Category: The Boaz Schoolteacher

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 21

Ever since the second week of school I had started each of my first three classes with a vocabulary lesson.  Our focus was on a word a day.  I posted each day’s word in each class’s Facebook group at least twenty-four hours before its related class time.  At the beginning of each of these three classes I would call the class to order and call on one student to come and stand beside me and say (not read) a sentence they had created using the day’s focus word.  One of my student-assistants would snap a photo of the student as he verbalized his statement to the class.  The assistant would then post the photo to the applicable Facebook group for twenty percent of the class to comment.  This way, in a week, every student was required to publicly comment on a focus word by offering his own statement (silly and irrelevant commenting earned the student a one-point grade demerit). This was just one of several ways I was attempting to increase each student’s classroom participation.

Today’s word was sanctimonious (this adjective was defined by Merriam-Webster as “hypocritically pious or devout”).  I had found the following sentence on the internet: “The sanctimonious Bertrand delivered stern lectures on the Ten Commandments to anyone who would listen but thought nothing of stealing cars to make some cash on the side.”  As was my custom, I always included an example sentence in my Facebook posting.  As I had this one.

In my first period class I chose Ben Gilbert to come forward and tell us his sentence using sanctimonious.  He said, “The sanctimonious Aiden Walker made the preaching and praying of the Apostle Paul look proud but couldn’t stop his mind from undressing the sexy Stella Gibson every time she walked in the church’s auditorium every Sunday morning.”  The class erupted in laughter and shouts of “Give us Real Justice.”  I was surprised, almost shocked.

When I finally got the class halfway settled Clara Ellington stood in the middle of the second row and asked me, “why can’t we write a novel?  It’s not fair you favor your creative writing class.  Aren’t you supposed to teach us in English class how to write?”

“You are absolutely correct on one thing, wrong on another.  First, I’m not favoring anybody.  Second, I am to teach, and you are to learn quite a bit about writing here in this class.”

The class was perfectly quiet, and it seemed all eyes were on me, each just around the corner from itching ears.  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you have already heard about my novel writing assignment.  Small towns and, I suppose, most high schools, spread news like a raging wildfire.  How many of you have actually seen the announcement on Facebook where I described the Real Justice project?”

Almost everyone raised a hand.  Ben Gilbert, still standing beside me, turned to me and asked.  “Can my team have Aiden Walker?  He is a hypocritical pig.  I want to give him real justice.”

I don’t think I had ever seen a group of students more eager for homework, a full year’s worth of it.  “I am honored that you would want to write a novel.  That can come, if you go on to take my creative writing class in two years.  As you probably know, all twenty of those students are seniors and already have quite a bit of writing experience.  Almost as big an issue is that I simply don’t have time to properly manage another seventy-five students, roughly another nineteen teams.

Clara and Ben had an ally.  Joanie, still purple-haired and still plump, stood up in the far right-hand corner of the middle section of the auditorium and said, “what if you made it, the novel project, an elective thing for us, maybe for extra credit?”

“That would still require a lot of my time.  Please don’t think that I don’t want to teach you this wonderful type of writing.  The only thing I can do is to encourage you, on your own time, to read novels and to write one of your own if you are so inspired.”

Tommy Vines immediately jumped into the conversation.  He chose to remain seated.  He was almost a head taller than anyone in the class.  This was noticeable even while he sat.  “Don’t worry about us Miss Sims we’ll just tag along.  We invite you to do the same thing.  We’ve added your name already to our Facebook group.  We’re calling it ‘Justice for Real.’  Read and comment anytime you want.  We won’t try to stop you from learning.”

I was sad, angry, and in awe.  I would never ever want to appear uninterested in helping my students, especially with something that was at the core of my being.  I was sad I couldn’t agree to expand my novel writing assignment to classes outside the twenty students in the senior Creative Writing class.  I was angry because Tommy Vines, as spokesperson for what appeared to be all seventy-four of his classmates, had stolen my Facebook group learning idea and my novel writing project.  Before I spoke, I concluded that no matter what pain this caused me, it was never a bad thing for teenagers to possess so much interest in something that I truly believed was a skill that could change their lives for the better.

