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Darrell Bain's Monthly Blog - June 2011

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Bainstorming: Darrell's Bain's Monthly Blog.
Copyright © June 2011, By Darrell Bain
http://www.darrellbain.com

Responses to subjects brought up by this blog are welcome. I can be contacted by e-mailing me from my website.

Subjects this month: Forty acres or five, Odd perspectives, At last, Smart, Mexico, I’m Obsolete, Book Reviews, Mechanically challenged, The Dream Act, Progress report, Zero tolerance gone amok, Religion, Excerpt from Three For The Money.

Forty acres or five?

My next younger brother always wanted a place in the country of at least forty acres. He has it but now is only two years younger than me and kind if wishing it was only five acres--without hosses!

Oddity

Each generation of humans has their own type of music. That’s a little odd but there are other aspects of the human race that are odder. Just think of all the ways the young generation differs from the older. It’s almost as if they were different species living the same habitat. And as if that weren’t enough, think of the differences between the sexes. The opposite sex really is like a different species and neither of them really understands the other!

At last!

All five books in the Williard Brothers series (also known as the Medics Wild series) by Darrell Bain are now available in both print and ebook editions. In order, Medics Wild, Postwar Dinosaur Blues, Bigfoot Crazy, Three For The Money and Space For Sale. I just finished reading the last two. Three For The Money is undoubtedly the Williard Brothers' wildest and craziest, funniest and zaniest adventure yet, with more hair-raising escape scenes, brawls, and love scenes and is more politically incorrect than any book of the series, but it also sets the stage for more to follow in Space for Sale. And have the other two brothers finally been corralled by women who suit them? If so, how did it finally happen? Find out now! You’ll be amazed!
PS: If you like ebooks you can get the first four for $9.99 and that includes Three For The Money!

Smart

I just got my first smart phone. I’ve decided that the damned phone is smarter than I am. What do I do now? I know. I’ll buy a laptop. I bet I can outsmart it.

Mexico

Last month in Bainstorming I said that the Mexican government should allow their citizens to carry guns to protect themselves since the government seems incapable of it. Then a few days ago I saw a segment on the evening news about Mexican citizens clandestinely arming themselves. Good for them! The more the better. Maybe they’re reading Bainstorming?

I’m Obsolete

Once upon a time I got asked a lot of questions that people didn’t know the answers to. I read so widely and so much that I’ve got zillions of factoids running loose in my brain. I could usually come up with an answer. Now I don’t get asked anymore. Anyone who is stumped just pulls their phone out and googles for the answer to questions. I’ve been outdated by technology!

Book Reviews

Several unrelated circumstances caused me to do more reading than writing this past month. That’s why you’re seeing so many book reviews in this issue of Bainstorming. As usual, I only report on books which I believe would be interesting to just about anyone.

Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick is an unusual time travel novel, done very well indeed by this writer. It involves paleontologists who are able go back to the time of the dinosaurs in person and observe their habits. There’s a great big catch, though!

A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane is the book that introduced Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, PI partners. Ordinarily I’m not much for Private Investigator novels but this one had such good reviews I decided to take a chance--and I’m glad I did. Lehane is a tremendously gifted writer. I zoomed right through the book, trying to follow the plot of Boston politicians hiring the PI team to recover some stolen documents. The job turns out to be much harder than they ever thought. I’ve already ordered the next two books in the series.

Exodus by Steve White and Shirley Meier continues the bestselling Starfire series begun by David Weber and Steve White. After the Insurrection of the last book succeeds, eighty years later giant ships of another species are spotted coming through normal space. It is found out the hard way that they have come to colonize planets and humans or any other species simply don’t seem to matter.

Extremis by Steve White and Charles E. Gannon continues the Starfire series with a huge war between new colonizing species and the alliance of humans and other species. Perhaps this ends the series and perhaps not. Extremis was a long book but didn’t completely settle matters, leaving some questions open. It was well worth the time I spent on it.

