Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 28
Again: I’ve had this podcast prepped for a while - almost a month in fact. But as I’ve been traveling all summer to places where time and computer access have not been altogether nominal, it’s been easy to put it off and put it off. I’ve been able to post other stuff, but you gotta understand: posting a podcast takes more than a few minutes.
OK. Fuck that. That’s an excuse. The truth is that I’m almost out of material, and I’m so busy that creating MORE material for this podcast is becoming a problem. I’m gonna keep at it. But, well, there’s cause for some concern….
Anyway, here it is - the second half of Sarah and her friend Pammy’s encounter with a villain? Antagonist? Red herring? I think I know, but I’m not sure yet.
A War Between States Part 28:
Chapter 15: Skirmish: Sarah, Part Two
He turned in such a way that Sarah didn’t know whether to get scared or laugh – his movement was an obvious show. Beside her, Pammy sucked in her breath.
Still, when she saw his face, she knew she was in some level of trouble, laughable or not. Robocop was after her now and that would be her DOOM! She really wasn’t scared of fat boy Soames, but she knew Pammy was, and she was beginning to feel like she’d overstepped her bounds - and brought Pammy with her.
“Mrs. Dobson. It is not for you to inform me regarding the law. And what Miss Roberts did was run that stop sign back there.” He nodded, scowled, and continued to his car.
They watched him, and Pammy began muttering to herself again. Sarah heard what she was saying this time: “Did I stop? I’m sure I did. Should I say so when he gets back?”
By chance, Sarah glanced at her watch. It read 12:35. Then she peered over her shoulder, across the backseat, and through the rear window to see what Soames was doing. He had climbed into his car and was sitting at the steering wheel, his stern face gazing at something in his lap. At first Sarah thought he was probably writing on one of those ridiculously weighty pads that cops used.
Then, as timed passed and the afternoon wore on, she began to imagine that what he was concentrating on was his dick. Pulling people over and giving them arbitrary tickets and unnecessary anxiety probably turned the creep on - so much so that he had to take care of business right then and there.
Sarah stared hard through the rear view to see if his shoulder was moving a certain way, but the interior of his car was shadowy, and she couldn’t tell. She glanced at her watch again. 12:55. So much for getting to Bill’s on time. What was taking so long?
A few more minutes passed. “Crap. I’m almost out of gas,” Pammy said, randomly, as if she was afraid that she might really run out of gas less than a mile from a fill-up. She had already turned off the car and the air conditioner, and they had instantly begun to sweat - Pammy was a big woman, and it was hot outside.
Finally, Soames climbed out of his car and started toward them. Sarah looked at her watch: 12:59. A half hour wasted on this idiot. For her part, Pammy bit her lip and turned to greet him with a face Sarah was sure would satisfy Soames completely.
“Here you go,” he said, offering Pammy the big ticket pad. “Please sign here. This is to acknowledge that I’ve pulled you over and given you a ticket for failure to obey traffic control signage.”
“Barry,” Sarah said as Pammy reached for the pad. “Pam didn’t run the stop sign. She didn’t even do one of them rolling stops that ya’ll like to harass folks for. She came to a complete stop. I know it. And you do, too. So what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Soames looked like he was about to smile. If he would have gotten angry or been surprised, Sarah would have been comfortable with his reaction. But this look actually scared her.
Bill Wells always swore that Soames was a good man. “A little too serious, maybe,” he had said. “Maybe a little too into what he does. But okay by me.” All the same, Sarah had heard people talk about how Robocop tended to pick on black people and women, whether they’d done anything or not. Bill dismissed it as an excuse for people to claim they were innocent when they weren’t. But Bill was white, and male, and here Pammy was - female, and pulled over for no real reason at all.
“Well, Mrs. Dobson,” Soames said, “We can always go into the police station and discuss who’s right and who’s not in this scenario….”
“NO,” Pammy said, grasping the ticket pad with one hand, leaning its heavy metal frame against her car door for support. With her other hand she hastily - crazily - scribbled her signature.
Soames leaned in and took the pad away from her. “Your signature is not an admission of guilt, simply acknowledgement that you and I had our little talk here. You’ll have your say in court, if you want. You can come, too, Mrs. Dobson. If you want.”
Sarah stared at him, and he smiled now. It was a smile full of import and meaning, and it haunted Sarah as she and Pammy finally drove off in the direction of Bill’s.
The Cast
- Sarah Dobson - Jennie M.
- Pammy Roberts - Sylvia Krebs
- Narrator/Deputy Soames/Bill Flashback - Will Kenyon
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 19
Years have passed since I first wrote this chapter, and as I was reading over it in preparation of recording it for this podcast, I noticed Raymond Bernardt’s long speech about the Reverend Fowler, which you’ll see below. Toot, toot, toot my own horn, but I think his speech is one of the most vibrantly authorative things I’ve ever written. He’s right, you know….
Also, Oz Pizza really does exist, and it proved perfect as a tie-in to all my Wizard of Oz allusions here. They make really excellent pizza, too - just FYI. No wizards involved.
A War Between States Part 19:
Chapter 10, Part Two: Campaign: Nate
August 20, 2003
Nate couldn’t speak immediately, only blink, open-mouthed, as the man made his little speech. And as Raymond Bernhardt talked, Nate had the impression that the man was singing and dancing a happy jig at the same time — a kind of musical number like in the elaborate Gene Kelly movies that sometimes aired on Turner.