“Tommy, again I’m honored.  Thanks for enrolling me in your group.  It already appears you and your classmates will have secondary access at a minimum to what goes on with my twenty Creative Writing students.  I wish you all the best of luck.  Also, I’ll try to visit your group, maybe occasionally offering an opinion.  But, please note, I will not be there as your teacher.”

The class remained quiet.  The remaining thirty minutes of class time was spent discussing a 1920’s short story, The Daughters of the Late Colonel, by Katherine Mansfield.  This New Zealand author was an add-on to my list of American authors.  The main reason we were studying this wonderful writer, and this story, was I had been unable to find an American author who had better combined the themes of death, independence, confusion, fear, and patriarchal society into one short story.

At 8:35 a.m., I was even more surprised.  My second class on the first day after the Labor Day holiday, a day that would likely become known as one of the most pivotal days in my life, was a virtual repeat of tenth grade English.  This class, eleventh grade English, made the same demands.  They too wanted in on my novel writing project.  I again declined.  For the same reasons.  They again, ignored me, and Charlie Rodgers, like Tommy Vines, announced their ‘Justice for Real II’ Facebook group and politely invited me along for the ride.  He announced twice that I was already a member of their group.

At 9:40 a.m., I was pleasantly surprised by my twelfth grade English class that they didn’t reveal even a hint of wanting in on the novel-writing gig.  I guess these seniors had other things on their mind.  Twenty of their classmates were already in my Creative Writing class.  I guessed this said the other hundred or so of their peers had determined writing, intensive, long-term writing, wasn’t something that warranted such a large percentage of the best year of their lives.

At lunch I told Cindy what had happened with my tenth and eleventh grade English classes.  She said I should be honored.  She also expressed her opinion that it seemed my novel writing project could be easily adapted to what, as she called it, “our own local little project.’  I was adamant, but respectful, to change the subject.

“You won’t believe who I saw going into Patrick Wilkins’ office as I was coming here.”  Cindy said, taking a bite of her tuna fish sandwich that was lighting up my little office with smells that combined the best of deep sea fishing with a shallow spreading of fresh manure over a recently plowed garden.

“I hope it was Sheriff Wayne Waldrup and you’re about to tell me you have gone to him and told him what Wilkins did to you.”

“Get that out of your mind girl.  I told you that wasn’t going to happen.  No, it wasn’t that W, but another one.  It was Warren Tillman, our wonderful pastor.”

“Don’t read too much into that.  I think the two of them are pretty good friends.  Come to think of it, I think Wilkins is close friends, with all the Faking Five.”

“Who?  Did you say the Faking Five?

“I did.  That’s a label I coined.  I did a take-off on the Flaming Five, you know the long-term descriptor for their fathers.  I guess the latter is worse than the former.  The former guys at least in part had a respectable source for their fame.”

“I’m a little confused.  To be clear, who are you including in your little Faking Five group?”  Cindy said, finishing her sandwich and using a paper-towel to shine the biggest red apple I had ever seen.

“Let me put it this way.  These five are five members of the group of six we spoke of last night.  My five and your one.  Do I need to spoil our lunch by actually naming my five?”

“I get it now.  I see clearly.  Your five are fakes.  To the world, at least to our local community, they are fine upstanding men.  Inside, where it really matters, they are putrid and vile.”

“You got it.”  I said.  “Can I have a bite of the apple?”  I intentionally said ‘the’ instead of ‘your’ to see if Cindy was listening to my little Biblical reference.

“You may but let me warn you. ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”  Cindy said standing and holding the apple high over her head as though she was a tree.

“Funny.  I choose to believe I will learn something new and beneficial if I take a bite of your apple, emphasis on your.”

“You just learned something, and you didn’t even have to taste the fruit.”

“What did I learn?  That the key to our little project is a red and juicy apple.”

“Okay.  Enough.  Eat your apple and let me have your thoughts how to draft a first chapter writing guide for my little novel writing project.”

“Hold on.  In a second.  Do you remember ‘Ten Red Apples?’  It’s a poem.  I’m not sure who wrote it.

“I don’t remember.”  I was growing tired of apples and Cindy still hadn’t cut me a bite of the juicy red one that was continuing to disappear.

