Charles Wells, Wellston Publishing, a good southern writer and twitter friend of mine, has given me permission to post a little story for you. It’s a story that hopefully you will enjoy and appreciate the homespun humor of it all. Charles and I are from the south, with me a bit more ancient than Charles, but his story here rattled my rib cage and I wanted to share it. Born and bred in Appalachia many years ago, I love the people, the purity, the simplicity of life in my native south.

We people in the south get a lot of teasing about the way we talk, our drawls and our ‘you all’s.’ A lot of  jokes have been created at our expense — we’re right up there with the Polish folks! It’s all okay for people to laugh at us southerners. We laugh at ourselves. Our gentility is fairly well known world-wide and gets its share of teasing. But most of the fun-poking goes to our hill people, to our rural folks who eschew formal education to work hard and play hard, who plow their fields and harvest some of the finest food for our breakfast, lunch, and dinner tables, who strum their guitars, ukuleles, banjos, fiddles, and ‘juice harps’ for a mix of music that comes straight from their hearts and souls. Maybe some of these good people get a little push from the home-brewed ‘white lightning’ and the beer they drink.

Now, the following ‘scholarly essay’ from my buddy, Charles, deals with the more colorful of our southern brothers and sisters. It’s my hope that it doesn’t offend anyone because surely we can laugh at each other. It's what makes this big country of ours such a wonderful place. We have freedom here. We can poke a little fun at college professors, CEOs, Presidents, Vice Presidents, government workers, people from the East, West, Midwest, North, and South. They're likely getting few and far between, but I'm betting we still open doors for the ladies down south. That doesn't necessarily mean that we don't believe in equality for women. It just means that's the way most of us were raised in that part of the country. Today, though, we're poking a little fun at my people, the southern 'rednecks.'

Sit back, take a swig of the suds, and read Charles Wells' account of “Billy Joe’s Night Out.”

                                                     They Call It Bubba's Bait, Tackle, Beer and Baptist Church
                     
      
There's a small town about 15 miles from where I live in Georgia. I'm not certain if it has a legal name of incorporation or not but I am sure the people who live there, all 119 of them, could care less what you call it. After all, it's their community and they love it. For writing about it, I'm going to call the town by the name most everyone around these parts uses, and that's simply, "Bubba's" but that's the short name. The full one is "Bubba's Bait, Tackle, Beer, and Baptist Church".

The reason everyone calls it Bubba's is probably because nobody has ever given this little area of God's earth an official title of any kind. Bubba's has been around about as long as Budweiser beer and the name sort of just blended on over to the location.      

Bubba's is located on a two lane gravel top County maintained road and has the worldly reputation as the origination of the old joke about "don't blink or you'll miss it". Every place is famous for something and that is Bubba's eruption to fame in that joke.

Bubba's main street is about as long as a four lane interstate highway is wide. There are no city services beyond volunteer fire and county sheriff but the unspoken reputation of the area protects these people well enough. The last fire that happened was one night when Billy Joe got drunk and then got hungry so he went on home from Bubba's Bar. Now don't get all fussy about drinking and driving because Billy Joe took a cab, which really pissed off Carlton the man who owned it, but that's another story for another time.

Anyhow, old Billy Joe got home and left the cab in the driveway with the motor and the meter running, then went inside his double wide trailer at 2 AM and proceeded to fry up a mess of catfish. His wife, June Ann, was sound asleep. She'd been up late watching a Honey Boo Boo marathon on TV so she didn't hear him come in. Billy Joe got the fish grease nice and hot then dropped in three cats he'd caught the day before at the river. What he did next is where the fire came from. He passed out cold on the floor in front of the stove and that hog lard grease got so hot it finally caught fire.

Fortunately, June Ann woke up smelling the smoke and realized the trailer was on fire. She grabbed her two children and some of their clothes, and then took them outside near the road to safety. She pointed a finger at them and snapped, "Now ya'll stay right here and don't move or I'll set your britches on fire, you hear me?"

When the kids nodded, she went running back inside the smoke filled house where she gathered up and saved her two cats and a parakeet from sure fire death. She got them outside with the children and then back into the trailer she went again. With much great physical effort and power, she managed to drag and roll her mama's old sewing machine out the front door, into the yard, and safely away from the burning structure.

By that time, the volunteer fire department arrived and told her to stay put and don't go no place. They'd do the rest. June Ann yelled at them, "Just make sure you run down the hall to my bedroom and get my daddy's old shotgun out of there before it burns up".

One fireman asked, "Well where your husband, Billy Joe and what's Carlton's Cab doing parked here in the yard with the motor running?"

Waving one hand toward the mobile home, June Ann said, "Hell I don’t know but I think I saw him lyin' on the floor near the stove but don't bother waking him up. He gets pretty mean after he's been drinking all night."

The fireman nodded then raced into the house. One of them found Billy Joe passed out near the stove and carried him outside to safety. June Ann told him to go put him back since that seemed to be where he wanted to be but they refused. Fact is Billy Joe owed Andy (the fireman) ten bucks and he wasn't about to let that slip past.

About five minutes and a living room sofa in flames later, a medic showed up and gave Billy Joe some oxygen out of a bottle. Pretty soon, Billy Joe coughed, gagged, spit out a pile of black soot and most of the last hours worth of Budweiser. Then he looked up at his home and asked with tears in his eyes, "Can they save the tires at least? They almost brand new."

The last crime that happened anywhere near Bubba's was the night Carlton's cab got stolen right out from in front of the Bar where he parked it most days. I don't really see no need to describe that incident to the readers though. I mean, ya'll have been paying attention so far, ain't you? 

So that's the story behind Bubba's Bait, Tackle, Beer, and Baptist Church. Maybe next time I write about it I'll go over some of the finer points of the neighborhood. Might even talk about the world famous Redneck Games held a few miles away from there. It's interesting I promise you.


Catch up with Charles on twitter @Charles_E_Wells or email at chasw@wellston.org


                                                                    Charles E. Wells - Wellston Publishing

"The Snow Bench"

      In viewing its cold bitter beauty, that could be my body buried under the snow on that lonely bench. In a warmer June I sat  with a young nose-freckled, fresh-faced lass, held her hand, and told her that I loved her. Her smile that responded to my words is etched forever in my heart, along with a sweet silky blonde tress that fell across her left cheek. We embraced there on that bench for long moments, kissing as lovers do, not with a burning passion but with some mystical deep awareness of something that promised an eternal bonding.
     Our lunch hour over, we rose from the bench. Her blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight with her smile. She hurried away from me to return to her office. Standing there, I watched her gaily gait, her delightfully bouncy bottom, and thought myself the luckiest man in the world. My lips were fixed in sublime capitulation to our love. When she waved one last time, I turned, walked in the opposite direction, humming a love song from 'My Fair Lady.' It did not matter that I felt like a silly school boy. My heart was held by another. Another's heart was held by me.
     This park with all the snow and particularly that bench is a place I now often visit. That could be my body buried under the snow on that bench. I was never to see Susannah again. Death took her from me soon after that June day of so much promise. I'm told to get on with my life... Words signifying nothing. My life is now the drear and the cold of this park scene. My memory can persuade the snow to leave momentarily for a June day of promise, but my heart cannot hold back its never-ending grief.


     Viewing the picture of the 'the snow bench' and the wintry park (much larger than seen here), there came a challenge to write a poem, a song, a story that could be no longer than three hundred words. For some inexplicable reason my mind settled quickly on a fanciful story, and, in fifteen minutes, the narrative was complete. Obviously, my poem, my song, my story (as was my choice) could have had a happier theme on which to focus. There was something about the bench, the way the snow had settled there, the rather dreary scene winter often brings, that brought me so quickly to this short poignant piece. Sadness comes all through the year but winter has come by its extreme nature to be the season for dying. All of us have lost loved ones. "The Snow Bench" somehow brought me to write about a fragile acknowledgement that some of us had need to accept.
 
Billy Ray           http://www.about.me/brchitwood

                                                        “The Sunshine Room”

     On consistently cloudy days outside, on dreary wintry days, on ‘bad news’ days, it would be nice to have a ‘sunshine room.’ In our rapidly expanding digital and technological world, there is likely already a relatively simple mechanism of sorts that will illuminate a room, maybe an entire house, as though the sun was present … maybe a ceiling fixture, a wall addition, a window covering, et al. If not clear by now, I’m a sun worshiper. That’s one of the reasons I live at this latitude on the Sea of Cortez. There is sunshine every single day. Some clouds may drift by on their way to a final destination but sooner of later the sunshine is there in a beautiful blue sky.

     Sunshine is important to me because of my make-up. The older I get, the more I see in our growing world, there is this tendency to become gilded in my thinking. Those folks who lean toward the liberal side might not like me too much for my views. That’s okay because there are times when I don’t like them too much. However, I do respect my liberal friends and sometimes think I’m missing something in their political and social comments. In fact, in my younger years I was more inclined to hold liberal views. Somehow, I had a change of mind along the way. Perhaps my perceptions are too simple, just too bound in historical clashes and events to think in any other way. I think about the fall of the Roman Empire, its laxity on the social issues. I think about how one man could master a large segment of the human race and murder over six million people. I think about Stalin, Russia, the purges, and the slaughters of millions. I think, in some ways, I’m seeing history repeat itself, maybe not so much for me, an old dog not able or willing to learn new tricks, but for my kids, my grandkids, and my great-grandkids.