“You had a run-in with a bastard of a man,” Bernhardt continued, “whose been a thorn in my side for going on twenty years. The Reverend Kenneth Fowler is and has been the pastor of the church where my family — and me by default — chose to attend. I go there now. My daddy and my mama went there before they passed. I go there now. And if I had children — which I most likely won’t — they would go there until they were old enough to choose otherwise. Evangeline Baptist is a good place, full of kind people. And most times, Fowler is a decent man. But over the years, he and I have come to… disapprove of each other. I don’t like his politics — don’t like the fact that he has more than a passing interest in politics at all. There’s a reason God gave the kingship of Israel to Judah and the priesthood to the tribe of Levi, and a reason our founding fathers made so much of the separation of church and state. The pulpit ain’t the place to bash Democrats from, and the church’s influence should not be used to interfere with the affairs of men like you. Fowler had no right to do what he did to you. No right at all.”
Nate blinked again. He thought he saw an after-image surrounding the man’s penny-loafered feet — like sparkles kicking up from dancing feet. Like the glint of glitter on Dorothy’s red shoes.
“Did you come here by coincidence and decide to talk to me on the spur of the moment?” Nate asked. “Or were you on your way to see me all along?”
“The latter.” Bernhardt cracked a conspiratorial smile. “Nate, I know your plight. In fact, most of the folks I hang around with in East Point and Midtown know your plight. And so I’ve come to introduce myself and make you an offer.”
“Come again?”
Bernhardt laughed again, a giddy, resounding chuckle that made Nate grin despite himself.
“C’mon, Nathan Wells. Let’s step into Oz Pizza and I’ll buy you a soda — or a beer if you like. Even a slice. You got time on your hands, I know. And I know you’re just dyin’ to hear what I’ve got to say.”
“You’ve said quite a lot already,” Nate replied.
Bernhardt only chuckled softly and stepped past Nate on his way to Oz. Nate followed, looking down at the sidewalk as he went, searching for yellow bricks.
A song by The Clash was playing inside the pizzeria. Pieces of art hung on the walls, along with a bulletin board full of real estate posts and business cards. The room smelled deliciously of garlic and baking bread.
Raymond Bernhardt sidled up to the counter and ordered a glass of wine. Nate decided what the hell and ordered a beer. When he did, Bernhardt nodded approvingly. They sat at a table in a relatively quiet side room and sipped their drinks for a couple of minutes in silence.
Finally, Nate spoke. “You said you had an offer.”
Bernhardt put his glass of red wine down and leaned back in his plastic chair. “I told you that Fowler doesn’t approve of me,” he said. “You wanna know why?”
“I’m dying to.”
“Because I am two things which Fowler can’t abide, both of which start with the letters G and A.”
Nate took a sip of his beer to mask whatever look was on his face. He didn’t want to offend the man if his guess was wrong as to what one of those things was.
“I’m a professional gambler,” Bernhardt said — that was the one Nate probably couldn’t have guessed. “And I’m gay.”
Yep, Nate thought. Would have got that one right.
“Unfortunately for Fowler,” Bernhardt continued, “I’m also outspokenly Christian. I just don’t think some of the things Fowler preaches are so absolute.” He took a sip of wine as if to emphasize his point. “And I’m rich. The first creates countless compromises for me to deal with. The latter presents a few for Fowler. You see, he likes my tithes to his church.” Bernhardt laughed again, and Nate couldn’t help but join him. It was a sublime bit of irony, something Nate would have loved to written a story about — if he ever got the chance again.
“Now I can’t really influence Fowler,” Bernhardt said. Then he drained his glass and leaned forward, folding his hands together — Nate noticed the man had a ring on nearly every finger. “As generous as I am to his church, I am an abomination…. But I can undo what he’s done to you. And it would give me great pleasure to.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Bernhardt?”
“Oh, come now. Ray. You must call me Ray.”
“Okay, Ray. What do you mean?”
“How much money would it take to get you out of the financial straits you’re in?”
“Well,” Nate said, thinking hard, his excitement building, “I’m not a hundred percent sure.”
“That’s fine,” Bernhardt said, standing. “Think about it while I fetch myself another glass of the vino.”
After he left, Nate sat and thought about the little man’s implied offer. He stared into his beer and did a quick tally so that he could at least give Bernhardt an estimate. Did the man really mean to imply that he would spot Nate — a man he didn’t even know, regardless of his “education” — cash to get out of debt? What was the catch? Was Bernhardt the Wizard at the end of the Yellow Brick Road, or was he just a Munchkin? He kind of looked like a Munchkin. Or was he worse than a Munchkin — was he a Rumpelstiltskin type, and this some sort of Faustian plot?
Suddenly Bernhardt was sitting down in front of him, swirling wine in a glass. “Well?” the little man asked.
Nate raised his eyes from his beer. “Thirty grand,” he said.
Bernhardt’s grin nearly split his face in two. “Is that all?” he said. “Thirty large will get the Atlanta Scribe afloat again? All the way?”
“Well, that’s just the debt. If we reopened, we’d immediately start plunging into the red again, since we’ve got holes in our advertising revenue, thanks to Reverend Fowler.”
“Bah,” Bernhardt said and waved one bejeweled hand at Nate dismissively. “You can use the extra space for additional editorial.” Nate noticed that the man’s second glass of wine had just about disappeared. “Nathan Wells, I would like to offer you a loan in the amount of SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND dollars, to pay your debt and keep you operating until the Fowler tempest blows over.”
“I — I could never pay that back,” Nate stammered.
“Don’t be silly. I’ll put no time limit on it, and I won’t charge any interest. Bible says not to charge your brother interest.”
“But —”
“We’ll call it a sponsorship.”
“But… why?”
