NEW BOOK

Here is a taste of my new book. It's not quite there yet but it will give you an idea of where I'm going and introduce the main character.

Trailer Trash

“Hurry up, come on Max, you have to get up,” Anna said, tugging at the collar of Max’s Hooters T-shirt. Yes, the same Hooters T-shirt he wore under his light blue Polo shirt when he won the Masters. He hadn’t washed the T-shirt since--for superstitious reasons of luck--and when he took it off and threw it on the floor next to his bed it would stand up on its own for a moment before it collapsed into a dirty heap like an old building.

“Get up now, Max,” Anna said more forcefully this time

Maxwell felt like Alice in Wonderland falling down that deep dark rabbit hole when her voice hit him first thing in the morning. In this black void he felt as if his soul had been sucked out his ear hole and deposited in a surreal world where unfortunately all was as it seemed; no dreams only the desolate dissimilarity of his life now and that of which he lived as a professional golfer.

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t how a superstar is supposed to wake up. Where’s the smell of freshly brewed coffee and frying bacon? Where’s the foot massage and--”

“Now!” Anna screamed

“Redrum, redrum,” Max said, trying in vane to roll over and hide under his leopard print comforter. His speech was still slightly slurred, as if he were speaking with a soggy washcloth in his cheek. It was difficult for anyone other than Anna to understand him and even she couldn’t make out everything he said, especially when he was agitated and began to speak more rapidly.

“That’s the worst imitation I’ve ever heard of that kid from the Shining movie,” Anna said.

“I doubt it’s the worst. I’ve studied that film extensively. Redrum, redrum.”

There was a violent flash of white light as Anna jerked the curtain open. Max felt like Dracula in a tanning bed; his severely white skin illuminated like the aluminum wing of a DC-47 under the fire of the morning sun.

“Redrum that you thankless lily white shit,” Anna said.

“Aren’t personal assistants supposed to listen to their bosses?” Max groaned.

“I work for you. You don’t own me.”

“I liked you better when you were just my caddie.”

“And I liked you better when you were a drunken druggy and winning every damn tournament you played in.”

“Yes…those were better times weren’t they?”

“Much better,” Ann said, “now come on.”

Anna hefted Max out of bed in one big scoop; his semi-functional erection was poking out of his pajamas like a tired prairie dog. He tried to hide this um…indiscretion behind his withered left hand but alas, since the stroke his central nervous system had been as uncooperative as a goat standing in a recycling bin full of tin cans, especially on the left side.

“What are you doing?” Anna demanded.

“Move damn it move,” Max yelled at his hand.

“Are you trying to masturbate while I’m carrying you?”

“No! For God’s sake I was just trying to cover—“

But it was too late. Anna dropped Max on the hard trailer floor and when he landed the reverberation echoed throughout the aluminum shell of their white trash home and up through the shrunken husk that was his body. He lay with his nose buried in the foul orange shag carpet, twisted and filthy strands of the artificial fiber half an inch deep in each of his nostrils. The carpet was seasoned with the varying personal odors of its previous tenants and Max was pretty sure he could distinguish several of these odors which included; cigar, old shoe, luncheon meat, dog dirt, and sauerkraut.

“Pahhh,” was the sound that came out of Max’s mouth as he jerked his head from the carpet gasping for breath. He was pretty sure that he had contracted some illness, that some latent germ--lying in waiting like a special forces soldier--in the forest of carpet fibers had hopped into his nose and had made his way straight to his brain.

“You’re a pervert,” Anna said, standing over Max with her arms folded over her chest.

Max laid pathetically on the floor twitching like a gunshot pigeon. Silently he cursed his existence and hers. He hated his life, the walls of their aluminum abode served only as a sinister reminder of the life that he’d lost. The Windstorm 3000 was their seventh “home” in eight months. They had stayed one step ahead of Botis Dorjan but he knew they couldn’t outrun him forever and just then he didn’t give a rat’s ass.

“Well, are you going to pick me up or do you want to watch me struggle for a half hour trying to get up in the mini-Ferrari?”

“I want to watch you struggle.”

“Come on love lips, help me up.”

“Max, one of these days I’m just going to walk out on you,” she said, hoisting him up.