Allan Dean Foster is a versatile author who writes in many genres, although he’s probably best known for his science fiction. With Sagramonda, he has brought forth a book that is one of his best, and that can be enjoyed regardless of which genre you normally prefer. The story takes place in Sagramonda, a city in India of the near future with a population of over 100 million. You’ll learn more interesting facts about India than you ever thought possible and have fun doing it! You’ll find some of the richest and most wretchedly poor life styles described. You’ll join in a complex interweaving of events that include a scientist who has stolen a world-changing secret from his corporation and wants to sell it to the highest bidder, a low-level shopkeeper needing money to move his family to the big city, one of the most feared corporate underground operative looking for the scientist and his data, a man-eating tiger preying on humans at the edge of the city, a woman that an overdose of designer drugs has turned into a chilling serial killer, a woman of the untouchable caste the scientist has fallen in love with and wants to marry, the father of the scientist who is intent on killing him to salvage the family honor, and on and on. Foster brings all these disparate characters and events to a stunning climax that solves some enigmas you’ve been wondering about almost from the first page and then--the world changing stolen data is nothing at all like you imagined it was. This book grabs you right from the start and doesn’t let up until the end. Highly, HIGHLY recommended!

First published as a two part serial in 1941 (that’s right, 1941) Robert A. Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky was the first novel featuring a generation ship, a giant spaceship aimed for the stars that will take centuries to reach its destination, and therefore multiple generations will live in it. He was also the first to write about the prospective colonists forgetting all about being on a ship and who come to believe the ship is the universe! This theme has been done many times before in books that sometimes take up over a thousand pages. None of them come close to Heinlein’s original story. He covered all aspects of the theme in 129 pages, including the original colonists, the later ones who think the ship is the whole universe and the daring ones who discover it isn’t. The fact that he could do so much in so few pages and do it better than anyone since tells you what a great writer he was. I believe it is still in print after all these years, and if not, there are plenty of used copies around. A great read!

James B. Johnson hasn’t written many books, but the few he has written are very good, particularly Mindhopper. You will absolutely fall in love with the narrator of the novel, a ninety-something year old character who thinks the world has left him behind but is still able to cope with all the changes in the world, including helping to deliver a baby who grows into childhood with a talent that has the authorites willing to kill, torture or do anything else to rip the secret from the child. Pembroke Wyndham is having none of it, though. Despite his age he charges the authorities with all the force of his ninety years of surviving, daring them to do their worst as he rescues his young charge and tries to keep him free. One of the best science fiction adventure novels ever!

And also by James B. Johnson is Daystar and Shadow which takes place hundreds of years in the future where an alien species has turned much of the earth into deserts as they prepare it for colonization. They’ve also introduced deadly fireworms and there’s a religion which takes orders from the aliens. But it turns out that there’s two alien species, not one. Daystar is an autistic and so is shadow. In that future world life is so tough that autistic children are taken to the desert and abandoned, as Daystar and Shadow were. There are many other characters in this fine novel. It’s a very good read.

Mechanically challenged

I’ve never had an aptitude with anything mechanical. I needed to change a sticker on the car but the old scraper wouldn’t work. I decided to change the blades. I thought that ought to be simple enough for me to do. A half hour later my fingers were numb, I had cut myself and still couldn’t get the damn new blade to stay where it belonged. I examined the scraper some more and finally saw the two little depressions where a couple of tiny extrusions fit to hold the blade in place. Aha! I thought. Now I’ll get the blade changed. Arrrggghh! I had fooled with the old scraper so much that it would no longer stay together. I went to a new scraper. It worked slightly different but after another half hour I finally got a blade in that would stay. Then I went out to scrape off the sticker. Unfortunately, I had put it on a curved part of the windshield. I couldn’t get the scraper to work and cut myself again. By this time both hands were bloody and my fingers and thumbs both were numb. I gave up on scrapers and got some hot water and soaked the damn sticker off, soaking myself and the car seat while I was at it. However, there was an upside. Soaking it off did wash the blood off my hands.

Next month: Drilling holes in the door to put a doggie scratcher in place.

The Dream Act

The Dream Act is a proposal by some members of congress to allow illegal immigrants brought here as children to earn their citizenship by serving in the military or performing some other needed service. For some kind of reason I can’t understand, it is hung up in Congress. One of the reasons given for the act not being passed is that the parents of these children, some now grown, came her illegally. Well, yes. I’m completely against illegal immigration. I believe the border should be closed as tightly as possible and only legal residents, those with work permits or visas, or legal immigrants be allowed in and to make it illegal to provide free services to illegal immigrants at taxpayer expense. But why punish those kids? They were brought here and didn’t have a damn thing to say about it but now this is the only country many of them have ever known. Suppose someone intended to ship you to Mexico or Guatemala for the rest of your life because of something your parents did? You damn well wouldn’t like it would you? In fact, you’d hate it. You would have no idea how to survive in a completely unknown environment. Hell, you’d probably starve! Surely there’s enough compassion left in the United States of America to allow those kids brought here when they were too young to have anything to say about it to earn their citizenship. I think there is. Now let congress prove it and forget about their stupid politics for once in their stupid lives!