Bernhardt finished his wine again and raised the empty glass in the gesture of a toast. “The Atlanta Scribe was a fair voice in an unfair world. It gave equitable coverage to the gay community, the Christian community, the you-name-it community. Few publications can claim that level of non-bias. It would a shame to see it go. But besides that, I told you, Nate Wells: it would give me great pleasure to be a thorn in Fowler’s side. And, like I said, I am a gambler.”
The Cast
- Nate Wells - Jay ‘Hot Thang’ Elgin
- Raymond Bernhardt - Jeff Jarvis, Sorceror’s Apprentice
- Narrator - Will Kenyon
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 18
It’s been since before the holidays that I posted a podcast of the novel I’m podcasting. But don’t worry - I haven’t forgotten it, just neglected it! Still, here’s a new installation, which will be followed later this week by another installation. In this one, we return to Nate Wells, now after the closing of his magazine. Here Nate meets a mysterious stranger, and hopefully you’ll soon be wondering the same thing Nate is….
A War Between States Part 18:
Chapter 10, Part One: Campaign: Nate
August 20, 2003
Deanna was the last one to leave. She walked across the tiled floors of the office with a cardboard box cradled in her arms. From its top protruded the peak of the goofy alarm clock/art piece she’d bought at the Lakewood Antique show — the goofy alarm clock/art piece her girlfriend wouldn’t let her keep in their apartment. It looked like a flamingo, with long yellow legs holding up a blue cuckoo clock house from which the flamingo’s elongated pink neck thrust, and from which an orange pendulum hung like a silly neck tie.
The peak of the blue house caught Nate’s eye as Deanna bustled by. She’d already said good-bye, so she didn’t say anything else to him as she left, only stared straight ahead, jaw clenched and blue eyes shiny with tears. Nate didn’t blame her — they’d both nearly burst into crying when they’d met in his office three hours ago to exchange future contact information and say farewell. Deanna wanted to hang around and help Nate finalize his plans for the business, but the bankruptcy lawyers and accountants insisted that they needed no help.
Nate watched her open the front door with extended fingers, watched her thrust her foot in to open it further, and watched her bump through the opening with her hips. Sunshine outlined her briefly and then she was gone. The door closed behind her.
Nate sat at a desk in the rear of the main office and gazed out across the room. He realized that, without its tell-tale decorations and desktop knick-knacks, he couldn’t remember whose desk this had been. All of the desks were void of computers. Nate had already purged their memories, downloaded all the stored articles and copies of the Scribe to CD. He’d already sold them all to subsidize the final paychecks for his former employees — a move the bankruptcy lawyers had balked at when they found out he’d done it. Still, Nate stood by his decision.
“They stuck with me through it all,” he told the stern-faced lawyers — one bald, droopy-cheeked man, the other a younger, swarthy-looking man who blatantly ignored Brylcreem’s insistence that ‘a little dab’ll do ya.’ “I can’t give them a decent severance package. The least I can do is give them the money I owe them for putting out our last issue.”
The computers were gone, and with Deanna’s departure, all the decorations — the posters, the toys, the shelves of books — were gone as well. Nate’s own Lego robot and his North By Northwest poster were in the back of his Blazer, which was itself newly restored and still not paid for.
And so the white-washed walls appeared starkly white-washed, except for the tiny tack holes which the building management’s work crew would start to spackle that week. The tiled floor seemed so much brighter now under the flourescents, even with the office furniture still intact. There was a slight echo throughout the few rooms.
“It looks so empty,” he said out loud to test the echo again, and wondered how empty it would look when the office furniture rental guys came and took all the desks and filing cabinets away.
He sighed and stood, went to his office for one last look — one final check to make sure that he’d gotten everything.
He stared at the empty, dusty corners of his tiny office and sighed again. For six years, ever since he’d started the Scribe, he’d happily come to this office and did what he was most passionate about: he’d bathed in information, in facts and conjectures, in opinions and statistics.
In words.
Every day, immersed in words.
“All struck a finishing blow by one ignorant man’s whimsy,” he said to the dust.
The dust gave no reply.
So Nate spun on his loafered heel and headed the way Deanna had gone — out the front door. He switched off the flourescents, stood in the dark a moment, then opened the front door and stepped into the morning sunlight.
Outside, the street was mostly empty. Deanna’s Civic was gone, and someone in a pickup truck was pulling into her spot in front of the building. A man in Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt was walking toward him on the sidewalk. A line of people in vehicles waited to use the automated teller at the bank across the street. The air around all of them was hot and oppressive — the sun too bright, the Atlanta smog noticeably thick. The atmosphere reminded him of Marionville.
Then he heard a bird chirp in the maple tree to his left and he smiled. It was so hot in Marionville during August, even the birds didn’t chirp.
“Well, hell,” he said, “at least I’m not there.”
“Not where?” a voice asked in reply, and Nate started.
He whipped his head around to see that the man who’d been approaching on the sidewalk was standing beside him, smiling, a pencil-thin mustache perched under his small, sharp nose.
“Oh, nowhere,” he said to the man and smiled automatically — a friendly I-don’t-know-you-but-how-are-you-have-a-nice-day smile.
The man smiled back. He was a good head shorter than Nate and he beamed up at him with genuine — could it have been? — affection. Nate was tall, but the man was diminutive, only coming up to the bottom of Nate’s chest.
“Marionville,” the man said through his smile. His uneven but ultra white teeth flashed in the sun.
Nate turned to face the man full on. He gaped down, even as the man gazed up. The man rocked back on his penny loafers and chuckled softly.
“How did you know that?” Nate asked.
