BOOMER LIT FRIDAY BLOG HOP - Fri 26 April 2013
The Freight Train of Love
by John Klawitter                                                        
When true love comes along, you’re just a bug on the tracks.

I am author John Klawitter, and I’m presenting my novel The Freight Train of Love on the Boomer Lit Friday Blog Hop http://boomerlitfriday.blogspot.com sponsored by the Boomer Lit Group on Goodreads.com

The hero of The Freight Train of Love, the highly successful action-thriller novelist Jack Larch, was born in the thick of WWII, but even though he is a so-called boomer baby, he doesn’t see himself that way.  Jack thinks he’s found the fountain of youth.  With three or four wives behind him, Jack’s on-again off-again girlfriend of the past ten years is understandably hesitant to commit, even though she has a growing affection for the cranky old genius.  But Jack’s wildly carefree youth is now coming back to haunt him in violent and murderous ways…spelling disaster not for Jack himself, but for anyone showing they might be falling for him.

Here are a few lines from The Freight Train of Love:

 

His small study desk was the usual mess.  I paid his bills, gathered his checks for deposit and read his letters, which were mostly fan mail except for one.  This one must have slipped behind the others, because it was dated right after New Years day, the first week in January.  It was sad, in a way, because it was from the widow of an old army buddy, informing Jack that his friend had died.  See there, how little I knew about the Jack-ster!  He’d had another actual friend beside me, and I hadn’t even known it.  I stacked the open letters in a pile with the silver letter opener on top of them.  Jack would come up later in the day, put the letter opener on the shelf where it belonged and sweep the letters into the waste can without reading them. 

Hey, I was done!  I jumped to my feet and snapped off the green shade reading lamp on his desk.  Then I bounded down the stairs, headed for the door.  Free at last!  I could practically taste the orange Jamba Juice I was going to have for breakfast.  I paused on the way out.

“Can I drive your new bird?” 

“You can drive my bird any time,” Eddie chuckled, but I pursed my lips at him.  That wiped the quick grin off his face.  Eddie’d had his shot with me, and he’d blown it. 

I gave my voice that school-girlish, pleading tone, and push my full red lips into a sexy pout, “Please, Jack.  Please, please, please, please…?”

It was a good act, but Jack was definitely not in the mood. 

“No, Clair-Bear,” he growled at me.  “Christ, my new car’s a classic.”

I tossed my honey-blonde curls. 

“Jack, don’t be such a bastard.  It’s not new and it’s not a classic.”

“Marilyn Monroe owned that car, and she hardly ever drove it.  It was her personal car.”

“Jack, a couple days ago you put my car on life support.”

There wasn’t much he could say to that.  He sighed, “If you have to go out, take the Jag.”

I looked over at Eddie.  We’d developed our own language.  He did a little sideways tilt of his head and a brief squint of his face combined with a shrug that meant Let it pass.

“No bird for you, Clair,” Jack said again for effect. 

I gave Eddie another look, this one that said I was thinking I’d like to tell Jack where to stuff his bird.  But I pulled myself back from the edge, the way I generally did with the Larch-ster.  The cream-yellow Jag was a sweet little number in its own right (Jack ran around telling everybody it was once owned by one of the stars on General Hospital), and, after all, I needed a ride, and the Jag was light-years better than a taxi. 

“Oh, all right,” I told him, giving my voice just enough push so he could figure I was not amused.  I put on a show, flouncing through the study like I’d gotten a mad on.   My real aim was to make my getaway before Jack had time to change his mind, but then I remembered the letter from his dead friend’s widow.  I paused, framed in the doorway that led from the study to the great room, a huge dining hall with a giant fireplace and a long, heavy table that could seat twenty-six people if they owned the right film credits or maybe had been nominated for an Oscar.

“You got a letter from Miami,” I told him.

“The town sent me a letter?” 

I’ve already told you; Jack can be a real bastard.  I bit my lip, struggling to keep my temper.  “No, Jack.  The girl.”

“It’s Mi-a Mi-i.  Mia My.”  He repeated the name for emphasis, then paused, thinking about it.  “Jesus, now you read my mail?”

