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

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

Book Blurb

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 25

March 1971

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hoped it was for always and forever.

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

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

Book Blurb

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 24

December 23 & 24, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You still there?”  Jerry asked.

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes.  Would you?” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Blurb

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 23

March 1971

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I thought you always were truthful.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hello.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Blurb

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 22

December 20, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Maybe.”  I wanted to sound mysterious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 21

February 1971

January had been the worst month for me in Alabama so far.  Two giant snowstorms had disrupted every aspect of my normal routine.  And, everyone else’s around me.  The City of Boaz was poorly equipped to deal with over twenty inches of snow.  Unlike in Chicago, where a snowstorm is little different than a summer rain, in Boaz, everything came to a virtual halt.  During the middle of the second week and then again at the end of the third week, school had been dismissed seven days on straight.  First Baptist Church of Christ held no services for what seemed like two weeks.  The Wednesday night service before the second big storm wasn’t normal at all.  Olivia was mysteriously absent. 

It was hard to believe that over seven months had passed since Dad and I had arrived in Boaz.  In a little over four more months we would be back at home, and I would be making pizzas for the summer at Papa-Mama’s and hanging out with my three amigos.  That part I looked forward to, but I was already starting to worry how I would cope with being separated from Olivia.  I had to take Dad’s advice, ‘live one day at a time.  If you spend too much time hoping or worrying about the future, you will miss out on the here and now and every wonderful detail offering themselves to you as life-altering memories.’  It made sense and it was ludicrous at the same time.  In one-way Dad was correct, my time was limited here in Boaz and I needed to enjoy every day.

The two giant snowstorms had played havoc with the High School’s basketball schedule.  It was now the first week into February and the regular season still had two more games before the County Tournament.  Tonight, Boaz was playing Albertville.  It was an out-of-town game.  Dad let me drive but as usual, made me promise that I would have a buddy come along.  He always felt it was safer to travel in pairs.  Ryan Grantham and I had become friends during the youth group’s trip to Gatlinburg over the Christmas holidays.  I had known him since my first visit to First Baptist Church of Christ last June.  His father, Peter Grantham, was the Associate Pastor.  Ryan and I had always been cordial to each other at church but never hung out.  During the Tennessee trip, we shared living quarters and for the first time had really talked.  I was surprised that he was a closet atheist.  We shared many of the same views when it came to life, love, and the supernatural.

I had shared a few of my thoughts concerning Olivia with Ryan.  For some reason I knew I could trust him.  Ever since the first of the year, when Olivia was selected as one of the B team cheerleaders, I had been her number one fan.  I had attended every B team football game on Tuesday nights, whether they were at the Boaz Football Stadium or out of town.  I also hadn’t missed a single in-town B team basketball game. 

Ryan and I were sitting in the stands watching the B team warm up and all I could think about was how right I had been concerning the one and only kiss between Olivia and me.  That was over a month ago.  She had initiated it because she was out of her mind in grief.  The trauma of the horrible car wreck that had killed four of her friends, two, which were classmates of mine, had caused her to do something that she would never have done in her right mind.  All during January I had fought this beast.  Olivia didn’t care about me as a boyfriend.  This hadn’t meant we didn’t remain friends.  But, it was all confined to church, mostly our time during youth group, both in the church basement and at the Lighthouse. There, she was friendly and even took time when she could to sit and talk.  It was a different story at school.  In the only class we shared, Poetry, she was aloof.  I think she was faking her attention and interest in whatever Mr. Johnson was saying.  As I was watching Olivia and the other cheerleaders present another routine to gel up the crowd Ryan nudged me.

“Jesse Dawson does the perfect splits.  Don’t you think?”

I almost didn’t hear him until he repeated his statement but added, “I bet she can thank Ericson for that.”

“Grantham, what the heck are you talking about?  You’ve got to get over this crush you have on the delightful Dawson.”  I said, barely giving Ryan any attention.  It was Olivia that had my heart, and every second of my gaze.

“Benson, you are the smartest guy in school, yet you can be so out of touch.  It’s like you hear only what you want to hear.”  Ryan said spilling half his popcorn on the empty bench in front of us.

I heard him.  I also knew Ryan was a straight A student with the highest GPA of anyone in high school.  Rumor was he had almost a photographic memory.   Even though I had heard him I repeated, “what’d you say?”