The man licked his thin, pale lips. “You’re Nathan Wells, the editor and publisher of the Atlanta Scribe. I recognize you from your headshot in the paper.”
Nate nodded, a little flattered but unsurprised. He wasn’t famous really, but people recognized him now and then. That still didn’t explain how the man knew he was thinking about Marionville just then.
“I remember a little editorial you wrote about how you grew up,” the small, smiling man continued. “First in Marionville, Georgia, then in Opelika, Alabama. Although the piece was a bit nostalgic, you didn’t paint the prettiest picture of Marionville. So, I figured if you were glad you weren’t somewhere, there was a fair chance that there was Marionville.”
Nate frowned and furrowed his eyebrows at the man. “Good guess,” he said.
Now the man laughed out loud. “Actually, it was an educated guess, and I should hope it was good — making good, educated guesses is what I do for a living.” The man shuffled back a step so that he could offer his hand to Nate and perform a little bow. “My name is Raymond Bernhardt. And now you’re wondering why I’m educated — even in the slightest — about Nathan Wells and his recently, dearly departed Atlanta Scribe.”
The Cast
- Nate Wells - Jay Elgin
- Raymond Bernhardt - Jeff Jarvis
- Narrator - Will Kenyon
What I’m Thinking, 4th Edition
Just in time for your holiday jingles, here are some of my most recent ponderings. They’re no beatitudes, but then again, it’s not my birthday coming up. Anyway… enjoy!
- If living well is the best revenge, then TAKE THAT, sucka!
- Even now, people vote against their best interests because of the color of a candidate’s skin. You say you know that already? Then why do we let it happen?
- I’m glad I discovered boardgaming AFTER I graduated from college. Otherwise, I might not have graduated….
- I genuinely thank God every night that nothing terrible has randomly happened to my family. I wake up every morning terrified that it will.
- You can’t blame Neal Boortz. I think that if I had no shred of moral fiber and someone paid me enough money to be a mouthpiece, I’d do it, too.
- Whoever left me that heartfelt message in the frost of my windshield the other morning - passive aggression suits you well. Naturally, this means you are a coward and a douche.
- No amount of money dumped into education can change the fact that some kids are really stupid.
- Apparently, Nathan Fillion’s penis is shaped like a hammer. As this could prove problematic to one’s love life, I am grateful that mine is not.
- At some point every day, I must drop what I’m doing to help Eli go potty.
- Some haiku 4 U: The Titans cycle || Meanwhile, the cycles tighten || Less time ev’ry time
- Political correctness and showing general consideration for your fellow man, though related, are NOT the same. For starters, one’s political….
- Hey! Just because pedestrians in the crosswalk have the right away, it doesn’t mean you should TAKE YOUR TIME.
- On that note, maybe if you moved a little faster you wouldn’t be such a fat ass.
- I think I should report my kids’ car seats to the CDC.
- Hey buddy, I told you to back up. When someone wielding a large metal object - be it a hammer, a gun, a sword, or a car - tells you to back up, you really should.
- I’m old enough to remember when being a douchebag DIDN’T help you get elected to office.
- If people who shouldn’t be afraid of you ARE, and people who should be AREN’T, then it’s time to change your approach to both sets of people.
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 17
Here’s a bit more before the holidays. That’s me doing the voice of Williams - with my mouth full of Goldfish crackers. I just didn’t feel right asking any of my black male friends to read for Williams, because he’s such a caricature, so just like the earlier character of redneck shop owner Bill Wells, who is also a caricature, I just did it myself. Hopefully, it’s amusing and a little disturbing at the same time….
A War Between States Part 17:
Chapter 9, Part Two: Campaign: Tommy
July 24, 2003
Fran shook her head and turned back to Williams. Sergeant Brooks smirked. Williams only focused on the one-way glass, his lip protruding so far out that Tommy thought it might thump onto the table at any moment.
“Sorry,” Gerald said to Mick.
Mick bit his own lip and shrugged. “S’okay. Tommy’s right. You didn’t mean anything by it. It just gets to me sometimes, you know?”
“I’ll be more careful with what I say,” Gerald said.
“That’s cool. Thanks.”
Inside the interrogation room, Williams was quietly repeating, “Anomara, anomara,” and working his massive jaw. He moved his curly-haired head back and forth, back and forth, like an enormous grazing cow, chewing cud and mooing across the pasture. “Anomara,” he said, “Anomara.”
“Mr. Williams,” Fran said, “we caught you and the other three in the back room of the club. No one else was there, just you four men. In the same room as you, there was an entire one-pound brick of cocaine wrapped in plastci wrap and a small bag containing several ounces of heroine. There was also a Tupperware full of marijuana and a lockbox containing roughly seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“Anomara.”
“You had the key to the lockbox on your person.”
“Anomara.”
“So we can only assume that the money belongs to you. Also, all of you registered positive to the drug test we administered to you.”
“Anomara.”
“The Underground Club where we found you was filled with teenagers, most of whom were intoxicated.”
“Anomara.”
“Some of whom were also high on marijuana and cocaine.”
“Anomara.”
“The Underground Club is owned by a Mr. Tony West. But Mr. West rents the club to you. We’ve already arrested Mr. West, and he’s agreed to testify that he rents the club to you, and that he has nothing to do with what goes on there.”
“Anomara.”
“From where I’m standing, it appears that you, Mr. Williams, are in a world of shit. Wouldn’t it be better just to fess up and tell us what we want? You don’t need your lawyer for that.” Fran ran her pale hand through her red hair and pursed her thin lips.
“Be careful, Fran. Don’t push it,” Tommy whispered from behind the glass, and both Gerald and Mick clicked their tongues against the roofs of their mouths in agreement.