“When I was an elementary school teacher I used this poem to start the year off with what I called my Apple Unit.  I can still recite my favorite apple poem, “Ten Red Apples:”

‘Ten red apples grow on a tree

Five for you and five for me

Let us shake the tree just so

And then red apples will fall below

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.’

I suggest we change this to Six Red Apples and call our little project the same.  Six red apples grow on a tree, three for you and three for me, let us shake the tree just so and then red apples will fall below. 1,2,3,4,5,6.”

“Cindy serious.  You now have me thinking there is a connection between your gorgeous red hair and the six red apples I’m imagining in your other hand.  I suddenly don’t want a bite of the real apple.”  I literally no longer liked apples.

“But you do want to bite off an arm or a leg from every one of the six red apples that you and I both hold securely in the palms of our hands.”

Cindy simply wouldn’t let it go.  For probably the first time ever, I was deeply grateful when the bell rang, and our lunch time ended.

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 20

I had just come to my bedroom after watching three episodes of The Walton’s with Nanny and Cullie.  Sammie was unnaturally tired, so we let her relax in her apartment while Cullie and I watched Nanny.  After brushing my teeth, I had just sat on my bed when I received a text from Cindy.  “Can you meet me at school?”

I couldn’t imagine why she wanted or needed to meet.  It was almost 10:30 p.m. on Monday night, the end of the long Labor Day weekend.  We both had a habit of being at school by 6:30 each morning so I would see her in eight hours.  “Why?  Can it not wait until morning?  But, if you need me, I can.”  I almost hadn’t written the last sentence.  It was my friendship with Emily Fink that reminded me of the importance of having one person in my life who was there for me no matter.  Emily had been that person.  She had been the only one in my life who had come close to caring for me more than I cared for myself.

“I hope you know I wouldn’t ask you at this time of the night if it wasn’t important.  You are the best friend I have, and I need your wisdom.”  Cindy was the type of woman who appeared to always have it together.  To me, she was the perfect role model for Cullie.  Cindy was educated, happily married with three wonderful children, and was a teacher’s teacher.  My description wouldn’t be complete without saying she was as dedicated a Christian as I had ever met.  She had faith like a mountain and believed prayer gave her a direct line to God and His son Jesus.

“What time?  Where?” 

“11:00 p.m.  Your classroom.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thanks for being such a wonderful friend.”  I was glad to see that Cindy felt the same as I did.

I was waiting in my little office when I heard the hallway door open.  It had one of those little dinger things mounted on the top.  During the school day I usually left the door open but closed it at most other times.

“Katie, it’s me.” 

“In here.”

When Cindy appeared in my office doorway I could tell she had been crying.  Her face complexion was much redder when I had seen her in the afternoon and her eyes were not only dark green but puffy.  I had never seen her without eye makeup.  She was still attractive in a redhead type of way but hardly looked the same as the vibrant and exuberant Cindy I was accustomed to.

“All weekend I’ve been mentally drafting and redrafting my little talk with you.  On the drive in tonight I burned all that up and threw it out the window.”  I liked the image Cindy created.  She was a Literature and Writing teacher.  She thought in word pictures.

“Okay, so you have something to tell me, but you don’t know how?”  I asked, worried that I had done or said something that offended her.  Maybe she had taken something I had said about Alysa the wrong way.  I didn’t have a clue what that could be.

“I do.  Patrick Wilkins raped me.  Last Wednesday night.  After church.”  Cindy delivered the four short statements like a first grader reading a book from the top shelf, meaning she shouldn’t be reading it.  She started to cry and walked into my office.  I stood, speechless, but open-armed.  I held her for what seemed like ten minutes, although it was probably no more than one.  Just as she seemed to gain control of her sobs, a rush of fear and hatred poured from my mind and pushed tears from my eyes.  My breathing almost ceased.  It was like I was smothering.  I had never experienced anything like this.

“Oh Cindy, my dear friend.  I’m here, all I know to say is that I am here for you and always will be.”  I had never been so sincere.  It was strange, but it was like Cindy’s pain launched my feelings for her, my belief in her, to the next level in friendship.

“I know.  That’s why I asked you to come.  I was dying.  I had to talk.”

“Have you told Steve?”  I asked.

“No.  I haven’t told anyone, and I don’t plan to.  Other than you.”

“Cindy, this is a hundred times worse, infinitely worse than his assault on you last week.  You have to report this to the police.”