     Look, I’m no scholar who can spout off the words of the US Constitution, its Amendments, or the Declaration of Independence, but those important papers brought us to a grand place in the history of humankind. Those documents said that people can have liberty, are free to go out into the world and be all that they can be, based on their honest efforts and their brain power. I don’t have to be a scholar to know that most of the people in the world would like that scenario. Yes, we’re all created equal at birth but it doesn’t stay that way. Some of us don’t learn as fast as others. Some of us are ambitious. Some are lazy and try to figure easy ways to live off others’ toil. Some are handicapped, need and should get help from a caring nation … ‘Equality’ means different things to different people. How can a diverse nation (or, world) live up to the word, ’equality,’ when the word was meant to convey our right at birth. Where is the fairness for someone who has an idea, grows that idea into a major business where he hires people, gives them work for their daily bread, only to be regulated by a government with a long list of do and don’t. Should it not be simple enough for a vigorous person with a business idea to pursue that idea without fear of what his government is going to take from him? Should not a tax code be simple enough for everyone to understand without having thousands of pages of regulations? Should not a person expect to die and leave his legacy to family without having the government take a large chunk of his estate? Should not ‘entitlements’ be the exception and not the rule? Was the government meant to be so intrusive in our lives? Did not those beautiful documents from our forefathers postulate what the essential roles of our government branches should be? It seems to this wary and weary old dog that, through the years, we have cleverly rearranged with our fancy legalized posturing the true meaning of those documents.

     So, many can justifiably counter my simple remarks here, but they are honest thoughts. There are at work in this nation and this world forces that are focused on undermining our religious and social freedoms. These forces are evil, treacherous, and they are here in large numbers. These ramblings of an old man will have no effect on this evil. These words are but a Sunday morning sermon on our times.

     In any event, I’ve clearly exposed myself. That’s okay! Most of you who have read some of my posts clearly know that I’m an anachronism, a conservative, a traditionalist, whatever the convenient word. Well, that’s all I can be! My DNA lines up that way. I’m a helpless, hopeless, wanderer in this land of ‘machines’ and madness. I’m not much of a debater, so those who lean the other way can punch all the holes you wish into my little dissertation here.

     Hopefully, I can sell people on the idea that I do try to adapt, to learn new tricks and new ways to please the newer order. There is clearly a newer order! Having lived this long, I see our new ‘machines of progress’ and I see new problems to go along with the old problems. In my vision it is natural for me to see old mistakes from my generation being repeated — you know, that ‘history repeating itself’ thing. It is natural for old fools like me to see new free-thinking people wanting a world community at any expense, at the expense perhaps of the freedom and liberty some forty old timers like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, William Blount, and others all in harmony felt would connect a country’s people. That ‘Constitution’ these great people of history signed was to be the blueprint for not just our country but for any country who held dear the ideals that went into that document. Amendments were added, and the road was perilous then as it is now … But, wow! what a great blueprint for a country to have!

     The world changes. Knowledge explodes into rich new innovations and inventions. So, why can’t we all be on the same page in history? We know the answer, of course. The old fools collide with the new fools! It becomes more and more difficult to find consensus on this or on that. Different times? Different political persuasions? Different World views? Do any of us know who is who and what is what anymore? So much to absorb and so many machines!
 
     I no doubt spend too much time in the ruminating room — those ‘good old days’ cannot be retrieved or altered. At least, some of us think they were good old days. So, this old fool just might as well watch the world do its thing and make an idle comment here and there…

     While I’m at it, here are a few more of those idle comments:

     1) The music of today ‘sucks’ (to use the vernacular)! It's too damned loud and the lyrics are lost in the mighty cacophonous
screeching of brass, drums, strings, et al. 
 
      2) We’re repeating some of the same mistakes today that brought much trouble in our history; we don't seem to learn!

     3) Technology has created too many horrific 'gang and war games' to fill our kids' minds; there is too much laxity of control on the part of parents; today's games are not necessarily 'Cowboys and Indians,' tag, and hide and seek.
 
     4) We are an ‘over-reaction’ nation: we have some beautiful children killed and we suddenly want to amend and/or make new laws; maybe the gun laws do need some modifying --- we must care and act!
 
     5) Each side of the political spectrum uses tragedy for their agendas when all must know , should know, we can never stop all the evil that lurks in our world.
 
      6) We should be sane and sensible, change things that can make a difference, and understand that there are some things that cannot be changed; 'We' and 'sane' and 'sensible' are the operative words.

     7) Guns do not kill people — people kill people and those who are evil will find ways to carry out their evil intents …

     There are many other idle comments I could make, and they are negative. People want positive, reassuring, words of promise. They want answers and problem solving. Our scientific and technological knowledge is exploding, doubling, tripling, in relatively short intervals. There is so much to absorb, of which to be aware, that we ordinary citizens stumble over it all. We are bewildered, confused, but, then, Google will help us find an answer. We go on with our lives because that is what we are to do.

     Sound political? Not intended. (Well, maybe a little!) Just looking at serious minutia roaming around in my head … back in my day, we had a sniper killing off students at the University of Texas in Austin; we had the Kent State riots; we had Charlie Manson and his ‘helter-skelter’ crew; we had a socially prominent and politically active Ted Bundy killing pretty young women all around the country; there was the Los Angeles ‘Hillside Strangler’ and there was the Oregon ‘Green River’ serial killer … History from the dawn of time is dotted with evil acts — there in William Shakespeare’s time you will find evil. On and on I could go with the evil incidents that enter our lives … We react to these horrible events, particularly those that kill our children, because we can’t understand how such evil can exist. It staggers us, takes nips at our hearts and souls, and leaves us in a stupefied state of mind until — until we can go to our ‘sunshine room’ and start feeling better. The best invention in the world would be a machine that can determine without question the evil among us … then we could dump all the evil people on an isolated island far from civilized land and let them find ways to annihilate each other.

     But, then, what the hell do I know? I’ll let the grandkids and great-grandkids handle the problems. I’m way too old and too tired to be trying to figure it all out … Hey, how about a real humdinger of a pep pill, a smart pill? Oh, well, a highball in an oversized glass might do it!

     I’m going to the ‘Sunshine Room.’ Guess I’ve given enough ‘pleasure’ and ‘displeasure’ for one day.  

I'm often struck by the relative robotic nature of my days. Some might call them 'ruts.' All along my life's circuitous route there have been routines established, apparently somehow orchestrated by my exclusive DNA components.
 
Surely we all have our idiosyncratic ways of living. Some of us are slow in our movements, not eager to have a conversation so soon after rising from our slumber. Some of us begin talking at the breakfast table and don't stop until sleep finally overtakes us in the dark of night. Some of us are hyper-active, have a need to go, to do, to accomplish. Some of us take on our days with a slower pace, stopping to muse, feeling no real pressure tospeed up our movements. ' Different strokes, different folks.' Now, of course, there are many factors that play into and affect our daily habits - jobs, children, any number of necessities - but I'm betting we stay close to some dictated rhythm within us throughout our lives.
 
There are workaholics among us. Some are the movers and shakers of our world. I've worked in life for and with workaholics, admired them, and it has been difficult to keep pace with these good people of accomplishments. There are the loafers among us. Some of these folks make schedules and timelines near impossible to keep and/or they provide 'keystone kop' periods in our days. There are day dreamers (not quite in the same category of 'loafer') who can come up occasionally with great ideas but have trouble with the nitty-gritty implementation process. There are the steady gophers who get the jobs done, do as they're told, who make up the highest percentage of the employee ranks, and who will once in a while offer surprising insight into a particular function.
 
If you're waiting for this to go to some 'Eureka' stage, it's not going to happen. I'm just sitting here being my rather robotic self, doing my routine typing on the laptop, doing my routine maintenance on the social networks, and, right after lunch, maybe, just maybe, I will get some writing done on my tenth book. But here's the thing, you can likely guess accurately to which group of robots I belong and you need to know that I've mingled in all the groups mentioned and I now use 'age' as an excuse for my slowdown in life. I'm up in the morning, not saying much to my good wife and George the cat, kind of sullen, you might say, and, after my donut and chamomile tea, I settle myself on the love seat with laptop on my lap, look out the big windows at the Sea of Cortez, and slowly decide how it is that I will interrupt someone's day with a clever tweet utterance or handle some imagined HOA crisis or really get about the business of writing more in my tenth book. Sometime during the day the good wife and I might, might, take a walk along the beach and gather some sea glass and shells. We might have a drink before dinner, and we will definitely settle into the TV shows that have become our staples. Bedtime comes around 10:30 to 11:00 PM, and, tomorrow, I get to do it all over again - with likely some mild modifications.
 
So, with age and retirement, it seems to me the only good folks that are going to maybe suffer a bit in their routines will be those movers and shakers and the workaholics. Surely, they're going to make miserable some of us in the aforementioned groups. We are who we are and there's really room for all of us ... just, no long conversations, please! I've got to write my posts, do my tweets, figure out this digital world, finish that tenth book, and figure out how to make my books go viral in 2013 ... 