“Anomara,” was all Williams said.
As if she had heard Tommy, Fran suddenly took another tack. She sat across from Williams and folded her hands pleadingly in front of her. “Mr. Williams,” she said, “I’ll tell you what. I understand that you may not want to say anything that might incriminate you further. So we’ll wait until your lawyer is present before we begin questioning you. But we’re holding Terminius Green, and he’s only a juvenile. Is there anything you can say to help us help him? To help him get out and get home to his mother?”
Tommy saw Williams’s eyes go wide, saw his lip distend even further, saw his jaw freeze. Slowly, the giant of a man began to shake his broad, flat face back and forth again, and slowly a grin spread across it. Tommy noted how big and flat and yellow the man’s teeth were.
“Oo cain lehim go,” Williams said. “Ee dawon done didi awl.” Saliva dripped from the man’s lips and splashed onto the table.
“What?” Fran asked, also shaking her head.
“Ee da main sellin sa shit.”
“He’s the seller?”
“Ee dawon. Ain me.”
Fran scowled. “You don’t have anything to do with this? You’re telling me that a seventeen-year-old boy who still goes to high school and still lives with his mother is the head of the drug-trafficking ring that’s centered on Marionville? Even though the key to the lockbox full of cash was on your person? Even though the club where we found all of this is — and you — is rented under your name?”
“Ee dawon. Ain me,” Williams repeated. Then he crossed two thick arms across his chest. The muscles in his shoulders rippled and strained against his tight white shirt. “Now, ahain a say no mo wiffow matorny. An Wutang B. Epinema no mo.”
In the observation room, Tommy shook his head. “Wutang B. Epinema? What the hell does that mean? Is that some kind of reference we ain’t gonna understand?”
Beside him, Mick chuckled. Inside the interrogation room, Fran sat and glared at Williams for several long minutes. Tommy thought to himself that had it been him under that glare, he would have begun sweating, maybe even confessing to everything he could think of — drug trafficking, paying off politicians, Kennedy’s assassination — but Williams sat unruffled across from her, only returned her glare.
Finally, Fran sighed, and began to pack her paperwork. Sergeant Brooks and one of his men made Williams stand and led him out of the room.
“That was quick,” Gerald remarked.
“Yep,” Mick replied, a hint of disgust in his voice. “Looks like Williams’ lawyer won’t come until this afternoon.” He made to leave the little side room himself. “Fran thought she could get something out of him before then.”
“Apparently he was harder to crack than that,” Gerald observed.
“Apparently,” Mick agreed. “Anyway, there’s no sense in wasting time. Terminius Green made bail first thing this morning, so I gotta go oversee that. You boys have fun.”
“You’re not holding him?” Tommy asked.
“Naw. Whatever Williams says, Green’s just a pawn. We’ll watch him, but I don’t think he’s going anywhere. And his mama misses him.”
Mick opened the door and stepped into the hall, letting a beam of fluorescent light spill into the dimly lit observation room. Tommy squinted at the sudden white light — his eyes had just adjusted, and the fluorescents hurt. As Mick turned to leave, he shot a glance at Tommy and Gerald. “By the way, Williams was saying ‘You cain’t be keepin’ me here.’ Not ‘Wutang B. Epinema.’” With that, he chuckled again, and strolled down the hallway. Tommy and Gerald watched him go.
The Cast
- Tommy Krinshaw - Bret Wood
- Gerald Barnes - Jason Hodges
- Mick - Eddie Holley
- Fran - Aida Kenyon
- Williams, Narrator - Will Kenyon
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 16
At long last, we’re back on track getting this novel edited, finished, and posted. This chapter revisits Tom and Gerry, the intrepid GBI agents who’ve recently busted a drug-trafficking ring in South Georgia. Enjoy!
A War Between States Part 16:
Chapter 9, Part One: Campaign: Tommy
July 24, 2003
At 8:30 a.m. the Sunday after the bust in Crayton county, Tommy Krinshaw was frowning at the coffee he was trying to drink. Gerald caught him and chuckled. “Starbucks has spoiled you, Tommo,” he laughed, smiling a wide, bright smile and raising his bushy gray eyebrows. “You’re used to payin’ four bucks for kick in the ass I-talian ground, and now you gotta settle for pisswater south Georgia Folgers.”
Tommy shook his head. “I ain’t even sure this is Folgers,” he said. “I think it’s some sort of generic brand.”
Gerald only laughed again.
“And the sugar, Ger,” Tommy continued. “It’s fuckin’ pure cane sugar. It ain’t refined at all. It tastes like I’m addin’ shit to the piss to sweeten it.”
To this, Gerald shrugged. “Don’t know nothin’ about that,” he said. “You know I like to sweeten my coffee with E & J or DiSaranno.”
Side by side, Tommy still shaking his head in disgust and Gerald still laughing, they walked away from the coffee stand in the local Albany precinct house, and shuffled down the narrow hall to the building’s single interrogation room. The eggshell-colored floor tiles echoed under the passing of their sturdy but comfortable shoes, and the fluorescent lighting shined its familiar, stark light, giving no indication of what it was like outside (it was drizzling, but the forecast promised it would clear up and become sunny again).
After the late night spent busting drunk teenagers and dope pushers in Marionville, the two of them had shared a room in the Holiday Inn in nearby Albany, flipping periodically between HBO, Showtime, and The Discovery Channel until they got sleepy. The next morning they’d driven together to the Albany jail, where Fran had arranged for the processing of Williams to begin at 8:30. They’d left the thirty or so underage drinkers for Sheriff Boyd and his three deputies — Soames, Doswell, and Jamison — to handle. No doubt that night was the busiest Boyd had ever seen his jail. As for Williams and his crew: Fran had a day of questions, threats, legal traps, and heavy-handed negotiation planned for them.
