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Book Blast! The Man from Sweet Loaf by G. Franklin Prue
The Man from Sweet Loaf by G.Franklin Prue
456 pages
Published: March 9, 2013
Format: Paperback
Synopsis
I am hoping that crazy people run and sane people hide as
they read my novel The Man from Sweet Loaf . The story is about Sam
Murphy. He is a truck driver. He is a Vietnam era Veteran. He has PTSD, but he
can only see his father as a winged Gargoyle. This is related to war veterans
in every war. He falls in love with a Haitian woman, she belongs to a powerful
Colonel Labossier in the Ton-Ton Macoute; Sam Murphy has to fight this man and
his bodyguards. He enlists his brother who is a cop, Ray. However, with Myrthe
this woman is involved in the culture of Voodoo.
Sam Murphy in a major section, As the Gargoyle sings to
thee….this section deals with the relationship of his delusional view of
his father. Thus, this dialogue shows us Sam’s fear towards him.
Sam Murphy, finds the Colonel dead, and his Myrthe free to be
with him. But more definition to Sam and his past shows up on his door.
Petey-Pete comes back to the Eastern shores, and visits his old truck driver
partner. He is a major drug dealer from Florida, he is now a Rastafarian.
Petey-Pete is a symbol, he a Christ like figure for our image
of the crucifixion. Sam’s brother, Ray is searching for this major drug lord.
He is determined to get him. Sam has no idea of Petey-Pete being a major drug
dealer, thus on a Sunday, Sam takes his family to church, Petey-Pete also
attends. Ray spots Petey-Pete, shoots him dead on the church steps.
Sam goes to his dying friend, pulls out a book of poems;
dedicate to their life on the road. Sam takes his daughter and wife and takes
them away from this trauma, and leaves his past behind.
Excerpt:
PART ONE
Earth, Wind, Fire
The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted
to learn of the crow. –Blake, Proverbs of Hell
Sunday, 22 August 1985. A kiss and a noble ending was not
meant for them as they awake in each other’s arms. Mabel Friday, with brown
rainbow sun hair, was just a child of jazz from the sixties. A cool chocolate
popsicle. Sassy woman. With a high heel walk that would make you melt in five
minutes. She rode out the sticky hot summer season with her boyfriend Sam, who
drove a dented-up red truck. He carried carpets to new office buildings from a
dusty-quiet city on the Eastern Maryland shores, Sweet Loaf. He made his runs
through the I-95 Beltway: D.C., Maryland and Virginia. They met like other
children in the past. On the street. Years after a war and the death of his
soul in a Viet Cong raid. Sam came out in broken pieces of a no-nonsense
selfish man. He even had the sailor nerve to paint on the side of his truck:
EL, ZORRO.
Sam Murphy was a womanizer. A street gambler, common sense,
drinking man. She would do almost anything for this man of many puzzling
qualities. He was a hard man about living. Who wasn’t around most of the time,
which made their screwing just a Sunday handshake. Now his other women didn’t
make her mad and damn sure didn’t make her sad. Mabel knew she was a good woman
for any man. But with Sam, she was on this road a long time. A long time.
Cuddling, bouncing up in the back woods to the Sweet Loaf Carnival. They both
drank up a lot of gin with the radio turned up to James Brown; begging for love
on WKSL-AM Soul station. As they move behind the purple valley city and white
corner moon.
Folks forgave Sweet Sam Murphy, you see; he had put it all
in. He was one of the living dead who chain-smoked from a face of a dark storm
wind coming to the shore’s edge. Most of the time he wore a greasy, pale blue
golf cap on his head. Over wide brown, soft eyes that took in the yellow-green
day and sometimes another man’s wife.
Mabel gave him that lullaby stare: Drugs, money or love over
on the side of the road? Naw! She wanted something else as she rolled her
moon-shaped butt on the black vinyl seats of the truck.
“Baby, what you want?” Sam pleads. “Tell me! But don’t just
sit there like a fly on a elephant’s ass.”
“I need another cigarette,” Mabel said, scooting over closer
to his ear. “Daddy.”
“Mabel, I just bought you some,” he said. “Darlin’, you got’s
to be supportin’ your own habits!” Sam got real cruel. “Dey be cutting your
tits off one of these days.”