We won't get into the philosophical and metaphysical aspects of our daily occupations with time, the universe, what we might mean in the 'big blast' or 'Intelligent Creation' thing - 'ours but to do ...' Of course, I would like to think it all means something, these wars we fight, these ugly tragedies of our lives, these politicians who make us so miserable with their sand-box silliness, our loves, our friendships  ... our living.
 
Sometimes, maybe it's just better to create our little routines and enjoy as much as we can until our time runs out: be creative, be boring, be active, be a couch potato, be whatever it is we are. We will likely end up at the 'non-spiritual' or 'spiritual' or 'black void' locations for which we were intended.

“The Booker Award”
Posted on January 3, 2013  by  billyraychitwood1      
     
There is the ‘Liebster Award,’ the nomination for which I thank my friend and fellow author, John Dolan – a recipient himself of this highly prestigious little ‘stickum.’

It is my pleasure again to receive a nomination for the highly coveted Booker Award,’ my great thanks going to another author and blog buddy, Jhobell Kristyl. These lovely ‘stickums’ undoubtedly console those of us who peck away at our laptops day after day without as yet having reached the pinnacle of writing stardom. These ‘stickums’ carry the mind momentarily to some hallowed place where the forfeiture of big royalty checks do not matter so much. It is not my wish to have rotten tomatoes thrown my way, so I’ll stop now and just give a hearty thanks to my buddy, Jhobell Kristyl, her intentions pure of heart and soul. I am very appreciative of her generosity and kindness and, hopefully, have followed her instructions precisely.

The (Booker) Award is a prize for literary and book-centered blogs.  It is for book blogs only! The deserving blogs must be at
least 50% about books, reading, book-reviewing etc.  So here are the rules to receive this fantastic award: 

• On being awarded with The {Booker}Award, you must share
  with readers your top five favorite books you have read in your life so
  far.
• On being awarded with The {Booker}Award, you must share
  with readers your most favorite author/writer. Possibly, also the reason why you
  like their literary work.
• On being awarded with The {Booker}Award, you must share
  with readers your favorite genres.
• You must give this award to five or ten or any number of other lucky book
  blogs that you adore.
• And least importantly, show-off the award on your site and link it back to
  me.

So here are my top 5 favourite books in no particular order:

1. You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe; 
2. Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 
3. The General’s Daughter by Nelson DeMille; 
4. There Are Men Too Gentle To Live Among Wolves by James Kavanaugh (‘America’s poet laureate’); 
5. Everyone Burns by John Dolan (because I fear Digby!).

My most favorite author/writer is: JAMES KAVANAUGH. He is my most favorite author/writer because he spoke most beautifully to my soul, somehow understood me more than I could ever understand myself. and was an extraordinary wordsmith. James Kavanaugh left the Catholic priesthood to reach out and enrich the lives of the
downtrodden and weary.

(Now, again, as my most favorite author, I thought about John Dolan of Galericulate fame but decided against him for these reasons: because I did not want to inflate the Brit’s already enlarged ego; because I fear Digby; and, because Dolan’s book, “Everyone Burns,” though simply an exquisite ‘romp,’ is so much better than any of my own books… I suspect the scars I
carry from his recent interview of me at the Dubai Dungeon were the deciding factor to exclude him.)

My most favorite genres are:  Action  -  Adventure  -  Biography/Memoirs  – Mystery  -  Suspense  – True Crime  -  Romance

And finally, here are my 5 distinguished awardees. Don’t forget to check out their awesome blogs: 

1. John Dolan – http://johndolanwriter.blogspot.com/search/label/Home ;  

2. Bottledworder – http://bottledworder.wordpress.com 

3. Rich Weatherly – http://richweatherly.wordpress.com (‘Welcome To My Place’) ;

4.  http://waywardspirit.wordpress.com (@JessicaLeBaron); 

5.  http://ruleofstupid.wordpress.com (@RuleOfStupid)

Finally, I want to thank Jhobell again from http://bookmavenpicks.wordpress.com/ (@JhobellKristyl)  for awarding me this Booker Award in the first place.  Thank you very much, .  That’s all, folks!

“A Soul Defiled – A Bailey Crane Mystery” is the fifth and final book in the ‘Bailey Crane Mystery Series’ – a relatively short book written on the Sea of Cortez. As I lazily and leisurely lolled on my condo deck watching the sailboats, jet skis, yachts, and all the diversions upon the sea, I saw a Mexican beach hawker of lovely serapes walking toward the old port of Rocky Point. It was late in the afternoon, and the hawker seemed weary from his day’s labors along Sandy Beach. Walking all day up and down the long stretch of beach with a heavy load of serapes draped over his shoulder had taken its toll. My guess was that he was making his final trek toward home as the sun was closing on the western horizon. He would occasionally stop by a couple or a group sunbathing on the sand to present his wares, and, disappointed with no sale, wander wearily onward toward the port and home.

My mind would not let go the thoughts on this common daily scene along the lovely coastline, and the thoughts extended themselves into Book 5 of the Bailey Crane Series. Here then is an excerpt from “A Soul Defiled – A Bailey Crane Mystery.”

EXCERPT

                                                          Prologue
 
Along the coast of Pueblo del Mar the tide was out. Volcanic rock splotches of tide
pools were visible between the beach, sand bars, and cobalt sea. Creeping wider
up the distant horizon to meet the blue sky was a streak of soft mauve elegance,
reaching west to east as far as the eye could see. The sun was setting out around
the bend near Bahia del Pelicano. There were sea gulls at water’s edge, some
standing in stoic poses, others airborne, diving for food just off the sand bars. Minus
a rare storm day, it was a scene recorded each day on this majestic stretch of beach
on The Sea of Cortez.

Along the shell strewn sandy beach a lone hawker was making his final stroll east
toward the old port. There was weariness in his strides, his bronze lined face a sheen
of sweat. The unsold colorful serapes were draped over his left shoulder and his
downcast eyes only surveyed the short space in front of him. A dog barked and some
children squealed in a predominantly American inhabited resort just seventy-five yards
north of the hawker’s path, giving him a momentary pause in his steady gait. He thought
of his grandchildren, about their play area in the cluttered space of dust, gravel, and junk
behind his sheet metal shanty. They, like their fathers and mothers before them, would
never know the resort life. In his brief thoughts it did not matter. His family led a simple
and meager existence but they were happy. There was love and there was God. The
daily routines had basic rituals and they found humble joy and pleasure in their sharing.

Only a few people now hovered over the tide pools to check out a hermit crab, a baby
squid, or a dead sting ray, to collect sea glass and an occasional shell. These were
people the hawker had already approached more than once, and he no longer cared so
much about a possible sale. Dinero controlled much of his life lately, but the day had been
long. He only wanted to be home, to share his meager earnings of the day with family and
to sip a cerveza.

When he fell to the sand on his knees Fernando Cervantes thought for a brief moment he
had gone down from a sharp chest cramp. His unsold serapes were involuntarily flung
outward onto the beach. He felt liquid flowing through his fingers, saw the liquid when he
pulled his hand from his left rib cage. He saw that it was his blood. As he collapsed on his
side in the sand, his life presented itself to him in a few gasping breaths. As he slowly rolled
onto his back, his half-closed eyes looked upward toward a diminishing blue sky. There was
so much he wanted to tell Father Umberto, so much he yet wished to share with his family,
but all he could weakly mutter in his last moment was, “Mi Dios, por favor me perdona para he
pecado!"

Clusters of sea gulls gathered near the lifeless body of Fernando Cervantes, indifferent,
unimpeded in their ageless habits.

The colors of sunset cast an eerie surreal hue on the beach tableau.



                                                                  Chapter One

“It’s so good to be back. Does it get any better than this?” in the fog of memory, I wondered
how many times this question had been muttered by me.

“Well, Bailey-dear, guess we could be sitting and sipping on a veranda in Malibu. But it
wouldn’t be the same, somehow … too phony, maybe, and too far outside our reality. No,
my short answer, it does not get any better than this.” Wendy could always add a special
dimension to one of my comments.

We smiled and watched some shrimp boats returning to the old port after a night of dip netting.
It was another cloudless soft blue day, the sun deliciously warm. For ‘sun people’ Pueblo del Mar
was near perfect. There was seldom a gray day, rarely any rain. Most of the time there was a
prevailing breeze, and, at times, some strong winds. The magnificent quality of this particular
morning was the norm for Pueblo del Mar, the quality that made the decision easy for us to buy
our lovely condo here on the Sea of Cortez. Not an expert by any stretch, but the gorgeous
weather must have something to do with the latitude and longitude of this area of Mexico.

My name is Bailey Crane, once a business owner and part-time ‘crime fighter’ with the Phoenix,
Arizona Police Department. The ‘crime fighter’ label is used in an attempt to bolster my aging
ego. Still active, still feeling young and vital, the body has lost a few vital cells, but I’m still
sweating out the toxins with daily workouts, still carry a six foot frame and weigh just south
of two hundred pounds. There are some hitches in my ‘getiup,’ some sags here and there, but
I’ve got my hair, my teeth, and my totally unbiased wife tells me I still have the good looks of that
‘Sound of Music’ guy, Christopher Plummer. Do I have a great support system, or what!