Williams’ team of peddlers each sat in consecutive holding cells in the Albany jail. Though Albany was an hour’s drive away from Marionville, Fran had brought them out of Crayton County. For one, it disoriented Williams, who was used to dealing with the law and legal matters on his own turf. Second, the Albany jail simply had better facilities for Fran’s purposes. And finally, the Albany jail was in Dougherty county and out of Boyd’s jurisdiction — a jurisdiction Fran couldn’t bring herself to trust.
“It’s not that I think Boyd’s crooked,” she’d explained to her superiors when she’d arranged the Albany extradition. “I just think he’s incompetent.”
“Well, somebody’s crooked in Crayton,” her partner Mick had added, “even if it’s not Boyd.”
So it was that on their way to the interrogation room where Fran was starting to question Williams, Tommy and Gerald passed by Williams’ cronies — Jamal Jenkins and Elgin Blalock, who were in for a while on weapons and assault charges — and in the last cell, Terminius Green.
“Ain’t Green a little young for us to be holdin’ him?” Gerald asked with a quick glance over his shoulder at the boy.
“He’s seventeen,” Tommy answered. “When it comes to drug traffickin’, that’s old enough.”
Gerald grunted.
When they reached the interrogation room, they passed it by and went into the next room, where Mick was watching Fran, Williams, and Sergeant Brooks of the Albany police department through the one-way glass.
“Hey, Mick,” Tommy said.
“Well, if it isn’t Tom and Gerry,” Mick replied. “Good of you guys to show up on time for a change.” He grinned at them, his dark brown, even features made even darker by the shadows in the room, his teeth bright and white in contrast to his face.
“Wha? Did she get started already?” Gerald asked, ignoring the old joke, and Mick’s unsubtle jibe. Tommy sighed, and walked past Mick and the window to dump his coffee into the trash can in the corner.
“Not really,” Mick said. “She’s just explaining to Williams what the situation is.”
Tommy turned his Styrofoam cup upside down, then spat into the trash for good measure. “Piss and shit,” he muttered. He stopped when he heard Williams speak, and turned his head around to get a good look at the man. “Holy cow,” was all he could say.
Williams was enormous. Even sitting, he was obviously over six feet tall. His shoulders were broad — he wore a tight white polo shirt with the collar turned up, and through the shirt, Tommy could see every muscle in the man’s shoulders, chest, and arms as he shifted in his fold-out chair. The white shirt made his skin seem so black that the light from the dim 60 watt in the room seemed to flee from him. In contrast to the shirt, his eyeballs seemed yellow. The area around his collar was stained from the pomade he wore in his long, curly black hair.
Despite the man’s size, and the slick mass of hair on his head, his most prominent feature — the thing Tommy noticed first when the man spoke — was his lower lip. If everything on Williams was oversized, the relative size of his lower lip dwarfed it all. It was like an inner tube, except it was shiny with spit, and a bright shade of fleshy pink. It flapped and flopped as Williams spoke, and Tommy thought it might burst, drowning Fran and Sergeant Brooks in a flood of fat and bile.
What the man said also made Tommy gape. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like ‘Wutang B. Epinema.’ What the hell that meant, he had no idea.
“Anomara!” Williams blurted, lip bobbing. “Anomara! Ahain atok wiffow matorny!”
Tommy searched Gerald’s and Mick’s faces for some recognition of the language Williams was speaking. He saw nothing except the same stunned amazement he was sure was on his face as well.
Then Gerald laughed, and patted Mick on the shoulder. “Shit,” he said to the man, “you oughta be in there as an interpreter.”
With that, Mick ducked away from Gerald and scowled. Whatever reaction Gerald expected from him, Tommy was sure this wasn’t it. The look on Mick’s face would have made even the formidable Williams pause and consider. “Fuck you, asshole,” Mick said.
Gerald took a step back. “What? What did I say?”
Mick smiled a sardonic smile, rolled his eyes, and waved his hand in dismissive disgust. “You assumed that just because I’m black and Williams is black, that I could understand what that ebonics-yapping Negro is saying.”
“But —”
“Well, I have no clue. I can’t understand him any better than you can. He doesn’t talk like that because he’s black. He talks like that because he’s a dumbass.”
Mick was calm, but he had turned to face Gerald with his shoulders squared. It wasn’t exactly a confrontational pose, but Tommy could see that if Gerald didn’t say something apologetic quick, Mick might really get mad. He could see that Gerald realized this, too – the man’s mouth worked silently, which meant his brain was backtracking, spinning, working as well.
Tommy tried to intervene. “He didn’t mean anything racist by it,” he said.
Mick turned slightly to him. “You guys never do,” he said. “And mostly you do a good job of hiding it. But every once in a while — every once in a while, like now — you let something slip.”
“But —”
“But nothing. It’s okay — I know you guys are my friends, and I know you try — but you grew up in the fucking south. You got years of deprogramming to go through ‘til all your racist tendencies are gone. And you’ll always have a little tinge of racism in you as long as you’re cops. I think I know why that is, and it’s a valid reason, but it’s still no excuse.”
He shifted back to face the glass. Tommy glanced into the interrogation room as well — and saw Williams, Fran, and Sergeant Brooks all staring in their direction.
“Shit. They could hear us,” he said.
“You guys finished?” Fran asked in a loud voice.
