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

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

Book Blurb

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 30

December 29 & 30, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Blurb

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 29

May 1971

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Olivia, it’s so nice to see you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How do you know your beliefs are true?” 

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

“What if you’ve been misled?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Blurb

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 28

December 28, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sure, anything I can do.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Blurb

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 27

April 1971

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Blurb

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 26

December 27, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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