“I’ve read your mail for years, remember?  You let it pile up.  Checks from publishers, threats from crazy people—everything.”

“Yeah, yeah.  What did Mia My say?” 

Jack wasn’t really listening.  His mind was miles and continents away.  He was in the southern hemisphere, marching along with Dunk Stingray as the heroic fellow sauntered out of the barren Andes foothills after dispatching three Bulgarian assassins.

“Her husband died,” I told him.

I have no idea how those three words will affect Jack.  I was just passing on the news from a letter he obviously hadn’t cared enough about to open, even though it had been sitting on the cluttered oak secretary desk in his bedroom for months.  He was in another of his foul moods, I had his permission to use the Jag, and all I wanted now was to get out of the study before some other bad thing happened.  But I wasn’t fast enough.

Jack stood up with a sudden jerking motion and shouted without turning around to face me.  He was half-crouched over and his sudden piercing cry was that of a man with a big spear or stage-four cancer in his guts.  The harshness in his voice startled Eddie, and it was more than enough to freeze me in my tracks. 

“What?!  NO!!  It can’t be!! How?”  Jack screamed his anguish, talking more to God or the devil than anyone in the room. “How could this happen?!”

As I’ve said, I’d been around Jack for quite a while, competing with the fast young crowd that wants to hang with ‘the new Hemingway,’ as he likes to be called.  In that moment I’m sure I looked every bit my nearly thirty-six years…and more.  My eyes darted from Jack to Eddie.  I was feeling uncertain, and even afraid—not of Jack , but for him.

“Some rich kid lost control of his daddy’s SUV,” I told him.  “From what Mi-a Mi-i wrote, I think he saved her when he pushed her out of the way.”

Jack sagged back in his chair. 

“Yeah,” he said to himself, talking in a low, defeated voice, “That’s something he would do.”

I was staring at Jack, shaking my head, the fun sucked out of my day.  Eddie looked out the window and didn’t say anything.  I walked back across the huge open area and sat next to Jack in the leopard print chair I use when I have to over-the-shoulder proofread for him, and after a while I gently ran one hand through his unruly stand up hair.

“Jack, I honestly didn’t know,” I told him.  “You never write him.”

“I send Christmas cards,” he grumbled.  He glared at me as if everything was my fault, “Go do your shopping.”

I knew him well enough to let the thoughtless, abrasive side of his personality slide on by.  It was part of survival in The House of Jack.  I didn’t move.  I could hear the antique windup clock ticking in another room as the silence lengthened between the three of us. 

“What the hell, Jackie-poo,” I said after a while.  “I’ve got more purses than I know what to do with.”

 

 

To read the reviews on The Freight Train of Love:
http://www.amazon.com/Freight-Train-Love-Michael-Klawitter/dp/0983037213/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363105591&sr=1-1&keywords=john+klawitter

And for more about the author click on: www.johnklawitter.com

And please check out the other samples of Boomer Lit at http://boomerlitfriday.blogspot.com.

YOU CAN MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND, IT STILL BEING A FREE COUNTRY

An old army buddy sent me this link to a chart that, in my opinion, is a clever propaganda piece designed to persuade common, everyday people to the progressive socialist agenda.

John K.

Here is my old army buddy's email to me, along with the link:

There is a ‘talking point’ going around about how Obama and the current administration is pushing a “socialist” agenda and trying to effect “wealth redistribution”. Perhaps a dose of reality would enlighten us – here’s the numbers: 

Have a look at this very effective visual demonstration.
http://mashable.com/2013/03/02/wealth-inequality/


And here is my personal reaction to the 'chart' my buddy sent me:

Obama is pushing a socialist agenda and is redistributing wealth. Starting backwards from conclusion to premise, it is possible to build a chart that proves just about anything. This is one of the weaknesses of scientific methodology, done poorly. Would you like to see a chart "developed by the AMA" that shows that a greater percentage of people die inside hospitals than in restaurants or shopping malls? From the numbers, the stunned observer might well conclude hospitals are death camps. And, if I were a stout believer in the Anti-Hospital League, I could certainly build some persuasive arguments, using examples of bad doctors, nurses and diseases people can only get in hospitals. 

