Here is a photo of the front cover of my new book, White Devils.

 

White Devils

 Chapter 1

April, six months later

 

“That’s not going to work, Larry. Your plan lacks seriousness, depth, and a genuine chance of success.”

Larry snorted, the tattoo on his left cheek rippled from the rush of air emanating from his nostrils.  “You’ve always got something better, don’t you, Blondie?” 

Connie smiled because he was used to this from Larry the Nazi. Connie studied him. Larry was significant, not just tall, but large: broad shoulders, muscular, taut. His neck was thick, melding into the trapezius muscle sitting atop his shoulders. His core was broad and hard. It wouldn't be difficult to imagine him as a professional lineman in the National Football League. Connie chortled. Larry reminded him of Bluto, the big, stupid character in the old Popeye cartoons.

“Now what, Blondie? Are you laughing at me?”

His face red, fists clenched, Larry glared at Connie.

Connie retained the smile and held his ground. He knew how to handle a person who always resorted to physical intimidation when he couldn’t contemplate other options. His experiences with a brutal stepfather had taught him plenty.

“I’m not laughing at you,” Connie said, his voice steady.

“It kind of looked that way.” Larry’s red face seemed to darken.

Connie didn’t move, but held Larry’s stare; his tone was soothing. “I know you put some thought into this, but did you research the alarm system, the number of guards inside and out, how much time we need to get the job done, getting our bodies out of there safely? I'm sorry, but we need a better plan." 

 Larry paused as comprehension seeped into his brain. He broke off the stare.

Connie watched Larry’s Adam’s apple move up then down. The large muscles in his shoulders and arms relaxed. His head drooped. 

“I just wanted to give an outline for now. I don’t have enough info to account for those other factors.” 

Larry actually sounded intelligent, but Connie could almost see the steroids leaking from his skin. He knew his brain had been compromised. In fact, it was probably one of the reasons Larry joined the white supremacist movement in the first place. The ‘roids had built gigantic muscles on the man but had partially atrophied his brain in the process.

He stepped close to Larry and placed a light touch on his shoulder.

“It’s a nice beginning. We’ll study the place inside and out, observe, and check the location of guards.” 

White Devils

 My new book, the third in a series of three Gerald Hodges stories, will be released in a month. It tells of a new beginning for Gerald Hodges, and a new identity. He starts a "help" business in Vancouver, B.C. (akin to the Equilizer movies) and gets involved with a young couple, stolen securities and bonds, white nationalists, and a black woman who lives alone in the B.C. woods. Double crosses and cut throat thugs dominate the action.

Beginning of a short story

The bus dropped him at the station in Duluth, and he hitchhiked the forty or so miles north on highway 61 to Silver Bay. A nice woman in the horseshoe-shaped business area downtown had directed him to his grandfather’s house. She told him to  start at Outer Drive, walk past Mariner Mountain Park, go two miles beyond till he came to a gravel road. Turn right on the gravel road, she told him.

 “It’s a way up the gravel road that meanders west and north,” she told him. Alex didn’t know it, but it was an excellent jumping-off point for those seeking adventure on the Superior Hiking Trail. He also didn’t expect it to go as far as it did.

Carrying all his possessions in a tan duffle bag, the walk from downtown to his grandpa’s cabin took two-and-a-half hours. 

He wore a Twins baseball cap, a Vikings shirt, no socks, too tight of tennis shoes, and gray sweat pants.

Fifteen-year-old Alex stood in front of a massive red pine door. It had been battered by something big, probably a bear, he thought. Claw marks ran inches away from the top to the middle. He’d been told by his father that his grandpa built the door from an old red pine broken in half by a windstorm nearly forty years ago.

Well, I’m here, he said to himself, slid the duffle bag from his shoulder and looked around. He didn’t know if this had been a good idea or not—to come here, but here he was, and if it didn’t work out, he’d go somewhere else, maybe Canada.

As he wandered around the property situated on the hillside and well off of the main road, he noticed that trees formed an arc around the back of the place. They seemed to go on forever, and as far as he knew, they did. He didn’t know what kind they were, but if he’d paid attention to his dad, he’d have known they were Cedar, Fir, White, Spruce, and Jack Pine,  Ash, Aspen, Birch, Maple, and a few more deciduous trees thrown in. 