My activities have slowed considerably in semi-retirement. Wendy, my bride, a former police lady
herself, decided — well, we decided — that it was time to ease back the throttle and smell some
of those proverbial roses. A good choice! We’ve traveled, done cruises, and have thoroughly
enjoyed life in the slow lane. Is my previous life missed? Truth is, it is missed, which might be
quite natural, like, any vocational interest that gets in the blood. It is not missed enough to ever
consider going back. Wendy and I have created a life style that is very comfortable. Having sold
my business, with some IRA’s, and modest investments, we are able to live reasonably well.

Wendy still carries in body and soul all the beauty that drew me to her twenty odd years ago.
There is still no gray in her tresses, and her face has no wrinkles … except for the slight lines
at the corner of her eyes, which only adds to her Andie McDowell loveliness. And, guess what?
I still sneak my peaks at her curves when she disrobes in the evening and dons her night
gown or pajamas. Wendy came along when my personal life was in crisis, a gift from God.
The one sure and unalterable truth is that our bond, our love, will last our lifetimes and, with
faithful assurance, into eternity. 

“Anything particular you want to do today, dear lady?” The question was asked dutifully and
with her negative response hopefully anticipated. My desire was to stay clad in my red swim
trunks, my exotic shirt, and thongs.

“Absolutely nothing,” Wendy dipped her head and gave me a smile. “You would pout all day
if I had an agenda for you.” She paused, got up to clear the patio table. “You want more tea?
More cereal, toast, anything?”

“I’m good. Let’s just sit and soak up this sea and sun for awhile. Maybe we’ll go poolside later
or wander the beach … you can collect some sea glass and shells. Maybe we’ll find an old
Spanish doubloon … as if!” Repositioning my swivel chair, placing my feet on the deck railing,
I raised my empty cup. “On second thought, I’ll have another chamomile while you’re up.”

A few hours later, after a swim and beach walk, we were back on our deck. Wendy was reading
while I dozed on the chaise lounge.

The kitchen telephone ringing through the screen door broke into my repose. Wendy marked her
book and went inside to answer the call. “It’s Tom Horner, for you,” she yelled.

Tom Horner was a longtime friend and he was on the Board of our Mar y Sol Home Owners
Association.

Dulled by the slumber time and the day’s laziness, I rose slowly and went inside.

“What’s up, Tom?” seating myself at the kitchen table.

“Hi, Bailey. When did you get in?” Tom’s voice had a deep resonant quality.

“Late yesterday afternoon.”

“Good trip down?”

“Traffic was light, smooth sailing.”

“Going to be here for awhile this visit?” Tom seemed to be dancing around the reason for his call.

“Wendy and I are here for a long stay. There is nothing on our calendar. Is there a problem, Tom?”

“Are you busy right now, Bailey?’”

“Just a little sweaty from the sun and beach. You want to visit?”

“Yes, if it’s good for you. Can you meet me at Tinker’s in fifteen minutes? I’ll buy you a beer, and
you can come as you are.”

“Can’t we visit here?” Tinkers was a short walk of five minutes, but, still…

“We can, but it would be better if we talked off premises.”

Tom now had my interest. Something very newsworthy was in the air. “See you in fifteen!”

Changing from thongs to tennies I told Wendy of the short, cryptic phone conversation and left.
Since Wendy had not been mentioned in the invitation, she was just as glad to have some time for
chores in our neglected condo unit.

Tom Horner was an old friend and likely the biggest reason we had chosen Mar y Sol as our
seaside retirement site. Tom and wife Gladys had moved to Pueblo del Mar five years ago and
had been among the first residents in Mar y Sol. They had invited us down on several occasions,
and we very quickly determined that this was where we wanted to be at some point in time.
That point in time had come one year ago. Wendy and I were now considering full time
residency. When the American developers had completed the condo project and all units
were sold, an HOA board was established to represent the owners’ interests. Tom had been a
unanimous choice for president.

The big burly guy was sitting at a small corner table when I arrived at Tinkers. Dressed a bit
more formally, Tom wore pale blue Bermudas and a gold colored button-down shirt. His deeply
tanned face and body was in sharp contrast with his recently groomed white hair. Although
aging had brought a more rotund torso, he was still a handsome guy. He had always reminded
me of Tom Selleck, one of my favorite actors.

Tom stood. We gave ‘buddy hugs,’ and sat. A frosty Corona was immediately placed in front of me.

Tinkers was a local ex-pat bar and eatery, owned and operated by Tinker Davidson, a former US
auto racer of some notoriety. The restaurant and lounge sat between two high-rise condo
developments about one hundred yards from the sea. The outside of the rectangular building was
constructed of stone and stucco, with a thatched roof. No one could miss the place with its big
vertical lettered sign just off the entrance. Inside, there was an understated ambiance, with a cozy
corner mahogany bar with subdued lighting and comfortable seating, designed for the nostalgic,
romantic souls. The back bar had a beautiful wall-length smoked mirror with gold edging, and the
enticing area was pleasantly set apart from the spacious dining room with three large pots of exotic
plants. Tinker had put a lot of thought in the design, and his place was one of the most popular in
Pueblo del Mar for both the ex-pats and the locals.

“You’re looking fit, Tommy. How’s Gladys?” We were sitting next to one of those big potted plants.

“She’s good, Bailey. We’re both good. Back at you: you’re looking fit as well. Wendy sounded chipper
on the phone. She okay?” My good friend had that aura about him. Something was eating at him big
time.

“Yeah, she’s fine …” I downed some Corona. “Okay, Tom, enough of our soft shoe. What’s going on,
big guy?”

“You heard anything about anything?” he asked.

“Just got here, buddy. I know nada. Give!”

There was some soft and soothing Spanish guitar music coming from a CD in the bar area. Tom
glanced around the room. There were a few scattered patrons seated some distance away from us.
They would not be able to hear our conversation. Tom could talk without worry. My interest was now
at a high level.

“It’s a hell of a way to greet you back, pal, but I’ve got to talk to somebody outside the Mar y Sol inner
circle. So, sorry about that.” Tom took a long draw from his own Corona bottle and continued. “Mar y
Sol has some problems, Bailey. You know Mitchell Probst, our HOA treasurer?”

“Yeah, I know him. Not well, but I’ve seen him around. He’s got one of the beach villas.”

“Well, he’s a big part of our problem. He was found murdered in his beach villa this morning. The body
of a serape hawker was found on the beach late yesterday afternoon, just a few yards from Mitchell’s villa …”

“Jesus! Wendy and I show up and strange karma tags along. You said, ‘a big part of our problem.’ There’s
more? Don’t know if I’m ready for this my first day back to ‘Pueblo.’”

“I know, it’s a bummer … sorry, pal. We’ve got some issues on the HOA board. There are things
not adding up. The accounting system is fouled up and there’s money we can’t locate, apparently some
missing ledgers. Mitchell was not the most popular board member and he had been acting strange the
last few days before his murder. Look, I know the economy is bad; our tourist business has fallen off;
the media has been unfair to us. But, even with all that, there is something going on that is not right. And,
Bailey, I’m telling you even if you wouldn’t ask: I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. Are we being
embezzled? Is there corruption on the board? Was Mitchell stealing from us? Or, did he discover
something that got him killed? Are the murders of Mitchell and the hawker connected? Did a stray bullet
kill the hawker? Your police chief friend, Ernie, has been here with his investigators and is working
the case. He has this information I’m giving you. Does he know you’re in town?”

“No, don’t believe so … I haven’t contacted him yet. He knew we were coming this week.”

Ernesto Villar was the police chief of Pueblo del Mar. We had become good friends years ago while
working together on an Arizona/Mexico connected case. We had maintained an ongoing relationship,
visiting while on our trips to ‘Pueblo,’ via quick phone calls just to say hello and chat, and via
correspondence on police-related matters.

“It’s a question I’m reluctant to ask, Bailey, but can you help me out? Maybe, do a little low-key prowling
and prying? I want no strain on our friendship, but I’m at a loss on who to trust and with whom to talk.
If I’m asking too much just tell me and that’ll be the end of it. There is nothing that will ever impair our
friendship.” His mellow voice carried with it sincerity and desperation.

How could I turn down such a lovable Selleck-type?

“Hey, you’re my buddy! Gotta help if I can. I’ll squeeze it in between the fun and sun, I’m a bit rusty,
Tommy, but I’ll do what I can. You can fill me in on how the HOA works. It’s all ‘Greek’ to me. Maybe
Ernie has some answers. I’ll talk to him right away. You’ll need to supply me with names, files, maybe,
and other information as needed. Is there anything else more specific you can tell me? The other board
members? Are they all here at the moment?”

Tom thought for a moment. “No, but they will all be here in two days. There’s a board meeting on
Saturday. Jarrett Egan, Peter and Jan Simpson, and I are the only full-time board member residents.
Mitchell was full-time. The other members get down usually on a monthly basis, or, even, less
frequently. You know them all, but I’ll give you their vitae. Specifics? Just don’t have any specifics,
Bailey. Guess I’ve been too lax, but, generally, other than tenants bitching and moaning about one
thing or another, answering some general management questions, there’s just not a lot of my
involvement. Mitchell carried most of the load, being the man who handled the money. We all
monitored management and maintenance as much as possible, and we had confidence in our
management. All seemed to be going smoothly. Our general manager, Jimmy Millard … you know
him — is a really pleasant guy but he can be a bit rigid and pushy at times. The board has had no
big problems with him. I’m basically clueless, Bailey, feeling somewhat idiotic about this whole thing.”
Tom shrugged and downed more cerveza.

