Brother Gabe

Gabe cracked a smile and said, “Keep watching me and you’ll learn more, sonny.”  Jack shook his head and laughed a little, launching a wad of spittle across the narrow stream created by the spring.  A contest immediately began, to see who could spit the farthest.  Demonstrating that he wasn’t completely grown up, Gabe joined in, winning the contest by a couple of feet.

The boys resumed work on a fort they had begun several days before.  They had to put the finishing touches on the stick roof they had meticulously woven together with twine from home and smaller diameter vines they had hacked from the trees.  This was just one of many forts they had constructed over the past few years.  The grand castle of all their forts rested about a mile north of their house; a hundred yards to the east of the railroad tracks and a hundred yards north of the third hole of the golf course.  

A large, old elm tree had fallen over, creating a natural cave-like area beneath it.  There was enough room for an adult to stand up inside and branches covered the sides.  The brothers had filled in the sparsely covered sides of the natural fort with sticks they had gathered from the ground and branches they cut from saplings, completing the most beautiful structure they had ever had the fortune to discover, improve, and use. 

 In the center of the fort, they had dug a three foot diameter by six-inch deep hole and lined it with rocks found nearby, and built small fires, cooking cans of beans and roasting hotdogs they had pilfered from home.

On one of the days when Gabe had gone to the fort alone, he surprised a shabbily dressed man cooking a pot of beans over their fire pit, his pot was hanging from the sticks the brothers had dug into the ground and bent over the fire ring.  Growing up by the railroad tracks, the brothers always referred to such men as bums, because that’s what their mother and father had called them.  Driftless men crossing the country on the rails, stopping for a day here and there for a little respite from riding the trains.

Gabe had noticed smoke rising from the fort as soon as he had stepped from the railroad tracks.  He carefully made his way down the twenty foot embankment, taking care not to create any noise.  His first thought was that he was going to surprise one of the other neighborhood kids messing around within he and his brothers’ fort and make him pay a physical price for it.  Sneaking quietly, Gabe inched his way to the entrance and then burst inside.  He stopped quickly when he realized it wasn’t any kid he confronted, but a grown man holding a menacing looking club in his hands.

“Well, you want a piece of this club or not?” the bum asked in a leathery voice.

Writers conference

I attended the 11th annual Writers Festival and Book Fair on Saturday, March 22, 2014 in Bloomington, Minnesota.  It was a great experience that lead off with Nancy Carlson as the keynote speaker.  Nancy has been a very successful publisher of children's books and is well known across the  U.S.
I attended the following sessions:

The Creative Process
Every good story contains a mystery
Short and Sweet: Learning to write succinctly
How to work with Editors, agents, publishers, and booksellers.

In addition to the sessions, exhibitors were pitching books, publishing outlets, copy editing, etc.

Every one of the sessions I attended was professionally presented, entertaining, and filled with excellent tips.  The presenters were available for questioning afterwards and very willing to help answer any questions we had.

As a side note, I bought a book from two, older gentlemen who had taught at Robbinsdale, Minnesota.  They are twins who grew up in a tenement flat in Yorkville on Manhattan's ethnic Upper East Side in the 1940's, 50's, and 60's.  They later moved to Minnesota and taught grades K-University for a combined 64 years and earned doctorate degrees.
The title of the book, Yorkville Twins, caught my eye immediately because I am the father of identical twin sons, soon to be 38 years old.  While chatting with them, we compared notes of the trials and tribulations of twins and the often love/hate relationship that exists.  They're  a couple of great guys, and after I'm through reading their book I'll give it to my twins to read.

It was worth the cost of attending ($79) and very easy to find, just off 35W at the Bloomington Theatre and Art Center.

The Book Club Murders

My latest novel is finally going to be available as an e-book on Amazon, Thursday, March 20, 2014.  By the end of the week it will be available in paperback form, also on Amazon.  It will be available in book stores such as Barnes and Noble and libraries in approximately two months.  The Kindle version will sell for $2.99 and the paperback will sell for $9.95.

I hope you enjoy the book, whichever version you choose to purchase, or pick it up from a library in a couple of months.

In the meantime I am continuing to write my fourth book, Brothers.

More from "Brothers"

Jack was eleven years old in late March of 1961 and the spring flood waters were beginning to rise along with the temperatures.  His brothers and he would clamber onto the railroad bridge, walk the narrow planks and look down at the rushing waters below.  He, along with every child along the river, loved this time of year.  It was exciting as he and his brothers made a game of climbing onto the girders below the bridge, find small niches to hang onto and ride them out as a train rumbled over the tracks above while the violent waters flowed below.  They crushed together and hung on with all their might as the bridge shook for several minutes until the train finally passed completely by, bringing a halt to the earthquake like scenario.  

It was their local version of riding a roller coaster-without the safeguards.  One slip, a loosened grip on the girder or another person, and they would be gone-probably found several miles downstream as blue and dead as any corpse.  But no one ever slipped.  No one ever let go of another.  They rode it out, enjoying every moment of the delicious terror engendered by their own actions.  It was glorious, foolish, against the wishes of their parents, and also unknown by anyone but themselves.