“I can’t.  It will ruin my life.  It will change everything, especially my relationship with Steve.”  On one level, Cindy made sense, but no doubt her and Steve’s relationship was strong enough to weather this.

“Steve is the best friend you have.  You two are true soul mates if there ever were such a thing.”  I said, trying to persuade her she could not remain quiet.  Then, it dawned on me.  That’s exactly what I had done.  Who was I to be giving Cindy advice?

“You’re right and I want to keep it that way.  I’m afraid he will, deep down, think that it was my fault, that I somehow had done something, maybe the way I dressed, I don’t know, something to cause Wilkins to come on to me.”

“Steve wouldn’t think that.  He knows you to your core.  Aren’t that what soul mates are all about?”

“Even if Steve handled the news perfectly, that’s just the beginning of a whole new life, one I have no desire to live.”  Cindy had now recovered enough to return to the other side of my desk and sit down.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I know the right thing in one sense is to report this to the police and see that Wilkins is convicted of rape.  I’ve watched enough Law and Order, SVU, to know I can’t go through that.”

“He is a criminal Cindy.  He is a sexual predator.  Don’t you think if he gets away with this he will be emboldened?  I’m going to be direct and blunt as needed.  What if he turns his attention to young girls, even Alysa and Cullie?  I know you don’t want that.”  I knew I was treading on sensitive ground.  I sure didn’t want to put a world of responsibility on her precarious shoulders.

“I know.  You’re right.  And, we certainly don’t know what he has been doing.  Isn’t it unlikely I’m his first?”  I was glad Cindy was asking a question.  She was engaged, thinking.

“This leads obviously to the health risk he may have exposed you to.  You need medical attention.  You said you hadn’t told anyone.  Not even a doctor?”  I asked.

“No one means no one.  Sorry, that sounded wrong.  I didn’t mean to be a smart ass.”  I was surprised Cindy said that.  I had never heard her say a single cuss word, dirty word of any kind.

“You don’t have to answer this, but you said this happened at church Wednesday night?”

“Actually, it was after Wednesday night’s prayer meeting.  Steve had taken the kids and gone home.  I had driven separately knowing our Sunday School Department had scheduled a time after the prayer service to talk about the upcoming social.  Every quarter all four Sunday School classes in our Department get together for a meal and a speaker.  The meeting didn’t last thirty minutes.  Everyone else had gone but I had walked to the Education Department to pick up our new Sunday School quarterlies.  The teacher in me wants everyone to have their new lessons at least a couple weeks before the start of a new quarter.  When I was walking out, Patrick Wilkins met me in the hall outside the elevator.  You know he is the Church’s Education Director.”  Cindy’s words stopped.  It was like a spicket had been turned off.  Her tears returned.  She just sat there, frozen, with her head looking at her hands in her lap.

“You don’t have to give me any details.”  I walked around my desk and sat down beside her in the other chair I always had under the little window.

“You already know the horrendous details.”

“He sure was bold.  Right there in the church office.”  I said trying to rid my mind of Wilkins overpowering Cindy.  Probably pulled her into his personal office, closing and locking the door, and forcing Cindy across his desk.

“That’s not where he raped me.  He forced me to walk out to the parking lot.  That’s where I screamed when I saw Pastor Warren headed on foot to the Parsonage.  He turned around and stood there looking our way.  I know he could see us and know who we were.  We were standing under one of the big street lamps along the edge of the parking lot.  It was like Warren yelled out something but by that time Wilkins had me in the front seat of his vehicle.”

“You’re sure Pastor Warren recognized you?”

“He had to.  He was probably less than a hundred feet from us.”  I turned my chair to face Cindy and took both her hands.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you.  It’s like a nightmare.  I know what you’re going through.”  The words just appeared, in my mind, milliseconds before they slipped past my lips.

“Katie, I love you, but please don’t tell me you know what I’m going through.  I know you’re trying to help but that rings a little hollow.  Right now, I need bald-faced truth.  Just say you can’t imagine what I’m going through.”  Cindy said, softly, with her green eyes lightning up just a shade.  She was so kind and respectful.