Gerald was still gaping, stunned, at Mick. But at the sound of Fran’s voice, he snapped out of it, leaned over the intercom switch, pushed it, and said, “Yeah. We’re done. Go ahead.”
The Cast
- Tommy Krinshaw - Bret Wood
- Gerald Barnes - Jason Hodges
- Mick - Eddie Holley
- Fran - Aida Kenyon
- Williams - +Goldfish
- Narrator - Will Kenyon
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 13
Rainy days make for productive podcasting. Except for occasional pauses to let the thunder roll past first.
Anyway, here’s the next part of Tamara’s encounter with Donisha Green. This was fun to record.
A War Between States Part 13:
Chapter 7, Part Two: Skirmish: Tamara
July 22, 2003
“Yep. It’s me…. How you been?”
“I’ve been fine. Thanks.”
“I heard you got a couple of college degrees.”
Tamara nodded, feeling nervous. “Yeah. I got my Masters’ Degree about a year ago.”
“You ain’t married, is you?”
“Uh, no.”
“You got a baby?”
“No.”
Donisha grunted, shifted her glare to take in Craig momentarily, then returned it full force to Tamara. “Ain’t you gonna ask how I am?”
Tamara bit her lower lip and wondered where this was headed. Craig just stood by, watching the exchange. To Tamara, he seemed a little smaller than usual.
“How have you been, Donisha?”
Donisha nodded and grunted again. Her face became expressionless, almost bored, which relieved Tamara, because at least that menacing stare was gone. “I been fine, Tamara. Thank you for asking. Now, how can I help ya’ll today?” Her eyes flitted over to take in Craig, and this time Tamara could see her fully sizing him up. Craig took another step toward the desk, as if he’d been freed from some sort of freeze ray.
He gestured plaintively as he asked, “Do you remember me? It was you who took the order I turned in last week. My name is Craig Owens, and I called in work order number — what was it, Tamara?”
“Four eight three one.”
“Four eight three one,” Craig repeated. “To have a water line installed off the main at Lot 41 on Cauley Highway. I came by at about eleven in the morning last Thursday.”
Donisha regarded him with that same expressionless stare and seemed to be listening to him, even if she was bored. Then she began idly plucking at the keyboard of the ancient computer. Her movement was meticulous and very, very slow. She hunted for a key, poked at it, squinted at the computer, scrunching her fat face up in concentration, then hunted for another key, repeating the process several times while Craig looked on and Tamara stood by, shivering.
Finally, the blank look came back and she said, “There ain’t no such work order.”
“Yes, there is,” Craig said and laid his copy on the desk in front of her. “Like I said — I came in last Thursday and you took the order, and here it is. Now, what we want to know is why, when Tamara here called in to check on the order, it seemed to have disappeared.”
Donisha Green didn’t budge, and her face remained blank as ever.
“Ain’t no work order disappeared, ‘cause ain’t no work order ever been made. It ain’t on the computer, so it don’t exist. I ain’t never taken any such order, and neither has nobody else, or it would be on the computer.”
Craig kept smiling, but Tamara could see a hint of red rising in his cheeks. “If it doesn’t exist,” he said through his grin, “then how do I have copy of the work order right here?”
“It ain’t valid,” Donisha said flatly. “Unauthorized papers don’t get entered into the system and don’t get processed.”
“How’s it not valid?”
Craig’s already square shoulders squared exponentially. It might have intimidated some people — it didn’t faze Donisha Green.
“It don’t got no signature.”
Craig’s smile failed him, and he looked down at the paper on the desk.
“Whose signature does it have to have?” he asked.
“It need to be signed by a city official or representative.”
“So who should have signed this one?”
“Whoever took the order.”
Craig hovered over her, and Donisha regarded him with her painted eyelids heavy and her thick lips pursed. He wasn’t angry yet, Tamara knew — but certainly flustered. On the verge.
“So why didn’t you sign it?” he asked.
“Because I didn’t take the order.”
“Yes, you did.”
Now Donisha sat up straight in her swivel chair, and her light brown eyes gleamed with indignation which bordered on malevolence. Tamara didn’t know whether to rush forward and save Craig or flee in terror, so she stood, riveted, and watched.
“Are you callin’ me a liar, Mr. Owens? ‘Cause if you are, you may wanna re-think yo’ position. I done told you one time and I will repeat myself one mo’ time. I didn’t take no order from you. I ain’t never seen you before in my whole life. I don’t know how you got hold of a order without someone helpin’ you, but it don’t matter anyway, ‘cause yo’ order ain’t valid ‘cause it ain’t got no signature. Now, unless you got somethin’ else to say — somethin’ valid and somethin’ that don’t imply that I’m a liar, you best turn ‘round and leave this buildin’, ‘fore I decide to come ‘round t’other side of this desk.”
Tamara was as stunned as Craig appeared. What do you say when a city employee threatens to come around to the other side of her desk?
Craig shuffled his feet a little, his eyebrows drawn tight together, his eyes bright with the fury his face tried to hide.
“Fine,” he said, and Donisha settled back into her bored, blank stance. When she glanced in Tamara’s direction again, she looked smug, as if she was gloating, and Tamara wondered at that look. “Then I would like for you to check and see if our follow-up order did get placed,” Craig added.
It had. And though it took Donisha Green an inordinate amount of time to verify its existence and confirm its timeliness — she plucked at her keyboard like a finicky child plucks at dinner peas — Craig and Tamara left the Water Authority building at least somewhat assured that the August eighteenth deadline would be met.
