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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 31

May 1971

The number I heard was 1,837.  This was the number of folks who had walked through the six degrees of hell during the three presentations of Judgment House.  The other number, the most important, was 129.  This, according to Pastor Walter on Sunday morning, was the number of souls who were saved from eternal fire and torture in Hell’s pit.  Only about six percent of these were adults.  The remainder were mostly teenagers although there were twenty or thirty around the age of ten, the minimum age the Church allowed into the scariest show on earth.  It was comforting to see firsthand the love and kindness shown to those children nine and under.  It was almost like these Baptist fundamentalists realized their little show might inflict mental harm on such young minds.  If only they had applied their rule to everyone.  I had always thought it rather odd that there is no ‘Hell’ in the Old Testament.  It was introduced in the New Testament, I suspect, as a marketing tool, one that most folks, especially in a day of widespread ignorance of how the world worked, were simply afraid not to believe.

It rarely ever happened.  This morning, Brother Walter announced there would be no services tonight.  His justification, one no doubt God himself had communicated to the zealous pastor, was that everyone needed some rest.  The valiant effort by adults and teenagers alike had taken a toll.  Everyone was exhausted from two weeks of preparation and what seemed like a thirty-two-hour marathon beginning Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m.  When I heard this good news from the pulpit, I wasn’t tired at all.  I had known this since late last night when Olivia and I, and Brother Randy, were closing Hell.  She had whispered to me this news and suggested we start our first date.  She said it would be a sort of trial run.  She was fully committed to our original plan: supper (what she called it) at Dairy Queen and Shane at the Martin Theater.  I had given her no resistance to an afternoon of dating practice.

I picked Olivia up in my Corvair on Elm Street beside the parking lot that is the furthest from the parsonage.  When she got in the car she said that she thought she was going to have to call me with a change of plans.  At the last minute, Betty, her Mom, had interjected some assistance, encouraging Pastor Walter to his Sunday afternoon nap an hour earlier than normal.

“I thought you could start dating when you turned 15.”  It was not unusual at all for me to be confused when it came to Olivia and her house rules.

“You left off one word, supervised.”  Olivia said pouring her baby blues into my heart.  She was gorgeous no matter the time of day, what she was wearing, or whatever her mood.  She truly didn’t need makeup.  Her skin wasn’t dark, but it had a hue and glow to it, especially after an hour or so in the sun that made me imagine what the goddess of love would look like.  Today, she had on jeans, a little tighter than normal, an old Boaz Pirate practice jersey, and a thick, unbuttoned denim shirt, probably Wade’s.  She had her long and silky blond hair pulled back.

“Then how are we getting to go out next Friday night?  Is Papa Bear coming along?”

“No, not exactly, but we will be monitored no doubt.  Probably Wade and his buddies will be at Dairy Queen enjoying burgers and onion rings while we are.  Somebody, I’m not sure who, but probably someone I won’t recognize, will be at the theater.  And, of course, everything will be timed.”

“So, whose watching us now?”  I said, almost regretting coming.

“Mom’s watching.  Well, not actually.  Dad doesn’t know.  You will never know how much Miss Betty trusts you.”  Olivia said moving over next to me as we turned left on Highway 179.

“She likes me too.  She sees me as her future son-in-law.  I just know it.”

“Marvelous Matt, don’t get ahead of yourself.  You have at least six degrees of hell to pass through before you even get in the running for Olivia Kaye Tillman.”

Ever since Spring Break we had been semi-planning a little adventure.  It was a little risky.  We wanted to try to find Club Eden at Aurora Lake.  We had been too preoccupied with simply being alone during the five afternoons we had spent that week on an old cotton blanket beside the Lake.  This afternoon was the first chance we had of doing a little exploring.

I turned off Lawson Gap Road, down a trail almost too narrow for my car.  I parked, and we walked back across the road and down to the Lake and across the dam.  This had been as far as we had ventured during Spring Break.

“There should be a trail that leads to the back side of the camp.”  Olivia had shared with me how she had heard bits and pieces about this secret place, a place that Wade and his buddies, probably every member of the Flaming Five, came and brought females and food.  Olivia said the guys stayed overnight down here a lot, especially after basketball season.  She assured me they wouldn’t be here today.

Before crossing the dam, we found the two hiking sticks we had hidden along with the old cotton blanket.  We couldn’t figure out why they were still in place while the plastic wrapped blanket was missing.

“You’re sure there won’t be anyone around?  I’d hate to get caught trespassing and more so, I’d never forgive myself if I got you in trouble.  Didn’t you tell me that no one has seen this place but the Flaming Five and their dads?”

“And their forefathers.  I think this place has been here, I’m talking about the cabin and Club Eden, since the late 1800’s.  Also, from what I can gather, quite a few girls have been here, but they’ve never seen it.”  Olivia said picking her way down a rocky path alongside a little stream that appeared to be fed by the Lake’s runoff.

“That’s confusing.  They’ve been here but haven’t seen it?”

“I meant to say they don’t know where this place is.  I’ve heard Randi say the guys put black hoods over the heads of the girls before they get anywhere near this place.”

“Sounds eerie.”  It took nearly twenty minutes to reach the first sign of civilization.  The woods were thick and tall, blocking out most of the light from the sun.  The tall and narrow wooden box turned out to be an outhouse.  This was specifically determined after we gained our courage to peek inside the wooden door with a half-crescent moon carved in the top quarter.  It was a skinny little structure, with less than two feet by four feet of floor space in front of a bench with two cut-out holes.  I suppressed the thought of two members of the Flaming Five sharing a time here relieving themselves.  We didn’t tarry long.

We continued along the creek and within a few minutes came upon an old Army tent, a rather large one.  We walked up the creek bank and around to the front of the tent.  Again, the brave Olivia, opened the door, lifting a dark green canvas curtain.  Inside were two large wooden poster beds covered in animal skins.  I didn’t know there were bears around these parts.  The floor was a dirty looking carpet.

“I just can’t see my brother laying here with a girl.  He’s not like that.”  Olivia was either joking or as naive as a rock.

“He’s sixteen going on seventeen.  Believe me, it wouldn’t take a teenage goddess to make Wade strip down naked under the bear skins.  I bet a Playboy magazine would do the trick.”  I wished I hadn’t said my last statement.  It sounded dirty and I always tried my best to be the gentleman Mother had drilled into me from the time I was barely walking.

“Let’s go see the cabin.”

We walked outside the tent and back towards the creek.  In fifty yards or so we came upon a fire ring encircled with huge rocks from the creek, and surrounded by old wooden benches and a half-dozen metal chairs.  It was there we saw the cabin.  It was set back from the fire ring and creek maybe a hundred feet.  It was on a little hill.  From where we were, we couldn’t see the front.

I followed Olivia up the knoll and around to the front.  Here, we saw a graveled driveway coming from the south through a thick grove of trees.  The cabin was truly a log cabin, probably made with trees cut down from the surrounding property.  It had a porch across the front.  We walked up the wooden steps and sat down in two of the five oak rocking chairs.

“Don’t you want to go in?”  I said feeling like someone was probably waiting inside to scare us, maybe tie us up for being here.

“It’s locked, I tried the handle as you were moving our chairs closer together.”  Olivia said sitting beside me and taking my right hand.

“Okay, this is a good time to practice.  You are doing great.  You took my hand.  This is exactly what you are supposed to do once we get seated at the movie.  Then, when the lights go down and the previews begin, you place your lips on mine.  This is where I need to be prepared.”  I was hoping Olivia would appreciate my humor, clothed in real hope.

“Settle down Matty boy.  Let’s enjoy the view.  Talk to me, I’m sad.”  I knew this would happen.  It seemed every time we had privacy all she wanted to talk about was what was coming, me leaving.  It was less than a month away.  I guess it hadn’t quite hit me as hard as it had Olivia, and that was weeks ago.

For the next hour I listened as Olivia gave me a familiar story.  She loved me enough to run away with me if only I would.  She described how she didn’t believe she could live without me and that three more years of high school, apart from me, would be an eternity.  I loved her with all my heart.  And, told her this as she poured her soul out to me.

At one point she got down on her knees in front of me, took both my hands, and said, looking up with me with the saddest blue eyes, “Matt, you probably wouldn’t love me if you knew the real me.  The things that I’ve done.”

I started once to question her, because clearly, I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.  I felt like, no, I knew, this wonderful girl, a fifteen-year-old girl whose body could easily pass for a twenty-something year old woman.  Her mind was both young and naive, and mature beyond an older woman who had weathered it all.  It was almost like she could see from outside herself, like looking down on herself from above.  That disconnected self, recognized that she was merely a puppet for her father and all his Christian constituents.  She easily responded to every string pull.  At other times, that disconnected self could see that Olivia was near a breakthrough, like facts, evidence, experiences, were mounting up and pulling her towards truth.  It seemed the only thing missing was someone to whisk her away to freedom.

“Olivia, what I care about is you, who you are right this moment.  I don’t care if you killed the Pope, I love you.  You say you love me.  I believe you.  You show, in every way, that you love and care for me.  We talk like we are committing our lives to each other.  Is it possible I have misread you?”  Once again, I had to ask.

“Goofy you.  You are so slow.  But, don’t worry.  I would tell you a thousand million times that I love you and that I want us together.  I am yours if you want me.”  By now, Olivia’s knees were hurting from too-long pressing against the hardwood of the porch’s floor.  She got up and leaned back against the porch railing.

“She says wonderful things to me, yet, she gets up and moves away from me.”  I said realizing that my statement had been completely unprepared but eerily significant.

“You got it wrong.  He ups and moves away from me, north to Chicago.  Matt stay, please stay.  You can live with us, no that won’t work, but, you can live with Brother Randy.  We can find you a place.  Please.  I need you to be here.  I can’t live without you.”  I was so dissatisfied with myself.  Why was I so gutless?  Here I was, within reach of the most wonderful girl I would ever meet.  She was begging me to either take her away, to run away, or to stay in Boaz while Dad returned to our home in Chicago in less than a month.  I’d read too many novels to not know that time and distance are the greatest enemies to the type of relationship Olivia and I had, a once in life type of love relationship.  Who was I kidding to think that three years, Olivia’s tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade years, could go by and we would remain just as connected as we were right now?  No doubt she was the prettiest girl at Boaz High School.  She would be inundated with male suitors.  I doubt she would be able to resist temptation for so long a time.  I was likely the naivest eleventh grader in the world.

This conversation would have probably continued until forever, at least until late afternoon when we would have just enough daylight to hike the long way back to my car, if we hadn’t thought we heard a car or truck coming down the driveway.  We heard it at the same time.  Instantly, we looked at each other and knew what we had to do.  We had never moved so fast.  We were down the porch steps, to the side of the cabin, and headed beyond the fire ring and to the trail that led to the outhouse and on toward Aurora Lake before we realized that it was thunder.  What we thought we had heard was just our minds playing a trick on us.  Whatever sound it would have been, would have been fed, virtually created, by our concern over being in a place we were not supposed to be.  We had unconsciously been on alert.

Before we were half way to the Lake it started to rain.  The trail quickly became slick.  I think we realized it at the same time.  Olivia, always in the lead, turned around and said, “our walking sticks, we left them on the front porch.”

“Too late now, it’s getting dark.  We don’t have time to go back for them.”  I was surprised how quickly the woods had grown eerily black.  The bright sunshine of a few hours ago had provided just enough light through the thick covering of leaves to allow us comfortably to make our way down the trail.  Now, with the thunderstorm moving in and pushing the sunlight away, I could barely see the trail. I was growing more and more concerned about how Olivia was going to explain being soaking wet to her father when she turned and walked the few steps back to me.

It was pouring buckets; the thick canopy overhead didn’t seem to slow the torrents of water coming from the heavens.  “Hold me Matt.  I don’t want to miss this moment with you, here, in the rain.  This is storybook.  Don’t you see this is God’s confirmation?  He is giving us the most wonderful romantic moment, one that I, for one, will never forget.”

I started to voice my agreement, but felt an unusual degree of courage.  I pulled Olivia’s drenched body into mine and kissed her.  At first gently, but she allowed the passion between us to erupt.  Deep kisses, fully sexual, engulfed our actions over the next few minutes.  Our bodies sunk to the leafy, muddy mess on the forest floor.  We made love as beautifully as any two teenagers ever have, even those who, like us, were head over hills into a once in life love relationship.  The only thing different was our clothes stayed on, other than that old denim shirt of Olivia’s.  Our lovemaking was beyond sex.  Holding and kissing Olivia planted one thought deep into my psyche, ‘if being overwhelmed with Olivia, feeling the ecstasy of her body next to mine was other-worldly with our clothes on and no body parts touching skin to skin, how much more unbelievable will it be when we are free to be naked and share our bodies, minds, and hearts in total freedom?”