Progress Report

I’m winding up the second book in the Apertures Trilogy, titled Apertures: Allies and Enemies.

Zero tolerance gone amok

When teachers can’t even give their students a hug to console them, there’s something wrong and I know what it is. It is the blind obedience to rules, no matter how ridiculous it makes a person or an institution look. A perfect example is the recent uproar about the guy not being allowed to attend a prom because of a minor infraction of rules. Couldn’t a more suitable punishment have been found? Apparently not until public pressure on the school and its politically correct administrator became too much to resist. The decision was reversed. In Texas there are two former death row convicts who were declared innocent. One spent 18 years in prison, the other 12 years. Because of a few words on a document were not entered neither man has been able to collect the reparations from the state they are due. How stupid! And how crazy our society had become. I’m sure all of you can cite many other examples. Is there any way to return some semblance of reality to our social institutions? I don’t know. I really don’t.
 
Religion

There seems to be something in the makeup of humans that impels a large majority of them to believe in a supreme being and consequently, to invent religions to interpret this being’s intentions. But somehow, the religions always seem to go awry. As Robert A. Heinlein said in one of his books, religions begat new religions as naturally as a cat has kittens. Or words to that effect. For instance, Protestants and Catholics believe entirely differently on how God’s intentions are delivered. Catholics think it’s through the Pope and forgiveness has to go through a priest. Protestants differ. The Islamic religion has similarly split into Shiite and Sunni factions on no more than a different interpretation of which relative inherited Muhammmed’s mantle. The Protestants have fractured into dozens, if not hundreds, of factions. I could go on and on but I believe this sort of happening indicates that religions are inventions of men, not Gods. Without debating the pros and cons of the existence of a God, I personally believe every person should develop some kind of ethical concept which has at its heart: Do not harm others intentionally. For me that takes care of most questions. What happens after I die, if anything, is a question that can’t be solved with our present knowledge.

Excerpt FromThree For The Money

This is the fourth book in the Williard Brothers (Medics Wild) series but any of the books can be read as a stand-alone novel. Three For The Money and Space For Sale have just appeared in print and are also available as ebooks at all the ebook stores, making them all available now. The following is a scene that shows why the Williard brothers have never been bested, at least not for very long

Chapter Fifteen

           It was short notice, but Brandy thought she had enough troops lined up to protect Jerry if he got into trouble—and to corral his brothers if they happened to show up. She had thought about sending a contingent to the dope runners’ concealed landing strip to blow up that pesky Cessna so she could maybe entice them with a plane and pilot of her choosing, but just before she was ready to order it done, she had to cancel the idea. Word came that the feds had hired a platoon of the Mexican Army to back them up. She decided to keep her mercenaries close to Forsythe and Burkham for the time being in order to protect Jerry. The other brothers could be helped along later when they entered the fray, if they did. In the meantime, she thought she had a safe and secure method of discovering without hassle what Jerry found at Forsythe and Burkham. She had already made inquiries about Maria. The receptionist was a low-paid employee and could certainly be bought. Then she saw Maria walk outside carrying a briefcase, trying to look like a casual courier and doing a bad job of it.
           Why, that sly devil, Brandy thought. I screwed up. That damn cowboy is even smarter than I thought he was. Just as she started to signal for some of her men to follow Maria, half a dozen Mexican soldiers in civilian clothes surrounded Jerry and she changed her mind.
           Within seconds, they stripped Jerry of everything he was carrying on his person. They shoved him to the ground, intending to handcuff him and whisk him off to a safe house to be questioned, while other officials went in and beat up Porco to find out what had gone on inside the bank.
           Jerry made a token resistance while looking around frantically for help, hoping Caprietta and his henchmen wouldn’t let the odds stop them from coming to his rescue.
           As soon as he understood what was happening, the Mafia Underboss sighed and made the sign of the cross on his chest. He was going to die, he thought, but better this way than to let the Don know he had turned away from his duty. “Come on,” he said to Curly and Moe. “We have to help.”
           Curly and Moe signed a cross on their chests also, and followed their boss in a wild charge which Caprietta thought might have a slim chance of creating enough confusion so he could get Jerry Williard loose from the Mexicans surrounding him.