“Okay, I’ll get a running start at this tomorrow. For now, try to relax. We will have one more of these
frosty goodies, go home to our ladies, and, we can come back here for dinner … if you and Gladys
are free.”

Tom’s demeanor changed instantly. He sighed, smiled, and became the guy with whom I was
accustomed. Had we been standing he would have grabbed me in a bear hug.

END OF EXCERPT.

For further information on this title, additional books in the ‘Bailey Crane Mystery Series’ and other novels by this author, please go to his website/blog: http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com and scan the ‘Home’ page. For more author comments, please go to: http://about.me/brchitwood

 Here's an excerpt from the third book in the Bailey Crane Mystery Series. Hope you enjoy it.


                                                  





                                                                                        CHAPTER ONE


Just when you think you've got all systems going in harmonious sync, that's the time old Chicken Little's doomsday utterance settles a might too snugly into the conscience: The sky is falling!

Well, my sky was falling, literally, inexorably, and with undue haste! Not to mix metaphors, but the falling sky was becoming a raging hell!

The very large warehouse roof was collapsing bit by fiery bit, and the bad guys were winning.

The bad guys were also getting away.

“What a way to go,“ said to myself and to anyone around to listen. “Dumb! Stupid! XO#*!!!”

And I had not even done my Christmas shopping.

It was Thursday, December 24, mid-afternoon. The temperature outside the Old Guthrie Warehouse was seventy degrees. It was a cloudless, real charming Chamber of Commerce day in Phoenix, Arizona. Inside the warehouse, in my little corner, the temperature was rising and the smoke was a dark, dense, viscid blanket which seriously threatened my breathing.

Having some vague recall from my firefighting boot camp training, courtesy of the United States Navy, my body was flat on the floor where the air was less heavy and thick. My vision was impaired by the smoke but could see orange diffusion all around me, could hear frantic cracking sounds of bursting embers and swirling fire fury, and could feel the heat, stinging, becoming a palpable furnace against my face and hands.

The large pneumatic door by which I had entered this ill-fated building was not far away. Could reach it except for one minor, make it, major, problem. A huge piece of timber frame had me wedged face down between some old metal file cabinets and a huge, heavy wooden desk. It was a corner office in the aged warehouse, and, at my arrival some twenty minutes ago, it had seemed so incongruous in its setting. It didn't matter a whole lot now. The fire would equalize all parts of the structure soon enough into a smoldering pile of ashes.

My boss, my buddy, Ross Milburn, had said it would be a simple matter, this visit to the Old Guthrie Warehouse. Just wanted to ask some questions, get some answers, about some nefarious shipments in the dark of night, and about some sort of big crime event about to happen. No big deal, he had said. One day, I would need to talk to Ross about his rather trivial disregard for my bones and his utter failure as a soothsayer.

Not so simple, it had turned out. A big deal, it had turned out. Someone, some evil SOB, someone or some ones, had set us up big time. Certainly, being the most seriously and immediately aggrieved, about to be consumed by uncaring flames, it appeared that some amount of complaining and whimpering was in order.

'Oh, just stop with the whining and figure a way to get us out of this mess.'

My alter ego tried persistently to keep my thinking straight. And, of course, he was always spot on. Didn't really matter at this point that we had been set up. Just, figure a way out. The only thing was, my strength was not sufficient to move the timber frame or my wedged body. My efforts were hopeless.

Earlier, when we arrived in our unmarked vehicle, the warehouse had a dark and abandoned look. Ross had gone to one end of the huge building to check a hazy light and what he thought were voices. I had gone straight to the warehouse office where, upon entering, had gotten blindsided by a two by four. At least, it felt like a two by four. On my hands and knees, head hanging loosely and all systems swaying surrealistically, heard loud, cursing, anxious voices retreating from the room.

Shortly after the bad people left the office, my befogged mind registered some gunshots and it appeared that Ross was calling to me from far away. Then, there came a thunderous, reverberating roar, slamming me roughly into the corner where that piece of timber frame nailed me helplessly to the floor. Soon, there was the sound of crackling fire, smoke, heat --- and old Chicken Little.

The permutations of my Cherokee mind astounded me. Here in this conflagrant environment, I started thinking about Christmas presents and Jingle Bells. 'Hey, beam up, Bailey Boy! You're about to fry. Like, get some kind of desperate.'

Don't get me wrong, knew that I was in trouble, but my brain was no doubt altered by the two by four whammy. All it wanted to do in those split seconds was vacillate wildly, acknowledging my impending death and wandering off into the past to revisit old memories, old loves, old dreams. The gray matter meandered those old trails until the intense heat got it back to the present and to thoughts of Janice and Bobby.

That's when I felt the first really urgent pinpricks of fear and desperation. My first subliminal thought had been that this fire business was likely a temporary inconvenience, that Ross and his Arizona Rangers would be bursting in to get me out any minute. The harsh reality of that not happening was now becoming much more evident. The mind could spin crazily fast and illogically in moments of impending peril.

Strained all muscles in my body to the max and could not budge for any appreciable leverage. The panic that should have been there much sooner now came fully empowered with Satan's rage.

This was it! The moment most people only obliquely confronted when the twilight years were upon them. The moment that fascinated the philosophers and the poets. The moment of no more options or delusive dithering. The moment of utter, stark, finality.

Death! Its black unctuous veil, heavy, gagging, suffocating, consuming and final, its heat a furious rhapsodic resonance. Death! My own death was now here, coming on the neuronal tap dancing tremors that was now my body.

So much for soliloquies. Here was heap big trouble for this southern white man with the Cherokee blood, heap big trouble right here, right now.

Struggled mightily, gagged, coughed, frantically reached maniacally within myself for air. Thoughts were trying to convey themselves to me, thoughts of sorrow, deeds undone, loves unfulfilled, all the roads untraveled; the body, the mind, a frenzied duo fighting out of sync in blind attempts to right themselves, both so near some great effulgence of truth, the ultimate enigma, the greatest mystery of a lifetime. … death. Would I know? After it was over, would I know? On some level, would I know? Would I know what death was about? Would I know and be alone in the knowledge? Would it matter? Would I go to a Hell? To a Heaven? Life's lore had followed me to the great gate of the hereafter.

“I long for death, death longs for me. But it is dark to die, and, oh! I fear that I still wish to be!"

The lines came to me unbidden from a book by an old friend: Hell's Music. The book was about two soldiers in a foxhole during the Korean War, seeking some ultimate clarity of their lives..

No more soliloquies for the moment.

Among gritty, dirty perspiration and the awesome heat, I could distinguish my own tears flowing down my cheeks. Then a smile, mildly sardonic and wistful, came to my face. “It's okay to cry, Bailey Boy,” whispered to myself. The urgency to live, to struggle with the Grim Reaper, was leaving me. The incredible flush and quake to my body was like a wild, pulsing, out of control roller coaster about to plummet from its highest arc. My breathing was short, hot, gasps of sucking, bringing enormous thermal pressure to my lungs. My heart seemed to inflate within me, and I felt like a bloated Salvadore Dali figure on some primordial pastel plain.

Death had come for me. Could it truly be?

On some unclear periphery of consciousness came soft sounds of a great ripping and tearing, of things falling; feet, hands, moving to a kind of melodic, slow motion, far away squeal. My name was being spoken over and over in low guttural, foghorn slowness, like the languid flow of dream sequences portrayed in old forgotten movies. Hands reached for the timber frame beam amid grunts and groans; feet scraped on a raspy floor. All motion was torpid; faces in punctuated and sustained grimaces and worry. Sweeping, lazy sprays of water fell all about me. The black smoke began to dissipate. Patches of blue sky came sporadically through the thinning mist. Air became breathable.

There on the edge I saw Ross Milburn's black shiny face, contorted with an etched fear, almost purplish in its sheen from the light play and the scattering smoke. Such a beautiful face! The face of my friend. Ross was sitting on some green and yellow contraption with two thick metal prongs sticking out of it. There were chunks of charred wood and wallboard hanging from the prongs. In my fevered brain it came to me that Ross had driven that alien metal monster into the outer wall of the warehouse office. He looked comical and out of place, his white shirt smudged with black soot and his tie loosened and thrown over his shoulder. He was beautiful. I thought about laughing but gagging and coughing stopped me.

The people lifting the wooden beam from my body were now recognizable. The men of the blue cloth, my comrades at the Phoenix Police Department, 'The Arizona Rangers,' had come to the rescue after all. A siren announced the arrival of fire engine and crew.

As the weight of the beam was hoisted above and away from my body, my breathing became more relaxed. It was indeed a most marvelous thing, this breathing. The now languid body no longer trembled with hysteria, but there was incipient soreness that beckoned for attention. My upper thighs and my kidneys were aching, but it was a subdued aching. Tentatively, I wriggled my toes within my shoes, then my feet and legs. My miraculous body seemed battered, bruised, otherwise nastily mistreated, but unbroken.