The sound of a lightning strike on a nearby tree caused our heads to come down out of the clouds.  The South was turning me into a cliché addict.  We quickly knew we had to get back to my car.  The storm wasn’t letting up.  It was simply too dangerous out here, no matter the pleasures we were experiencing.

At 2:00 a.m., with Olivia safe, dry, and warm in her room and me the same at home in mine, we were still giggling over the best afternoon of our lives.  She said she had spent two hours after dinner recording our adventure in her journal.

“Did you actually write down how you convinced your father?”  I asked.

“I did.  I couldn’t have ever done it without Mother.”

I didn’t ask how she had pulled off this feat.  It could have been disastrous.

It was the only all-nighter we ever had.  We talked nonstop until dawn.  We pretty much had drawn out a sketch of our entire lives.  I was about to ask her the real reason she had chosen New Mexico as our home after college when she shouted, “Matt, I’ve got to go.  I’m sick.”

It was weird.  I heard the phone hit the floor or that’s what it sounded like.  I didn’t hang up.  Her bathroom was right next to her room, within a few feet of her bed.  I could hear her heaving and gagging.  I imagined her bent over the commode.  I felt powerless.  I so wanted to run to her house and squat beside her, patting her forehead with a wet cloth.  I finally had to hang up, I couldn’t stand the horrible sounds any longer.

I surprised myself and fell asleep.  At six-thirty Dad came in to rouse me up for school.  He could tell I was worried about Olivia, especially after I gave him the grueling details of what I had heard.

“Sounds like your mother when she was carrying you.”  Dad said pouring him another cup of coffee before heading out.

I couldn’t believe he would say such a thing.  That was a sick thought, Olivia was a teenager, a ninth-grader at that.  How could he equate Mother’s experience at twenty-one, pregnant and married, to that of an innocent teenager, one so dedicated and faithful to her God.  He knew I was more than upset when I stormed back to my room.

I didn’t make it to school at all. Instead, I went to see Olivia after lunch.  She too had stayed home.  She seemed fully recovered and really didn’t want to talk about her sudden sickness.   It was the first day of school that both of us had missed all year.  So much for perfect attendance.

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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 30

December 29 & 30, 2017

My own natural curiosity and skepticism weren’t satisfied with John’s story.  In a way it made sense, Brother Randy had complete access to Olivia, virtually any time he wanted to be alone with her.  I guessed that Pastor Walter had been blind to the possibility.  He gave the youth pastor unhindered permission to mold his younger daughter into an obedient and submissive servant of Christ.  My bent towards science and its ability to provide answers no doubt spurred my discontent, silently gnawing at the edges of my mind and urging me to take one final step.

For some crazy reason Pastor Warren and the Church had cancelled the normal Wednesday night service and rescheduled it to Friday night, including the 6:00 meal.  Since public schools were out for the holidays, most of the youth group were taking a respite from Brother Robert’s concentric circles.  Early this afternoon Olivia had driven to Talladega to visit Wade and to pick up her father, who somehow had been granted bail.  I supposed it had to do with his health and the fact the trials had been delayed, some were saying it would probably be summer at the earliest before their fate would be determined.

Brother Robert had already been through the serving line and was sitting alone at a table at the back of the Hall.  After I placed a glass of tea on my food tray I noticed he was motioning me over.  I offered no resistance since this perfectly fit my overall mission, to obtain a DNA sample from the grandson of the late Randy Miller.  It would likely be a fork, maybe his glass.  Maybe I could pull it off without being charged with stealing.  I could overnight the DNA sample to Jerry and hope that he hadn’t decided to start his New Year’s Eve celebration and vacation a few days early.

Brother Robert looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.  His hair was uncombed.  With his overall disheveled appearance and the faint smell of body odor, I concluded he probably hadn’t showered in a few days.  This may have been why he was sitting alone.

I wasn’t one to insult someone but the look in his eyes and his overall appearance seemed to beg me to figuratively shock him enough to point him back towards his normal world.  “Brother Robert, thanks for inviting me over.  Are you okay?  I have to admit you look like you’ve had a bad day.”  My statement was polite enough but maybe made him aware of how others might perceive him.

“Thanks for noticing but I’ve really had a good day.  It’s strange that I would say that, but I do this every year.  I spend a whole week as a homeless man.  I convinced my former church a few years ago to allow me to conduct some research.  At first, the benevolence committee thought I was crazy, ‘they’re no homeless people around here’ was their response.  I had done my homework.  After one week, undercover I guess you would call it, I came back with stories to share, ones that had broken my heart.  Homelessness, of some sort, is a nationwide problem.  Small towns aren’t exempt at all.”  I was impressed with Brother Robert.  His behavior was something new to me.  He was trying to help people with real problems.  He was doing more than praying and talking from the middle of his concentric circles.  I wanted to know how he would involve the youth group and how the faces of the homeless would affect them, but I also was hoping he could tell me more about Brother Randy.

“Brother Robert, I hope I don’t offend you with my question.  I have to tell you I have concluded that you are a truly genuine person and one who doesn’t run from the facts.”

“Just ask me.  Right after I eat I’m heading home to shower.  As you can see with our empty table, Christian love has its limits.”  He said laughing and devouring what looked like a double portion of lima beans, cornbread, country fried steak, and scalloped potatoes.

“You know I was a member of your grandfather’s youth group back in 1970 and 1971, during the one year I lived here in Boaz?”

“You and Olivia told me that last Wednesday.”  Robert said, with a mouth full of food and not slowing down.

“I always admired Brother Randy.  I was impressed with him, his dedication to what he believed.  I never saw anything that caused me any type alarm.  My question, did you ever hear about him having an improper relationship with Olivia, or any other teenage girl as far as that goes?”  I said, not believing I had really said something so surprising and probably so offensive.

“All I know is what I’ve been told.  Granddad died his horrible death in the late eighties, a few years before I was born.  I was a young teenager before I knew anything about it.  My family, including my Nan, what I called Granddad’s wife, and my Dad and Mom, kept all this pretty close to their vests.  You might expect they defended Granddad, denying that he had done anything wrong.  I know I don’t have any personal knowledge to confirm any of this, but my family said Pastor Walter and a few of his friends were responsible for Granddad’s death.  Dad told me.  You may not know but he died rather suddenly a couple of years ago.  Dad told me on his death bed that when a very scathing letter was circulating around town about Granddad that he had told him all he had ever done was look after Olivia and that he was uncomfortable with her home life.”

“I appreciate you telling me what you know.  I’m still concerned about Olivia.”  I said more as something to fill an awkward moment than as a cry for help.

“I’ve gathered that you and Olivia were close as teenagers and maybe are in process of rekindling a long-lost love, something of that nature.  Right?”  Almost in mid-sentence Brother Robert downed the last of his tea and stood up.  “I need to go, I’m itching, probably with something moving.  Maybe we can talk more later.  See you Matt.”

“Don’t worry with your tray, I’ll take it with mine.”

“Thanks a bunch.  See you later.”  Robert said heading for the door at the back of the Hall.

I used clean napkins to separately wrap his fork and his spoon.  I hadn’t noticed which he had eaten with.  I wanted to be on the safe side.  I stuffed them into the inside pocket of the sport coat I was wearing, anxious to read Jerry’s terse statement that would arrive in less than a week.  I suspected it would read, ‘G, H and B, three peas in a pod.’  Even with what Brother Robert had told me I suspected he was relaying family loyalty.  My logic pushed me to conclude, especially with what John had read in his adoptive mother’s journal, that Randy Miller had to be Paul Cummins’ father.  There was simply no one else in Olivia’s teenage world who fit the profile that was clearly shaping in my mind.

Olivia and Walter didn’t make it to Warren’s until late afternoon on Saturday.  After leaving the Federal prison in Talladega, Walter had asked Olivia to drive him to Atlanta.  He said he needed a little time to prepare for his return to Boaz.  They had spent the night with a pastor friend of Walter’s, one he said had supported him through many dark days, recent and past.

I didn’t have the courage or stomach to sit through another meal at Tiffany’s table.  She was a fabulous cook but the dynamics of tonight’s family time, I knew, wouldn’t digest well with the steady mystery that had been gnawing at my gut almost since I arrived in Boaz less than a month ago.

Instead, Olivia and I went to the Cracker Barrel in Guntersville.  “Thanks for rescuing me.  I think I would have died to spend another hour with Walter Tillman.”  She said, surprising me.  I didn’t know her reasoning but I was glad she hadn’t insisted that I join the family reunion.

“I’ve missed you.”  I said it because it was true.  Driving us down Highway 431, through Albertville and over the railroad tracks at Mitchell Grocery, my mind involuntarily retrieved a poem from the little book of poetry I had given Olivia on her fifteenth birthday.  I had grown to like the book’s name, Love Isn’t Always a Straight Line.  After returning to Chicago in 1971 I had bought my own copy.  Now, I was thinking of a poem, one that said true love didn’t exist until the line, the slightly curving line, intersected with trouble.  The author, writing from her own experience, had discovered after she married her husband, and after he was stationed in Korea, that he had cheated on her shortly after they had become engaged.  It was devastating.  She had confronted him, via mail, and he had been truthful with her.  The poem’s point was not what I had expected.  It wasn’t that two people in love, if they will be honest, can forgive and get through the hard times.  The point was that the hard times, meaning the very issue that was both a surprise and a shock, could be just what is needed to bend their love back toward the needed destination.  This place is the same for all couples, all those who would dare describe their relationship as a once in life love.  This place is holy ground, where two souls can not only forgive each other, but forget the bad thing every happened.  For the poem writer, the past had to be buried and forgotten.  The future bliss had already been prepared, it was waiting.  All the couple had to do was, together, gently push the line away from the natural, towards the supernatural.  Until now, I had never understood why I had connected with this poem.  I didn’t at all believe in any form of supernatural, but I did believe in natural. 

Cracker Barrel’s parking lot was nearly full.  We had to park around to the side in the farthermost spot.  As we walked toward the front door our hands touched.  Her hand in mine was so natural.  I had never had this with Alicia even though we were always kind, respectful, and loving in an almost ramped up brother-sister sort of way.  There would never be another Olivia.  She was in every cell of my being.  It seemed to no longer matter that she had lied to me forty-six years ago and seemed to be willing to continue to keep me from the truth.

Our hands separated as I held open the front door for her to enter.  And, for an older couple that was right behind us.  When I caught up with Olivia I used my left hand to press against her back and lean her towards the back wall filled with candies and jellies, sweet things.

“We need to register.  I’m hungry.”  Olivia said, a little surprised that I had guided her here.

“I’m starving too.  I just wanted to see how easy it was to bend the line.”  I don’t think she had a clue what I was talking about.  She looked at me, cocked her head to one side, as though to ask, ‘can you explain that?’  It was silly, my thoughts and my actions.  In the world that I was looking for, it was as natural as tomorrow’s sunrise. 

As we ate supper, Olivia once again enjoying turnip greens and cornbread, I felt as though we were nearing the peak of a mountain.  It was no doubt a sharp peak, one with hardly any room to move.  I looked at Olivia, her eyes occupied, gazing towards the fireplace behind me.  All I needed, all I wanted, was to be on that mountaintop with Olivia.  She was truly my once in life love.  I was ecstatic about the possibilities but also dreadfully fearful about us falling down the other side of the peak, no doubt causing at a minimum, separation, and at most, the death of an extraordinary relationship, one I suspected, few ever experienced.

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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 29

May 1971

The next month raced by.  It was like the earth’s orbit around the sun was being fed by a turbocharger.  Maybe it was God’s way of getting me back to Chicago and out of Olivia’s life.  It seemed like fate was conspiring to keep us apart.  My end of the year Biology project consumed half my waking hours outside of school.  Dr. Ayers had become a mother figure to me.  In part.  However, she never relinquished her role as the best teacher at Boaz High School, one completely uninfluenced by Southern Baptist fundamentalism.  It also seemed that when I wasn’t working on impressing Dr. Ayers with my attempt to reconcile Darwin’s findings with what was going on in genetic research, Olivia was preoccupied with preparations for what the kids in the youth group referred to as ‘hell house.’  The formal name, the name used by Brother Randy and the three weekly ads in the Sand Mountain Reporter, labeled the three-day community-wide presentation as Judgment House.

The first performance was set for Friday night, two days after Olivia’s fifteenth birthday.  She and I had planned our first date for weeks but hadn’t noticed the conflict with hell house, I preferred this name since it reminded me of the weeks and months that I had eaten my school lunches at the table from hell.  There had to be a connection.  Olivia had a key role in the annual program designed to literally scare the hell out of every young person for miles around.  Thus, our first date would have to wait. 

The only good part of the conflict was not having to see the movie Shane.  We had planned on eating out in my Corvair at the Dairy Queen and then driving to the Martin Theater in Albertville.  I had been able to learn what movie was scheduled and had not been impressed.  Of course, that wasn’t at all important.  I would have watched back to back reruns of Alice in Wonderland just to sit in a dark room with Olivia, holding her hand as we shared popcorn and Milk Duds.