***

           “Who the fuck is that?” Mutt asked as he saw three men in windbreakers pull out pistols and charge the gang of Mexicans swarming Jerry.
           “Never mind them, who are those other fuckers?” Jeff yelled. He grabbed Mutt’s shoulder and turned him halfway around so Mutt could see what Jeff had spotted. Mutt’s eyes bulged as he saw the street covered with so many men walking toward Jerry Williard, he thought for a moment there was a parade taking place. When those men saw Caprietta’s little crew charging the undercover soldiers subduing Jerry, they broke into a run, too.
           “Ah, shit. I bet those bastards have hired some mercenaries,” Mutt said. “Come on, we gotta help!” He and Jeff piled out of the car from where they had been watching the proceedings and ran toward where the others were converging. Their minions followed.

***

            Now what? Brandy thought. She jumped out of her car and yelled for her mercenaries to go rescue Jerry. She had briefed them on his appearance and what she thought might happen outside the bank. It had happened all right, but where in hell had all these different gangs come from? Were they all after Jerry and his brothers?
            Brandy’s mercenaries were wildly enthusiastic, if for no other reason than she had promised to personally execute every swinging dick if they didn’t perform adequately. Besides, they hadn’t been paid their bonus yet and the only way to collect was to overcome the opposition. Brandy had also offhandedly let it slip that Jerry would probably be carrying a lot of money, which helped to hurry them along. When they saw the others running, they thundered forward, screaming their battle cries, too. Brandy didn’t tell them about Maria, who she now figured had the carrying-around money Don Falino had probably left for him, but it wasn’t the money that was important. Jerry’s safety was.

***

            With the dearth of local Mafia button men and soldiers after the rise of the Mexican drug cartels, all the Don had been able to do on such short notice was to get his few contacts there to round up one of the big street gangs looking for action and money. They barely made it in time.
            “There! Go in and get him before he gets killed!” Jesus Torres, a Puerto Rican from New Jersey, screamed to his gang when he saw the wild melee that was taking shape. He had worked for the Don in the Cancun gambling interests for years, a business the Mexicans disdained because of the low revenue compared to drugs. The street gang he had recruited had grown up on the mean streets of Cancun and feared no one on earth. They were mostly orphans who had never expected to live to become adults to begin with. They pulled knives, machetes and Saturday Night Specials and charged, intending to rescue Jerry or die trying.