Managed a silly smile and a thumb's up for the beautiful and glistening face of Ross Milburn. He smiled inanely back until he seemed to become aware of some fundamental Keystone Kop element in the quaint montage. Then he lifted himself from the seat of the strange machine and jumped to the ground. Ross stood with one foot inside the warehouse office and one foot on the asphalt outside the crumbled wall.

While trying to stand, a pain akin to electric shock shot through my pelvic area. Awkwardly, I fell back to the floor among all the broken wood, glass and plaster.

“Stay where you are, Bailey!” yelled Ross, noticing my efforts to rise and my subsequent discomfort. “You might have something broken or torn inside.” He came toward me, dodging the debris.

“Think I'm okay, Ross-man, just tried to get up a little too fast. Probably a misplaced hillbilly gene or hormone getting realigned.”

Hey, it was a small and weak attempt at humor. I was alive. A few minutes ago, I was … Okay, enough already on that death business. Later, maybe, all of this could be revisited.

“Here,” I said to Ross when he was standing over me, “give me your hands and pull me up gently.”

“Bailey, we should wait until ...”

“C'mon, pull. Gently, as you go.”

Ross shook his head in feigned disgust and gave me his big handsome hams. With utmost care, his eyes watching mine, he lifted me to my feet. Shifting weight from foot to foot, tentatively, I put my hands on my love handles and turned my upper body slowly to one side, then to the other. My first step brought no elaborate pain so I took another. Then, another. Ross stayed by my side, his hands and arms out like he was ready to start shaping some clay statue.

“Hey, everything works, Ross-man. I'm okay. You okay? I heard gun shots. Right?”

“Yeah, you heard right. We winged two of them. We got 'em in a cruiser, bleeding all over the seats, waiting for the EMT to take 'em to St. Joe's, then on to lock-up. The other two got away in an old blue Lincoln Town Car. Trent put out an APB on 'em. They won't get too far.” Trent Casals was another buddy, one of my partners at the PPD. “You sure you're okay?”

“Yeah, I'm sure. A little sore but nothing's broken. That was something else, Ross. It's never been quite that way before. Thought maybe this could be the time for my big trip beyond. The mind behaves strangely when … Hey, you've been there. You don't need to hear it from me. Let's get out of this rubble.”

We walked some distance from the smoldering heap, away from the people and the noise. I sat in the PPD unmarked Chevy as Ross talked to Trent outside the cruiser holding the two bad guys. Trent broke away just long enough to come over and check me out.

Trent, a tall, lanky, double-jointed ex-basketball player, ugly and beautiful all in one, looked like a 'Jack Palance' or like an imagined 'Ichabod Crane.' He cared but he did not make a show of caring. He stayed for a few minutes, muttered some inanities, patted, gripped my shoulder, and walked back to the cruiser.

Sitting there, windows up in the car, watching the near noiseless activity around the warehouse rubble, a strange soporific calm engulfed me. Quiet, sensory messages of great meaning were being transmitted from somewhere deep in my soul, just out of my cranial grasp, the import of which was not as important as the knowledge of knowing they were being sent. The nonsensical aberration brought a smile to my face and I dropped my chin, closed my eyes, and shook my head gently in silent acknowledgment to the miracle of life and God's inscrutable stage-fare.

The car door opened and slammed closed. Ross got behind the steering wheel and stared at my stupid face, the inane smile still in place.

“What, BC? What? The look? What transpires inside that looney bin scalp?”

“Just being me, Ross-man. You don't want to know. Believe me, it's better kept very far from you, very far from anyone. It's a mind trip.” I stared back at Ross and saw the helpless expression come to his face, saw his eyes get all squint-like. “Hey, I'm okay,” I said quickly. “What's with our two criminolos? They talking or what?”

Ross finally broke his stare. He put the key in the ignition and started the engine. “Yeah, they're talking, but they're talking pig Latin or some other derivative language I don't know. You know them, I think. Art DeFilo and Eddie Briscoe?”

Nodded in the affirmative. Yes, the worthless goons were known to me.

Ross put the gear in reverse, carefully backed circuitously around three police cruisers with red lights and blue lights still flashing. “Art DeFilo, the short, squat one?” He glanced over at me for an up and down head shake. “He said one thing that baffles me. I mean, I got his words. I just don't know what they necessarily mean ...”

Ross drove forward, dodging people and debris, crossed the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks and headed toward Van Buren Avenue.

“Well, what did DeFilo say, big guy? Don't keep me in the dark.”

The western sun felt hot against my nape, but not hot like the just recently known hot. This was enjoyable hot.

“He was a little sappy. Guess the bullet that passed through his shoulder had him swooning. He was mumbling a lot. But he said something peculiar, then got all red and sweaty after he said it, like he couldn't believe he had said it ...” Ross turned east onto Van Buren.

“Said WHAT? Crimminy, Rosser, you're infuriating. What did the short, squat, Artie DeFilo say?”

He glanced quickly in my direction, then back at the road. With a serious and stern expression, and a lot of pseudo drama, Ross spoke: “He said an odd thing, especially weird for a small time hood. You know we've been expecting something big from Fistucci and his group. Well, what this creep said might just be tied in with that big event, whatever the hay it is.” He paused, glanced my way with a wrinkled brow expression.

“What, dip-hole? Tell me what he said or I'll choke you right here on Van Buren.”

He chuckled for a moment, then put his serious face back on. “Okay, okay. What he said was, he said, and this is really way out, man, I kid you not ...” He saw me about to erupt. “He said, 'Beware the Brutus Gate.'”

Didn't know whether to hit him or jump out of the car.

'Beware the Brutus Gate.'

Cute. Very cute.


END OF EXCERPT - Please visit these links for information on ordering and/or synopses of other books in the Bailey Crane Mystery Series. Also check out the author's other books: "Mama's Madness" - "Butterflies And Jellybeans - A Love Story" - "The Cracked Mirror - Reflections Of An Appalachian Son" - "What Happens Next? - A Life's True Tale"

Here are the links:

http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com and http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA and http://www.about.me/brchitwood  and
amazon.com (US - UK - Europe)

Remembering that a picture is worth a thousand words, I offer this excerpt from Book 1 of 'The Bailey Crane Series'. There are five books in the series:

Book 1: "An Arizona Tragedy - A Bailey Crane Mystery" (Book 1)

Book 2: "Satan's Song - A Bailey Crane Mystery" (Book 2)

Book 3: "The Brutus Gate - A Bailey Crane Mystery" (Book 3)

Book 4: "Murder In Pueblo Del Mar ' A Bailey Crane Mystery" (Book 4)

Book 5: "A Soul Defiled - A Bailey Crane Mystery" (Book 5)

"An Arizona Tragedy - A Bailey Crane Mystery" (Book 1) is rather close to my heart as it was inspired by the brutal death of a personal friend. The book is fictional but some of the crime data was taken from newspaper accounts of the day... the two principal murders (one in Phoenix, AZ and the other in Washington, DC) actually happened. The story, my words and plot lines
are from my imagination, are not intended to cast aspersions on anyone as to guilt, are simply my way of paying homage to a young mother and actress who was taken so horribly from her family and friends.

Here is the excerpt from "An Arizona Tragedy - A Bailey Crane Mystery" (Book 1):


                                                           Six

                                            Monday, September 4


Roy Martin's private office on the twentieth floor of Arizona Bank Building
afforded a panoramic northern view of Phoenix, west to east. The great sweep of
space beckoned the eye to see forever, awakening the senses.

Remembering the green lush mountains of my native Tennessee and its own
special beauty, my mind made its comparative notes: the incredible mountain
trails of the Great Smokies, the great gorges and verdant valleys of that hill
country with this spacious land of sun and desolate desert. There had been in
Tennessee those chronic cloudy days to dampen a mood and marvelous sunny days
that brought a multitude of fun activities. Here in the desert, there was a
consistent pattern of sunny days and that spatial quality that overwhelmed my
senses … made me wonder what psychological messages might be hidden in my
obsessive love affair with the desert.

It was time to put the comparative thoughts away, to concentrate on the work
at hand.

Spread across Roy's small conference table were several documents, some
bills, a check book, and a cup of coffee. Roy wanted me to familiarize myself
with the Cooper estate, pay the bills as they came in, and catch any seeming
inconsistencies that might appear. The court had approved my executor role in
the estate, and I was a bit nonplussed in the sense that, here I sat, with the
ability to manage a deceased man's assets, to have legal authority to write
checks, even, made out to myself. It was all rather new for me, and, in some
respects, a bit daunting.

At the moment I was scanning a limited partnership printout, a real estate
transaction that involved some land west of Phoenix. My eyes stopped abruptly
when they encountered the name of Steve Langford. He was listed on the document
as a general partner. There was that annoying, tantalizing thought again. Just a
coincidence perhaps, but one that sent a mild shock wave through me. All the
thought given to Cathy's murder and Steve Langford, and there in front of me is
his name on the Cooper document. It had to be no big deal. No fateful nonsense.
It was just a stupid coincidence.

The discovery had most definitely gotten my attention, and, because I knew
nothing about the technical aspects of a real estate limited partnership, I made
a note to ask Roy for an explanation. At the moment he was in Lenny's private
office. This could wait.