Brother Randy always had a plan, a carefully choreographed plan.  It was Wednesday, Olivia’s birthday and the last opportunity he would have to set the stage, figuratively, in the mind of his sixty-eight-member youth group before each one donned their carefully crafted uniforms as either a devil or an angel as background props in one of the six chambers of hell set up throughout the old church building.  A week ago, Brother Randy had asked Olivia and me if we would present a skit tonight to the entire youth group.  It would take place during the time he was normally standing in the middle of the two concentric circles down in the basement.  He had asked us to simply sit and have a conversation.  Olivia was to be pretty much herself, a devoted and knowledgeable Christian, albeit a young adult.  I was to be an atheist.  Unknown to Brother Randy I wouldn’t have to do much preparation.  He asked us to politely support our positions.  I suspect Brother Randy fully believed the outcome of our talk would prime every teenager in attendance to become more aware of what the unsaved believed and how to overcome their arguments.  He probably also thought our skit, along with the upcoming series of three presentations, would scare the hell out of everyone.

Olivia and I had met after school for a few minutes.  Long enough for me to wish her a happy birthday and to give her one of two birthday presents I had bought for her.  The first one was a book of poetry I had found at a Gadsden bookstore Dad and I had visited a few weeks earlier.  Love Isn’t Always a Straight Line, by Carolyn Augustus.  The poet, a woman from Savannah, Georgia, had lost her husband in the Korean War.  Most of her poems represented her evolving love the longer he was at war, before she learned he had been captured and probably killed.  These poems dealt with experiences the two lovers had before he left for Korea.  After the horrible news, Carolyn’s words revealed her anticipation of future experiences, ones where her husband was present, although in a spiritual form.  I thought Olivia would relate these words to our own predicament and gain strength to endure our coming separation.  The second gift I would hold until our first date.  It was a Cameo ring that I hoped she would accept as a symbol of my love and commitment to her and my promise to wait for her as long as it took.  As we walked down the long first floor hall after leaving her locker, she had said, “Don’t be too rough on me tonight.  I’m having a hard time concentrating today.”

After the fellowship meal I learned that Olivia’s and my presentation had been moved to the large auditorium on the first floor of the old church building.  Something about the youth groups from Albertville and Guntersville’s First Baptist Church were going to be in attendance.  No doubt, Brother Randy’s attempt to spread the Good News.

Olivia and I sat on stage after the giant podium had been removed.  The auditorium was nearly full.  I don’t think I was ever so nervous.  Brother Randy demanded we not use any type script or notes of any kind.  This was to be the type of conversation that could take place on an evangelistic visit or simply over a cup of coffee at the Waffle House.

“Hi Matt, how are you?  Long time no see.”  Olivia started us off.

“Olivia, it’s so nice to see you.”

“I hear you just finished college and have a new job picking up garbage for the City of Boaz.  I’m impressed.”   Olivia’s attempt at reality was impressive, but one look at Brother Randy sitting on the first pew indicated he was against this type humor.

“I hear you married after high school and are a stay at home mom.  How old are your children?” 

“Three and six months.  Boy and girl.”  Olivia said turning her head quickly towards me as though she was shocked by the subject matter.

“No doubt you’ve already got them in church.”  I said trying to get things rolling and to please Brother Randy.

“How else are they going to learn about God and His plan for their lives?”  Olivia said sitting a little straighter in her chair.

“You are exactly right.  Children learn about God or gods from their parents and their surrounding community.  If you were brought up in the Middle East, you would be a Muslim.  You would be carrying your boy and girl to a mosque.  They would be learning about Allah, not the Christian God.  They would believe Mohammad was the only true prophet and that Jesus wasn’t God’s son but only a great teacher, fully human.”  I said knowing that Brother Randy might be squirming a little.  I didn’t glance down at him.

“You might be right but hopefully there would come along a Christian missionary or two to share with me the truth about Jesus and how I could be saved.”  I almost felt sorry for Olivia.  It wasn’t her fault.  She was the perfect representation of what is produced from the environment in which she was raised.  Pastor Walter would be proud of her.

“How do you know your beliefs are true?” 

Olivia was ready to respond to the question I had lobbed at her.  “I know it from two sources, the Bible, and the world around me, some call it nature or the natural world.  Others call God’s nature His general revelation to all mankind.  Both perfectly reflect Yahweh and His son Jesus.  God’s special revelation, the Holy Bible, gives us every detail we need.  God inspired faithful and honest men of old to transcribe his words, words that clearly lay out the plan of salvation.  The Bible shows that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.  We are all born sinners, therefore God sent His only son, born of a virgin, to die on a cross as the perfect sacrifice for my sins and yours.”  Olivia didn’t let up until she had tommy-gunned a dozen bullets against my unbelief.

“What if you’ve been misled?”

“I haven’t.  I know in my heart that God is real and that He loves me.”  Olivia was so predictable.  In no other part of her life would she be so gullible.

“Olivia, you have been programmed to say all these things.  You didn’t come to believe these things without those in authority over you telling you they were true and that you had to believe them.”

“I have been blessed to have a lot of faithful Christians around me who have loved me and shared the truth, the truth from God’s word.”

“They’ve also loved you enough to scare you to death.  They have told you that if you reject God, the Christian God, you will spend an eternity in hell and that hell is a bad place, a hot place, a horrible place.”

“That’s right, exactly.”  Olivia looked at me as though I was pampering her with my gentle statements.

“Why would God choose you and let Muslims go to hell.  Does that sound like a loving God?”

“God doesn’t let them go to hell, they choose to when they reject Christ.”

“What if they never hear about Christ?  Will they still go to hell?”

“The Bible says everyone knows God, that He exists.  This gives everyone the chance to accept or reject God.”  Olivia was the typical Southern Baptist fundamentalist.  There was nothing in the world, no amount of evidence, that would ever change her mind.  She was taught from the cradle not to question her beliefs, to accept God’s written word, every word of it, as the literal truth.

“If you read something other than the Bible you might learn that there is no evidence that Jesus was anything more than an itinerant teacher.  To be totally direct, there is no good evidence that He ever even existed.  No secular writings in the first century even mention him, much less confirm him.  An honest inquiry into the believability of the Bible would have you face the facts that the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not written by the titled person, that they are not historical accounts of Jesus, that they were written generations after Jesus supposedly lived, and that the many manuscripts that have been found, none of which are the originals, conflict with each other nearly as much as they agree.  And, more damaging to your two supporting pillars of why you believe God exists, is evolution.  That theory, that scientific theory that is truly confirmed fact, destroys a literal interpretation of the Bible.”

“Do I get a chance to respond or are you going to keep lecturing me?”  I could tell Olivia was uncomfortable with me bringing up evolution.  I had often shared with her what I was learning in Dr. Ayers’ Biology class.  Up until now Olivia at least had a smidgen of interest.

“I’m sorry.  You may talk, say whatever you want.”  I tried being as polite as I could.  The last thing I wanted was to make Olivia mad at me.  Gosh, it was her birthday.

“In Genesis it says that God made man and woman in His image.  That fully refutes your little theory that humans have evolved from an apelike creature.”  Olivia looked as though she had discovered the fountain of youth.

“Actually, the Bible says that God made man in His image.  Woman came from Adam’s rib.  From my reading of the Bible it seems God didn’t have much of a high opinion of women.  Especially in the Old Testament, women are not much more than property.  Not better than a herd of cattle to their male owners.  It seems most every story denigrates women, showing them to be liars, whores, and, as I said, chattel property.  God didn’t seem too upset with Lot sleeping with his two daughters.  How could he be blamed for having sexual intercourse with his two young virgin daughters, he was drunk.”  I was now sweating.  I knew I had gotten away, totally, from what Brother Randy had intended.

Our conversation ended with quite a moving two-minute speech to me and the crowd by Olivia.  She eloquently argued that the most important way that she knows that God and Jesus exist is from her heart.  She, if I didn’t know otherwise, was persuasive as she shared how Jesus lived in her heart and how He talked with her, answered her prayers, and gave her strength to endure trials and tribulations.  I almost laughed when she shared how Jesus had helped her just today find her Literature textbook that she had lost.  She ended her talk by saying that no matter what the world says, no matter what evidence is thrown against the Christian wall, she will never doubt God loves and cares for her.

After the skit, and after everyone had left the old auditorium, Brother Randy congratulated us.  He told Olivia that he still needed to meet with her before she left after refreshments.  As Olivia walked away I felt cold beads of sweat start forming across my forehead.

“Matt, you are too smart for your own good.  I had no idea you could be so convincing.  You will be a great actor someday.”  Brother Randy said walking closer towards me.

“I guess that was a compliment.  Thanks.”  I said.

“Change of plans.  Instead of you working in Heaven during Judgment House I need you in Sixth Degree Hell.  Charlie has had a death in his family and won’t be available to be Satan.  Is this okay with you?”  Brother Randy said looking at me with less than friendly eyes.

“I would be honored to be the devil.”  I meant it as subtle humor.  I was the only one who smiled.

Two hours later I called Olivia at home.  It was as though our on-stage conversation had never taken place.  I suppose she was somewhat used to our discussions over the past year.  All she wanted to talk about was Love Isn’t Always a Straight Line.  At 1:00 a.m., we ended our call with my three favorite words, I Love You, spoken in perfect unison.

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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 28

December 28, 2017

The Auburn beanbag chair had performed exceptionally well.  The late-night hours after Olivia had left were seemingly productive.  It may have been the combination of the three-brick heater and the body-fitting contour of the chair.  Whatever it was, my mind was alert and fed me enough ideas to drive my investigation to hopefully find the answer to my newly refined question, ‘who is the father of Paul Cummins?’

At first, I thought it crazy and a waste of time to attempt to obtain Robert Miller’s DNA.  Someway my mind had seen a connection before I had, certainly before I realized that it made sense.  Was it plausible to consider that Brother Randy’s suspicious death had something to do with Olivia’s pregnancy.  I had recalled a couple of times during the youth group, after all the other kids had left, that I had lingered behind hoping to talk with Olivia.  When I was young I hadn’t thought much about it, but now, looking back, it seemed to fit.  Brother Randy had some type of special interest in Olivia.  Could it have been a sexual interest?  It certainly wouldn’t be the first time such a scandal had occurred in a Southern Baptist church, but usually it didn’t involve a minor.  I had set aside this pursuit when I recalled that Jerry’s Christmas week schedule was unpredictable at best.  He had told me to make sure I had carefully tracked any sample I sent him since he was going to be in and out of his office and lab all week.

As soon as my mind closed the door on this idea another one arose.  My mind was drawn back to an earlier thought I had.  One, which at the time, seemed so out of place.  It dealt with Franklin Ericson and whether he might be the father of John Cummins.  It seemed my mind was truly acting as a computer, allowing garbage that had been fed in to create and allow garbage to flow out.  I almost got up to stretch my legs and walk out to the porch.  The fire stopped me.  It was as though I could see red hair blowing forth from the middle of the glowing heater, but it wasn’t burning up.  This is where and how the idea of Reba Ericson came to me.  I settled back into the beanbag’s present contour and two memories sprouted.  The first one was about Reba, Franklin’s wife and John’s mother.  She always sat with Betty Tillman during the worship hour at church.  The second was from Spring Break during April of my eleventh grade.  I had visited Olivia three or four times at her home during that week, usually in the evenings after we had returned from Aurora Lake.  Betty had seemed happy, the happiest I had ever seen her.  Looking back, it may have been that with both their husbands far out of town, they had more freedom than they were used to handling.

Late morning I had dropped by the Boaz Post Office on a hunch.  Freda would likely know where I could find Reba Ericson.  She was busy with a long line of folks who obviously had procrastinated too long to ship Christmas packages.  When it finally came my turn, I walked up to her counter, she smiled, and blurted out, “Hey Matt, you got any more DNA samples to mail?”  I was taken aback.  How did she know what I had been overnighting?  She apparently caught my confused look and said, “I’m always curious.  I read up on you and your work.  I’d really like to meet Jerry Coyne.”  I was glad she was pressed for time.  I returned her smile and whispered, “I’m looking to visit an old friend.  One I haven’t seen or heard from in nearly half a century.  Can you give me the address for Reba Ericson?”  Freda quickly responded that she could not give out this type information.  I thought that odd, but I thanked her and was nearly to the exit when I heard her calling out.  I looked back and saw her motioning me to return.  I did.  She handed me a folded sheet of paper and said, “Sorry I’m late, but Merry Christmas Matt.”

