Literary Fiction/Coming of Age
Publisher: Literary Vagabond Books
Poor
Billy Green! When he was just turning four, his father tried to throw
him in the trash. He was a smart kid but that just seemed to create
enemies. His mom did everything to protect him. But this was Detroit,
armpit of the wasteland! Catholic school didn’t help much, except the
time he got his first kiss from an atheist nun. Home life was dismal.
Was his father capable of anything but drinking beer and farting? And
what was with that neighbor who made puppets and tried to molest Billy?
Golly! Detroit was sucking the life out of him. At such a young age.
Then adolescence swirled around him. Like water in a toilet bowl. High
school was a B movie. Only without a plot. So finally he did something
about it. Billy ran away … to college. Cornell University. That was a
good move for sure! He studied hard, lost his virginity, met the love of
his life. Things were definitely looking up! What could possibly go
wrong?
Other Books in The Man Who Loved Too Much Series
The Man Who Loved Too Much - Book 2: Entendre
The Billy Green saga continues! Billy’s challenging, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, always unpredictable journey.
He was more determined than ever to find meaning in life and comfort in love.
Billy came to know one thing for sure.
Love is real.
He
could now with the absolute cocksure confidence of pure enlightenment,
scoff at the naysayers and spit in the face of the purveyors of romantic
nihilism, the cynics who say that love is an illusion.
Billy knew the real score.
Love is the light that never dims.
Love is a wine that flows in our hearts.
Love is a wonder that has no beginning or end.
Love is a master key that opens the gates of perfection.
Love is the language our souls use to speak to one another.
Love is the trafficking of fantasies and transcending of mortality.
Love is an energy that can neither be created or destroyed.
Love is God Allah Yahweh Shiva Qat Aphrodite.
Love is touch smell feel taste listen pray.
Love is the poetry of the senses.
Love is metaphysical gravity.
Love is the gift of oneself.
Love is sweet tyranny.
All you need is love.
Descartes. You almost got it right.
Je aime, donc je suis.
Yes. That’s how it should go.
I love, therefore I am.
Valentines Day solipcism.
But does it ever turn out the way we planned? The way we hoped and dreamed?
The Man Who Loved Too Much - Book 3: Oxymoron
How
do we function in a world which is both as randomly and intentionally
cruel, as it is randomly and intentionally kind? Can we make sense of
our lives when so much around us makes no sense?
In
this, the final book of the trilogy, we find out what it means to be a
"man who loves too much". More importantly, we discover if Billy Green
is such a man.
Excerpt
THE EARLY YEARS
1986 – 1995
Balloons
It
was an especially cold Thanksgiving on Woodward Avenue in Detroit.
Today was the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade and the crowd alternated
between shivering and cheering. People shuffled and stomped, attempting
to keep their feet from freezing. Gusts of steamy cold blew from their
dripping noses and through clenched teeth.
Suddenly Billy started screaming. “My balloon!! My Balloon!!”
“Harold, do something. His balloon!”
“Goddammit, Irene. Do I look like I have wings? It’s too late.”
Up
up it went. The string had slipped from Billy’s grasp and the balloon
was off to wherever balloons go. The stratosphere? Balloon heaven?
“You
stupid little fuck. I told you to let me tie it to your wrist. But
you’re so goddamn smart. See what happens when you don’t listen.”
Billy’s
face instantly melted into a chastened mask of humiliation and defeat,
as he started to cry like his puppy had been crushed under a bus.
“Nice work, Harold. Give the kid a complex. Let’s find a vendor and get him another one.”
“Over
my dead body! He’ll learn something from this. Next time something is
so goddamn important to him as that there balloon …” Harold jerked his
thumb skyward at the latex dot which was all but invisible by now. “…
maybe he’ll take better care of it.”
“Jesus
Christ, he’s only three. How could I have married such a heartless man?
Come here, sweetheart.” She reached down and picked up the heartbroken
and tremulously sobbing young boy, face streaked and blotchy, mittens
wet with the fresh tears of tragedy.
Another parade float approached and would soon be right in front of them.
She pointed. “Look, Billy. Look at the dinosaur.”
Sure
enough, big as a moving van, bloated with helium, tethered to the
8-wheel steel flatbed of a float frame covered with artificial turf, and
looking about as realistic as cardboard and crayons, was a
Tyrannosaurus Rex. Its mouth was agape in what was supposed to be a
scary, imminent man-devouring chomp. Several repairs were visible on the
rubber underside, patches which were poorly matched in color to the
skin of the faux beast. To underscore the implausibility of the threat,
eight baton twirlers circled around the float, dancing, kicking their
bare legs high, tossing and twirling gleaming chrome batons in the clear
November air.
“Grrr!! Grrr!! Careful he doesn’t eat you up.” She tickled his cheek with her wool-gloved finger and tried to elicit a smile.
Billy
had already stopped crying and just looked confused. He seemed more
interested in the baton twirlers than the gas bag monster.
Next
came a landlocked riverboat float, bearing the Flint Banjo Club
players. This was their historic parade debut and they enthusiastically
picked and twanged their way through various Dixieland and bluegrass
favorites to a crowd which almost seemed to notice. Two mounted
policemen followed, their horses snorting and blowing foggy jets from
their wet nostrils.
“Harold, I
need to powder my nose. Can you take him?” Giving her husband no real
choice in the matter, she abruptly reached over and pushed the boy up
against his father’s chest.
“Mommy, I have to—”
“Just sit tight, Billy. Mommy will be right back.”
“But, Mom … “
His
father took Billy, obviously under protest, and slung him up on his
shoulders. The boy completely caught off guard by the sudden and
heavy-handed move, grabbed on desperately to keep from falling, wrapping
his arms tightly around his father’s neck.