***

            “Goddamn it, that’s Jerry I saw in the middle of all that shit! Come on, let’s go! Terry, keep the car running! Tex, follow us and don’t stop for nothing!”
            Tex murmured a brief prayer, took one last look at Darlene and charged with Williard and Jason. From the looks of the competing gangs, he doubted even the good Lord could sort out the good guys from the bad guys. He certainly didn’t know. He also didn’t know what in the hell the brothers thought the three of them could do against what looked like a hundred Mexicans and a sprinkling of North Americans who had all just come together in a wild, vicious brawl that was erupting over the streets and sidewalks in all directions, with Jerry at the epicenter.
            A wild chorus of thuds, thumps, gunfire and screams erupted from the middle of the fight as bullets, machetes, knives, fists and feet began to come into play, whirling around Jerry like a noisy, runaway galaxy.
           “Es hombres es junta!”
           “They’re fucking undercover soldiers!”
           “Kill the motherfuckers!”
            “Dios! Dios!”
           “Gringos, you die!”
            “Los Diablos!”
            Muerto!”
           “Jerry! Hang on, we’re coming!”
           “Idiota! Stupido!”
           “Grab him, don’t let him get away!”
           “Mutar! Mutar!”
           “Gahhh!
            “Alerta! Jefe Grande!”
           “Oh shit, I’m hit! Help!”
           “Help yourself, motherfucker!”
            “Santos y Dios!”
            “Norteamericano Cochino!”
           “Die, you fucking Spik!”
            “Ladron! Bandito!”
           “Hijo de perra! Que Paso?”
           “There’s another one! How many of the bastards are there?”
           “Get them all! Ahhh. My arm! It’s gone!”
           By this time, few of the combatants knew who was what, or even which side was up or down, or enemy from friend. The fight raged on in a senseless medley of violence that fed on itself and grew louder and angrier and more ferocious by the second.
           “Grab the brothers!” Brandy screamed to her Jefe, the one in charge of her gang.She had showed them all a picture of Jerry, but couldn’t remember whether she had told them Jerry’s brothers were in play, too. Oh well, she thought, the brothers looked so much alike, it would suffice to identify all three.
            “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Yahoooooo!” Jerry’s loud, rambunctious voice rose above the tumult like the roar of a lion amidst the neighing of panicked horses. His head momentarily came into view above the struggling, shouting and shooting throng. He dodged the swipe of a machete and kicked the man between his legs. He yelled exuberantly again and swung his fists. He hadn’t been in such a good brawl since one memorable time in Hong Kong during the Vietnam war that had gotten the destroyer he was on permanently banned from the Island.
            It was the almost identical appearance of the Williard brothers that enabled them to escape. A gang would grab one of the brothers, then seeing another gang dragging off a near replica of the one they had hold of, they would think they had the wrong person and turn him loose and charge the other gang, then the same thing would happen all over again.
           All the while, the mercenaries, soldiers, feds and street toughs were biting, gouging, shooting, stabbing, knifing and kicking their opponents in the midst of a cacophony of Spanish, English, Tex-Mex, and Bronx epithets, insults, slurs, threats and ethnic incorrectness that would have caused a liberal professor from California to lose control of both sphincters at the pure horror of it all.
            A torrent of sirens and honking horns added to the noise of screams and gunshots. Windows crashed to the street and cars entering the intersection veered onto sidewalks and into shops trying to escape the zinging bullets and wild men swinging machetes. Several of them plowed into the throng, bumping over bodies and brushing others aside.
            Williard finally came close enough to Jerry to be heard by him and yelled, “Come on, you crazy bastard, let’s get out of here!”
            Jerry was bleeding from a knife wound to the arm and a cut above one eye but looked as cheerful as a cat with a fresh caught bird in its mouth. He grinned through bloody lips and a loosened tooth. “Where did you come from, Jim?”
           “Never mind, let’s get out of here!” Williard paused to kick a Mexican in the groin, shoot what he hoped was a fed in the belly, and swing a fist at a short swarthy man who was holding a knife. It connected solidly, sending the man reeling backward into two of his fellows, causing them all to collapse in a heap.
            “Yahoo!” Jerry yelled and chopped another on the neck while dodging a slashing machete and knocking another Mexican off his feet with a head butt. He struggled to get away with Williard, who struggled to get him away and still keep his teeth and incidental parts of his body, such as his heart and lungs, intact.
           “Save them!” Brandy screamed again, but the melee was making so much noise by this time, that her voice went unheard.
           “Grab them!” Jeff hollered over the tumult, forgetting his Mexicans didn’t understand much English. His embassy recruits were all down for the count, some living; some dead.
            Jason came roaring through the wildly merging groups, his head so bloody, no one could recognize him. He was panting from too many cigarettes and swinging a machete he had appropriated from a Mexican who no longer had a use for it. “This way, Terry’s waiting!”
            Williard and Jerry struggled to follow him. Williard went down from a blow to the head and while he was on the ground, had just enough time to insert a fresh clip into his smoking army automatic. He jacked a shell into the chamber and fired from where he was stretched out on the street. The roar of the heavy handgun was music to his ears as he shot the ear off a likely looking prospect. The ear was in the way of the head, which burst open from the heavy slug.
