Sample Pages From The Novel, The Original Adventures of a Dying Young Man. Book B.

Before the night of the fridge incident I was lost and wandering around the State of Georgia, and so I worked for this old man and helped him with cleaning out a real dirty old barn and it was a day before when I was walking back from the smoke shop when I ran into him and I’m guessing with just one look at me he musta’ known that I needed some work. And I seen when he was about to go ask one of the other young men around town to help but I cut in line and told em’ that I’d gladly do it and the old man said, “well now better get to it kid”, and so that was a real good thing fer me’ that I ran into the old man with the dirty ol’ barn and that’s because during this part of my travel I was roughin’ it—sure was—and honestly…

I was bouts’ done for and was real fortunate that he came out of nowhere but then again the problem was I think…

Well so the old man was partially deaf and had some gigantic hearingaids hanging out of his ears, and those things musta’ taken nine-volts er’ something and I don’t know what his ailment was but he told me how he was a bomber during World War Two, and so I’m taking it that’s the reason his hearing was pretty much destroyed—because of his constant loading and firing of ammunition.

And so the ol’ man with the ol’ dirty barn said to me how, “bombing em’ evil bastards to hell and back” was his job during the war and that he did this task for sometimes nineteen hours a day and I think that’s what he said as he then told me how a long time ago when he was around my age alls’ he was doing with his life was loading bombs and bullets and then sleeping in a plane or a boat and then he was right back at it again, and I’m not all that sure what he was talking about but what I’m trying to say is that the Old Man (named Charlie) well he didn’t really talk all that much and when he did speak he said all these funny mumbled things like, “Get me some water boy” and, “LIFE”, 1

and just…man o’ man…how that ol’ Charlie loved yelling at the word “LIFE”, and I didn’t care what he was yelling about because things were getting better during this part of my venture’ and so sure it was nice to be making some cash because like an idiot does I spent more money than I shoulda’ drinking at a sad empty bar the other dang night and now I was twenty dollars short of what it took to get out of this area of the country. Yep. The truth concerning this narrative is so…fine…I just ta’ fuckin’ did what I always do and down around Appalachia I stayed one day too many. Yeah. Pretty much—I was broke as a dead skunk and what was romantic wasn’t no longer even pretty, and when I came back to my senses that’s when the painting of beauty melted into mud and that’s why I was cleaning out an old barn that had three generations of belongings’ in it, and so as the days rocked by I forgot about any kind of theory of time and sure was tired, and so after working in the barn I had the first fifteen feet of the entrance organized and it was early on the second day when I found this vinyl recording of a violinist who called themselves The Mockingbird of The Northern Country, and so I know that things like this happen but I was real surprised when I read how he was from a small little town in Michigan called Paradise, and well it’s a city but no not really because the place is more like a small spot to get away to when you need to get away from some of those kinds’ of things you don’t like in normal city life. And so this place named Paradise well it’s in the Upper Peninsula and it’s nice in the summer (or so I’ve been told) and it is real dark and cold and snowy in the winter (and I know this to be true firsthand because this is the only time I can afford to go there)…and…once not too long ago I did spend some time in Paradise in this old cottage and I drove there because I was fed up with bouts’ everything and needed to reset my mind, and yeah I know there’s nothing too special about life when you get older but when I was younger my imagination seemed to instantly connect all sorts of things like pieces of a puzzle and so that’s why I said, “Isn’t this something? Check this out Charlie”, but he didn’t care about the music and that wasn’t any fault of his but…

It’s just I was real dang shocked in a real good way when I found that recording in the barn under a bunch of rat poison and old hats and so I wondered how in god’s name it was possible that the music made its way down here to Georgia, and that’s what I asked Charlie but he couldn’t speak too good because of what happened during the war and so I said, 2

“Seriously this is some real interesting stuff cause’ did you know that I’m from Michigan too Charlie?” …

This old man was a real tired old man and when I talked to him about the record and where I was from well…so just like every other time I talked about anything he just ta’ shut me up as he’d be saying to me how “Boy—I knew a couple people from Michigan during The War”, and I said “really” and he said, “Yeah Henry and they’re both dead”, and well…I didn’t say much of anything after he told me that because there’s nothing you could say to something like that and that’s the reason why I went back to work cleaning that old dirty barn in the middle of the woods.