“Cindy.”  I clutched her hands more tightly, my mind teetering atop the highest mountain, unsure which way to fall and kill itself.  Which way was less painful?  Head first or feet first?  Either way, the distance into the abyss was the same.  I doubted the pain would be radically different.  I chose head first.  “Look at me.  I have a secret I have never divulged to anyone.  I do know how you feel.  In 2002, I was raped.  The only difference with your horrible experience is that five men gang-raped me.  I did, and you do, feel helpless, totally powerless.  I know.  I’ve been there.  I’m still there.”

“Oh my gosh.  Katie my dearest.  I would never have guessed.  You seem so happy and complete.”  Cindy was doing her best to console me.

“Believe me, some days, inside my head, I’m a train wreck.”

“The lowdown bastards.”  Cindy again surprised me.  She was beginning to sound like me, at least my words below my breath.  Sometimes.  Sometimes not.  “Did you know who raped you?  Sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”  I now knew how I had sounded to Cindy.  We both were being a little artificial.  Real friends were much blunter, simply asked anything and everything they wanted to know.

“You can ask me whatever you want.  Just like I can with you.  I know that for sure.  You are real.  We are real for each other.  Oh, by the way, yes.  I knew who raped me.  And, you know them too.”

“Oh my gosh.  I keep saying that but oh my gosh.  It happened here in Boaz?  When?  Who are these guys?”  Cindy now was operating in full friend mode.

“I was home for Christmas holidays.  From California.  I had never thought of Boaz being a place where a single woman, alone, had to be wise, be smart about where she was.  I had always loved the downtown fountain.  I had driven my rental car there from Birmingham’s Airport before I drove on to Nanny’s.  I was abducted returning to my car after having walked into the Mall from the parking lot across the street from First State Bank.”

“Katie, I have to know who they are.  For mine and Alysa’s sake at least.”

“Hang on to your hat.  Warren Tillman, Ryan Radford, Fulton Billingsely, Justin Adams, and Danny Ericson.  Those five men repeatedly raped me in a tent somewhere, I suspect, twenty minutes or so from here, out in the country, down a long gravel road.”

“You couldn’t tell where you were, where they took you?”  Cindy asked.  I hoped she would keep this our secret.  Someway, I knew she would.

“No.  They had grabbed me from behind, just as I was walking past the little public restrooms building next to the parking lot.  They slipped a black hood over my head at the same time I first felt their hands on me.  I never saw them.  After it was over, they threw me beside my car with my hands loosely tied behind my back.  It was only then that I was able to remove the hood.  By then, they were long gone.”

“Sorry, but how did you know who raped you?”  Cindy said, asking a question I wished she hadn’t.

There was no use turning back now.  I was in for the full trip.  “Two ways.  I somehow, subliminally maybe, knew from their smells, touches, groans, that it was them.  I know that wouldn’t hold up in court but trust me.  I knew.  The second way was from the tape.  They had recorded it.  I’ve recently come into possession of that tape.”

“The bastards.  Dumb asses for sure.”  I had never heard my New York friend Emily Fink say a single word off-color, and she was a wonderful friend.  Now, I knew, a real friend is not prohibited from stepping one foot inside the muddy gutter.

“They truly are but that makes them even more dangerous.  Funny thing is I have let it be known to our fine pastor that I know they were the ones who raped me.”

“Do they know you have the tape?”  Cindy asked.

“I’m not sure, but if I were to bet, I would say yes.”

“Now I’m wondering.  It just hit me.  Pastor Warren and Patrick Wilkins.  He, Warren, may have known what Wilkins was up to.  My scream would have told anyone else in the world that it was a scream for help.  Yet, he ignored my cry.  Just looked our way, registered seeing Wilkins with Cindy Barker, then turned and walked away.  They are despicable.”

“I certainly agree.  Cindy, it’s too late for justice for the five men who raped me, but it’s not for Patrick Wilkins.  Please reconsider reporting him to the police, hey I know, talk with Sheriff Waldrup.  I spoke with him this morning about Darla’s case.  He is a kind and compassionate man, and no doubt, strong enough to take on your case.”

“Katie, I’ve been totally serious with you.  I’m not going to the police but thank you for caring so much.  But, I will help you get justice of sorts if you will help me.  I’ve been thinking of how I was going to deal with our fine Mr. Wilkins.  I must confess, what’s crossed my mind is contrary to the Bible, the verse that talks about vengeance being the Lord’s.  I can’t do anything.  He needs to be punished somehow.”  Cindy was breaking all records now, surprising me like I would have never imagined.