Just a little exploring, he thought. Alex hiked around the back of the cabin and started into the woods. The ground was rocky and, to be honest, the thin soles of his tennis shoes transferred the hard points of the numerous rocks straight to the tender underside of his feet. 

Not good. 

He carefully picked his way back to the front of the cabin and sat on what passed for a front porch. It looked like a bunch of black railroad ties dragged up from the nearest railway line and haphazardly placed in front of the doorway. 

No one seemed to be around so he debated whether to knock on the door or just sit and wait outside. He stood back up and knocked. No answer, so he chose a tie he liked and sat. An hour later, the light was dimming and the mosquitos appeared. He slapped here and there and kept them at bay until a great swarm of them, like heat-seeking missiles, descended, intent upon satisfying their bloodlust. Launching himself in the air, he did a three-sixty while slapping and dancing around the front yard.

“Now that was entertaining,” said a voice coming from the open doorway.

“You’re home?” Alex said. 

“Been here the whole time. I thought you’d give up and go away by now, but when you started the little jig, you gave me such a fit of laughter that I couldn’t hold back anymore.” The old man paused, before quickly adding, “You get in here now before I let any more of those little devils in the house.”

Alex slapped as many mosquitos from himself as he could, plucked his duffle bag from the ground and dashed into the cabin.

Nothing was said for a while, except the old man nodded at Alex and told him to put his duffle in the corner. Then he rummaged around near the ancient stove, stocked it with wood and brought a fire to life.

“It’ll take a little while to get going the way I like, but it’ll be ready for cooking in twenty minutes or so.”

“So how come you didn’t answer the door when I knocked?”

“Told ya, I was hoping you’d just give up and leave.”

Alex’s lips scrunched a little, and he didn’t say anything, debating whether to tell the old man that he was his grandson.

“What?” the old man said.

“What, what?” Alex’s head snapped upward.

“You looked like you were going to say something, then changed your mind.”

Alex swayed his head back and forth like he was in a trance and tapped his thigh with his right hand. This was going to be tougher than he thought.

The old man continued to stare at him with increasing expectations making Alex more and more self-conscious, putting pressure on him to respond in some way.

“I’m Alex,” he blurted out.

“Well, at least I got a name out of you. I’m Alan. Looks like we got something in common. Both our names start with a.”

“Oh yeah, we do,” said Alex. That drew a curious look from the old man.

Alex twiddled his thumbs a bit before asking, “Does my name mean anything to you?” The expression on his face begged for an answer.

Alan ceased stoking the fire, looked in the air as if he was trying to recall something, until finally saying, “Nope.” Then he turned around and continued stoking the fire.

Alex’s shoulders sagged visibly before he said, “I didn’t think so.”

The old man looked at him again. This time more seriously. “What’s with you, kid? You come out here at the end of the day, no means of getting here, just walking right up, and then you wait around till I can’t stand it any longer until I let you in, and your name should mean something to me?” His words weren’t angry, but they were forceful and true. “Where you from?”

Alan noticed the kid’s foot tapping on the floor like it would never end.

“You nervous? Or you gotta piss?”

Alex stopped tapping his foot.  “You really don’t know my name and you don’t recognize me?”

Alan stood motionless, studying the kid with an intensity that alarmed Alex. There was a long pause until Alan walked near to take a closer look.

After thirty of the longest seconds Alex had ever endured, Alan said, “I don’t know any black kids and I don’t know your name. My first thought was that you came up here and maybe wanted to break in and take something. You have a little familiar look to you, but I can’t say I ever saw you in my life.” The old man stepped back, turned and examined the fire.

“Looks like it’ll be ready pretty soon. You like baked beans? I got plenty of ‘em.”’

“You have a son, name’s Pete,” Alex said.

That caught the old guy's attention. He froze for a moment before he slowly pivoted toward Alex.

A snippet from Impious

How is a Child Raised Without God?