            Jason’s machete got stuck in the skull of a swearing, sweating Caucasian who he silenced with the blow. When he couldn’t tug it loose after splitting the man’s skull, he abandoned it. His gun clicked on empty but he calmly pulled his spare and continued clearing a path, shooting anyone who got in their way.
            Just as they had almost worked their way free, Brandy saw them coming and ran to them. “This way!” she screamed, shooting rapidly past Williard’s shoulder with her automatic pistol, sending two men chasing them to the ground.
            Williard heard Brandy’s voice but thought it was Terry calling when he saw her easing the car closer. No one noticed Terry in the security of the car as she calmly aimed and fired at anyone she could draw a bead on who looked to be threatening to kill one of the brothers.
            Jason’s other gun went empty. Suddenly, there in front of him was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, clad in black slacks and a white shirt, waving a small automatic pistol and screaming for someone to bring a car, rescue the brothers and kill the opposition, all in one breath. Jason was all for being rescued but he liked to do things for himself. He deftly plucked the little gun from the startled woman’s hand and tucked it into his pocket, then bent down. He grabbed Brandy around the waist and oofed as he lifted her and slung her across his shoulder.
            “Stop, I have a car waiting!” Brandy yelled frantically.
            “So do I, babe, and you’re coming with us,” Jason said. Not only did he want to find out who was killing whom, he wanted to get close to this gorgeous apparition who was somehow connected, judging from her words and the gun she had been using. Any woman who didn’t mind mixing it up in this kind of battle was a woman after his own heart—if his heart held up from running with her weight on his shoulder. He was gasping for breath. Brandy began kicking and clawing, making it more difficult. Jason stopped, set her down and punched her in the gut. All the wind went out of her sails immediately from the blow to her solar plexus.
           “Get in, you fools!” Terry called from beside the car. She had jumped out and had the doors open and waiting while the opposing groups had momentarily lost track of the brothers and were busily doing their best to annihilate each other.
            Jason dumped Brandy into the backseat and crowded in on top of her. Tex ploughed into the front seat on top of Darlene and Jerry shoved him over and slammed the door shut. Terry got in just as Williard managed to break free of two last Mexicans who thought they recognized one or more of the brothers. Terry, who had reloaded after stopping the car, shot both of them, causing Darlene to faint; she had been out of breath anyway from constant screaming, intermixed with cheering every time she saw a Mexican go down.
           Williard let Terry keep shooting while he put the little overcrowded vehicle into gear and screeched away, burning rubber and trailing plumes of smoke. A row of bullet holes stitched the rear window, shattering it, but fortunately, they were all high and only punctured the top of the car on their way out.
            Pedestrians and other vehicles scattered wildly in every direction as Williard rounded the corner with the horn blaring, almost turning over the overloaded car, but the people and other vehicles made it hard for anyone to pursue.
           “Uh oh,” Williard said. “They got the gas tank. The gauge is going down faster than a bottle of rum at a sailor’s convention..”
           “Cir..ircle...back…mine is…ready,” Brandy managed to say, finally able to draw some shallow breaths.
           “Yeah? You better be right, babe,” Jason said while he used the excuse of searching for any other weapons the woman might be carrying to run his hands all over her body.
           “What the hell are you doing?” Brandy gasped, outraged and at the same time, almost laughing out loud at the liberties he was so calmly taking with her, things she might have killed another man for doing. She wondered wildly which one of the brothers he was.
           “Searching your body, what does it feel like?” Jason said, running his hand up under her blouse. “Aha, what do we have here?” He appropriated Brandy’s little dagger she had strapped to her side and stuck it into his pocket and continued on, while up in the front seat, Williard began laughing uproariously from watching them in the rear view mirror.
           “I better go over her when you get finished, brother,” Williard said. “You might miss something.”
           “Like hell you will,” Terry said. “Toss her out. What are you doing with her anyway, Jason?”
           “Hell, I dunno. She just looked interesting and I thought I’d bring her along. What’s your name, sweet thing?”
           “Brandy. And you…you…hey, stop that!” Brandy screamed as Jason plucked the top two buttons off her white blouse and ran his hand inside her bra.
            Jason ignored Brandy’s protests while feeling around beneath both cups of her bra, liking what he found, not even counting the little derringer he discovered secreted there. “Hey, Jim, this broad is a walking arsenal. Want to recruit her?”
            Brandy couldn’t help herself. She began laughing as hard as Williard while he circled the scene of carnage and followed Brandy’s directions to her car.
           “Out!” Williard ordered her driver. Seeing three bloody, mad-looking gringos, he turned tail and ran faster than a rabbit with a coyote after him. Williard jumped behind the wheel. The others piled in and they all sped away. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw Jason still holding tight to the raven-haired beauty he had grabbed. She had ceased her struggles and was sitting calmly in his lap now while he whispered in her ear. Her face turned red but within another block, she was smiling. Jason strikes again, Williard thought. He was just glad he had seen Terry before his brother, all those long years ago.

Darrell Bain
Shepherd, Texas
June 2011

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