“Easy! Easy! You don’t have to choke me to death.”
Billy
knew better than to try to talk to him and just settled in an
uncomfortable slump against his father’s head. Before she had left, he
was trying to tell his mom that he had to pee. But she was off to find a
ladies room and it would have to wait until she got back.
He had to go. Really bad.
To
make matters worse, his father was bouncing him. Whether this was to
entertain Billy or just to try to stay warm was a moot point. The
pressure of the full kidneys built quickly and all Billy could do was
concentrate on holding it in. He couldn’t even look at the parade
floats. He closed his eyes and bit on his lower lip. The critical
pressure in his groin quickly intensified. He clamped his legs together
as hard as he could against the urgent and painful need for release.
“What the fuck are you doing up there? This ain’t no wrestling match. Back off with the leg lock.”
His
dad reached up under Billy’s arms and shook him to drive home his
point. That was all it took for the dam to burst. Billy let out a tiny
whimpering cry. Then silence. He tried to stop it but his urethral valve
was open and it wasn’t about to be turned off until the job was done.
At
first Billy’s father only noticed a slight increase in the temperature
around and below the collar of his coat. Then he felt the wetness and
sensed the faint odor of the boy’s young discharge.
“Is that what I think it is? You little shit!”
Billy
was swallowed whole by shame and fear. He fought desperately to keep
from crying and covered his face with both hands as his father roughly
lifted him off and held him out in front of him to confirm his worst
suspicions. Billy was still going. Pee dripped from the bottom of his
wet trousers, past his shoes, onto the pavement.
Billy’s
father was fast to act. Still holding Billy at arms length, he turned
around and headed away from the street, towards the public restrooms,
just as Billy’s mom was making her way back to join them.
At
first she was puzzled at the way Harold was carrying the boy, then
terrified by the look on her husband’s face. Obviously something had
gone very wrong.
“I asked for a son and you gave me this piece of trash.”
She
tried to grab for Billy, both to rescue him from his father’s rage and
offer him whatever comfort might be needed. But Harold was too quick. He
muscled past her and walked over to a large wire trash basket, already
nearly full of newspapers, crumpled lunch bags and food wrappings.
He dropped Billy in head first and stormed away.
“Billy! Billy!”
She was there within seconds.
“Are
you all right? My poor little boy! My poor little boy!” She fought back
her tears and tried to hide her anger, though the back of her eyes were
angry hot embers and an ache for her abused little boy filled her chest
with sulfurous pangs. As she reached down and uprighted Billy, she saw
his wet pants and realized what had happened. She immediately drew him
into the kind of hug that only a mother can provide a frightened child,
covering his cheeks and head with kisses.
“It’s alright. It’s alright, my sweet handsome young man.”
The
cushioning of the paper refuse already stuffed in the wastebasket had
broken Billy’s plunge. He wasn’t hurt. No bruises. No scratches.
Surprisingly, he wasn’t crying. He just blinked and stared off in the
direction his father had taken.
Then he turned and whispered. “Can we watch the parade?”
“We probably should get you some new pants. Looks like you ran through the lawn sprinklers while I was gone.”
To
take advantage of the masses of people attending the event, several
stores were open for business, though it was a national holiday. His mom
carried Billy into two clothing shops and they found some jeans he
really liked. The new pants were a little big on him but at least they
were warm and dry.
By the time
they returned to the parade route, things were reaching a climactic
conclusion. This, of course, was the arrival of none other than Santa
Claus himself, on a motorized sled drawn by unmoving reindeer figures,
deer-in-the-headlights gazes epoxied into their eyes, with the biggest
reindeer celebrity of them all, red-nosed Rudolph himself, in the lead.
Billy’s
eyes widened as the Santa float approached. Within minutes, there he
was right in front of them, the man with the giant belly, rosy cheeks,
red and white fur-trimmed suit, and a huge white beard which flowed down
on his chest like angel hair. Santa laughed his deep, sonorous ‘ho ho
ho’ and waved like a prom queen to the excited children and
conspiratorial adults who were bonded together in a special covenant to
perpetuate and promote the Santa myth, just as their parents had done
before them.
When Santa had
passed and only the top of his waving arm could be seen over the high
back of his red and gold sled, Billy finally lowered his own tiny hand
and let it hang at his side.
Lost in thought, Billy watched his own fidgeting hands, then looked up at his mom.
“Mommy. Can Santa bring me a new dad?”
About the Author
John
Rachel has a B.A. in Philosophy, has traveled extensively, been a
songwriter and music producer, political activist and is a bipolar
humanist. Since 2008, when he first embarked on his career as a
novelist, he has had eight fiction and three non-fiction books
published. These range from three satires and a coming-of-age trilogy,
to a political drama and recently a crime thriller. The three
non-fiction works were also political, his attempt to address the crisis
of democracy and pandemic corruption in the governing institutions of
America.
Never
knowing when enough is enough, the hyperthyroid Rachel continues to be
very busy. He has three more novels in the pipeline for publication late
2017 through 2018: Sex, Lies and Coffee Beans, a spoof on the self-help
crazes of the 80s and 90s; Love Connection, a drug-trafficking thriller
set in Japan; and finally The Last Giraffe, an anthropological drama
involving both the worship and devouring of giraffes, which unfolds in
19th Century sub-Saharan Africa.
John
Rachel's last permanent residence in America was Portland, Oregon where
he had a state-of-the-art ProTools recording studio, music production
house, a radio promotion and music publishing company. He still writes
music and, much to the annoyance of his neighbors in the traditional
rural Japanese town where he now lives, attempts to sing his original
songs.
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This book looks awesome.
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