Early Thursday afternoon I had driven to Brookdale Senior Living in Albertville.  I was surprised that Reba had agreed to see me.  I was more surprised that she had remembered me and was eager to talk without any reservations.  It hadn’t taken long for me to realize her and Franklin, her husband of nearly seventy years, were, to say the least, estranged.  Someway I had forgotten that he, like Walter Tillman and the other three fathers of the Flaming Five, were in deep trouble, all facing criminal charges.  Reba shared her disappointment that the federal trials had been postponed, continued.  I hadn’t heard this.  I wondered if Olivia knew.  It was the very reason that the two of us had separately returned to Boaz.  Reba said she would probably die before the trials took place.  She seemed anxious for Franklin to go to prison.

After nearly an hour of nodding affirmatively to Reba’s statements, interjecting a simple question every time her paced seemed to slow, I finally decided to explain to her why I was there.  I filled her in on selected portions of my little mystery, enough for her to know that I wanted to know about two children who were born to John and Olivia at about the same time but who were completely unrelated.  To be nearly ninety years old Reba’s memory was remarkable.  “That time was probably the darkest days of our lives.  Darker, in a way, than what is going on now.  John got Jessie Dawson pregnant.  Walter had his own problem with Olivia’s pregnancy at the same time.  At first it seemed John was responsible for that child also.  That turned out to be false.  Pastor Tillman quashed that rumor.  I never knew who the father of Olivia’s baby was, but I do know that Walter and Franklin took care of things.  Long story short.  Jessie and Olivia both gave birth to healthy baby boys.  I think after the girls arrived in Birmingham, labor was induced for both.  The babies were given up for adoption.  The poor girls never got to hold their babies one single time.”

The last question I had asked Reba concerned Randy Miller.  She shared there was a letter that had circulated around town in the late eighties that alleged Brother Randy had fathered a baby with Olivia back in the early seventies.  Reba said he had denied it and Pastor Walter had believed him.  She said nobody will likely ever know the truth but there was another rumor that several members of First Baptist Church of Christ took justice in their own hands.  They gave Brother Randy a flaming departure. 

My investigation had stalled shortly after my visit with Reba Ericson.  I put everything on hold until after Jerry’s vacation.  Olivia and I had spent the past three days in our normal routine except for Saturday when we had gone Christmas shopping in Birmingham.  I hadn’t bought Christmas gifts in years, probably not since Mother died when I was ten.  I hated the whole idea of exchanging presents around a mythical story.  Olivia was different.  She said “You don’t have to believe in Christ’s birthday to enjoy the holidays.  I love shopping and exchanging presents.  We have good reason to celebrate this year since John and Paul are sharing themselves with us.  It’s our first Christmas together as a family.”

I arrived at Warren and Tiffany’s at four p.m.  She had asked me to drive to Gadsden to a bakery she loved for a huge Christmas cake.  John and Paul, along with all of Warren’s family, including the eighty-eight-year-old Betty Tillman, and Olivia were already gathered around a huge tree in the great room when I arrived.  Judith Ericson and Randi Radford were both in the kitchen when Tiffany directed my cake delivery.  I wondered why Phyllis Billingsley, Fred’s widow, wasn’t also present.  She, like Judith and Randi, had mysteriously lost their husbands over the past year.

Christmas carols were playing through the house’s P.A. system.  It appeared to be a perfect time to spend with friends and family.  I almost wished I hadn’t known a few select details of the underlying mystery. 

After an uncomfortable thirty minutes of my passive involvement in the group’s attempt to sing, “Oh Holy Night,” we spent the next hour gathered around Tiffany’s huge dining room table with foods fit for a king.  I hated clichés, but the thought seemed to fit my feelings.  After gorging ourselves, half the group migrated towards the great room except for Olivia, John, Paul, and me.  If as though by plan.  Warren asked Olivia to check on the fire in the fireplace down in the basement.  He also suggested that I take John and Paul down there to show them “what a real man-cave looks like.”  I think Warren was simply trying to give the four of us a little privacy.

I couldn’t help but notice that Olivia and Paul paired off quickly.  She asked him to go outside and help her bring in some firewood.  After they tended the fire they gravitated to the large closet next to the big screen TV.  The media closet, the one protecting Walter’s valuable music collection.  John and I, almost by default, hung back and settled in.  Him on a leather couch, me in a matching wingback chair.  Both encircling a round oak coffee table.

John spent thirty minutes sharing with me what he and Paul had done after I left Ellijay.  They seemingly had mustered up the strength and determination to hike nearly 150 miles in eight days while never leaving the trail to enjoy a bed and breakfast respite.  Just as I was about to ask Olivia and Paul to join us she stood and asked, “Paul and I are going upstairs to see the shrine that used to be my high school bedroom.  Anyone else want to go?”  I had hoped to spend some time alone with John, so I quickly responded.  “John and I will join you two in a bit.  I need to hear more about the bear story.  The bear he and Paul saw in North Carolina.”

Paul and Olivia left.  It was a little awkward, but I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to waste.  I asked John, “I hope you understand my need to know more about you and Paul.  Olivia has had the advantage of knowing what happened all those many years ago.  I haven’t.  What can you share about your earliest memories and, if you don’t mind, how exactly did you learn about Olivia and make that connection?”

“Matt.”  I noticed he didn’t address me as ‘Dad.’  “I think it is only natural for you to ask questions.  I really feel bad for you.  Not even knowing you had a child, children.  That must have come as the shock of a lifetime.”

“It was.  I’m still reeling, although, at the same time, feeling blessed to now have you and Paul in my life.”

“Can I ask you a personal favor?”  John asked.

“Sure, anything I can do.”

“Would you mind, at least for now, keeping what I’m about to tell you a secret from Olivia?”  I again noted John’s failure to call Olivia, ‘Mom,’ like he had done ever since our first meeting at the Birmingham Airport. 

“You must think it rather important, something that might really bother her for you to ask me.  I will honor your request.”  I said shifting in my chair, clueless as to what John was about to say.

“I haven’t been exactly truthful with you and Olivia.  I have shared only the summary version of how Paul and I learned that Olivia was our mother.  Let me rephrase.  How I learned that Olivia was Paul’s mother.  Our adopted mother was no doubt obsessed with keeping a journal.  After her death and while Paul and I were going through her private things we found several leather journals.  At first, we didn’t give them much thought.  After we discovered Olivia’s name, Paul didn’t seem too interested in journals, so I took them back home with me.  A few days later I began to read them.  This is what I need you to keep secret, for now.  It seems, from the beginning, Mother knew that John and I were not twins.  Her journal laid out the entire story.”

I had to ask.  “Does Paul know that the two of you are not twins?”

“No, I haven’t had the courage or heart to tell him.  Back to my story.  Mother was clear about how they had come to adopt Paul and me.  Walter Tillman knew the pastor in College Station, Texas, the home of Texas A & M.  It seems he knew my mother and father and knew they could not have children, and were heartbroken by their failed attempts to adopt.  Out of the blue one day, the Texas pastor called Mother and wanted to know if she and Dad would adopt two little baby boys from Alabama.  The catch was they had to promise they would never tell the boys they weren’t twins.  Mom and Dad were Christians and highly-principle people.  They agreed only if they were told the complete truth about the babies, their backgrounds, and the need for such secrecy.”

I felt John was having trouble getting to the point he really wanted to make, as though he was delaying sending a poison arrow in Olivia’s direction.  “John, I’m a grown man and feel I’m able to weather any shocking news you may have.  Why don’t you deliver the bad news?”

“Matt, brace yourself.”  John sat on the couch and looked out the glass windows that covered the entire outside wall, into the darkness, as though he regretted the posture our conversation had taken.  “Randy Miller is Paul’s father.”

For a moment I thought I would faint.  I wanted to say, ‘you’re joking, that’s sick, why would your mother write such a thing.’  I got up and walked over to the fireplace contemplating sticking my head into the flames and letting the roaring fire burn away every fiber of my thoughts and memories.

After a while, John joined me and put his arm around my shoulder.  We didn’t talk for quite a while.  When we did, he seemed to confirm some facts I had learned from Reba Ericson.  John Ericson was his father, Jessie Dawson was his mother, biologically speaking.  I recalled Reba saying, ‘I never knew who the father of Olivia’s baby was, but I do know that Walter and Franklin took care of things.’

The rest of the evening was divided between a visit to the second floor and Olivia’s bedroom, and another hour crowded around the huge Christmas tree in the great room exchanging presents.  I was in a trance, one no doubt that Olivia noticed.  I didn’t have much to say as the party disbanded and the four of us, Olivia, John, Paul, and me stood outside on Warren and Tiffany’s front porch.  I exchanged our customary man-hugs and acted as best I could that I would miss my two boys.  John was a better actor than me and was almost effusive with his goodbye words to Olivia, calling her ‘Mother’ more than once.  As the Cummins boys drove away in their rental car, Olivia seemed to know I needed to be alone.  She said she was tired and would see me in the morning.  I have no doubt Olivia could read me like a book.  She knew me inside and out.  As I drove home I had a feeling she knew I was onto her forty-six-year-old secret. 

Another sleepless night, another night in a beanbag chair.  I didn’t care which one.  I finally dosed off as the sun’s rays were coming through the half-closed blinds.  One thing now I knew for sure, Olivia had lied to me.  She knew the truth, that the loving and well-liked youth pastor, Brother Randy, had impregnated her.  I couldn’t be mad at Olivia.  Looking back, I would never in a million years have suspected that she was the victim of sexual abuse.  My dear, my cherished Olivia, had been raped by the man she outwardly loved and respected, the man who not only had stolen her innocence but who had used his position of authority and a mythical story to close her mind.  She had kept all this a secret from me, to protect herself no doubt, but mainly to preserve us, the two of us and our once in life love.

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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 27

April 1971

Normally, Spring Break is in March.  This year, with the two big snows in January followed by three days of being out of school with each storm, the break had been initially pushed into early April.  A week before the break would normally take place, the Marshall County Board of Education had voted to eliminate this year’s vacation.  This didn’t set well all over Marshall County.  Growing protests, by both parents and teachers, had persuaded the Board to reinstate the holiday.  The Board finally acquiesced but delayed the break until the second week of April.

It was a week I will never forget.  Pastor Walter and the other four fathers of the Flaming Five had taken their sons on a trip to the Northeast to watch three NBA games in the Eastern Conference playoffs.  The New York Knicks and the Baltimore Bullets were playing the best of seven games, alternating between New York City and Baltimore, Maryland.  Even before the Valentine’s dance this was a frequent topic at the table from hell, although the Flaming Five didn’t yet know which teams would make it that far.  To them, all they needed to know at that time was they were going to see and learn, up close, how real basketball was played.   The five young superstars had wanted to attend the NBA Western Conference vs. Eastern Conference playoffs, but those games had conflicted with the schedules of Pastor Walter and Raymond Radford, Randall’s father, and some important meetings in New Orleans and Dallas.

Pastor Walter’s absence left the care and management of Olivia to Betty, her mother.  She was much more lenient with her daughter than Pastor Walter, although she didn’t have much opportunity to exercise any authority.  Betty was, no doubt, the perfect Christian wife.  Submissive, in all things, respectful, kind, and loving.  Christ was head of the church and the man, the husband, was head of the household.  So, it said in the Bible.  So, Walter said in his home.  The thing that helped swing the pendulum in my favor was, I think, the impression I had made on Betty.  For some reason, she trusted me.  I think it had a lot to do with what had happened at the Valentine’s dance.  She saw me as almost a quasi-parent, with Olivia’s best interest at heart.  Her protector from the dangers lurking all around.  Also, I think Betty simply liked me.  I realized this more during Spring Break than ever.  It seemed Betty was starved for contact with any outsiders.  I almost think, given the chance, she would have enjoyed talking to me about Chicago and my mother and my foreign beliefs, as Olivia often called them.

It wasn’t like Betty gave Olivia and me unlimited freedom.  I picked up on her strategy almost from the beginning.  Olivia had to always have a cover, meaning, she was given the permission to be doing something Pastor Walter would have approved.  For example, spending time with Randi Bonds, at her house, just hanging out.  It would have been too dangerous for Betty, an all-out violation of that submissive thing, for her to authorize Olivia and me to go to a movie, or to do something else so notoriously sinful for a 14-year-old girl to do with a 16-year-old boy.  Even though it was less than a month until Olivia’s 15th birthday, rules were rules.  Pastor Walter had said, according to Olivia, that she could start supervised dating when she turned 15.  I think Olivia still doubted he would keep his promise.  She anticipated something coming up, like ‘God has said for you to wait until you are 16.’