“You are an even worse comedian.  Listen, rumor is Ericson has been banging little Jesse Dawson for months now.  But, no more.  Her mama put a stop to their dating.  Seems like Jesse thought she was pregnant.  I guess Romeo John will have to move on and find him another innocent Juliet.”

“This is why I stay away from rumors.  That’s all most of them are.  There’s no truth in them.  You should try ignoring them.”  I said, now worried about Olivia.  If what Ryan was saying was true, then she could be vulnerable.  There was no doubt he was aggressive and manipulative.

“I admit a lot, maybe most of the rumors that fly around school are simply made up crap, but I’m darn sure this one is true.  Rita, you know my little sister, is good friends with Tesse, Jesse’s twin.  Tesse told Rita that Jesse had all the fun and had asked Rita what was wrong with her.  Tesse was more worried about not being attractive enough, not having someone like John as her boyfriend, than she was about the trouble Jesse was into.  Tesse said that Jesse and John had been going at it since last October.”    

The Aggie B team walloped Boaz but our A team won in a squeaker.  As fate would have it, John Ericson was high scorer for both teams with thirty-six points.  As Ryan and I made our way off the bleachers and onto the gym floor, I regretted looking for Olivia.  There, just outside the concession area and next to the hallway leading to the visiting team’s dressing room, stood Olivia talking with the night’s leading scorer.  I felt a punch in the pit of my stomach.  Was he already wooing Olivia into the back seat of his car?  I decided, someway I had to warn her, to talk some sense into her.  Could she be so naive to think that Jesus would protect her from making the worst decision of her life?

I dropped Ryan off at his house, drove home, and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning.  I wanted with all my heart to be Olivia’s one and only boyfriend, but as I finally dosed off right before dawn, I felt like I was just a father-figure to her.  She had never and would never see me as her 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 20

December 20, 2017

The next morning John and Paul and I had ridden in my car the four miles back to the Appalachian trail and alternated hiking north and south, thirty minutes in one direction and then an hour in the opposite.  No Eagle Scout would dare call it hiking.  John and Paul didn’t either, but by late afternoon, we all agreed that we would be faithful to continue to grow our relationship.  At one-point John suggested that Olivia and I should get married and finally complete our family.  By the time I dropped them back off at The Martyn House B & B, all I could think about was, ‘what if Olivia and I gave it our best try?’  John and Paul and I once again shared man-hugs, this time allowing our real emotions to shine through.  Tears were gleaming in each of our eyes as I drove away.

During my long drive back to Boaz I reminisced every conversation we had out on the Trail.  The one that played over and over in my mind concerned John and Paul’s adoptive parents.  The story was that Bret and Stacy Thompson of San Marcos, Texas had adopted the two boys as three-day old infants.  All their lives, until the discovery of their mother’s letter after she passed away, the brothers had thought they had been born in Nashville, Tennessee.  That’s what they had been told and their birth certificates had indicated the same.  When the twins were two, Bret and Stacy divorced.  At first, the couple were faithful to follow the custody agreement, each parent would have physical custody of both boys for one month at a time.  This had worked well until Stacy moved to Phoenix, Arizona.  Ultimately, the parents, tired and frustrated over the seeming deterioration in John and Paul’s mental health, decided to split custody.  With the flip of a coin John stayed with Bret, while Paul went to live in Arizona with Stacy.  The part that had interested me the most was that Paul was raised Christian, in a Baptist church and by a mother who was as fundamentalist as any Southern Baptist from Alabama.  Even though John remembered occasionally going to church, his father hadn’t attempted to influence his religious beliefs.  Clearly, John’s secular and Paul’s religious upbringings had influenced their current beliefs and philosophies.

My return from Ellijay, Georgia was two days ago, and I still didn’t have the results of the DNA test from the samples I had sent to my lab in Chicago.  For some reason I had forgotten it was the end of the year and the State of Illinois Department of Forensic Sciences was in town conducting its annual audit.  I was fortunate that Jerry Coyne, the imminent evolutionary geneticist, was also in town over the holidays and was bored from the lack of students during the semester break.  Last night he had told me that “the bureaucrats were finishing up this morning.  I will conduct the test tomorrow afternoon.  I’ll email you the results.  Keep in mind the results will be correct, but you’ll need an independent lab to verify if you ever want to use the findings publicly.”