There were some bills which needed to be paid, so I wrote out the checks,
signed them, and put them in the proper envelopes along with the billing. There
were some sizable funds also to be deposited to the estate. The deposit slips
were prepared. Then, I turned my attention to other papers relative to the
estate. There was nothing unusual, nothing that appeared inconsistent to me. In
fact, I was impressed with the wise scope of the Cooper portfolio, even envied
the magnitude of the estate and the sound management that had been given.

This whole business made me do some wishful thinking. Maybe one day my own
estate would be of such size and worth. There were now only a few bucks in
savings, a little raw land, and an annuity. My spending was too spontaneous and
reckless, too much devoted to living the good life. This Cooper guy knew what he
was doing. He was big time wealthy. My financial situation was okay and would
get better, but Mr. Cooper did impress me with his business acumen.

Hey, I thought, that's why they make 'thirty-one flavors.' Some people were
successful as bankers, financiers, entrepreneurs, and workaholics. Some were
like me: didn't overdo the 'work thing;' left some time, lots of time, for fun
and frivolity; worked just enough to make those ends meet. People like me did a
considerable amount of procrastination, and we did a lot of daydreaming. Perhaps
it was a phase people like me went through. One day, there would likely be some
second guessing: why, oh, why didn't I do this or that? Hopefully, not. Some of
us have to smell those flowers.

There was always a price paid for what one did ... someone very important
must have said that. The corporate CEO works sixteen hours a day for twenty
years to be on top of the heap, then discovers his kids are grown and he has an
all of a sudden urge to do things that would have been better done twenty years
ago. Perspective must not uniquely mean a mental view that fits all sizes.
Perspective must be relative to a person's time and place, the DNA, environment …
oh, Bailey-boy, my alter ego speaks, please, stop with the philosophical
digression, already!

The Cooper estate business had me thinking too much. Knowing myself, twenty
years from now, I'll still be full of my bible belt guilt, second guessing my
choices, and still making a goodly share of goofs. Just what flavor is that?
Vanilla? Strawberry? Pistachio? It is what it is!

The office door opened and closed. Roy sat next to me at the conference table
and asked how I was doing.

"Doing fine. This is all just a little new to me … makes me think too much.
Did have a little shock a moment ago when I saw Steve Langford's name on one of
these real estate limited partnership documents. Been doing so much thinking
about Cathy and Steve, it was just a strange coincidence."

"Well, that's his business," Roy responded. "He does land deals and other
kinds of syndication. He's really a wheeler dealer, an operator."

Roy may not have intended it, but his last comment came across as
disparaging. So, I asked: "Operator? As in scam, or, just a good honest hustling
entrepreneur?"

Roy chuckled. "More, the latter. So far as I know, Steve's all legal. But any
guy who hustles as aggressively as Steve will sometimes be on the fringe of
legality. It's funny but I remember Cooper raising some questions about a
particular land deal. He had heard something, just general, not specific, that
led him to believe there could be some impropriety. I gave him my honest
appraisal, told him these deals were being done in Arizona all the time and most
were in step with current statutes. Of course, I told him that things like
physical description of land, legal definitions as to numbers of partners and so
on had to be within the purview of those statutes. There was some changes made
to Cooper's satisfaction and the deal went through." Roy retrieved an ashtray
from the desk and lit a cigarette.

"Well, I know precious little about these things It just gave me pause to see
his name there. My problem, Roy, is that I don't somehow trust that guy. He
seems nice enough when I run into him during the business day, but when he's had
several drinks he changes. Hell, for that matter, I guess we all change when
we're drinking. It's just that Pam remembers some bad occasions when she and
Cathy lived together, and it got me to thinking and analyzing too much." The
coffee had gotten cold, and I declined a refill.

Roy said, "Cathy probably got very unlucky and was at the wrong place at the
wrong time. There was probably some drug-crazed hippie-type hanging out around
the school. Or, maybe someone from the apartment complex had been keeping an eye
on her. Did you see Willis this morning?"

"No, heading there after leaving you." It occurred to me that no one called
Willis by his first name, Herman ... on reflection, guess I would prefer Willis
to Herman, as well.

"By now," Roy went on, "Willis ought to have a thick file on Cathy's murder.
Maybe he's got something solid by now. Seems to me Steve has too much smarts to
kill someone, but who the hell knows, with the way things are these days? Hey,
I've an appointment coming in. You pretty much through with Cooper's stuff for
now?"

"All done. I'm out of here. See you later."

The way things are these days!

Going down in the elevator, I thought about that phrase. How were things these days?
Much different than ten or twenty years ago? Much different than ten or
twenty years from now? Did our lives really change all that much? Or, did we
just get bigger and more visible? More visible because of technology? We can get
from one end of the country to the other end so fast these days. People are
moving more frequently, mixing up the 'salad bowl' ingredients with anxieties
and frustrations. Mass media blasts are assaulting us. 'Right' and 'wrong' was
still 'right' and 'wrong' in any time, in any generation. The genes and
chromosomes are still there. The mix! Was that the difference? If there was a
difference.

Ugly and brutal murders happened in other areas. Richard Speck! Jack, the
Ripper! Bluebeard! The mad Chicago doctor who had his own special torture
chamber for his grisly meetings with young women!

"Whoa! Stop the thought machine," yelling at myself as I drove out of the
underground garage on my way to see Herman Willis. He was a fellow police
officer and a friend for whom I had a great deal of respect. My tendency was to
over think things … really! Moi?


END OF EXCERPT...   Go to http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com and scroll down the 'Home' page and preview my books. The buying spots are listed after a short preview of each book. Click on the blog section on the 'Home' page if you would like to read my recent posts.

Further links: http://www.about.me/brchitwood

http://www.thefinalcurtain1.wordpress.com

http://www.twitter.com/brchitwood

http://www.goodreads.com

For an author interview by author John Dolan, visit GALERICULATE at http://ow.ly/fVZIF

“What Happens Next? A Life’s True Tale” (An excerpt)
Posted on December 10, 2012 by  billyraychitwood1      
      
Like a picture that is worth a thousand words, it’s my thinking that an excerpt from an author’s book can reveal enough pro and/or con for a reader to determine whether or not he/she wants to read further. So, here’s an excerpt from my newest book, “What Happens Next? A Life’s True Tale,” a non-fiction sketch of my life. It is a relatively short book which covers my Southern Baptist roots, the state of my faith, and some not so savory confessions of how I have lived my life. The book might very well be deserving of any label one wishes to put on it, but it is disgustingly honest and true.

Here is an excerpt from the Early Adult section of the book… 

The couple resides in a second floor apartment on a lovely tree-lined
street in Williamsport. It is Sunday afternoon, and Steven Ray is sleeping in
his crib just off the living room. The wife is ironing. The husband is listening
to classical music and day dreaming, idly chatting time to time with his wife.
It is a soft afternoon somewhere between bliss and boredom.

Somehow, the conversation turns to the first month of their marriage when
the wife left Washington, D. C. for Williamsport to await her husband’s Navy
discharge. The wife is telling him about an affair she had with an old high
school boyfriend during that month she was away. It is an attempt to purge
herself of the guilt of that not so long ago tryst. The wife is wrought with the
pain of the revelation but she must be done with her guilt.

The man’s world suddenly caves in on him and he is lost in the frenzied
twittering quake of his neuronal wiring. The man is immobilized by the wife’s
confession, hardly able to move and speak. He is mindful that the time frame of
his wife’s unfaithfulness happens to coincide with the birth date of Steven Ray
and this fact adds to the anxious frenzy within his mind.

Hardly able to breathe, the distressed man leaves the apartment and his
sobbing wife. He wanders to houses of in-laws and leaves abruptly, leaving them
to ponder his dazed, pained expressions. He moves mechanically as though willed
to robotic, mindless action. He drives aimlessly and finally sits on a bench in a park,
trying to get his brain to work, trying to figure out what he must do.

The thoughts tumble down to him: ‘Is he my son? Should there be a blood
test? Do I leave? Do I stay? Where do I go? What do I do?’ He finds himself
opening his memory pages to the feelings he has when his father beats his
mother. It is that same kind of feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.

The man feels lost like that little boy of yesterday.

He returns to the second floor apartment. His wife’s eyes are red and
swollen from her crying and she is so very sorry. For whatever reason, baby in
the crib, the honesty of her confession, her sobbing wish for forgiveness, or
the simple expediency of the moment, the man forgives his wife and stays. He
simply finds it easier to capitulate, to be done with it, than to continue with
the aberrations of his mind. It seems he is an emotional cripple, unable to
handle the traumatic matters that enter his space. It is his wont to place the
blame for his inability to handle stress on his mobile and uncertain past. Is it
time for the shrink’s sofa? No, he will not give in to that.

Strangely, life is fairly good for the couple until a Sunday afternoon
gathering at Lycoming Creek’s edge in Montoursville. It is a peaceful spot where
families gather, pull their cars to the water’s edge for washing, allow their
children to wade in the shallow waters, have their picnic lunches. It is a wide
creek, and the mother-in-law’s cabin sets among the trees some hundred yards
across from where the families, cars, and kids are gathered.

