Thursday, September 17, 2009

God? . . . Update


An update on the new novel, God?. I finished Chapter 12 yesterday and posted it on my Myspace site and the effect I was reaching for seems to have worked. After the high sheriff of Cotton Boll County basically ran Truman out of the county, telling him to never return he slept the first night in the woods which ran alongside the road. He did this because he was afraid the sheriff would send someone out there and arrest him on some trumped-up charge. Another charge other than the one he faced for the thrashing of Brother Tuttle.

A lot was going on in Truman's mind as he tried to sleep that night. That he is going on a "fact-finding" quest to find the answer to his God question is a given, but as yet he does not understand just how he is going to go about this quest. For one thing, he is young, sixteen-years-old, and that is going to be held against him. How will he find work, he has no social security number, no work history? But, as he lays on the ground thinking the optimism of youth is apparent and he just knows there will be a way.

The next day he starts his journey. The deputy sheriff who drove him to the county line the day before had pulled out forty dollars and gave it to him, Truman guessed he felt sorry for him. That was a miracle in itself, because he didn't have one cent to his name. He was picked up and driven close to Texarkana, Ark/Tx before his ride gave out. He let him out in front of an old country church and Truman though he would step inside, if it wasn't locked, and think about what to do next.

The church was open and when he stepped inside he saw the girl. After they introduced themselves to each other they began to talk. She was young, about his age, and said she was hitch-hiking to California to join the "revolution." When he asked what revolution she began to ramble about the revelation that the hippies in the sixties of the last century. Cut to the chase, the girl took his cherry inside that church. Well, almost, she did him orally.

Although he wanted to travel with the girl (who wouldn't?) she didn't want to be stuck with anyone, so after she left he caught a ride with a man who wound up offering to put him up for a day or so, he could see Truman was young and wanted to get him off the highway. Truman decided that was a good idea and when the man turned into the driveway of his house Truman saw a sign which said, HOUSE OF GOD. It turned out the man and his wife had a kind of Mother Earth Religion going on and they were going to have "services" that very night. As the people began to gather for the service the man sent Truman to the store to pick up some chips for the dip he had made.

Truman thought about running off with the man's car and the twenty dollars he gave him for the chips, but decided against it. When he got back and walked to the backyard where the service was being held was immediately stunned beyond belief. Of the twelve or so people who were at the service only one was still alive and begging for him momma. The rest were murdered in cold blood. Truman wanted to run, but he was in such a state of shock he could not run and he dropped to his knees awaiting the police whose sirens he could already hear.

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