I woke up this morning almost giddy over seeing Olivia.  We had talked a dozen times since I got back into town.  Her and Randi Radford had decided, spur of the moment, after I left for Ellijay, to take a trip to Gulf Shores.  I should have seen her late yesterday afternoon but at the last moment, Randi had suggested they stop in Montgomery and visit with one of her college roommates.  The intended two-hour visit had transformed into an overnight stay.  This morning, I was acting like a teenage boy anticipating his first date.  At 11:00 my cell phone rang.  It was the woman, the beautiful woman, John and Paul wanted me to marry.  It would take very little to persuade me to follow that road.  I wondered what Olivia would think.

“Hey good-looking.  I’m ready to see you.”  So far Olivia was falling into the correct character.  “If you’re free why don’t you come over.  I’ve got the whole house to myself.  Randi dropped me off and I found a note from Warren that he farmed out the kids and took Tiffany to Gatlinburg for a few days.”

“Sorry, I’m very busy.  I have to make up my bed and polish the furniture.”  I said, always trying to improve my humor.

At first it seemed Olivia thought I was serious.  So much for my humor.  “Okay, maybe later?”

“No silly, I can come right now if that works for you.”

“It does.  I really want to see you.  Come on over.”  Olivia said, more eager than I could remember her, other than maybe half a century ago.

She met me outside on the front porch, even though it was cold.  But, it wasn’t windy.  I hadn’t worn my jacket.

“I like your sweater.  You were always a sweater guy.  I think they make you look sophisticated.”  Olivia said hugging me, taking my hand, and pulling me inside the house.

“I’ve always been extremely sophisticated.  So much so that I won your heart back in my prime.”  I needed to think before I spoke.  That statement seemed arrogant, certainly a put-off.

“Let’s go down in the basement.  I love Warren’s man-cave.  Hey, what does that tell you about me?  Am I transgenderizing?”  Olivia said with an aloofness unlike anything I had seen since reconnecting with her as an adult.

“I hope not.  Is that even a word?”

“Seriously, I want to show you what I found.  You know, obviously, that I grew up in this house.  I’ll show you my room later.  I’m still astounded that Mom and Dad left my room intact.  There is a closet in the basement where Dad kept his music collection.  You might not remember but he loved to listen to tapes on his eight-track player.  Everything is still there.  Warren upgraded the entire basement but left that closet like a shrine.”

“Man, that brings back memories.  I bet you’ve forgotten but I just remembered the night before I was to present my first semester research paper to Dr. Ayers.”

“Mr. Matt, you are not the only one with a memory.  By the way, don’t let me forget to tell you someday about my own presentation to her during my eleventh-grade year.  Of course, you were not around.  You were sophisticated in Chicago.”

“Funny.  Okay, put up or shut up.  What do you remember about that night?”  I said wanting to probe into Olivia’s past, not about my Biology class project but hoping she might say something relevant about John Ericson.  I was reaching.

“You don’t believe me, do you?  I’ll show you.  Noah’s Ark.  Your silly little piece of fiction, at least that’s what I thought at the time, was all about proving that Mr. Noah’s story could not be true.  You did, I bet with the help of your dear father, a credible job of showing how it would have been impossible to put two of every species on the 400-foot wooden boat.  I remember you saying that there were, in 1970, more than thirty million species and at a minimum there would have been several million back four thousand years ago.”

“That’s crazy, isn’t it?  To think, the earth, the universe, is less than ten thousand years old.”  I interrupted.

“I think most Christian Fundamentalists believe the earth is only about 6,000 years old.  They claim to prove this with the Bible itself, including its many genealogies.”  Olivia said.

I was proud of Olivia for breaking free from her many years of entrapment in the biggest myth ever.  I knew that it was almost impossible for someone brought up as the daughter of a Southern Baptist Fundamentalist pastor to overcome a lifetime of persistent brainwashing.  “The key to evolution is time, a very long time.  There simply wasn’t enough time in four thousand years for millions of new species to evolve.”  I said.

“I don’t recall you mentioning a ton of other facts that destroyed the Noah’s Ark story.”  Olivia said looking through records and tapes in Pastor Walter’s music collection.

