like he, along with the other four fathers of the Flaming Five, and their sons, was immune to citizen criticism.  We’d have to see how the criminal justice system dealt with Raymond and his four peers.

“I need inside the house, to see if Darla left anything that would indicate how sick she was.  Can you let me in?”  I didn’t figure Ryan would agree but I had to ask.  At first, before I had called, I thought about going straight over and trying to break in.  A criminal charge was the last thing I needed.  As I sat and waited for Ryan to respond I was torn whether to go to the sprawling mansion at the end of Lindo Drive in the Country Club subdivision.  I hadn’t been except for one time, and then only inside the front foyer.  For some reason, Darla hadn’t wanted me to see how comfortable a life she had.  I guess she had known how it would make me feel, especially given how she had rejected me and chosen Raymond and his riches over her duty as a mother.

“I will meet you there in twenty minutes.  I have to be somewhere at 8:30.”

I had arrived at 7:20 and was relieved that Ryan let me in the front door and left.  He said he would be back in thirty minutes.  I spent ten minutes touring the entire house, in awe over the expensive antiques and art work.  I wasn’t an expert but several of the paintings on the wall appeared to be original.  The master bedroom was on the first floor beyond a short hallway and a large study.  I first searched the bathroom for pill bottles hoping to discover the medications Darla was taking.

The only prescription bottle I found was a drug called Clonidine.  This didn’t tell me anything, but I found a document, Your Personal Prescription Information, on an oak washstand beside the double vanity in the giant bathroom.  Scanning the document, I learned Clonidine ‘allows your blood vessels to relax and your heart to beat more slowly and easily’ and ‘clonidine is used to treat hypertension (high blood pressure).’  Here, I stopped reading knowing I didn’t have unlimited time to linger.  The only other drugs in the medicine cabinet were bottles of Aleve, Tylenol, and Aspirin.

I walked out of the bathroom and towards a sliding glass door that opened to a private balcony even though this was the first floor.  On a little wicker table in the corner I found a brochure that was titled Syncope.  A quick peek inside told me this was a condition that caused a temporary loss of consciousness.  I concluded that was why Darla had been prescribed the Clonidine.

When I walked back inside I noticed a pull-type suitcase in the corner behind a lounging chair.  On the end table beside the chair were two TV Guides, a novel by Andrea Preston, and a stack of newspapers, the top one being the New York Times.  I had not known Darla was much of a reader.

It was now almost 7:45 and Ryan would likely return within a few minutes.  I’m not sure what prompted me to do it, but I rolled the large suitcase outside and hid it in the trunk of my car.  I didn’t want Ryan to know I had taken anything.  He arrived less than a minute later.  I was standing on the front porch reading more about Clonidine.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”  He said as he was locking the deadbolt on the front door.

“I did.  Looks like Darla suffered from a condition that caused her to pass out.  I found this bottle.  I’m guessing she got disoriented and wandered over to Ralph Williams’ pond.  Probably then she passed out and never regained consciousness.”  I held up the pill bottle for Ryan to see what I had taken.

“I have to go.  Let me know if you need anything else.  Oh, I hate that I have not said this before.  I’m sorry for your loss.  Darla was a sweet lady and was always good to me.  By the way, don’t worry, I’ll make sure all her funeral costs will be taken care of.”

With that, Ryan had driven away leaving me standing at the bottom of the front porch stairs.  His final statement made me ponder Darla’s will and what type of financial relationship she and Raymond had.  Surely, he would have loved her enough to make sure she was taken care of if he had predeceased Darla.  But, that hadn’t happened.

As I had driven home my stomach had grown more and more nauseous.  What would happen to Nanny?  Would Sammie’s caregiver costs continue to be paid?  My mind had changed when I turned in Nanny’s long driveway and saw Cullie still sitting on the front porch.  No matter what, my primary goal in life wouldn’t change.  I would do whatever it took to take care of my precious daughter.  Although I would do everything I could for Nanny, she would never displace the time and attention I would give the child whose presence continually showed me that good can come from evil.

At 10:30, Cullie and I had gone inside after having spent the prior two-plus hours talking, really talking.  It was the best mother-daughter conversation we had had since moving back to Boaz.  I went to bed early, wanting my dreams to center around Cullie’s openness to share her concerns and the roller-coaster that most every ninth-grade girl finds herself buckled to.  I forgot all about the suitcase stuffed inside the trunk of my car.