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I’m writing beneath a blanket of stars.
I’m on the boat again. No storms in sight this time, just a few stray flashes of heat lightning over Mount Nebo. I’m thinking about my dad and how I should’ve written about him in last week’s column. You know, Father’s Day and all that.
Maybe I forgot Dad because he’s not here. He’s out beneath the stars too, somewhere around North Dakota last I heard.
A few years back, my father started bicycling across the country. He does it in forty-day bursts, camps in city parks and baseball fields way out in the middle of nowhere. This time, he said he didn’t want to go; he just felt like it was something he had to do.
So off he went, the same way he’d go camping on his own when I was kid, hiking up the Ozark Highland Trail until he was out of sight and Mom would put our minivan in Reverse, headed home again.
I used to think Dad’s solitary camping trips were weird. A lot of people still don’t get his biking excursions. No AC? No showers? He must be crazy!
People might think I was crazy if they saw me right now, lying flat on my pontoon boat’s bench, staring up at the stars. I’m way out in the middle of Lake Dardanelle, over close to the Arkansas River channel. It’s quiet. The sky is clear.
It takes some doing to get away from the world. Even out here in my boat, I can still hear the interstate if the wind blows in from the north. The Russellville “city lights” radiate to my south, a faint glow like a winter sunrise. But, if I lie flat back on the bench and let the gunwales block my peripherals, all I can see is sky.
I wonder if Dad sees the same thing too.
He’s the one who first showed me the stars. He didn’t always camp alone. We had a spot on Piney Creek we went to for years. On cool, clear nights, we’d leave the tent in the bag and unroll our sleeping mats on the rocky bank. It didn’t take Dad long to teach me what he knew of astronomy: Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Dog Star, etc…
The science wasn’t what was important, though. It was the wonder. The falling stars and satellites that ignited my mind like nothing had before. When I got back to school, I was amazed to find most of my friends had never stargazed. They’d never looked up much at all.
Lying here in my boat, I realize that it’s been a while since I’ve turned my eyes heavenward. Too long. Maybe that’s why I’m out here. This last year has been a whirlwind. Two novels, two kids, and too many trips to count. But the days get longer in the summer. Things slow down enough to wonder again.
Like Dad’s reluctance about leaving, I didn’t really want to get the boat out of the dock. It’s a lot of work. Ropes and oil and depth finder checks. The lake at night is kind of scary too. But the view—those same stars that first ignited my imagination, the same sky my father is out there under somewhere—the view is always worth it.
Don't Know Tough
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In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing from the Pool
• Writing from the Kitchen
• Writing from Summer
• Writing from Kindergarten
• Writing from Mom
• Writing from a Plane
• Writing from Home
• My second novel’s publication
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
• Writing from a Thunderstorm
• Writing from a Soundbooth
• Writing from “Jazz Beach"
• Writing from the Sabbath
• Writing from somewhere between Little Rock and Russellville
• Writing from my back deck
• Writing from the morning of my thirty-fifth year
• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
• Writing from the space between breaths
• Writing from 2022
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• Writing from the glow of a plastic Christmas tree
• Writing on a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster
• Writing from the drop-off line at my daughter’s elementary school
• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
• Writing from the crowd before the start of a Shovels & Rope show
• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
• Writing from the Ron Robinson Theatre
• Writing to you on Halloween Eve
• Writing from my bed on a Saturday morning
• Writing from my office with two darts clenched in my left hand
• Writing from the shade of my favorite tree
• Writing from my desk on a Tuesday morning
• Writing from a pirate ship
• Writing from the airport
• Writing from the hospital
• I'm writing from the water
• Writing from my wife's Honda Pilot
• Writing from my office |
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