And so then the next day Charlie hobbled in looking real angry at the world and told me he was going into town and said fer’ me to do my damn job so I could get out of this place because it was, “No place for somebody like you”, and “Alright” I said— “Will do Charlie you can count on me sir”, and then as he left he got in his old jeep and I could hear em’ when he mumbled, “God damn good fer’ nothing life.” …

So the story goes that the old man didn’t have a clue where the record came from and he mentioned how maybe his son bought it for him but didn’t think that any of his kids had ever been to Michigan before, and he said “that’s how life goes boy—it don’t make no sense so don’t think bouts’ it too damn much” and “I know you’re right Charlie” I said but even though I said that to em’ well it’s just that I cared about this record and I really wanted to know all about The Mockingbird of The Northern Country but Charlie didn’t care about this music and it was just one of many records that he had piled inside of his barn, and this barn was old and red and there was generations of rust covering any metal that might have caught light reflecting off those calming solid colors of the Appalachian country during the months that take up sometime in the late of spring, and well, so then even after I asked again he said for me to—“just get over your philosophical ideas Henry. Yep. That’s what’s’ youse’ got to do. Forget about the old wars and the old dead and gone. Boy forget go on and forget about it but remember to be real careful around the 3

nails because the last person who helped out lost his hand after he fell over on accident”, and that sounded real bad to my ears and “Dang man” I said “That’s no good at all”. …

The nail went through flesh and spread some kind of poison and so I said, “You’re kidding right Charlie” and he said, “That’s life boy you just never know”, and sure is he’s right about that but nope—I don’t know if he was serious about anything and if someone really lost their hand who worked in this same barn before I got here, but even with all I didn’t know I sure knew for a fact that he didn’t care about my connection to this old and probably dead musician because when I asked him he told me to “Henry Jesus James Christ just throw it in the garbage along with everything else and be done by night fall you hear me boy”. …

It was a real long day and after Charlie left I kept cleaning and thought I could be gone by the next day and I didn’t do what the old man said—nope—I didn’t throw it away because I kept the record and…

A year from now when I’m back to Michigan I’m guessing I drove up to Paradise to find about who this violinist was, and I didn’t discover much about this musical bird’s life because for the most part nobody really knew who he was, but then so at the library I found a few articles hidden in old folders sticking with gross little bedbugs and that’s how I got his real name and even seen what he looks like, and so after that I went to his gravestone in the middle of the winter and gave my respects and man o’ man…it was something else when I realized that it was Charlie’s Brother who was the violinist. And I know this to be true because there’s a picture and I don’t know why he didn’t tell me and I guess that doesn’t really matter, but nevertheless now until I die this Mockingbird of the Northern Country will be connected with my life just like that ol’ American bomber because for some crazy reason we’all’ ended up in the same filthy barn that was succumbing to nature and was just somewhere down there lost in Georgia and well so…

When I first found the record I wasn’t too sure what it meant, and I’m still not all that clear about the significance of the matter and I don’t know but 4

just all of us out in the country just off some dirt road near the Appalachian trail standing still in an old ragged wood barn in Georgia…yeah…sure was the kind of adventurous romanticism I dug, and I know it means nothing at least in the grand scheme of things and you bet that there’s way more to this Paradise story and the Mockingbird violin player, but well this is only supposed to be a short traveling book and alls’ I’m trying to tell you is the most recent events in my trip, and that’s because we don’t have all that much time left before I got to go to sleep.

Before he was a science fiction popup book writer for adults, and even before Henry Oldfield ends up in Atlanta and finds himself a darlin’ and a loose cannon literary agent named Babushka, he’s in The Town on a Lake doing not much. He walks around and skips stones and writes poems about post industrialization and then one day after he hops the fence to observe the burning coal fields he discovers a book in a garbage can written by, William Zarathustra. And so Henry then gets an important message from an ol’ pal’ named Alex , who was sent back to the nice and normal of Borderland from the Second Proxy War and then pretty much that’s what sets in motion Henry’s first real adventure since his falling out with Dusty Apostolo, and O’…then there’s how he keeps getting these dang bloody noses and doesn’t know what’s wrong with his brain, and around this part of our story he’s beginnin’ to think he wants to be a writer for a livin’. But he just doesn’t know what he should write about. Yep sure is apparent that Henry isn’t very happy with how things are going for em’. The boredom is suffocating em’ but nobody can offer much good advice to help out with the twenty five year old dying young man’s existential crisis, and so as the day turns to night and back into day, and as the spring turns to early summer Henry’s just thinkin’ bouts’ things but keeps getting’ distracted cause’ the world keeps blowing stuff up, and that’s the reason he decides to shut his mouth and sit in a patio and highlight every word in that dirty book he found in the trash can titled, ‘The Song of Time’. But—then there’s a real tragedy when Henry’s only true friend is killed in front of his gosh darn face for no god damn reason. Enough was enough and that was it. The boy born dumb had had it!

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