A beautiful day is about to get very ugly…

That dreadful ill fated Sunday afternoon begins with all the family
oriented activities the man would want. He drinks beer with his men in-laws. The
men are gathering, lounging outside on soft comfortable chairs, looking across
the creek at the families on the other side of the river. He listens to the men
tell of their different job experiences and participates with his occasional
anecdote laced with humor.

The sun shines in a near cloudless sky, and the women bring their plates
of goodies out and spread them on the picnic table for the men to prepare and
eat at their leisure. It is the sort of day the man has always factored into his
vision of family purpose and unity. He sits with baby Steven on his lap,
alternating his adult talk with baby talk.

The man’s wife sees across the creek a family she knows, takes baby
Steven from his lap, and walks through the shallow water to the other side. The
man watches as the wife sweetly engages a young couple in conversation there at
water’s edge. A peculiar sensation hits him and at once he somehow knows that
his wife is talking to the man who could be the father of his son.

The man sits, his mind filling with accusatory, hateful thoughts. He is
lost to all conversations around him. He is riveted to the moment and the
building storm within him.

The wife and Steven shortly return, and there is a confrontation. He
cannot deny his own disturbing thoughts and must know if he is correct in his
presumptions. His wife tells him the truth. It is the old boyfriend with whom
she had the previous January affair. She does not feel that her husband has a
right to question her innocent move to say hello and show off her son. She does
not give any priority to the husband’s own perception of yet another betrayal.
She feels she has done nothing wrong in saying hello to an old boyfriend and his
wife.

The words are cross, sharp, designed to hurt. There is no stifling
anxiety now for the man, just red-hot anger. The husband abruptly and with
little fanfare leaves the hillside retreat. He motors away from the family
gathering. He is not sure where he is going but he knows he must be away. The
harsh words between the couple and the quick revving engine of his car driving
away are not lost on the in-law family gathering. Except for baby Steven crying,
all is quiet on the hillside.

Clad in a white t-shirt, dungarees, and sock-less brown penny loafers, he
goes to a military club recently joined. It is a private drinking and eating
club for veterans situated in South Williamsport. There the sourly disposed man
drinks away the afternoon, gets rowdy, surly, becomes obnoxious with some
patrons, and is asked to leave. It is dusk. He is drunk. He is unsteady and
sorely without the faculties he needs to drive his car.

After he crosses the bridge into Williamsport and turns onto the street
where he lives, he drives into some parked cars along the curb, damaging three.
He is less than a block from home. He is still inebriated but stunned back to
some semblance of awareness.

He sits at the curb as police come and a crowd gathers. He fights with a
policeman when the latter tries to put him in a cruiser and take him to jail. He
is clubbed by the cop just above the right eye. Now, his t-shirt and pants are
covered with the dirt and blood of the scuffle.

He finds himself for the first time in his life in a jail cell, and as 
his sobriety slowly returns to him it might just as well be hell. His mind
begins with the scenarios. Some are woefully unclear in the focusing. He sits on
the hard cot in the small enclosure, his head throbbing with pain and
uncertainty. With his head bowed, he relives the hours of the Sunday afternoon,
the act by his wife he perceives as betrayal, the military club drinking as
plain stupid, and the ramming of the parked cars, the cop fight, as priceless in
‘Keystone Comic’ hilarity. He is not laughing, however. He is in a particular
black abyss of his own making.

The man mentally shovels on his guilt, plays the pity games, and
self-decrees that his life is over. He stands at the bars of his cell and weakly
yells at the jailer on night duty, pleads to be let out of his claustrophobic
nightmare. The jailer is kind to the man, tells him that morning will come soon,
that everything will eventually work out…

This ends the excerpt from “What Happens Next? A Life’s True Tale.” Should
you care to read the entire book, please visit amazon.com (US and UK) and/or my
website/blog and scroll down the ‘Home’ page to my books. There you will find
the links for purchasing the book — paperback, kindle and/or other e-book
formats. Here is the link to my Website/Blog: http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com

I've been nominated by John Dolan for the coveted (maybe) 'LIEBSTER Award'. You can find out about this trivial pursuit (but, GREAT!) at http://goo.gl/xk16q , a wonderful blog site by John Dolan called 'Galericulate' (a word meaning, 'covered, as with a hat or cap'). If you are not familiar with this British 'chap' of wisdom and wit, you have just got to become familiar. SO, please visit his site, read his posts, some book reviews, some outrageous author interviews, and I'm betting you will thank me. In fact, I've reviewed his book, "Everyone Burns," on this site and will do likewise when the much expected sequel is out. I have also interviewed him on this site --- view in the archives.

Now, back to the business at hand. Here are the rules for acceptance of the 'LIEBSTER Award.' These are important because? At the end of my little mission here, I will be nominating eleven blogs for this coveted award.  Okay, the rules: 1) When you receive the award you must post eleven random facts about yourself; 2) you must answer eleven questions posed by the person who nominated you; 3) you pass the award on to the blogger friends you are nominating, making sure that you have notified them of their nominations; 4) you write up eleven new questions for the bloggers you are nominating (and you cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you); 5) finally, you paste the award picture into your blog.


Eleven Random Facts About Billy Ray Chitwood:

1) Kerosene lamps were the 'in thing' during my rural youth.

2) You would never know I taught 'Advanced Writing' when you read my books.

3) Skipped school occasionally to play 'nine ball' at the pool hall.

4) Spent many Saturdays sitting on the front row of the movie house watching Hopalong Cassidy, an early cowboy hero of mine --- how would you know him?

5) Worked up the nerve in high school to ask a majorette beauty for a movie date --- then, stood her up because of my shyness (go figure!)

6) Spent a tour of duty in the US Navy at an outpost in the Aleution Islands called Adak (A-yuck!).

7) The English 'Romantic Poets' were my beacon lights in college --- also gave me a big assist on dates! (My etchings, so to speak.)

8) I've chased 'windmills' all my life --- and still chasing!

9) Love is not only a great golfer but an emotion that ends up being my number one priority in life.

10) Along with the waste accumulated in my life there has been a lot of joy.

11) I've been a 'President' --- of a Homeowners Association.


Eleven Questions From John Dolan for me to answer:

1) What is the worst present you ever received?
I'm tempted but won't go there! The worst present was Christmas undershorts two sizes too large from my loving Mom --- she gave them every year until she passed on. (I just never had the heart to tell her.)

2) If you were going to throw someone our of an aeroplane who would
it be?
An 'aeroplane?' Really, John, get on board! I'm too lovable to even consider such an awful act...

3) What is the most embarrassing thing you've ever worn?
A yellow polka dot bikini! (Please, John, try harder with the questions.)

4) If you could have been the writer of any song, which song would it be?
Toss-up between "My Way" and "God Bless America."

5) If you weren't doing what you are doing, what would you be doing?
Writing a song...

6) How long can you hold your breath for?
John, John! Ending with a preposition? Really? One hour, thirty-three seconds!

7) If you had to have a tattoo what would it be and where would it be on your body?
'Liebster' Award, lower right cheek!

8) Apple or Microsoft?
Finally a short question! Apple has a certain acid that bothers my stomach. Microsoft when I'm not hungry.

9) If you could remove one country from the planet which one would it be?
Right this minute or later on when I'm more rational! Besides, I don't wish to offend North Korea...

10) Which extinct animal would you like to see not-extinct?
A dinosaur because I'm lonely!

11) Which movie is most likely to make you blub?
 'Blub' as in blubber? Out on a limb here but I go with "Somewhere In Time."


Here are my eleven easy questions for my nominees:

1) Your favorite Actor and Actress?

2) Your least liked chore?

3) Your favorite book genre?

4) Your favorite type of music?

5) Your favorite movie?

6) Your least favorite movie?

7) Mayonnaise or Salad Dressing?

8) Favorite beverage?

9) Favorite meat?

10) Favorite vegetable?

11) Your favorite author of all time?


We're all serious about the business of writing and the events that shape our world. Some levity and fun is allowed. Who knows! While doubtful, this 'Liebster' Award could go viral! It took me some time to do mine, but all of you are younger and more digitally savvy...should knock the chore off in thirty minutes. My very best to all, and, don't hate me, please! Just get even. You can hate John Dolan!

Here are my nominees for the 'Liebster' Award:

Rich Weatherly - (@richweatherly43) - http://richweatherly.wordpress.com

Christine Warner - (@ChristinesWords) - http://christine-warner.com

Jhobell Kristyl - (@JhobellKristyl) - http://bookmavenpicks.wordpress.com 

Chris Martin - (@TheChris_Martin) - http://chrismartinwrites.com  

Jack Durish - (@jackdrsm) - http://www.jackdurish.com

Caleb Pirtle - (@CalebPirtle) - http://venturegalleries.com

Babette James - (@BabetteJames) - http://www.babettejames.com  

Dianne Gray - (@Zigotide) - http://diannegray.au.com - http://diannegray.wordpress.com

Ella Medler - (@EllaMedler) - http://www.ellamedler.com  - http://ellamedler.wordpress.com

Rick Mallery - (@RickMallery) - http://rickmallery.wordpress.com

Judith Victoria Douglas - http://booksbyjudithvictoriadouglas.wordpress.com