Now that I’ve gotten those two stories off my chest, I’ll get back to the parts you may be more interested in. What was it like growing up without going to church or being taught to believe in a god?

We didn’t go to church, and the other side of the coin was that we weren’t given weekly lessons on how to be an atheist. We didn’t have a secret meeting place (or non-secret meetings for that matter), where we gathered weekly with other like-minded individuals and sang hymns to Satan or beastly characters. We didn’t listen to stories, parables, or sing the praises of any mystical figures.

Our reality was that we had a father and mother committed to discussing religion and gods, but not totally committed to advocating their personal position. They talked about right and wrong-giving examples. They served as living models of how to act like human beings in a very natural way. Now realize that I am not saying they or we were perfect, but my parents discussed the issues of a god and organized religion in a way that tried to help us find our own way. That’s probably impossible, but I think they did as fine a job as they could in their endeavor to not tip the scales. And, I am very proud of them.

I’m going to regress a little here and return to my beginning school years. My best memory of kindergarten was playing and taking naps in our half day. I’m sure we did some academic-type activities, but they were probably intertwined in our storytime and learning how to count in play activities. A couple of years after beginning my school career, I ran up against my most perplexing dilemma. I was presented with reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every day at the beginning of class. I will quote an article published on March 30, 2015, from WBRU News, which describes how In God We Trust became our national motto in the 1950s and Under God was inserted into the pledge of allegiance. Drum roll, please.

The words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and the phrase "In God, we trust" on the back of a dollar bill haven't been there as long as most Americans might think. Those references were inserted in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration, the same decade that the National Prayer Breakfast was launched, according to writer Kevin Kruse. His new book is One Nation Under God. I’ve provided you with the article below:

In the original Pledge of Allegiance, Francis Bellamy made no mention of God, Kruse says. 

Bellamy was a Christian socialist, a Baptist who believed in the separation of church and state. "As this new religious revival is sweeping the country and taking on new political tones, the phrase 'one nation under God' seizes the national imagination," Kruse tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "It starts with a proposal by the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic lay organization, to add the phrase 'under God' to the Pledge of Allegiance. Their initial campaign doesn't go anywhere, but once Eisenhower's own pastor endorses it ... it catches fire."

Kruse's book investigates how the idea of America as a Christian nation was promoted in the 1930s and '40s when industrialists and business lobbies, chafing against the government regulations of the New Deal, recruited and funded conservative clergy to preach faith, freedom and free enterprise. He says this conflation of Christianity and capitalism moved to center stage in the '50s under Eisenhower's watch.

"According to the conventional narrative, the Soviet Union discovered the bomb and the United States rediscovered God," Kruse says. "In order to push back against the atheistic communism of the Soviet Union, Americans re-embraced a religious identity. That plays a small role here, but ... there's actually a longer arc. That Cold War consensus actually helps to paper over a couple decades of internal political struggles in the United States. If you look at the architects of this language ... the state power that they're worried most about is not the Soviet regime in Moscow, but rather the New Deal and Fair Deal administrations in Washington, D.C.

Just my luck that I was one of the first kids to have to start reciting a pledge, a significantly altered pledge, at that, which pressured me to say the words under God in front of everyone in the school. I said the words—for years—until, as a young adult in high school, I finally mustered the courage to remain silent while everyone else said those words. I always resumed where the compelled words left off and recited the remainder of the pledge.

All of the little kids in the country's public school were compelled to say these words, and this verbal arm-twisting remains in our schools, sporting events, and political events today. These words were not inserted into our constitution by our Founding Fathers. They were added to the Pledge much later in our history, and to all our coins and paper money in the 1950s amidst a cold war with the officially atheist Soviet Union, long after our nation’s founding, and nearly two-century existence.

 Many atheists may concur with the 1983 words of retired Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, that slogans such as ‘In God, We Trust' have ‘lost any true religious significance.' To the esteemed Supreme Court jurist’s assertion, I would say, tell that to a five-year-old who was not brought up to believe in a deity; and was pummeled and compelled day after day in many different settings to say the words he had not been raised to believe.

The words are there.