“Be careful my friend.  Revenge is a dangerous animal, like a boomerang, it can come back to cut off your own head.”  I said trying to plant a contrary opinion in Cindy’s mind.  To me, she was straying into the wrong side of town.

“You and I both have watched movies and read novels about this very thing.  Where the criminal justice system can’t or won’t do anything to balance the scales, to mete out punishment where it has clearly been earned.  At least think about something we could do to embarrass these six men.”

“I have been thinking about it for years.  For the five men who raped me.  I have tried to stay away from the thoughts that have appeared in my mind over the years, thoughts to cut the you know what off the five bastards, or better yet, to take a gun and blow off their fucking heads.  Sorry for the F word.”

“It’s okay.  What has held you back?”

“Easy answer.  My writing.  I’ve forced myself to channel my anger into words.  Since it happened, I’ve been working on another novel.  Unfortunately, it grows and grows and is going nowhere.  It’s like I hadn’t found my true passion.  Instead, I’ve resisted a deep and innate need for revenge.  Now that I think about it, maybe that’s what’s missing, that’s why my novel has been floundering.”  I wanted to explore this issue.  I was shocked that I hadn’t been able to recognize this potential before.

“Katie, promise you will join me in thinking honestly about real justice for these men.  It’s only right.  I would like nothing more than keeping my life with Steve just as it is while at the same time seeing perfect Mr. Wilkins burn in hell.”  If I had reason to doubt whether a sincere and committed Christian had feelings and thoughts the rest of us animals do, that was now history.  Cindy was sounding genuine, genuinely human.

“I promise.  But, for now, we best go.  It’s only three and a half hours till my alarm goes off and motions me to my writing desk.

We walked outside my room together.  As I was locking my door, Cindy asked me to go with her to her Sunday School Department’s quarterly social.  I told her that it was funny she had brought that up because I had promised Cullie I would ask her about her Sunday School class.  I committed to going.  I even halfway promised I would join her and a dozen or so other women in their late thirties in the Ruth Sunday School class. 

As I drove home, I had this wonderfully sick feeling.  It was wonderful to know that Cindy and I had exchanged our blood.  Our two-hour talk had been a blood pack of sorts.  My feeling of sickness was from the existence of the shared experiences between Cindy and me, and how we had so easily agreed to consider and ponder stepping into the shoes of those committed to breaking the law.  I hoped Cindy would somehow herd the camel back into the tent and forget she had ever opened the barn door.

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 19

Monday morning, Labor Day, I almost ignored my 4:30 a.m. alarm.  I had hardly slept at all.  After returning from my classroom Sunday afternoon I had binged on Netflix, alternating between Stella Gibson and The Fall, and Longmire.  The sexual tension between Walt and Vic in the latter series was noteworthy and spurred me to consider adding a romantic subplot to my own Real Justice work.  The only good thing that had come out of my binging was a reminder I was abusing the name Real Justice.  My current work in the basement was called Real Justice.  The creative novel project was labeled Real Justice and that was only for team one.  I hadn’t thought of it until now, but was team two’s to be called Real Justice II?  This was a problem I could solve.  No matter, the best thing my multi-hour binging had done was keep me from pondering Darla’s murder and the hot spot I had created for myself at school.

I was glad I somehow had the determination to follow my routine.  Once again, my writing time produced that feeling I longed for every day, that I had accomplished something special.  For years this feeling had guided my life.  If I had written at least 1,000 words towards an active project, then my day was successful no matter what happened the remaining twenty-two or so hours.  Today I had written a solid scene and had spent the last fifteen minutes pondering a change to my book’s title.  I was leaning towards The Light in the Darkness or The Darkness in the Light, somewhat of a sequel to my 2002 award winning Out of the Darkness.  I was deep in thought over the problem of evil in the world, trying to figure out whether it was fate or some mysterious plan of God that had caused the darkest day of my life when I heard the phone ringing upstairs.  It was the land-line, Nanny’s phone since the early fifties.  I normally wouldn’t have heard it but today I had left the door at the top of the stairs open thinking that Sammie and Nanny might show up early, hours earlier than the noontime Sammie had promised.