Crossing the gravel-strewn drive toward the Expedition, Craig shook his head and said, “Tamara, I don’t know what happened back there. I swear to God that was the woman who helped me the first time I went in. I remember her from the way she looked all the way down to the way she acted — except for that angry bit. She wasn’t angry the first time.” He stopped short, his Doc Martins sliding in the gravel. He steadied himself and added, “In fact, she seemed really eager to help me the first time. A little slow, but eager enough. Especially after I said I represented you.”
Tamara waited for Craig to unlock the SUV and climbed in before she said anything. Then, when they were both settled and buckled in, and the air conditioner was on, she said, “Craig, sweetie, I think it’s obvious what happened. For some reason, Donisha Green didn’t sign your work order, even though she knew she was supposed to. And somehow someone — probably Donisha — lost that piece of paper.” She turned to him and sighed, already tired, and now dreading the next stop on their tour of Marionville — which would be the county courthouse to get her liquor license. “The question isn’t what happened. The question is why.”
The Cast
-
Tamara Granger - Stephanie Thornton
-
Craig Owens - Joe Macon
-
Donisha Green - Jennifer Macon
-
Your Humble Narrator - Will Kenyon
Just Sayin’
Living as I have and as I do in Atlanta and New York, I have a LOT of gay and lesbian friends – not just people I KNOW who are gay and lesbian. Friends. It’s to the point that, while I am aware of their sexuality, between us it has become such a non-issue that the subject scarcely ever comes up.
Then I go to a poetry or writing event which seems to lean heavily toward gay and lesbian, or I see an announcement for something like MondoHomo or Gay Pride, and my (shameful) knee-jerk reaction is: Why? Why do you feel the need to be so in-your-face about this?
AND THEN along comes something like Proposition 8, and Miss California, and I think: Oh yeah. That’s why.
Some More Poetry
I’m editing a podcast for you as we speak, and working on a few other tirades.
In the meantime, I offer this. Now, I am none of the characters in this poem, so some may same it’s pretentious and presumptuous for me to assume these roles and these voices. And it’s fine to feel that way, except that I believe that everyone can empathize to some extent with the feeling of being oppressed (granted, some more than others - many more than I). Also, I think most reasonable people would agree that I chose some of the most universally understood examples of “man’s inhumanity to man.” It was universal enough, it seems: this poem won an award waaaay back in 1999. It was published in The Black Bear Review that Spring.
(I have, BTW published a poem where I speak from the voice of a father - which is something I am - but I don’t think that poem is as good as this one.)
Evolution
Once I was captain
Of this vessel, and now it is but a prison to me.
I lay awake on this creaking ship and I hear my brother speak
He sleeps beside me, exhausted though he has slept all day
His fever will not go away.
And in the dim reality of my own sleep
I can feel this subtle creep of viruses and bacteria,
Of desperation and hysteria,
Of lice and mange.
He screams in his sleep, his mind deranged.
And down comes your leather.
I lay awake in this stark room and I hear my brother speak
His teeth have rotted black, his throat is weak
His pain will not let him sleep anymore
His skin is pallid and dry
And among the dim petitions for him to die
I cry, while I hear more feet crunch along the stony road
Taking showers that will ease their load
Ease their pain
And I wonder what you’ve learned, what you’ve gained.
And this is my sentence.
Once I was captain
Of this vessel, and now it is but a prison to me.
I can hear my brother speak, though my ears are bleeding
And I can almost see him through my crusted eyes.
I hear his lies.
He tells me this is what I deserve
He tells me tales of brimstone and salt
That my choices were my fault
That I have caused all this.
Then down comes my brother’s fist.
And this is his mission.
Not a Christian Nation. Never Were.
“Whatever we once were, we’re no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers….” – Barack Obama
This caused quite a stir when Obama said it during a recent speech in Turkey. I’ve heard a lot of reactions from Christian friends I have – many of them flat out saying that he’s wrong, that we are indeed a Christian nation.
Well, guess what. We ARE NOT a Christian nation, and I don’t honestly believe we ever were or were meant to be.
What HE said.
What we are, and what we should be proud of as Americans is that we are a free nation, where Christians are free to be whatever they want to be with very little fear (notice that I didn’t say non-existent fear) of persecution or retribution.
The reason it may seem to some people that we are a Christian nation is because many of the principles of essential Christianity – that which is the least encumbered by denominational dogma – also happen to be at the core of capitalistic democracy and/or republicanism: ideals like self control, self reliance and determination, generosity, acceptance, hard work, patience, perseverance in the face of adversity, and a belief in the possible achievements of common man.
I don’t think there was ever a conscious effort on the part of our forefathers to create a Christian nation. It just so happened that the founding fathers were at least intellectually familiar with the ideals of Christianity and recognized them as strong ones – strong enough that you could imitate them and base a nation on them. But those ideals are not exclusive to Christianity, not by a long shot.
Now, I have to acknowledge that indeed, many of the people who immigrated to the British colonies in America came to escape religious persecution, and the majority of those were Christian. But I think that, rather than making us inherently Christian, the main effect this had was to make us sensitive to such persecution – and adverse to it as well. (Some may say there are growing exceptions nowadays to this sensitivity and aversion to religious intolerance. Ironically, here in the U.S. most of this insensitivity seems to actually come from the Christian right.)
I also have to say that what’s true of American Christians today – that they can exist in our nation (mostly) unhindered – now holds true for people of other religions as well, be they Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, even atheist.
And that was the point of Obama’s speech – that we are NOT strictly a Christian nation, which would imply that other religions would not be tolerated. Instead, we are something that I think is much more vital and powerful: we are a nation whose citizens need not fear because they believe in a different version of God than their neighbors.