Chapters

THE FIRST SEVEN CHAPTERS

April 9, 1965
Indianapolis, Indiana

IT WAS ONE of those skies an early Indiana spring can produce. A late morning sun, flickering through patchy fast-moving clouds, illuminated the neighborhood in erratic patterns of startling color and somber grays. In an open field, you could lose your balance under an unsettled sky like this. I tucked my hands into my armpits as Dave ‘pulled his 63 Ford convertible into my parents’ driveway. Despite my irritation, his grin forced me to smile as he unfolded his lanky frame to hang over the idling car’s door.
“You know, this isn’t going to make any difference. I told you on the phone I can’t go with you guys.” Dave Dunn and I had been best friends since our junior year in high school, on into college, and afterward as we fumbled our way into real life with sketchy success. He’d stood up for me when I married Pat. We’d named our oldest son after him.
“No excuses. Just grab your toothbrush and a change of clothes and get in the damn car. We got a long ride ahead of us.” The convertible’s engine ticked over quietly. The tang of unburned hydrocarbons caught in the back of my throat and made my eyes water.
Mac Brown peered out from the passenger seat. Les Silvey—male-model handsome, not a hair out of place—rolled down the rear window. He didn’t speak but impatience was written all over his restrained impatience was obvious. The three of them were the other members of my disintegrating vocal group, the Reflections. Except for a couple of phone calls from Dave, I hadn’t spoken to them since the last time we’d sung together in Fort Wayne …

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AUDIO EXCERPT

Excerpt from CHAPTER TWO – FAMILY MATTERS, read by author

Though this out of date, I’ve left it up for now. It does give the flavor of this chapter, and I don’t know if I’ll read another one. In the late spring of 1965 in Indianapolis, when the book begins, I was trying to figure out how to start a new life. In Chapter Two, my marriage to my high school sweet heart seemed headed toward a tragic ending, my friends had gone off to a fantasy land called California, and I’d taken a job at RCA  assembling record players. Then Dave and Mac’s desperate call from out west began reshuffling the Tarot cards of my life again …