But back to the chart at hand: In my opinion, the dose of reality to keep one's eye on is not in these dummied up numbers presented as developed by the obiquitious Harvard professor... but in the results of the redistribution programs so far put in place by the current administration. Allow me for your bemused consideration to add a few factors to the professor's chart: Let's add the factor of productivity: In other words, if a person is of working age and not working, they should not be counted. And, let's blend in welfare. If a person is on welfare they should tip the scale by a factor of two, because they are actually taking away from the productivity of the whole. If a person sluffs off on a job and is paid more than they are worth, if a worker feather-beds, that is, is protected by a union in a non-productive, unnecessary or outdated position, that should be a negative. People who chose not to work to maintain their personal 'way of living' also have to be considered. Poets in attics, streetcorner beggars, the fellow playing the banjo outside WalMart, the modern monk who choses to isolate him or herself. And where are we to put the ill, the maimed, those who cannot work? If we are doing a non-moral map of our economy, we can't just lump them as 'against' the folks at the top of the chart. And what about the huge, enormous hidden economy, estimated by obiquitous Harvard professors citing other evils of our society as at least 15 to 20 percent of all incomes that go unreported...after all, if we are slapping the wealthy for tax loopholes how about Harvey next door who didn't report that car he won at the church raffle or Jose the gardener and Wille the tree trimmer who report nothing? How about thee and me, fellow middle-income American?

Wow. The chart developed by a relatively unknown ponderer living in Southern California has all the grace and beauty of the one developed at Harvard...and yet it looks stunningly different. You, being a fair and openminded person, have to ask yourself, "How can this be?"

 

Disappointing

Selective outrage is just another aspect of the self-delusion of pop progressivism.  Having strong convictions but weak moral principles, the peepees flail about and make bad decisions and then wonder who to blame.  Stand well out of the way; you wouldn't want to get your shoes wet.   

Publish and Perish

Yes, I am fully aware that when my cousin writes my biography he may use my various pennames, alias and code names and the fact that I wrote so knowledgeably of time travel as proof of my relationships with famous poets and scholars throughout history. 

Last Flight

In a recent post on Goodreads I referred to my short story "Last Flight", and I had a few emails wondering where that could be found.  It was published by Double Dragon Publishing in Twisted Tails IV, under my writing alias, Clay Rhett.  p. 159. 

Evaluation

Well, re-electing Obama wasn't the end of the world, after all.  On the other hand, it wasn't the best choice, was it?  Or are we all still convinced it was?  For my part, I finally figured out one small piece of the puzzle.  Obama isn't solving my problems... he orates constantly, he sermonizes, he lectures, he pounds the pulpit, he hammers away like Castro used to down in Cuba.  If we are now going to insist  repetition is a good thing, well, okay.  But good for whom?  There's lots of noise up on the podium, but I can feel somebody's hand groping big-time in my lower middle-class pocket, you know, the one where I keep my steadily  thinning wallet.

Let's do a reality check:  Has inflation stopped chewing into our hard earned dollars?  Are we paying less for groceries?  For gasoline?  Have our taxes gone down?  Is it costing us less to feed and educate our kids and put new shoes on their feet?  Did we get a big raise this year to compensate for the shrinking value of our incomes?  Did our social security checks increase by 10 or 20% over the past few years to keep up with our expenses?   Has the government reined in their run-away spending?  Let's say it another way.  How badly do we have to hurt before we admit it?  Or is saying we are right more important than fixing our  problems?  The good thing is, in this country nobody forces us to do anything in our own interest.  That is a good thing, right?