During the week that I will never forget, Olivia had set aside, or so it seemed to me, every thought about her father and her home life living under a virtual dictator.  Using the ruse of being with Randi, Olivia and I spent every afternoon the entire week at Aurora Lake.  I had heard of this tranquil body of water sitting at the table from hell.  Olivia had been there a few times on family picnics.  We were fortunate the weather was perfect.  Cool mornings and warm afternoons.  We had wanted to ride our bicycles every day but realized that was too dangerous.  We almost opted for me to drive us in my Corvair but again realized this too was a thin-iced plan.  There were simply too many local eyes loyal to Pastor Tillman.  We couldn’t risk being seen.  We knew word would get back to Olivia’s father, and he wouldn’t be happy.  Randi enlisted the help of her older sister, my classmate Ricki.  She, like me, had her driver’s license and was, no doubt, a little, a lot, on the wild side.  She indicated that she didn’t have a problem at all violating Christian rules.

Around 1:00 p.m. each afternoon Ricki would drop Olivia and me off on the north side of Aurora Lake.  She let us off on Lawson Gap Road and we walked south to, what to us, seemed to be the most remote part of the lake. The giant reservoir had been built just a couple of years earlier and wasn’t the hangout you would expect.  All the land around the lake was privately owned but not yet occupied with cabins or permanent dwellings.  I also knew that a huge portion of the land around the south side of the lake was owned by an organization the Flaming Five referred to as Club Eden.  This was the last time I intended to think of those five guys and the table from hell all during this week.

Our afternoons at the lake were spent laying on a blanket that we had carried on Monday but had left hidden, wrapped up in a piece of plastic that Olivia had confiscated from Randi and Rickie’s house.  We also waded out into the lake.  We only did this two times.  The water was freezing cold.  We skipped stones across the water and shared jokes and played Trivia and even got pretty good at our form of charades.  Without doubt, for me, and I fully believe for Olivia, our lives were eternally changed the five days we spent sharing our hearts laying on that old cotton blanket.  The weird part of our private activities was the absence of sex, although Olivia and I did engage, every day, in some heavy petting.  Our kissing was passionate, and our hands explored each other from head to toe, but one rule we always obeyed.  Our clothes stayed on and our hands stayed outside.

It was Friday afternoon that talk of our future came up.  We had spent the other four afternoons revealing how we felt about every issue under the sun.  The central theme was my salvation, or the lack thereof.  But, Olivia was getting pretty good at compartmentalization.  It was like she was two persons.  She suffered, or maybe enjoyed, two personalities.  I enjoyed the side of Olivia that seemed to allow herself to be free, to love life, to laugh, and enjoy the mystery of the universe.  At one point, although it didn’t go as far as I would have liked, she seemed seriously interested in my take on how unbelievers were happy without God, how they created their own purpose, and how focusing on the here and now was so much more satisfying than believing in an afterlife.  She seemed to love my statement, ‘this is all the life we have, let’s enjoy it.  We are fortunate to be here at all.’

I was laying on the blanket in Olivia’s lap.  She was leaning back against a tree.  She loved fooling with my curly hair, always trying to train it to go against what she referred to as a cowlick.  Only in Alabama.  “Will you write me every day?”

“How many times?  Per day.  Whatever you want.  Whatever we need.”  I looked up into Olivia’s eyes.  Tears were forming and just beginning their descent down her cheeks.

“Matt, I don’t think I can live with you not here.  Let’s run away.  I will do anything to be together.  Forever.”  She was as serious as I had ever seen her.

“You have to know that I want to, that I would, but I’ve read enough novels and seen enough movies to know that it wouldn’t end well.  We must stick to our plan.  Does this make you think I don’t love you enough to risk all?”  I needed to know that she wasn’t doubting me.

“I want to believe God has a plan for us, that His purpose is for us to be together.  Sometimes I think He is testing me, seeing if I truly love Him.  Like He is saying, ‘Olivia, I know what’s best for you.  Do you think I would keep you from what’s best for you?’”

“I was hoping we could leave God out of this.”  I probably shouldn’t have said that.

“Matt, God already knows everything.  He knows your future and mine.  He knows about every hair on our heads, and He knows what we will be doing five years from now.”  Olivia was locking up the personality I loved the most, letting the one formed by years and years of brainwashing come forth.

“So, our future cannot be changed?  It’s already set in stone?  Since God knows every aspect of our future, everything we will ever do, then He has no power to change anything.  It seems to me what happens in our lives should be our decision.”

“It is confusing, isn’t it?  I don’t begin to understand God.  He is mysterious.  He wouldn’t be God otherwise.”  Olivia, bless her heart, was the perfect Christian.  She had been perfectly programmed.

“Dad has promised me I can call you once per week.  I know three years, you’re tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade years, right now seem like a very long time.  It is a long time, but I will come to your high school graduation and, if you want, we can run off and get married, or we can wait on that formality and just enjoy being together.  I will have two years of college under my belt.  I will be settled someplace, probably Harvard.  You will move that fall to Cambridge and nothing will stop us.”  It seemed I had it all planned out.

“What worries me is those three years apart.  You will be a senior next year.  You will be so tempted by all the pretty girls at school you will forget me.  You’ll convince yourself that this little country girl was fun for a season but is easily forgotten with all those sophisticated young ladies around you.”  Olivia was forgetting the real us, the couple who were virtually inseparable in mind and spirit.

“Olivia, you are letting fears move in.”  I sat up on my knees and kissed her lightly.  I lay back down and pulled her on top of me.  “Look at me.  Don’t you see my heart?  Don’t you see your reflection.  That’s who I see morning, noon, and night.  You are my world.  You are all the woman I will ever want.  I love you.  Don’t you know that?”  I said, as truthful as I had ever been.

“I do.  Yes, I know all these things, but I’m still scared.”  Olivia sat up on her folded knees, took both my hands, and pinned them back to the old cotton blanket like we were in a wrestling match.  “Can I ask you something?  Sorry, I already know that I can.  How many children do you want us to have?”

“Now?  I mean in nine months?  I said.

“Matt Benson, we better keep our clothes on.  I’m not ready for a baby.”  Olivia had misinterpreted my question. 

“No, silly.  I mean after we are married?”

“Four.”  Olivia jumped in before I finished sounding my last word. “I have always wanted children.  Since you walked into my life I have thought a lot about that question.  Four, five, six, the more the better.  We have a lot of love to give.  And, I kind of like the idea of a lot of lovemaking.”

“Which kind?”  It seemed the perfect question.  I wanted to be prepared.

“I suspect that kind would be the skin to skin type.”  She said and for a moment I could almost visualize Olivia standing beside our big bed in our small apartment at college.  Her letting me unbutton her blouse and remove her pants.  I could see every wonderful beautiful curve.  Our skin to skin lovemaking would be out of this world.  I hated temptation.

I overpowered Olivia’s grip and rolled us over onto our sides.  Our lips met, and we didn’t come up for air until we heard the three short beeps from Ricki’s car horn.  I would have preferred lying beside her all night, under the stars, on that old cotton blanket.  She was, no doubt, my special angel.  There was nothing I wouldn’t do for the girl I loved with every cell of my being.  That word, love, seemed so unworthy to describe how I felt as we stuffed our blanket into the plastic bag and hid it behind two prickly bushes next to an outcropping of rocks.

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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 26

December 27, 2017

If my calculations were correct, Jerry would email me no later than Wednesday night.  I intentionally didn’t check my iPhone before Olivia and I walked into the Fellowship Hall.  There couldn’t be anything weirder, more unpredictable, even retarded.  Here Olivia and I were, unbelievers, virtual atheists, meaning we simply didn’t believe the God, Jesus, Christianity story because we didn’t have sufficient evidence to conclude these ideas were true.  Yet, we were drawn to church.  Maybe it was because this wasn’t just any church.  It was the one and only place where I had met Olivia and had grown to love everything about her when I spent a year here beginning in June 1970.  I even loved her zealousness for Christ and how she never once gave up, that entire year, on her dogged determination to talk me into God’s Heavenly Kingdom. 

As we sat down at a table with a man who looked eerily familiar, I couldn’t help but remember one of the five major findings that I had shared with Dad, the main things that I had learned during my undercover year with the on-fire youth group at First Baptist Church of Christ.  It was, fellowship and a sense of belonging.  That was the mighty force that religion, at least the version I had experienced, had to offer.  It had seemed to me, then and now, it wasn’t at all about the God of the Old Testament.  Who on earth would find benefit, trusty life morals, from stories like the one where Lot, Abraham’s nephew, had offered his virgin daughters to the men of the quaint little town of Sodom, to do with as the dirty old men wished, instead of sexually abusing the two male angels who had showed up earlier that afternoon?  As to the New Testament, I had to admit, it was a little better, but one had to pick and choose among the many stories to find a few fit for committing one’s life to.  Many, if not most of the other stories, such as Jesus upholding the practice of slavery and the Apostle Paul’s hatred of women, were unfit to teach one’s children.

The man was Robert Miller, Brother Randy’s grandson.  Over a shared dinner of fried chicken, creamed corn, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and chocolate cake, Brother Robert, as he requested we call him, told us about the final chapter in his grandfather’s life.  I doubt Robert would have brought up the subject, but Olivia had.  She already knew from Warren that the recently hired youth director was Brother Randy’s grandson.  Robert shared how difficult it had been to accept the position here at the church where his grandfather had served from 1969 until the late eighties, just a couple of years before Robert’s birth.  I was unfamiliar with the story.

After I left Boaz in June 1971 Brother Randy had continued to lead the Church’s youth group and to manage the activities at the Lighthouse.  For the next eighteen years nothing much changed, other than the ever-increasing number of youth that Brother Randy could reach out to and involve in his continuing creative activities.  A tragic event happened in August 1989.  The Lighthouse burned.  Later investigation revealed that Brother Randy, found among the ashes, had been brutally beaten.  It was never determined whether he died because of the beating or the fire.  According to Robert, this event had shaken the small, virtually crime-less city of Boaz, and had rocked his family.   The stories that Brother Robert had grown up hearing, all encouraging, enlightening, had inspired him to commit his life to Christ, attend Seminary, and devote every waking moment to the youth, just like his grandfather Randy.

Olivia and I skipped the prayer meeting and followed Brother Robert down to the basement.  Even though the Church had built a brand-new auditorium several years earlier, it still used the old building for its Wednesday night meal and the activities of the youth group.  Robert apparently followed a lot of his grandfather’s strategies.  Like Brother Randy, Robert had all the youth sit in chairs that formed concentric circles.  It now took three of these circles to manage the area’s youth who came here.  Just like their parents and grandparents, the youth longed to belong, to experience a connection to one another. It hardly mattered the subject being taught.

I didn’t get much out of Robert’s hour-long presentation where he interacted with Devan Tillman, Warren’s youngest son.  I figured he had been chosen strategically.  Maybe, it was to encourage him not to become like his great aunt Olivia.  Probably, Brother Robert knew the highlights of Olivia’s story.  Everyone in Boaz knew her story.  How she had not controlled her doubts and succumbed to letting her mind’s questions take over the throne of her life, the place that only Christ should sit.  Truly, all Robert had to do was listen to these walls, they told everything.

During the last ten minutes or so of Robert’s presentation, before he dismissed the group for refreshments, I had decided that I would walk Olivia back to Warren’s and tell her that I had a headache and was going home to try to sleep it off.  As we walked down the old building’s outside stairs, the ones I had walked up to read the announcements laid on maroon cloth behind glass the first day I was in Boaz as a kid, Olivia reached out, took my hand, and whispered towards me, “I love you Matt.  I need you Matt.  I want you Matt.”  Her words, mainly the Matt word, always made me melt. 

As always, Olivia had a way of enabling my heart to drive my thoughts.  I didn’t think about Jerry’s email until she awoke me at 1:30 a.m.  Our lovemaking, zipped up tight in my sleeping bag in my old bedroom, was becoming almost a nightly affair.  I loved it.  This night, morning, I hadn’t remembered her unzipping us and leaving me to sleep.  I guess she hoped my headache would be all better now.  “Is it okay if I drive your car home?  I don’t want you out in this cold.”

I let her leave.  Finally, my mind’s curiosity had to be satisfied.  As soon as I saw through the window next to the front porch, my car lights turn eastward, I knew she was gone.  I jumped up and grabbed my iPhone and moved into the den.  Involuntarily, I sat in the Auburn beanbag chair.  The three-bricker was pouring forth heat and providing the only light in the room.  My phone was all I needed right now.  Jerry’s email was waiting.  It was sent at 4:15 p.m. yesterday afternoon, Wednesday.   Jerry, as usual, was terse.  “No: E, F & A.  Yes: E, F & B.”

Jerry Coyne, you are driving me crazy, I thought as I set my iPhone down on the old brown carpet beside my beanbag chair.  I leaned my head back and tried to decipher the world-renowned evolutionary biologist’s fear of excess words.  It was as though Jerry believed the North Koreans were spying on his communications and he hated to divulge our secrets.

