December 01st, 2014

Happy belated Thanksgiving.  I've had a few problems getting on this site and couldn't on Thanksgiving.

Following are excerpts from my novel Danny Boy which is finished and looking for an agent smarter than I am:   

"Over the years a slim finger of the river diverted through the half-mile cave and drawled from the lips of the tunnel like spittle from a stoke victim.  In the flaming, bright day the obsidian maw of the shaft lurked obscenely on the other side of the ravine.  In a hooded fissure on the other side of the long, light-less tunnel was where they'd found the rotting body of a dead man: an outcast who died unnoticed." 


"Uncomfortably aware that he looked like a condemned building, unshaven and hung over --  at least his flannels and khakis were mended -- Charlie talked gently to the little boy:
'See your head’s flattened where you bumped it.'  He pointed to the back of the kid’s head.  'You gotta make a fist -- put your thumb out -- blow into it.'  Charlie demonstrated with a thumb sticking out, blew into it with his cheeks expanding like a bag of apples.  It was his best Louis Armstrong impression --
C.J. steered the man-in-a-hurry, pulled him toward the scene of the crime, and said roughly, 'I’ll tell security I just saw you assault a little kid.  Go apologize.'
The guy’s lips flattened into a straight line, his eyes narrowed, but after looking around and getting a good look at C.J. he gave in.
The boy stopped crying; it took all of his energy and concentration to blow into his thumb and he was really working at it.
'Good job buddy,' Charlie told the kid.   'That popped your head back out.  Made it round again.  Now your brain will okay.'
The five-year-old smiled shyly.
C.J. smiled at the man-in-a-hurry."            


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