I started to ignore it, but the caller was relentless.  I answered on probably the tenth ring.  “Hello.”

“Katie, Katie Sims?”  The deep voice said from the other end of the line. 

“Yes, this is Katie Sims.”

“This is Marshall County Sheriff Wayne Waldrup.  Do you have a few minutes to talk?”  The first thing I thought of was Cullie.  Fear rushed through me like I had never known.  Why would the Sheriff be calling me so early?  I had stayed longer than usual in the basement, but it was still only 6:30. Cullie and Cindy and her family must have been in an accident.

“What’s happened?  Is Cullie hurt?”  I asked, frantic, sitting at the kitchen table and virtually jumping up before he could respond.

“Katie, my call has nothing to do with Cullie.  I’m calling to give you an update on our investigation into your mother’s death.”  I sat again, relieved, as though I had just heard the best news of my life, thinking how weird it was that something horrible, in the right context, could be good news.

“I’m sorry.  I’ve never had a law enforcement officer call me, much less so early.  My daughter, Cullie, is away with friends and is scheduled to return today.  I jumped to the conclusion there must have been an accident and Cullie was hurt.”

“No need to apologize.  I have two children of my own.  I probably would have responded the same if I had been in your shoes.”

“Has there been some progress in Darla’s, I mean, Mother’s case?  Do you have a suspect?”  I said believing this would be why Sheriff Waldrup would have been calling.

“We do have a suspect but have been unable to identify him.”

“Who is he?”  When the words left my mouth, I realized my mind hadn’t quite recovered from its former desperation.  “Sorry, dumb question.  How do you know about him if you don’t know who he is?”

“He was caught on camera pawning what we believe is the murder weapon, a 22-caliber pistol.  We have a good relationship with Joe’s Pawn Shop.  They gave us a call yesterday morning relaying their suspicions.”

“What made them suspicious?”  I concluded Joe’s maybe had heard about the murder.

“When we have a missing gun case, we always alert local pawn shops, and when we know. telling them the make, model, and caliber, and encourage them to be on the lookout.  Of course, the shops know to always be on the alert when any gun is being pawned.”

“The man, on camera, what does he look like?”  I was ready for Sheriff Waldrup to describe Ryan Radford or Danny Ericson.  It was funny or weird or both that I had already solved the case.  Both men had a motive to kill Darla.  And, Ryan was with her shortly before she was found, not only dead, but with a bullet hole in the back of her head.

“Short, stocky, curly, scraggly dark hair.  He has a beard, but Joe suggested the beard looked fake.  The video isn’t the best quality.”

“You said the gun was probably the murder weapon.  I assume that means the ballistic tests haven’t been completed?”  I guess I had watched enough Law and Order and CSI to know that would be the first thing the Sheriff would do.

“Correct, the State Department of Forensics is closed for the holiday weekend.  Deputy Childers will be waiting with the subject gun in Montgomery when they open in the morning.”

“Do they do the fingerprinting or is that something for your department?”  I was glad I had some interest in criminology and had watched all those TV shows.

“We conducted preliminary tests.  The gun contained two sets.  One belonged to Joe at the Pawn Shop.  The other set didn’t match anyone in our database.  The State has more resources than we have here at the local level.  I’m hoping their testing will produce better results.”

“I assume you broadcast the man’s photo, a camera shot to news stations?”

“We did.  Joe called us late Saturday afternoon, and by midmorning yesterday, local radio, and all the TV stations in Huntsville and Birmingham, had the information.  They are asking the public to call our hotline if they know the man or believe they have seen him.”

“I hope you get a break.  Can I tell you something I believe could be relevant to solving Mother’s case?”  I said, almost forgetting what I had discovered in Darla’s journals.

“Absolutely, we need to know everything, even things unlikely relevant.”  There was something about Sheriff Waldrup’s voice.  I had seen a photo or two of him in the Sand Mountain Reporter; Nanny had probably been a lifelong subscriber.  He was tall and strong looking.  He could have given Walt Longmire a run for his position in Absaroka County, Wyoming.  Like Walt, Wayne had a kind and gentle voice, one that commanded respect and a healthy dose of fear.  I gained confidence in his investigation just from his voice.