They mean something and are insidiously inserted into a growing child’s brain.

The dismay I felt as a child was real, and painful to a certain degree. I was compelled to say these words-the words I felt uncomfortable saying. It is something I, and many others, have endured for years—stayed silent for fear of standing out from the crowd, from being isolated. It is human nature to want to belong, and when you don't, it hurts.

Long ago I realized that I was part of a minority in this country, and to too many so-called religious people, a despised selection of the population. A 2012 Gallup poll indicated that only 54% of Americans would vote for an atheist to be President. Let that sink in for a moment. Pause, pause, pause, pause.

Final touches are being put on my new book, Impious

I'll be putting finishing touches on my latest book, Impious, growing up atheist in a Judeo-Christian culture. Look for it to be published soon!

Close to the finish line

I am getting very close to finishing my Impious book. Formatting is done and I will be rereading and rewriting whatever is necessary. I have to insert a few passages into a couple of sections as well, but I am getting more and more comfortable with the result. I look to finish it within three weeks and will submit it to some Beta readers.

Superior Hiking Trail

Just spent some more time on the North Shore doing some backpacking on the Superior Hiking Trail with our oldest grandson, Jeffrey. We hiked a total of about ten miles and enjoyed some beautiful scenery (see photo). I also resupplied the Lake Superior Trading Post with some more copies of The Devil's Kettle. It's such a natural location to sell that particular book.

All in all, it was a great few days along the North Shore. Oh, I also got a little editing in when we got back home.

Lake Superior Trading Post

It was a successful two-hour stint at the Lake Superior Trading Post in Grand Marais, MN. I had a great time talking to people and signing books. I ended up selling 24 books to Eric Humphrey, the owner of the family-run business. Who, in turn, sold most of those the same day.

Book Club

My wife and I spent a wonderful three hours in Rosemount, Minnesota at a local book club that had read my last novel, The Book Club Murders. First, we met five of the members at Ruby's Red Eye Grill for drinks and appetizers. After that, we met with the rest of the book club (about twelve members in all) for a give and take discussion of my background and then the book itself. I greatly enjoyed the book club members, their questions, comments, and discussion.

Events coming up.

Book club presentation in Rosemount on May 20, 2019, 4 pm.

Book signing at Lake Superior Trading Post on June 8, 2019, 1 pm.

Rosemount Book Festival and Fair

I made some great connections at the Rosemount Book Festival on March 23, 2019. I sold 22 books (with 10 of them going to a book club I'll be presenting at in May). The Book Club Murders and The Devil's Kettle were both on display with The Devil's Kettle providing about 15 of the 22 sales. I even got a chance to use my new Square to process charges. It worked great!
I"ll be checking into the Rain Taxi event in October. Hopefully, I'll have my atheist memoir ready in plenty of time.

I've decided on my beginning and title for latest in series of Gerald Hodges books.

The Life of Oliver

October, One month after arriving in Vancouver

After listening to the doctor’s explanation, Oliver Payne stared ahead and then said, “You mean, I’m going to die.”

Schlaenhagen’s head drooped slightly and he crossed his legs before sighing his answer. “Not for several years, but there are medications we can prescribe to make your life easier. For instance, we can begin a regime of …”

Payne cut him off.

“How long do I have?” Payne’s face was expressionless, taut.

The doctor shifted in his chair causing the cushions to squeak, introducing an air of ridiculousness to the moment. He said it slowly. “Longer than you would think, but your condition is unpredictable. Best case scenario, you may live twenty or twenty-five years, worst case, maybe five to seven.” He smiled and then added wryly, “I wouldn’t go out and order your casket yet. You have some living to do.”

Payne sat in silence for a minute. He thought about his plans, clicking them off in his mind like he was knocking off a grocery list. His schedule needn’t change…yet, at least. But thoughts of fleeting time passing him by before he had a chance to make up for the terrible crimes he had committed several years earlier gnawed at him. Not enough time. There will never be enough time.