I had enclosed a note in the third package, the one Freda at the post office, had taken care of for me on Monday morning.  It had read, ‘Compare E and F to A, and E and F to B.”  Finally, I understood what Jerry was saying.  Neither one of Olivia’s samples, neither the DNA from her hair or from that retrieved from her pewter coffee cup, matched John Cummins’ DNA.  But, Olivia’s DNA matched Paul’s.  Once again, I was shocked.  Olivia wasn’t John Cummins biological mother.  Did this mean she had not born John Ericson’s child?  Not necessarily, but it certainly meant that she had not given birth to John Cummins, the son of John Ericson.  Then, I had the weirdest thought.  What if Franklin Ericson, John Ericson’s father, was John Cummins father?  I quickly rushed this thought out of my mind, always intrigued by the true nature of free will, the lack of it. 

One thing I now knew for sure.  I stopped myself in my tracks.  I realized that I would never make a good detective.  During my entire investigation, ever since I set off for Ellijay, Georgia convinced that one simple DNA test would confirm that Olivia and I were the parents of John and Paul Cummins, I had been truly embarrassed with my reasoning.  It was always after Jerry fed me the truth that I learned something.  It seemed every one of my hypothesis were faulty.  Maybe now I could safely say, it appears, strongly, that Olivia is the biological mother of Paul Cummins. 

I shifted back and forth pushing myself down deeper into the beanbag chair.  I fell asleep breathing out loud, repeatedly, the question, ‘who is the father of Paul Cummins?’

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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 25

March 1971

Nearly a month had gone by since the debacle at the Valentine’s dance.  I had never been more surprised.  Apparently, it was some type of dawning for Olivia.  She seemed to change, virtually overnight.  In one significant way.  Her treatment of me.  She enabled us to shed the brother-sister cloak.  Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t start dating.  Officially.  But, we did allow our feelings for each other to creep into our private conversations.  She also had joined me once or twice per week on my daily runs.  For sure, one thing didn’t change.  Olivia, if anything, increased her attempt to convert me to Christ.  Something about not having the freedom to be unequally yoked.  Talking about change, there was something else that miraculously occurred in my life after my losing fight with John Ericson.  My long-dead mother reappeared.  In my mind.

Not my real, biological mother, but the woman who was my Biology Teacher.  I don’t know how it occurred but some way she had x-ray vision, some uncanny ability to know what was going on in my life.  Easily, she could have heard about what happened at the Valentine’s dance.  She could have been there as a chaperon, although I hadn’t seen her.  The following Monday after the dance and after Biology class ended at 10:45, she asked me, outside the hearing of the other students who were making their way out the door, if I would help her on a project she was working on.  She apologized by saying that the only time we could work was during lunch and that it might take a few days.  I jumped at the chance.  I had been worried all weekend about where I was going to sit in the lunchroom since I could never return to the table from hell.

Apparently, Dr. Ayers knew a lot more about me than I could have imagined.  That first day in her room during lunch she had shared that her husband, Travis, and my father had become acquainted.  It had happened at a little church, Clear Creek Baptist Church, out in the Aroney Community.  It was Brother Gorham’s church, the preacher who had spoken to the students in all four grades on the first day of classes.  I knew that Dr. Ayers was an unbeliever.  She had made that clear, not so much directly, but through her teaching.  She also said that Travis simply enjoyed the fellowship of a group of caring people.  The two of them, Dad and Travis, had noticed each other several times and always sat together when Dad visited his favorite pastor.  I gathered that Dad had shared a lot about me, and Travis, in turn, had passed this along to his wife.

What was to be a few days helping Dr. Ayers turned into over a month.  Every day at 11:45 a.m. I made my way back to her classroom.  These were the best lunches ever.  I didn’t have to bring a Bologna sandwich or anything else to eat.  She always brought leftovers from home and they were delicious, ten times better than the lunchroom’s food.

It had taken me over a week to figure out Dr. Ayer’s project, or at least one aspect of that project.  Five years earlier she had lost her one and only daughter, Ellen.  Dr. Ayers had shared with me how Ellen had a brain tumor and it had caused her to have a car wreck from which she died.  Dr. Ayers had been remarkably strong, but I could tell someway she had a deep inner need to relate, maybe connect, with a young person that reminded her of Ellen.  I became that person.  I think it had a lot to do with me being from Chicago, just like Dr. Ayers and Travis, and Ellen.  I had also learned Ellen had attended the same private school I had during the sixth through eighth grades.

Yesterday, Dr. Ayers had shared with me how Ellen had fallen in love with Ruthie Brown, a young lady who now was in graduate school at the University of Virginia.  Ellen and Ruthie, obviously both girls, had known virtually from first sight they were destined to be together.  I was intrigued that Dr. Ayers had used the ‘once in life love’ phrase that I privately used to describe my relationship with Olivia.  After yesterday’s talk, I had a whole new perspective on love and how, devoid of religious dictates, prejudices, and bigotry, real love is grander, more beautiful, than what is normally permitted in the deep South.  Dr. Ayers shared how on two occasions Ellen and Ruthie had spent a long weekend, during the Fall, in Mentone, Alabama.  It seemed Ellen had been very open with her mother and had shared her innermost feelings for Ruthie.

Today, Dr. Ayers and I had talked about one of the biggest misconceptions in the Christian world.  It concerned the source of our morals.  To believers, especially Southern Baptist fundamentalists, God and the Bible is the source for man’s morals.  God is the only one who is truly good.  He has shared his moral values with man and woman, the ones He created in His own image.  Without God, man cannot be good.  Or, this is what my friends at First Baptist Church of Christ in Boaz, along with their many counterparts around the Nation believed.  Dr. Ayers, according to my worldview and ability to reason, made a lot more sense.  She said our morals are a result of Darwinian natural selection.  They have been evolving for millions of years.  She said we don’t need the Bible to be good.  In fact, she said that in truth, Christians don’t get their morals from the Bible.  “The Bible promotes slavery, and stoning for multiple offenses, including adultery and for a girl not being a virgin on her wedding night.  I don’t think that’s what any Christian truly believes.”  Dr. Ayers shared how scientific studies were showing how our morals, the ability to choose between right and wrong, were virtually universal.  Studies of people throughout the world, including men and women living in tribes where religion had never infiltrated, made similar choices.  She said when various scenarios, what she referred to as ‘trolley car’ questions, were presented, the answers were almost identical.  If a trolley car is rolling down the track out of control, headed to a place where five people are standing who will certainly be killed, is it morally acceptable for a switchman to divert the car to a side track where only one person will be killed?  The answers, universally are yes.  Dr. Ayers shared several versions of the trolley car story, many with changes that called for a negative answer.  The bottom line, to me at least, is that man doesn’t need God to be good.

As I gathered up my things after our lunch and our discussion, I couldn’t help but recognize how close I was feeling to Dr. Ayers.  It brought back memories of my dearly departed mother who, unlike Dad when I was in the sixth grade, took every possible opportunity to spend time with me.  If she were alive today, I had no doubt that we would be having daily conversations about many things, excluding virtually nothing.  Of course, I couldn’t help but wonder what affect her Catholicism would have had upon me.  I didn’t know for sure, but speculated that it would just be an interesting conversation.  I would continue to realize there was simply a wholesale lack of evidence to believe in God.

Olivia had called me last night to see if she could join me on my afternoon jog today.  I had no hesitation in agreeing.  Brilliant me.  March, just a few days away from the official beginning of Spring, seemed to be a time when Olivia wasn’t quite as busy.  There was no football or basketball games to attend.  Although the baseball team was on the verge of kicking off its season, I was grateful cheerleaders hadn’t infiltrated this sport.

I arrived at Olivia’s at 3:30 p.m.  Since late November, when the weather had started turning cold, I had driven my Corvair to school.  Today, as usual, I had gone home to change clothes, eat an orange, and see Dad for just a few minutes, before my daily run.  For months, it had become routine.  It seemed he was always at home after my school day.  I think he felt guilty about how much he had missed by semi-forcing Mother to manage me and my time all the way from Kindergarten until she was diagnosed during the middle of my sixth-grade year. 

Dad first asked me about my day, about my classes, and since a few weeks ago, how things were going between Olivia and me.  Finally, right as I was trying to get out of the house and onto the pavement with my run, he would request an update on what was going on with the youth group and what I was learning.  Today, I didn’t have anything to offer but did ask him what Mother would say to the question, ‘do we as humans get our morality from God?’  He rambled for a minute or so.  Finally, I told him to hold his response for later, that I had to run.  Literally.

Olivia and I jogged through downtown Boaz and south on Highway 205 towards the golf course.  For nearly a mile she didn’t say anything.  This was unusual for Olivia.  As we approached Pleasant Hill Road on our right she said, “let’s turn here.  We’ve never made the 179 loop.”  After she described Highway 179 and where our feet would take us, she said, “Matt, I’m growing more and more depressed anticipating your leaving.  I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

I almost cried, something I rarely did.  Her words were said with such sadness.  I was moved beyond description.  Olivia was going to miss me.  As I was her.  “The good thing is it’s nearly three months away, but the bad news is, it’s nearly three months away.  I try not to think about it.  It’s so unfair.”  I said speeding up enough to match Olivia’s pace.

“Do you ever think about running away?  Just me and you?”

“Not really.  But, I have thought a lot about staying here, continuing to live in Boaz.  I’ve even talked to Dad about it.  That conversation isn’t working out too well.  Yet.”  It made me nearly sick to talk about this subject, but I knew, sooner or later, Olivia and I would have to deal with it.

“Matt, I can’t say too much but my home life is not what you think it is.  On the surface it probably looks idyllic.  You just don’t know.  Inside the walls of our house things are not so good.  My father and brother are very unpleasant characters.”

“I’m sorry Olivia.  You seem so free and happy.  If I didn’t know differently, I’d think you are this way because of your Christianity.”  I said.

“Don’t go there.  If it weren’t for Jesus I couldn’t survive.  Matt, when is it okay to say I love you?  How do two people know this and have the courage to say it?”  Olivia was a mess today no doubt.  She had never talked like this.

“I’m no expert on love and relationships, but I believe it’s okay to use those words, to say those words and mean them, when you get to the point that you know your world could never be the same without that other person.  You cannot stop thinking about them.  Probably, a lot of people tie that phrase to sex.  Sorry to bring that up but you asked your question.”

“It’s okay.  I feel comfortable talking about most everything with you Matt.”

For the next couple of miles our conversation ended.  We were battling a steady uphill climb that was working hard on our lungs.

At the intersection of Pleasant Hill Road and Highway 179, we stopped a minute and caught our breath.  “Olivia, I didn’t mean to imply that if there is no sex then there can be no love.  I hope you don’t think that I think that.  To be completely truthful with you, I’d love you if we never had sex.  Of course, that’s for marriage and I didn’t mean that I was wanting us to have sex now, anytime, you know?”  I was becoming a blabbering fool.  My words made no sense.  Olivia would now know, or think, I was interested in her because of her sexy body, just to hopefully fool around.

“Matt, you can be so funny.  That’s one thing I love about you.  Gosh, I said it and didn’t know that was coming.  You are such a gentleman.  You try so hard to always be respectful.  You are so different than John and Wade and about every other boy I know.”

“Thanks for associating me with John Ericson.  I would hope you know by now that I care about you Olivia, the real you.  Of course, you are beautiful and gorgeous.  Did I say beautiful?”

“You did.  Go on, continue.  You were just getting started.”  Olivia said reaching for my hand and pulling me into her body, my sweat and hers merging like I envisioned our lives would someday.

“Your outward beauty drives me crazy most of the time but it’s your heart that keeps me sane.  It’s a very trite statement.  But, you are real, genuine.  You aren’t an actor.  You never try to deceive.  At least I hope I’m not standing here, holding you, all while I have been deceived.”  I said, holding my head back and considering Olivia’s eyes.  Me melting once again.

“You’re pretty gorgeous yourself Mr. Matt, although you could use a few more curves along your biceps.  Ha, just kidding.”

Olivia laid her head on my shoulder, holding both my hands with hers.  “I want you forever as my boyfriend.  I need your heart always.  I can wait on your body, but I cannot wait to hear your heart as it walks alongside me.  I love you Matt Benson.”

Two pickup trucks pulled off Highway 179 into the little graveled area where Pleasant Hill Road ended.  There were two old codgers, friends it seemed, just settling window to window beside each other to talk.  Their timing interrupted the most intimate talk Olivia and I had ever had.  “I love you too.”  I said to Olivia as I pulled her left hand and directed us northward.

The two plus miles back to Boaz, along Highway 179 and then right and onward on Highway 168, were filled with wordless chatter.  It was all about love, our love for each other.  Her look, her smile, told me endlessly that we had crossed into new territory.  What had been coming forth, like new shoots of corn breaking through fertile soil in the spring, what had not been verbally expressed, was now out in the open.  Olivia Tillman and I were officially girlfriend and boyfriend.

I hoped it was for always and forever.