“Sam, you don’t have to talk like that to me!” Mabel lights
up, gives him the pack back. “You a thirty-two-year-old asshole!” She sucks in
the smoke. Scoots away from him. “Shit, man! As much as I give you.” She gazes
out to the sights of yellow, brown, burned summer alabaster leaves. Butchers in
her dreams. “Maybe I’ll just die before they cut dem off! Butcher bastards!
Son-of-a-bitches cut my momma up too! I ain’t never going to let them put the
knife to my pretty tits!” She grabs, and cuddles them. “Sam, feel these! Feel
these!” Rolls her eyes, drags hard on the cigarette. “Goddamn butcher men. .
. that’s all the fuck they are anyways!”
He knew it was the gin talking. She was a sweet screw a sad,
kissable, chocolate milk woman from the Sweet Loaf woods. Sorry he put fear in
her face. But people he cared about were sacred to him, their lives a part of
his life. Secure in his web. Made her think about the knife her mother died
under. Tender memories of a wife, a sister, a lover, mother. He noticed pieces
of her brownish-black hair fly behind her right ear. Gold earrings flash. The
ones he bought her for her birthday. He rubs a thumb across her cheek to take
the pain from her lips. He searches for that blueberry-apple smile. He
surrenders his love and forgiveness in the silence of a dusty shoo-fly road. A
wand over her heart. Summer madness concocted under a hell-fire sun. A bead of
sweat drips from her neck. Down her V-neck red dress. When the truck shakes,
her breasts jump, jiggle, pow, boom, wow in the dress. He slows down over a
dead squirrel. Dry red leaves crack under the tire wheels that take up the
space between their lives and the rest of the red clay, chain gang road.
He squeezes up behind a Chevy station wagon. Scares the hell
out of a family man with his long-neck wife, two kids and a standard size hound
dog. Mabel laughs as the man’s horn curses Sam out.
Sweet Sam became childish, high with his Mabel. He put it all
in; speeding sometimes. Crying, laughing and flying. Smoking good dope. Sam was
all mixed up with dog shit on a county road: Route 87, to Bailey’s Cross. He
sips his brown bag of gin from a paper cup. All he cared about was the fire
from a pretty woman in the middle of a lost country road. Starve away the dream
nightmares of a war. A wife, a son. He found Mabel after. After a country lost
another son…who cares? He was alive. Alive to taste. Feel. Smell the sun, moon,
stars from a woman’s panties. He had time to hear the silence in his heart.
Play the sax in the night. Kiss up an angel’s tears that fell with the rain.
“We almost there, baby.”
“I know.” She puts his right hand on her left breast. “And
they going to stay there too.” She draws closer to him. “I love you.”
“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said. “You know that.”
“Yeah I know.” She teases him. “Watch that pole.”
“I just love you . . . that’s all.” He sticks his golf cap on
his right knee. “I can’t stand somebody else dying in my life, ’specially you.”
“You made that clear.”
Earth winds blow from east to west.
Gas and fumes drift in their noses. Sam looked over her eyes
of blossoms and lips of red watermelon lipstick? Yes! Yes! He wouldn’t give a
fuck if he did die with her. It was better than leaving in some war with
dog-tags around your neck at nineteen. He puts more gas on the pedal. Shifts some
gears before she gets sick in the cab of the truck. Hell! He knew she had to be
tired. He didn’t look at her. He counts to ten over and over. Before the
sleeveless, tight red dress almost makes him go right into a three
hundred-year-old oak. Pleasant surroundings of her French-blood perfume mixed
in with the sun and gin. He got up the nerve to see if she calmed down. Was she
still looking for a fight? He throws an arm over her bare shoulders. He takes
one eye off the road to keep from hitting the cows. Sneaks a passenger kiss on
her cheek. He takes his arm from around her to concentrate on the road, jazz
and her rich cream thighs.
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BIO:
When I was a little boy; I was sent to the library as a
punishment. My daddy use to joke with me that I was born in a library. Now I am
published author G. Franklin Prue. I was born in Washington, D.C. I am also
ex-military Vietnam veteran. I am also teaching in Seattle as a special
educational Instructor. I have also worked as a government Consultant for the
Defense Department. I travel a lot to the Caribbean, Central & South
Americas. I have a BA in Political Science & Masters degree in Education/Administration.
My published novels are, A Year of Madness, Mammie Doll and The Man from Sweet
Loaf , all by CreateSpace/Amazon.com.
Thanks for the awesome support! :) xx
ReplyDeleteNo problem. Anytime. :) <3
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