His eyebrows tensed, his forehead furrowed, Schlaenhagen studied Payne. He saw a sixtyish man, a little portly with thinning wisps of hair struggling to cover the forefront of his head. He was nattily dressed in a stylish gray suit with vest, tie, lavender shirt, and handkerchief neatly folded and tucked in the breast pocket. He was intelligent, strong, and in good shape; indeed, his lab numbers for a man of his age were remarkable: cholesterol 142, blood pressure 123/65, and glucose under100. His impression was: this man will cope well! 

Parkinson’s, what a shame, he thought.

Payne stood and gazed out the window. Rain, again. It had been a wet October in Vancouver, B.C. It seemed appropriate for the doctor’s pronouncement on his health.

short story contest

I submitted to the @MastersReview Winter Short Story Award! Agency Review, publication, and a $3k prize. Details here: https://mastersreview.com/short-story-award-for-new-writers/ 

The story I submitted is, The Baltimore Princess. It's about a young girl having her first baby alone in a poor section of Baltimore. It details her ordeal as she waits to hear word of Kate and William's baby girl. Her hope is that if her baby is born the day of Kate and William's baby and she gives her the same name it will have the charmed life of a princess.

The Life of Oliver-Beginning raw snippet

The Life of Oliver

One month after arriving in Vancouver

After listening to the doctor’s explanation, Oliver Payne stared ahead and then said, “You mean, I’m going to die.”

Schlaenhagen’s head drooped slightly and he crossed his legs before sighing his answer. “Not for several years, but there are medications we can prescribe to make your life easier. For instance, we can begin a regime of …”

Payne cut him off.

“How long do I have?” Payne’s face was expressionless, taut.

The doctor shifted in his chair causing the cushions to squeak, introducing an air of ridiculousness to the moment. He said it slowly. “Longer than you would think, but your condition is unpredictable. Best case scenario, you may live twenty or twenty-five years, worst case, maybe five to seven.” He smiled and then added wryly, “I wouldn’t go out and order your casket yet. You have some living to do.”

Payne sat in silence for a minute. He thought about his plans, clicking them off in his mind like he was knocking off a grocery list. His schedule needn’t change…yet, at least. But thoughts of fleeting time passing him by before he had a chance to make up for the terrible crimes he had committed several years earlier gnawed at him. Not enough time. There will neverbe enough time.

His eyebrows tensed, his forehead furrowed, Schlaenhagen studied Payne. He saw a sixtyish man, a little portly with thinning wisps of hair struggling to cover the forefront of his head. He was nattily dressed in a stylish gray suit with vest, tie, lavender shirt, and handkerchief neatly folded and tucked in the breast pocket. He was intelligent, strong, and in good shape; indeed, his lab numbers for a man of his age were remarkable: cholesterol 142, blood pressure 123/65, and glucose under100. His impression was: this man will cope well! 

Parkinson’s, what a shame, he thought.

Payne stood and gazed out the window.Rain, again. It had been a wet October in Vancouver, B.C. It seemed appropriate for the doctor’s pronouncement on his health.

Schlaenhagen allowed Payne to linger at the window for a minute longer and then checked his watch. He had already delayed his next appointment by fifteen minutes. Bad news required time to sink in and he knew his patient needed space and… a moment.

After thanking the doctor, Payne turned to leave, almost, but not quite shuffling from the office. 

Bypassing the elevator, he took the stairs. Better for me, he thought.  

Stepping down quickly, Payne made it to the first floor in just under a minute. From there he escaped the moribund lobby and passed through automatic doors that led to the street. 

The pattering rain had softened, reminding him of a slow moving drumbeat from a poetry reading in an old retro café he used to frequent in St. Paul. His lips twisted as he remembered the downcast readings expressed by the budding poets; all synched to the beat of bongo drums. He wished he could remember something a little more upbeat right now. He needed it.

He moved ahead; one foot in front of the other, he told himself. “You’ll make it through this,” he said out loud. His room at the Sunset Inn and Suites was four blocks away from the clinic so his walk didn’t take long. 

Lucille had given him the use of nearly unlimited funds to provide him with everything he would need. He had chosen an executive suite at the Sunset Inn with one bedroom, small living room, bath, and a kitchen. He didn’t need anything more.