I spent the next fifteen minutes telling him everything I knew, starting with the early morning phone call from Darla where she asked me to come get her.  I filled the Sheriff in on what Sammie had done and learned and what I had found in her suitcase.  I even admitted to him how I had come to have Darla’s things in my possession.  When I finished I could tell that Wayne, Sheriff Waldrup, was keenly interested in Raymond and Ryan Radford and what they stood to gain by Darla’s death.  For some reason, I chose not to tell him about the videotape, thinking and believing that it was only relevant to the spur-of-the-moment decision to kill Darla, and did not relate in any way to the prenuptial and thus the primary reason the Radfords would want her dead.

Sheriff Waldrup had just asked me when the best time for him or one of his deputies to come pick up Darla’s journals, when he abruptly said he had to take an emergency call.  This gave me a good excuse to drive to school and make a copy of both journals.  I knew he would be calling back and something prompted me that I should have an opportunity to complete my reading and to retain a copy just in case the Sheriff and his team somehow lost this critical evidence.

Between photocopying the 400 pages in Darla’s two journals, and drafting, editing, and completing my one-page Real Justice novel project handout, it was after 11:30 a.m. when I returned home.  I was making a sandwich when Sammie and Nanny entered through the kitchen’s rear door.  I hugged both and asked if they were hungry.  Nanny smiled and started fiddling with the long cord dangling down the wall as though she knew at least one phone conversation had taken place since she left yesterday morning.  We all sat, ate, and talked for over an hour.  I was glad to hear they had a good time, especially that Nanny had gotten to ride a lot on the back roads of Dekalb County, one of the favorite things her and Papa had done when he was living.  There had always been something inspiring for Nanny to see the places three generations of her family had lived and farmed. 

Just after Sammie and Nanny left the kitchen for her room and a nap, Cullie and Alysa burst through the back door with Cullie cuddling a small, black kitten.  “Mom, the man in Anniston where Steve stopped to buy gas said the kittens were headed to the animal shelter where they would be put to sleep.  I took this one, Midnight, and Alysa took three.  I hope you don’t mind.  I promise to take care of her, him, whatever, and to do more chores to pay for his food.  Please?”

“By the time Cullie finished her long and strong argument Cindy came in looking both apologetic and sad.  Or, was it frustrated?  I had, in our three weeks together at school, been able to detect when something was wrong.  Her face would be a tinge redder and her normally bright green eyes grew darker.  “Katie, I tried calling you.  I didn’t know what to do.  If you do not want to keep the kitten, Midnight, we’ll carry her home with the other three.”

“It’s not a problem.  I kind of like cats.  I haven’t had one since my high school days, didn’t even know they still made them.”  I tried being funny, hoping to remind Cindy I was truly her friend.  I wanted to spend some time talking with her, but Steve started honking the car horn.  I am sure he wanted to get home after being away all weekend.  It worked out for the best since I wanted to hear from Cullie and be close by her side. 

All afternoon, as we talked and created Midnight a nice little bed along with a litter box (thankful that Steve had stopped at Walmart in Gadsden) on the back porch, all I could think about was the feeling I had when Sheriff Waldrup called.  Cullie was the most precious and wonderful thing in my life.  She was blood of my blood.  Created in darkness but clothed in light that dispelled everything cruel, hateful, and evil.  “Thank-you God for giving me Cullie and bringing her safely home.”  I said the words aloud and noticed the breathtaking smile that appeared on Cullie’s face as she seemed pleased her mother was praying.

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s Haney got to do with this?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 17

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 16

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My writing session didn’t go so well.

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 15

The call came during my Thursday morning planning period.

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

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

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

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

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

“It is.”  I semi-yelled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You are referring to the cerebral cortex?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What happened to the bullet or bullet fragment?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Thank you.”

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

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

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 14

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

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

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

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

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

“Prospect?”

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

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

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

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

“How exactly do you know that my dear?”

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

“Nanny said all that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You now are an expert embryologist?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We’ll have to see.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What are you talking about?  What happened?”

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

“Oh my God. Are you okay?”

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

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

“No, I’m not doing anything.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you mind if I say a prayer?”

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

“Sure, if that’s what you want.”

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

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

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

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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