by G L Rockey
Jack’s Time
Married, moved to the farm, winter over, spring rains ending, a Saturday morning, sitting on the front porch swing, The Tennessean in my lap, I now realize we can’t understand time and chance, any of it, where it all began, because our whole being is clouded in beginnings and ends, that’s all we know. We’re born and die. Things begin and end—a movie, lunch, sex, days, years, civilizations … the guys who try to answer it all start at around chapter 10, with a one cell amoeba something, comets carrying spores, hot mud lakes bubbling up life … they never get to chapters 1 through 9, where did the one cells, mud lakes, comets come from?
I heard Joyce in the kitchen, banging pretty good, preparing breakfast. Yesterday she came home with the Book of Names for Boys she had picked up at Wall Mart. She didn't like any of them, was thinking Moses. Had a nice ring to it, Moses Carr. We still had a few weeks to go.
I looked around. The rising sun cast bright light on Joyce's vegetable garden where she had set out fifty tomato plants and seeded twenty neat rows of lettuce, corn, and sunflowers that would soon be popping through the soil.
We bought an upright piano, own the farm, no rent and her favorite food, spaghetti, is cheap. So is rigatoni, vermicelli, and ravioli, and her sauce is to die for. We aren't rich but we are free and a fork is a fork … some call it fate, some luck.
I remember Sago's words, “Kemosabe, did you plan this day?”
Thinking about that, looking at the woods filled with Dogwood Blossoms, I still wonder about the Legend of the Dogwood mystery Aunt Jane talked about—white blossoms, bloody nail prints, crucifixion, the blossoms fragrance reminding that good things come from suffering … still wonder why but….
Joyce, no chapters left out, she had taken a desk job with the T.B.I., told me again, in more detail, about the undercover sting—the infiltration, the raid, Snakebite, Chuck, the Houston connection, the sex slave black market, body parts scheme. Still can't believe any of it.
Snakebite, charged with kidnapping, murder, trafficking in body parts, was in prison, no bail, awaiting trial and, if he didn't die sooner from poor health or at a fellow inmate’s hand, he would most certainly be put to death. All his properties had been seized. Chuck, Snakebite's gateway to the world, so to speak, was in a Texas jail. He'd never make it to trial. Several attempts had been made on his life, one by a guard.
Sago visits now and then, brings Whitney, I think they are going to get married but from what I can surmise, Tony Longtoe has some reservations. Incidentally, Sago's S-Stuff series won an Emmy. Joyce was the hero.
S&W Broadcasting had named Big Joe President and General Manager of TV12. Bobbi Overmier was promoted to VP of Finance. S&W news purists, Joe and I having struck a truce, I am now VP of News and Public Affairs. It turns out, under the tough guy facade, Big Joe, kidnapped by the green greed machine in his youth, was a teddy bear. I discovered he even hated to step on ants. Maybe there was hope.
The call letters of TV12, WBFN-TV, were changed to WSWN-TV and the police are still looking for the perpetrator of Berry's murder.
In all this, I had distilled a thought: as evil and debased as Snakebite was, it is the Berry Frazers of the world who are our worst enemy. Both he and Snakebite a lie, Berry had the face of respectability.
Peggy Moore landed a new recording contract, had a song coming out, “We Was Brung Up Poor, But We Wasn't Brung Up Dumb”. She had also swung a deal, got Buddy One Shot (they are married now) and some people together and had bought The Berry Inn. It's doing pretty good, I hear. She sings in the Peasant & Grouse, now named Top of Nashville. She calls me now and then to see how the marriage is going. I tell her a family is on the way.
As to Stella Pastorini, she hadn't, after the raid on Snakebite, as they say in Tennessee, ‘been seen around these parts in a coon's age’.
I picked up The Tennessean and read a story at the bottom of the front page:
New Evidence Sought in Nashville Slaying
Nashville—Adele Frazer, wife of Nashville's former TV12 CEO, Berry Frazer, hoping to settle estate matters, has had reopened an investigation into the savage murder of husband Berry Frazer.
Sources close to the family say that a private investigating firm has been retained to solve the lingering murder mystery of the notorious Nashville broadcaster, which occurred over nine months ago. Suspicions in the bizarre and twisted murder point to a reported gambling connection between Frazer and the infamous Nashville flesh peddler and bookie Mike 'Snakebite' Walker.
Frazer’s throat slashed, a murder weapon never found, detectives believe, from autopsy evidence, it was a razor sharp instrument. DNA and finger print evidence were inconclusive. Sources added, teeth marks on Frazer's hands have never been identified.
Joyce called, “Breakfast is ready.”
Real Time
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, 5:00 A.M., Central Daylight Time (CDT)
The sedated young female flown to Guadalajara, a doctor and her assistant received the donor. Further sedated, the doctor removed the donor’s heart and placed it in a container for delivery to a nearby waiting recipient. Other organs along with corneas were salvaged. A kidney was appropriately stored for implant in a computer mogul's son. The corneas were going to Miami. Total receipts, $2,500,000. The eviscerated body was placed in a plastic bag for disposal.
The End
About the Author
G. L. Rockey has written three other works of fiction: The Journalist (revised and re-released in paperback as Redacted), a five star thriller with a "frightening ring of truth"; and a collection of sixteen "off-the-wall" short stories, Bats In The Belfry, Bells In The Attic. Truths of the Heart is G. L. Rockey's latest novel. Also published is a non fiction book, From The Back Of The House: Memories Of A Steak House Clan.
Also published by Books We Love Truths of the Heart
Find out more at www.glrockey.com
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