Payne unlocked the door, entered and collapsed onto the nearby sofa. 

Alone. I’ve never felt so totally alone before. Very few times in his life had he considered the inevitability of death. The last time had been at the Devil’s Kettle Falls when he tackled Peter Karonen, sending both of them over a drop off and into the frothing cauldron below. He survived. Peter Karonen did not. With the help of Sheila Cadotte and Cassie Bandleson he made it out, evaded the police, and travelled to Vancouver.

This was different; a slow, debilitating death awaited him. From the corner of his eye he noticed the bottle of wine on the counter. Struggling a little, he moved to his feet, fetched the wine, and uncharacteristically, poured a full glass. Damn etiquette. I deserve it.

      He brought the glass to his lips, tipped the edge of it slightly inward, and then inhaled the velvety scent of the Cigar Cabernet from the Coonawarra region of Australia. Dark color, rich, jammy, with chocolate infused dark fruit, stewed plums, peppery spice, long supple tobacco finish. 

       This was his heaven. A small sip, which he held as it filled the cavities around the tip of his tongue almost made him forget the news he had just been given by the doctor. The sapidness lingered. Finally, he rolled it over the back of his tongue and swallowed. 

Placing the glass on a coaster, he sat, relaxed, and let a slow breath escape his lips. For a while tonight he would give in to the self-pity: the depression. Later he would think. Tomorrow, he would implement a plan. 

He awoke fresh and full of energy. The dark hours he spent hashing everything out in his mind the evening before had been beneficial. Darkness had turned to light, and in turn, his ruminations formed a blueprint, which he intended to put into action today.

Oliver started singing a Queen song from the seventies: 

We are the champions, my friends 

And we’ll keep on fighting till the end

We are the champions; we are the champions

No time for losers

‘Cause we are the champions of the world

It wasn’t like him to suddenly burst into song, but this was Oliver today, the way he felt; this disease was not going to deter him from redeeming himself and affirming his life.  

His voice trailed off. He looked down. A slight tremble captured his left hand. 

Writing and experiences

It is important for writers to accumulate experiences so they may write credibly about people or places. In that regard, in my current fiction novel, I have set it in Vancouver, B.C. which we visited two years ago on a great western road trip. Capilano Suspension Bridge crosses the Capilano River. While there, we visited and enjoyed the scenery including cliff and tree top top walks. The park will figure prominently in the novel. Hopefully, experiencing the park firsthand will enhance the feel and message of the story. Other trips will take place this summer as I plan for a 35 mile hike through Glacier National Park with my youngest son, and a 20 miler over the Superior Hiking Trail on the North Shore of Minnesota. I am always filing ideas, sites, sounds, and people away in my memory banks to use in a story.

Rosemount Writers Festival and Book Fair

Just signed up for the Rosemount Writers Festival in March. March 23rd, 2019. I'll take my three best selling books, Brothers, The Book Club Murders and The Devil's Kettle. I bought a Square for processing credit card payments a while back so will be ready to accept payment methods beyond cash.
In the meantime, I'll continue working on a new Gerald Hodges novel and my memoir detailing my life as an atheist. I'll post a few excerpts from both during January, 2019.

Interchange wine and coffee bistro event in Albert Lea

A group of authors got together to network, sip coffee, and sell books at the Interchange Wine and Coffee Bistro. It was a little sparsely attended, but it was very enjoyable in a nice venue. I forgot to take a selfie of myself so I'm not in the images, but I was there!!!!!

More sales!!!!

I will be taking a batch of books up to BlueFin Bay for sale in their  gift shop. I guess my previous batch sold really well. So, on our next trip to the North Shore at the end of July I'll drop off another batch.
I'm so pleased The Devil's Kettle sold out and they need more books. It's a good problem to have. It's also nice to have the book selling well in the North Shore, Twin Cities, and southern Minnesota markets.

Book Fair

I just realized that I never reported on the Rosemount Book Fair. It was a great experience meeting other authors and selling books. I sold ten books over the course of a few hours and met some fun and interesting  people. I'm looking forward to another book fair in the fall.