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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 24

December 23 & 24, 2017

The email arrived at 4:19 a.m. Saturday morning.  I didn’t see it until sunrise.  I was sitting out on the front porch in the swing in two layers of clothes and my sleeping bag draped over me.  There was a light dusting of snow on the untraveled street and sidewalk.  It was the coldest I could ever recall from my time here in the South.

Jerry’s lab time had been delayed until yesterday.  Jerry was as terse as always, ‘match and no match.’  What the hell did that mean?  I almost missed it.  Two lines below his professional signature including the University’s address, two phone numbers, and a web address, he had written, ‘Call me.  Now.’

Then, it made sense.  I hadn’t been able to sleep inside.  Earlier this morning, I had awoken.  At first, I thought I had been dreaming, a mysterious hand was writing on the side of the house.  It turned out it was a tree limb screeching against my bedroom window.  The dream had returned quickly.  It was like the walls were shrinking and compressing against me.  I believed I was smothering.  That feeling had led me out here.  Now, I knew someone, something, had been trying to communicate with me, motivating me to read what, no doubt, was a life-changing email.

My hands were too cold to call Jerry.  I had barely been able to read his email on my iPhone.  I walked back inside and threw my sleeping bag back into my bedroom and returned to the den to stand by the three-brick gas heater.  I warmed my hands and then pulled my phone from my pocket. 

“You’ve got yourself a little mystery.”  Those were Jerry’s first words.  He didn’t say, ‘hello, how are you, or don’t you know it’s nearly Christmas.’ 

“How can the original two samples I sent you both match and not match the last one, the one I overnighted you two days ago?”  I said stepping back from the heat and sitting down onto the Alabama beanbag chair.

“Matt, you’re sounding like a first-year graduate student.  Think.  It’s simple.  One sample matches, the other one doesn’t.”  I’m normally not this slow.  I was almost mad at myself for missing the obvious.  Either John or Paul’s DNA matched John Ericson and the other one didn’t.”

“You still there?”  Jerry asked.

“Was it sample A or B that matched sample D?”  I had not disclosed names to Jerry.  I had simply labeled the four samples I had sent him, A, B, C, and D.  John Cummins was A, Paul Cummins was B, I was C, and Danny Ericson was D.  In Jerry’s first test he had determined that neither John or Paul Cummins’ DNA matched mine.  In this second test, John Ericson wasn’t the father of the twins.  Twins?  I still wasn’t thinking.  John and Paul Cummins cannot be twins.

“Sorry Jerry, my mind is frazzled.  It’s the cold.  No, probably it’s Alabama.  Reasoning is nearly forbidden when you cross the line from Tennessee.  It’s always been two things and only two things, God and football.  More recently, it was three, Roy Moore’s brand of Republicanism, football, and God.”

“I suspect you want to know.  A matches and B doesn’t.  A and D are as perfect a match as you will get.  There’s only a 1 in 65 billion chance they don’t match.”  Jerry said.  I knew he was tired and certainly wasn’t a chatter.

“Jerry, I owe you my firstborn child and half my next lottery winnings.  Is there one more big favor buried deep in your heart?”  I had to ask.

“You’re a little old to father children and I suspect you are not the type to play games of chance.  You’re asking me to conduct one more DNA analysis.  Right?”  Jerry was thinking as usual.

“Yes.  Would you?” 

“What are friends for?  Send the sample on up.”  I promised myself as Jerry’s generosity spilled forth that I would buy a hundred copies of his latest book, Faith vs. Fact, Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible, and donate them to a worthy cause, maybe Boaz High School.  No, there they would be burned. 

“I don’t have the sample yet but hopefully will by tomorrow.  You should have it by Tuesday afternoon.”

“No problem.  Just make sure you track the package and let me know when it arrives.  I’m not working all week, instead I’ll be in and out of the office and lab beginning with Christmas day Monday.”  Jerry as usual painted a clear picture.

“Got you.  Thanks.  I’ll never be able to repay you.” 

“You’re right, but I’ll come up with a few ideas when you get back in town.”

“Can’t wait to see you.  Merry Christmas.”  I knew Jerry didn’t celebrate a traditional Christmas holiday, but no one enjoyed good fellowship with good friends around a huge table of good food as much as he did.”

“Merry Christmas to you.  Please don’t let your little mystery interfere with those around you who matter.”

The remainder of Saturday went by as though I was in a fog.  I finally caught up on some much-needed sleep.  By 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning I had slept as many hours as I normally did in two days.  Sometime before daylight my phone vibrated.  It was a text from Olivia.  “Are you up for Church?  I’m especially worried about Warren and wanted to show my support.  And, I need your support to sit through the service and battle old memories.”

What was I to do?  No matter how crazy things seemed to get, the more I realized that all I wanted was Olivia.  Even the bad news didn’t seem to divert my heart’s quest.  For sure, Olivia and I were not the parents of John and Paul.  It was looking like Olivia was the mother of John Cummins, but all I really knew was that he was the son of John Ericson, even named after him.

I almost cussed out loud, something I rarely did.  My mind.  Was I losing my ability to think professionally?  It dawned on me that I didn’t know for sure that Olivia was John Cummins’ mother, nor if she was the biological mother of Paul Cummins.  Another truth, just because John Cummins’ DNA matched Danny Ericson’s, doesn’t mean it would match Olivia’s.  I couldn’t believe that I had omitted the DNA test that should have been conducted right up front, along with the one Jerry did comparing my DNA to that of John and Paul Cummins.  I knew what I had to do, what sample I had to obtain, and it wasn’t the one I had been thinking of when I had asked Jerry if he would be generous enough just one more time.  I knew I had to find out if Olivia was the biological mother of John Cummins.

“You know I want to be with you.  Church it is.  I’ll drop by Warren’s house at 10:45.”  Olivia replied to my text with a Jerry Coyne style terseness, ‘k.’

I killed the next few hours sitting at the Waffle House eating pancakes, my favorite breakfast food, along with bacon, and drinking coffee.  My mind, finally in gear, worked hard and fast but still couldn’t piece together a viable hypothesis for what had happened over forty-six years ago.  I now knew for a fact that John and Paul Cummins were not twins, they were not even brothers.  From all indications, they fully believed they were brothers.  Unless there was some conspiracy at work, which I didn’t believe was the case, John and Paul Cummins had been adopted by a set of parents in Texas and had been told all their lives that they were twin brothers.  They certainly weren’t identical twins, but they looked enough alike to pass for fraternal twins.  When I left the Waffle House I was leaning strongly towards believing that sample E, a DNA sample I would use my best stealth to retrieve, would prove to be a match to that of John Cummins.  Olivia had given birth to John Ericson’s child, a single child. 

I could barely listen to Warren’s sermon.  I caught about every three sentences.  My mind was locked onto the evolving mystery.  As Olivia and I were greeting folks after the service and making our way to the back of the auditorium my subconscious pushed forward a thought that I had no way of incorporating into the mystery of Olivia Tillman.  It concerned Warren’s sermon.  His subject had been wisdom.  What it is and how we get it.  He had used a story about Solomon, King David’s son.  It was a story I had never heard or one that I didn’t recall.  I hadn’t paid much attention to the details, but I remember two women were fighting over the custody of one baby.  They both claimed to be the child’s mother.  The case was brought before Solomon, who Warren, and I guess the Bible, claimed was the wisest man who ever lived.  Solomon was most likely just a story, a fictionalized man himself but the writer had a great lesson.  Solomon apparently knew a lot about women.  I think he had bedded a few in his day, fictionally of course.  He also knew a lot about mothers.  His wisdom, his advice, was to divide the child between the two claimants.  Obviously, this required the baby to be cut in half.  I loved the story’s ending.  The child’s real mother told Solomon to not dare harm the child but instead to give him to the other woman.  Solomon, in all his wisdom, had known that the one and only true mother could never have allowed his command to be carried out.  Solomon knew the love of a mother for her child was possibly the most powerful force in nature.  I couldn’t help but know that my own mother would have done the same.

The afternoon was spent with the beautiful Olivia.  We rode bikes.  Our intention was to take a long ride down College Avenue.  It was too cold.  We opted instead to come back to my house and sit by the gas heater in the den.  We pulled the two beanbag chairs just close enough for them not to catch fire.  We held hands and talked.  I had no problem allowing my heart to lock my mind’s door.  Olivia’s words danced around struggles she had as a teenager, especially after I had left Boaz in June 1971, but she never would get too specific.  I mainly listened.  Late afternoon, as the sun went down we made our way into my bedroom, and danced our way down deep into my sleeping bag.  At first, we just held each other and snuggled, whispering the sweetest words in each other’s ears.  Serious words for serious people.  Kissing Olivia always made me melt.  And dream.  Ever since that first kiss, so long ago, on her couch, in her living room, after the deaths of the four teenagers, I imagined that if two people were destined to be together, if fate had it that these two people were meant for each other, they would know it by the kisses they exchanged.  I knew my lack of romance knowledge was infecting my imagination.  But, I also knew that when Olivia had leaned down towards me, with her left arm propped on the back of her couch, in that moment when our lips touched, my world changed forever.  I knew it as much as I knew my name, Olivia Tillman was my once in life love. 

We got silly trying to remove our clothes while still zipped up tight in my sleeping bag.  A little more laughter would likely have immobilized our bodies.  It was that type of humor that rarely happens, but when it does, it paralyzes the human frame.  Finally, Olivia gently pulled my face into hers and pushed me back just enough to crawl on top of me.  Someway we managed to remove our clothes, allowing our bodies to touch.  I felt her soft and tender legs move over my thighs.  It was an indescribable sensation, one that drove our minds and bodies beyond sex, to that land of mystery and romance that few, I believe, ever know.  Words could not describe it, it was something so much more than ‘making love.’  It was these times with Olivia, when we became one, that I came the closest to opening my mind to the idea of a Creator.  Surely, if there was one, He, She, whatever it was, had made Olivia for me, and me for Olivia.  There was no other match for either of us.

Once again Olivia wouldn’t spend the night.  I drove her home, to Warren’s, at almost 2:00 a.m.  When I returned, I carefully removed three long, silky blond hairs from the top of my sleeping bag, and placed them in one evidence bag, and in another, I inserted Olivia’s favorite pewter coffee cup she had drank hot chocolate from at midnight.  I would have to craft a carefully believable story to respond to Olivia’s certain question that when she learned the cup I had bought her at the Gadsden Mall only two weeks ago was missing.  I would be at the Boaz Post Office when it opened in the morning to overnight the two samples to Jerry.

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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 23

March 1971

“I already have other plans.”  Olivia had told me while we sat in our favorite beanbag chairs at the Lighthouse last Saturday afternoon.  I had finally gotten up my courage to ask her to the annual Valentine’s dance.  I had falsely believed she had given me an open invitation earlier during the conversation when she said that she enjoyed being with me and how she felt so free to share her innermost thoughts.  In response to her total rejection I had blurted out, “I guess I will go with Carol Walker.”  It was so stupid of me.

“Have you asked her?”  Olivia had asked.  No doubt our relationship had sunk as low as it could go.  This conversation was taking on a brother-sister aura.

“She asked me, but I turned her down.  I guess I let my imagination get away with me.”

“Why don’t you call her?  Ask her?  She might not have a date yet.  Carol is a sweet girl, a good girl.  Ya’ll will be a good match.”  Olivia just kept on spitting out her sickening sister sayings.

“I think I will just stay at home.”  Dad and I might watch TV.  I can’t dance anyway.”

“Can I tell you the truth?”  Olivia said.

“I thought you always were truthful.”

“Seriously, I wish I could go with you.  I have never been on a real date.  Friday night has been planned for me.  Dad has had this rule for years that I couldn’t start dating until I was 15 and then only under close supervision.  I won’t be 15 until May.  Wade came to my rescue, sort of, telling Dad that all ninth-grade girls will be at the dance and most of them will have a date.  Dad compromised and, with Wade’s help, arranged for me to go with John.  As you now know, it’s not really a date.  That’s why I said I already have other plans.” 

For the next thirty minutes, sitting in our beanbag chairs, I surrendered and slithered into the brother role.  I gave up hope that I would ever be a real boyfriend to Olivia.  Some things are worth sacrificing for.  I had spent nearly six months around John Ericson and the other four members of the Flaming Five, including most every day at school lunch.  The only consolation I could provide my mind was that to effectively do my undercover work I had to experience all sides of the youth that comprised First Baptist’s youth group.  I knew all John Ericson thought about was sex.  But, I had to admit, he could compete with the best Hollywood actors.  John was the master of deception.  He had Pastor Walter totally fooled.

I had told Olivia that she should be careful around John, that he might try to take advantage of her.  I was surprised that she said, “John has admitted to me that he made a mistake with Jessie Dawson.”

“He told you about that?”  I was flabbergasted.  John and Olivia had talked about him having sex with the delightful Dawson?