“You forget it was a Biology paper.  I had to stay in a narrow lane.  I would have loved to include geographic, geological, and a ton of other arguments that clearly placed the little story solidly on the fiction shelf.”  Just as I was about to ask her how on earth Christians could believe such nonsense, she screamed. 

“Matt, look here.  It’s Bobby Vinton.”

“Who?”  I clearly remembered but wanted to see Olivia’s reaction.

“The song, “You Are My Special Angel,” you’ve forgotten.  I can’t believe you don’t remember.  That night, after you rehearsed your oral presentation, Dad let us stay downstairs and listen to some music.  It became our favorite.  We danced.  I am so disappointed you have forgotten.”  Olivia looked at me as though I had killed her puppy.

“I’m kidding.  No way I’ve forgotten that song or that first night we listened to it.  I would have to have lost my emotional mind to not remember how close we were.  Or, how close I thought we were.”

“Let’s see if it will play.  I bet it’s too old.”  Olivia said trying to figure out how to operate the old eight-track player.  Oh good, it powers up.”

A few seconds later, I instantly traveled back over forty-six years:

You are my special angel

Sent from up above

The Lord smiled down on me

And sent an angel to love (to love). 

Olivia walked over to me as the song continued to play.  It was as though we had rehearsed our next actions a thousand times.  We both reached for the other at the exact same time.  She pulled me in as I did her.  For a minute she just lay her head on my shoulder as the song continued.  We swayed and listened:

You are my special angel

Right from paradise

I know you’re an angel

Heaven is in your eyes

The smile from your lips brings the summer sunshine

Tears from your eyes bring the rain

I feel your touch, your warm embrace

And I’m in heaven again

You are my special angel

Through eternity

I’ll have my special angel

Here to watch over me

I feel your touch, your warm embrace

And I’m in heaven again

You are my special angel

Through eternity

I’ll have my special angel

Here to watch over me (watch over me)

Here to watch over me

(Angel, angel, whoa-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh oh, oh).

As the song ended we stood still and she looked up at me, pulling back just slightly. “Matt, I have never stopped loving you.  Is that too hard to believe?”

“No.  Not at all.  Seeing you here in Boaz has brought back thoughts and feelings that I have long tried to bury.  To be totally honest, I never got over you.  It’s like I had to put you in a bottle and place you on a shelf high up in my mind, one that was virtually impossible to reach.”  I said, anticipating the truth I would learn in a few hours when Jerry emailed me the results of his DNA analysis, but being overwhelmed with an extra important truth, my feelings and continued love for Olivia.

Then it happened.  As things like this seem nearly impossible when I recalled my teenage years when sitting by myself contemplating how on earth I could find just the right time to kiss Olivia the first time.  How to do it?  When to do it?  I had a thousand questions.  But now, it was as natural as breathing.  It was impossible to discern who made the first slight move.  Our lips touched.  The smell of Olivia, just salty enough to spice my life forever.  Just sweet enough to keep me sane and wanting more.  One kiss led to another.  She interrupted our embrace long enough to restart old Bobby and his angel song.

Two additional replays along with more intense kissing accentuated with four hands that began to explore, ended with Olivia whispering, “do you want to go see my room?”

“I thought you would never ask.”  I said exchanging looks of eager submission.

It was two hours later before we made the opportunity for Olivia to show me her doll collection.  In the interim, we had shed our clothes and made love.  It was like our bodies were let out of a cage, one we had been locked in for a million years.  We were free.  Our bodies needed to move.  And, they did.  Not always vigorously, but enough to make me realize I was much older than that first time nearly half-a-century ago.  At first, I was surprisingly strong and enduring, but after our second attempt, I finally realized our activities were simply too much for my 63-year-old body.  According to a few words exchanged during our intimacy, I realized that, like me, Olivia, had traveled back in time to the night before Dad and I left to return to Chicago.  It was, in many ways, our first time all over again.  No weeks, months, or years had intervened.  We were both virgins, or so I thought at the time, in love, committing our lives to each other for an eternity. 

Later, after a trip to Waffle House for a breakfast supper, and watching The Best of Me movie, we slept and fooled around some more, curled up in the basement on Warren’s huge leather couch in front of his seventy-two-inch TV.

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