Jack, Gabe, and Kellan loved it more than anyone else it seemed, for the southern edition kids thought they were crazy river rats for doing it-and maybe they were.  

The pitch for The Book Club Murders

A puzzling murder takes place in a small southern Minnesota town during the coldest spell of winter.  It's January, and Beth Reddy, newly certified private investigator, is hired by members of her book club to help solve the killing of one of their own.  Beth and her partner, Damien George, are supposed to be cooperating with the local authorities, but after deciding there's more to this than meets the eye, strike out on their own.

The reader is taken on a psychological journey into the minds of several suspects after the murder of another book club member occurs in a neighboring town.  Although one individual, a local odd fellow, emerges in the eyes of Beth and Damien as the main person of interest, local officials seem to be perplexed.                                                                                                   

The odd fellow possesses a mysterious past and a curious connection to the murder victims, but the logistics and motives just don't seem to add up.  The murders continue to pile up, further complicating the investigation and confirming the suspicions of some in the law enforcement community.  

Nothing is as it seems as Beth and Damien stretch the legal boundaries while desperately seeking the identity of the person eliminating members of the book club.

Some writings from, Brothers.

After stepping out of the river and onto the rocky shore, Slack asked Gabe, “Hey!  You got any cigarettes?”   They stood on the rocky shore of the river, dripping wet in their swim suits.   Slack lived a mile south of the Hula’s in the residential edition occupied by mostly packing plant workers.  He and most of the others from the edition came to the river near the Hula’s place and swam.  They usually brought cigarettes with them as well.  

Today, however, Slack was all out and stared at Gabe as he asked him the question almost accusingly.  “Well, you got any?” 

“Uh, no, Mom and Dad don’t smoke so I can’t steal any,” Gabe answered apologetically.

“Shit!  You river rats never have anything we could use.”  Slack gazed back at his buddies who had continued splashing in the river, enjoying the cool break on the ninety degree day.  Trying to be friendly again, he changed the subject and said,  “I see your dad finally got your new house done.  How do ya like it?”

“It’s great!   We’ve got a big bedroom for us three boys and Sydney gets her own bedroom with a built in make-up table and mirror,” Gabe said enthusiastically with a big smile planted on his face.  

Slack regarded him warily for a minute and then burst out laughing as he grinned and said, “God!  You sound like a damn little kid the way you talk.”  Sarcasm dripped from his lips as he said the words, “Make-up table.  Holy balls!  Did your dad build anything for the boys in the family?”   

“Well, yeah.  We’ve got dressers, a shelf, and a toy box built right in to the bedroom.”  Gabe smiled again, proud of what his dad had made for them.  Slack stood still with his hands on his hips, water dripping like a slow leak from his swimming suit.  His stare and silence caught Gabe by surprise as he had expected a little more of an excited comment about all the built-ins they had in the boys' bedroom. 

But the only thing that came out of Slack was another laugh and a derisive comment, “A toy box?"  He rolled his eyes.  “You’re ten years old and your dad built a toy box for you?  What are you a little baby?”  Secretly, Slack was jealous.  The houses in the edition he lived in were mostly small, cheaply made structures that did have indoor plumbing, but were nothing like the comparatively opulent Hula abode, and, their dads and moms hadn’t made them by themselves.

Gabe looked around, trying to spot his little brother and sister, who were still splashing in the river.  

He bit his lip and made a decision.  “I can get some cigarettes.”  Slack’s eyes widened a little.

“Okay.  What are you waiting for?  Go get ‘em.”  Gabe rushed up the  embankment and stopped just short of the neighbor’s house.  The Klippers smoked so they’d have cigarettes lying around someplace.  Sneaking toward the patio near the back door, he noticed a pack of cigarettes with matches lying on a plastic table.  He hesitated before making a quick dash to the table and scooped up the pack and matches.  His heart racing, he ran back down the embankment and showed his haul to Slack.

“Nice job, my man,” Slack said as he carefully took the pack and inspected it.

“Oh yeah.  Marlboro’s.  About as good as it gets.”  He withdrew one of the eight unfiltered cigarettes left in the pack and popped an end between his lips.  It dangled there as he stepped over to the flat rock on shore, put the pack down, and then lit his cigarette.  He drew in too much smoke and hacked out a torrent of coughs.

Gabe laughed.  “Can’t handle the good stuff, huh?”  Slack took another drag and drew his breath in even more.  This time he took care and held it in comfortably before exhaling a voluminous cloud of curly smoke into the formerly pristine air.  A big smile appeared on Slack’s face as he nodded.

“That’s how ya do it, Gabe!  Have one.”  He reached to the rock, picked up the pack along with the matches and tossed them to Gabe.  They fell at his feet.  “Don’t let them get wet!”  Gabe quickly plucked them off the rocky beach and copied Slack’s actions.  He barely inhaled after lighting the cigarette, looking back at Slack with a satisfied smile on his lips as he deftly held the cigarette between two fingers.

Slack wasn’t his real name; it was Jim, but he liked the name Slack, and told everyone to call him that.  All the kids in the edition fancied themselves as tough guys.  Slack was the coolest and toughest of all, plus he was two years older than anyone else in the edition so everyone did what he said.