“John struggles with his faith.  Down deep he is more committed to Christ than virtually anyone in our group.  He just has a weakness for girls.”  I couldn’t believe how gullible Olivia truly was.

“And, you think you are protected?  What makes you think he won’t try something with you?  You are playing with fire here, don’t you know?”  I literally hated what was happening.  To Olivia.  And, probably just as much to me.  There was no way that I would ever be anything more to Olivia than a caring brother.

“John and I are best of friends.  He is a spitting image of Wade.  I’ve grown up around the two of them.  And, of course, with Fred, James, and Randall.

When John and his four friends came into the Lighthouse I got up and left.  I didn’t think I could stomach any more of John Ericson for one afternoon.

That night, Saturday night, I did call Carol Walker.  She agreed to go with me but said that her father would drop us off at the high school and pick us up afterwards.  Here I was, an eleventh grader, one with his own set of wheels, and I was taking a ninth grader on her first date.  Maybe her father would just stay with us the whole evening.  It would probably be more fun.

If I hadn’t been so dumbstruck by Olivia, I would have liked Carol Walker.  She was a smart, sweet, kind, and gorgeous brunette that wasn’t at all shy like myself.  We walked into the high school lunch room.  Her with her ample cleavage on display, holding my hand, with head held high.  I think she was proud to be with me.  I had a good time.  For most of the night.  Carol was funny and could dance like a pro.  She taught me more about dancing than I thought possible. 

I had seen Olivia and the tall John Ericson once during an intermission when the lights came on.  She too was gorgeous and seemed to be her normal self, talking to everyone around her.  I was a little encouraged when it appeared that she wasn’t paying John much mind.  Maybe theirs wasn’t a date after all.

This changed for the worse during the first song after the crowning of this year’s Valentine Queen.  As always, the winning girl was a Senior.  Deidre Cawley, according to Carol, was a sure win since she had for years participated in beauty contests and aspired to be a professional model.  As usual, I was confused, thinking this was just high school where the teacher’s voted, and not an event where the selection system was managed and controlled by some international accounting firm.

During that song, as fate would have it, Olivia and John were well within eyesight.  It was a slow dance, a song, I think, by Elvis.  I should have been concentrating on the lovely Carol who was doing an admirable job of swaying us towards what otherwise would trigger the types of thoughts I, so far, had kept at bay.  John and Olivia were also closely embraced and engaged in the same sort of swaying.  I somehow managed to steer Carol and me a little closer.  I caught a glimpse of John whispering something into Olivia’s ear.  Then, my world, my young, seemingly predictable and controlled world ended.  I had the perfect view.  John’s right hand slipped down Olivia’s back.  It didn’t stop, as it should.  It was like time stood still.  As John moved his hand down beyond Olivia’s back and approaching the center of her generous buttocks, I lost it.  Gently at first, I pushed Carol to the side.  Less gently, I ran towards Olivia, she was in trouble.  Before I could think any counter thoughts my right hand struck John’s head just behind his right ear.  I hit him so hard that he fell to the dance floor.  But, he didn’t stay down.  I only remember one blow.  He stood up, walked towards me and punched me with a left hook.  I went down hard.  I didn’t get up.  Later, Ryan told me that before two chaperons, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Hayes, reached the scene, John kicked me in the side two times.

The first thing I remember was standing outside in the high school parking lot with Ryan.  He told me that Carol’s dad had just left with her and that my Dad was on the way.  Ryan said, “Benson, to be so damn smart, you just did the most stupid thing imaginable.  No one ever opposes a member of the Flaming Five.  Your ass is grass.”

At 11:00 a.m. I awoke to Dad shaking my shoulder.  I was asleep, dreaming about being in a boxing ring with a giant octopus.  What long arms it had.  “Matt, wake up, you have a phone call.  I think it is Olivia.”

“Hello.”

“Matt, this is Olivia.  Are you okay?”

“Couldn’t be better.  My world is now perfect.”  I said always depending on sarcasm to blunt the effects of reality.

“I wanted to thank you.  It was awfully brave of you to come to my rescue.”  Olivia said as kind and humble as I had ever heard her.

“Olivia, it’s killing me to think that John Ericson is trying to ruin your life.  I know it’s not really any of my business, but I care about you and don’t seem to be able to manage myself when it comes to you.”

“Matt, that’s the thing I cannot figure out about you.  You clearly are not a Christian, but you act more like Jesus than any boy I know.  Are you sure you are not keeping a big secret from me?”  Olivia asked.

“Are you trying to be funny.  I’m not any better than anyone else.  My dear departed mother taught me the importance of being a gentleman.  Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m not human.  I fight the same temptations that I suspect most every other teenage boy does.”

“I suspect I know what you’re talking about.  There is a part of me that wants to play out my fantasies but then I fight back and pray that Jesus will give me the strength to run from temptation, to avoid places and people who cause me to stumble in my thinking.” 

When Olivia said she had to go I was again confused.  Why had she called?  It seemed our conversation wasn’t simply a brother-sister talk.  It was more like we were grown-ups with a ton more wisdom than we really had.  The best thing about the relationship that was developing between Olivia and me, whatever it was, was the growing openness we shared.  I was learning something new about myself.  I gained confidence and perspective from mine and Olivia’s talks.  Even though I didn’t know much about physical intimacy, although there was that one kiss with Olivia on her couch, I was learning there was another type of intimacy, that developed from sharing my innermost thoughts with the most important person in my life.  No doubt Olivia didn’t know, but I knew she was my once in life love.

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

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism.  Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ.  Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman.  He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ.  Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends.   Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends.  She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ.  Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs. 

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present.  The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018.  After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart.  However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart.  They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith.  Will these religious differences unite them?  The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept.  Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Chapter 22

December 20, 2017

I had wanted to stay all night at Warren’s with Olivia.  At one point, she had invited me but we both soon recognized it wasn’t the best idea acknowledging that it was the perfect fodder for triggering small town gossip.  Someone would walk by and see-through these walls.  Besides, it wasn’t fair on Warren.  He was going through enough right now trying to come to terms with the likely prison terms of both his father and grandfather.  Finally, a little before midnight, I tried to convince Olivia to join me at 118 College Avenue and share my cozy sleeping bag for the rest of the night.

I’m glad she had declined my invitation.  I had purposely not checked my email until I had left Olivia alone at Warren’s.  As soon as I walked in and sat down in one of my beanbag chairs, my afternoon and evening with Olivia seemed to be just a fairy tale.  Jerry’s email contained only three words, ‘not a match.’  My first thoughts centered on how Jerry could have made a mistake.  I had convinced myself that John and Paul were my biological children.  Once I overcame the shock of these three words my mind realized that it was highly unlikely Jerry was wrong.  He simply didn’t make mistakes like this in the lab.  What hurt more than anything was to think that Olivia was intentionally lying to me.  She surely didn’t know that I wasn’t the father of her two children.  Of course, she knew that she had had sex with John, I now assumed, no, I now knew he was the father, but she honestly believed that I had gotten her pregnant the night before Dad and I left in June 1971.  It was almost a miracle if one believed in miracles.

I hadn’t slept much last night after reading Jerry’s email.  At six a.m., I had finally gotten up from my sleeping bag feeling the worst I had ever felt.  It was a hundred times worse than any time I had ever woken up after having a horrible dream.  This was no dream.  To show how much I had doubted that I was John and Paul’s father, I hadn’t thought much at all about what my next move would be if my DNA and theirs had not matched.  It didn’t take long to determine what I had to do.  John and Paul’s DNA would match their father’s, John Ericson.  As it would Danny Ericson’s.  I was glad that I had attended Warren and Tiffany’s little get-together for Judith Ericson and Randi Radford.  It was there I learned that Judith and John had two children, Danny and Bridget, and that Danny still lived in town, continuing to carry on the hundred-plus year old family real estate business.  It was easy to determine what I had to do.  What was difficult was figuring out a way to obtain a good sample of Danny’s DNA.

I was lucky Danny was in town and available.  I had called Ericson Real Estate & Development.  The receptionist had told me he was out of the office showing a house in the Pebblebrook Subdivision.  She gave me Danny’s cell phone number.  Within fifteen minutes, he had returned my call.  I repeated my story and added that I knew his mother and had spent some time with her at Warren’s a few nights ago.  He was eager to meet me.  I suggested we meet at McDonald’s for coffee and to discuss what exactly I was looking for and then, per his recommendation, go house hunting.  My plan worked like a charm.  We sat and drank coffee and before we left to see a lodge-type property at the top of Skyhaven Drive, he retired to the bathroom leaving his cup at our table.  I had brought my iPad in a small duffle bag and easily hide Danny’s coffee cup inside.  When he returned, he seemed to look for his cup but was easily satisfied when I told him I had thrown them away.  I endured the next two hours looking at five different houses, but it wasn’t easy.  It seemed all Danny wanted to talk about was his father.  To Danny, there was no greater man that John Ericson.  I didn’t attempt to dissuade him.  At 4:15 p.m., I purchased a shipping box at the Boaz Post Office and slid inside Danny’s coffee cup secure in my zip lock evidence bag.  Fortunately, the U.S. Postal Service, for $29.99, would deliver my package to Jerry Coyne at the University of Chicago, before noon tomorrow.

I left the Post Office and headed back to College Avenue.  All afternoon I had ignored calls from Olivia.  I now had five missed calls.  I was in no mood to talk but I knew I had to act as though everything was as cozy between us as it was when I left her at Warren’s late last night.  She answered my call on the first ring.  “I’ve been worried about you.  Are you okay?”  Hearing her voice made me melt.  So, did my big project.  It seemed, at least in that moment, it was totally irrelevant who was the father of John and Paul Cummins.  Her words, the sound from her words, drew my mind and heart into her arms.  I realized I was treading on thin ice.  If I took one misstep and gave Olivia the impression that I was investigating her, that I didn’t believe her story about John and Paul, she and I would likely be over.  I would never have a chance to be with her as a couple, as hopefully, a married couple.  This last thought confirmed that I was losing it. 

I shared with her my time with Danny Ericson.  It was a plausible story, one she should easily buy into.  “These days back in Boaz have convinced me I want to return someday after I retire.  I decided that if I owned some real estate here that it would lock down my decision.”

“Matt, can I ask you something very personal?”  I had no clue what Olivia was going to ask.

“As always, I’m an open book.”  I said realizing that I could lie with the best of them.

“Did your house hunting have anything to do with, well, last night?”

“Maybe.”  I wanted to sound mysterious.

“I have to admit that you are all I’ve thought about since you left last night.  I know things have happened rather quickly since we both got into town, but it feels so right.  It’s like we are meant to be together.  I think it has always been that way.  If only I hadn’t so screwed up our lives.”   Olivia sounded so believable.  But, was she?

“Let’s continue our conversation over dinner.  How about the Cracker Barrel in Guntersville?”  I said trying hard to convince Olivia I had no concerns about her and us.

“Perfect timing.  I have been craving their turnip greens and cornbread all day.”

“Ellie Mae, I’ll pick you up at 6:00.”

Olivia responded in her best Southern drawl.  “Well, I’ll be.”

I walked inside and went to the kitchen for a glass of water.  I stood by the kitchen sink looking out over the small back yard.  It was here, for over a year, that Dad and I had been the closest.  He had always been extremely busy, with his research project and teaching at Snead.  For a few minutes every night, right after dinner, was his time to question me about my day and what I was learning from Olivia and others, including Brother Randy in the youth group.  One conversation now came to mind.  I had told Dad that I had detected what I called the ‘lying syndrome.’  I had told him that many of the kids, especially the Flaming Five, were masters at deception and lying.  I had described how at lunch and at other times I was with them, and when neither Brother Randy or any other adult was around, they were as crude and filthy as someone who had never darkened the doors of a church.  I had said it seemed they lived a double life.  They knew exactly how to play the church game.  It was as though they fully believed the Christian story, bought fully into Jesus as savior but, had no trouble at all acting out against all that was honorable.  Dad had said that studies had shown that it was natural for humans to always put their own interests first.  It was built in, an evolutionary trait, that helped perpetuate the species.  He said that although die-hard Jesus followers deeply believed they were surrendered to Christ, that when they were faced with a conflicting issue, often something their natural selves wanted with a passion, they categorized their conduct.  Dad had used the example of a young girl, deeply religious, how she would find a way to rationalize her sexual behavior with her boyfriend.  She, if she is sufficiently tempted, will break her vows to God just to please and keep her male friend, especially if he is telling her that he loves her.  I never will forget what Dad had said, “when you peel back all the layers of the Christian onion, you don’t find much difference between the conduct of Christians and non-Christians.  All humans are just animals dressed up in thin clothes and fragile ideas that easily dissolve when confronted with life-altering choices.”

When I left to go pick up Olivia I still had no clue as to why I had remembered this conversation.  It didn’t make much sense.  Not in the seventies and not even now.