A CHRISTMAS CAROL FOR ALL AMERICANS WHO CHERISH THIS COUNTRY MORE THAN THEIR REVERED ANCIENT HOMELANDS,  FORMER  TRIBAL AFFILIATIONS, CUSTOMS AND RITUALS

I woke from one of those dizzy nightmares brought on by a back pain relieving cocktail of vicodin and robaxin and it being the holiday season there in front of me were the ghastly spirits of Lenin, Some Chicago Radical and a bleary smear of a shifty Grey Presence that I couldn't make out, though I thought I knew who or what it was.  The three of them were glowing and wavering at the foot end of my bed like rubbery radium half-life faces on black-light t-shirts flickering in a night club.  I knew at once they were the ghastly rave vapors of past, present and future.

My still half-slumbering mind swam up into the middle of the conversation and Lenin was saying, "Well Marx was right, you know."

 The Chicago Radical shook his head. " Karl was a numbers guy. Numbers, numbers, always the numbers."  But in the next second his wavery he-radical image morphed into an angry she-radical with a bushy head of flourescent yellow hair and a snarl on her pink lipstick lips. "I hate accounting," she shouted.  "Kill the pigs!"

And then the Chicago Radical reverted to his former bland male self.  It was a bit o a jarring transposition, at least to me.  He looked like a mild-mannered middle-aged assistant manager at a McDonalds with overtones of professorial superiority.   He flipped one hand in a weary gesture that said he knew more than even the spirit of Lenin might, "Lennie-boy, Seeing the faults in the system is a nice way to make a living, but factual arguments get you nowhere."

His other half resolved herself back into the visual plane long enough to scream, "Right, kill the dirty fascist pigs!" 

On the instant of his quick-morphing return, the Chicago Radical looked only slightly annoyed; he was used to such interruptions.  "Solutions are what count. Results count. "

"Carl should have spent more time energizing his own penis!" the comeback lady with the pink lipstick shouted.

Lenin smoothed his beard, which was more dapper than I remembered it from the old photographs on the History Channel. "What is that crude-ness supposed to mean?" he said, calmly eyeing the wild feminine ranter.

The Chicago Radical returned and cleared his throat.  He looked a little embarrassed.  "She means Marx could count the spots on a pig and the stars in the sky, but he didn't know human nature."

"Which is?"

"Greed. Our natural instinct is to gather crops and horses and stuff against the bad times. We don't share it, we hoard it.   Nothing else matters--not race, religion, nationality--people are all the same; that's why we call them the masses.   And as individuals we're not nice.  We're all  mean mudderfuckers."

Lenin nodded, "It is true, we do not kiss the cheek that farts on us."

"Right.  See, us...that is, you and me and her, we're just the best of the bad.  The way I see it, in our deal people's stuff does get spread around.  It's just that we're the ones who say who gets what. And that's because we care.  We care more than anybody else.  So no more checks and balances.  Just us."

Lenin nodded his approval.  "You certainly have achieved the dumbness down spiral of  Mr. and Mrs Average American since World War II.  Commendable!"

The Chicago Radical took on a look of smug satisfaction.  "Well, yes.  Vietnam helped a lot.  There was Me First, the Sex Revolution, and Feel good, everything is going to be okay.  Incredible!   Not even a generation after the Great Depression and radiation bombs on Hiroshima, and they could believe that! 

"Still, you may not be out of the birch trees yet, Comrade."  Lenin gave the Chicago Radical a wry look, "What if your  Supremes will show some balls."

Pink Lips shrieked back into sight, "Motown? Are you nuts, you fruity old Ruskie?"

"You misunderstand me, unpleasant one," Lenin said with a slight bow in her direction, "Not the musical expressionism of the Daffy-In-Love Afro.  I speak of the Supreme Court."

"You're just history, Lenny."

"Do you not believe there is some small chance your countrymen, even in their mind-weakened state,  will wise up in time?"

"I don't think so." the Radical said.   His feminine alternative popped back in, "Not in a million years, Bolshitski!!"

The third apparition, the smeary blotch that that hadn't said anything up until now, had manufactured a fixed smile that was making me uneasy.  I had the impression that he was impatient with all the talk.  He wanted to eat something and he looked fiercely hungry. 

"What do you think?" Lenin asked.   And with that, the  three of them turned their expectant gazes on me.