Max could feel her biceps, as big as avocados poking into my back. She propped him up in the plush hand tooled leather seat of his electric wheelchair which he had affectionately named the mini-Ferrari. A golf mechanic friend of Max’s had modified the clunky Panther X71, replacing the standard electric motor with a Kawasaki Prairie 650 Twin-V engine, the wimpy utilitarian wheels with thick knobby radials and tricked out rims and had installed a satellite radio and MP3 player. His buddy figured he needed the power of an ATV engine and the slick turning radius of the Panther and knew with Max’s money that he’d enjoy the other pimping he’d done to the wheelchair. He was right. It saved Max’s ass more than once and looked damn slick for a wheelchair but he had his share of spills on it and almost killed himself when he drove it into the bathroom one time to brush his teeth, the engine still running. He had shut the door and was inhaling carbon monoxide from the engine. Luckily, Anna found him slumped over the sink and gave me CPR. Anna thought it was a suicide attempt, a cry for help.

“Thank-you for being human. Now how about a sambuca and coffee sweet thing?” Max said

“The doctor said no caffeine. Do you want to die in this skuzzy trailer home?”

“I’ve been chatting with the Grim Reaper a lot lately. He seems to have a good retirement plan. It includes full dental and health…not that you’d need either one of those in his company but it’s good to have the peace of mind when the big Styrofoam hammer comes down.”

“Styrofoam hammer?”

“It’s a clown’s world my dear.”

“Yeah, and you’re the ring leader.”

The top of Anna’s Polo shirt was gapped open and being in addition to an invalid a full time pervert Max couldn’t resist a lascivious gander. Bingo. Silicone valley and not a bad job at that but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was Tupperware under her shirt, they were too perfect, too perky and so hard they didn’t jiggle not even when she ran. He was sure she bought them with the money from one of her tour victories but he hadn’t worked up the guts to ask her yet. He’d made it one of his goals in life to one day hang from them like a spider monkey and suckle them in a fit of sexual fury. She would be his. Oh, yes she would. He felt it like one feels icy pool water on their testicles when they slowly wade in the shallow end.

“Max, you need a haircut,” Anna said, as she cracked eggs and dumped them onto a frying pan.

“You stay away from my hair,” Max said, running a gnarled hand through his mullet.

He had to watch Anna around his locks. She’d wanted to cut his mullet ever since she’d signed on as his caddy. Her claim was that the mullet had gone the way of other 1980’s fads like the Swatch, jelly shoes, and parachute pants. Max only half joked that he was gaining momentum for the new mullet movement that he was sure would take over the land one day and he, being a founding father would control the course of hair history and his name would be spoken synonymously with the mullet and remembered as such famous hairdo duos as the Afro and Jimi Hendrix, Vince Lombardi and the flattop, and the Elvis and the pompadour. Anna felt the out of style mullet made him look like a redneck. Max told her, “I look like Jon Daily in the mid nineties when he won the US Open.” It was true John Daily still had a mullet and had kept the

“Max that hair is so passé. I mean the only guys that have hair like that anymore look like eighties rejects. You’d look a lot better if you just shaved your head,” Anna said.

“Better? I’d look like a wet baby bald eagle.”

Anna smiled and Max was transported to the gap between her two front teeth where he happily wedged himself, losing himself in the beauty of her happiness. Drool spilled out of the side of my mouth.

“The UPS man stopped. There’s a package in the dining room for you,” Anna said.

A coldness like a wet horse blanket covered Max and he shivered.

“Wow, they’re really starting to deliver early,” I said.

“It’s almost noon.”

“Uh, right I meant early for a trailer park,” Max said.

“For a trailer park?”

Max didn’t answer he had started the mini-Ferrari and driven into the dinning room to retrieve the package.

“I told you not to start that thing in the house,” Anna yelled.

“How do you want me to get around?” Max shouted back.

“How about wheeling yourself around like a normal person in a wheelchair?”

Exhaust spewed out of the mini-Ferraris exhaust pipe quickly filling the tiny trailer home so Max cut the engine. He started to hack unmercifully and nearly fell out of the mini-Ferrari.

“I told you not to turn that thing on in here,” Anna said.

She had a washcloth over her mouth and tried with one arm to push the window open over the kitchen sink.

He gazed at the package fearful of what laid inside. It was a nondescript brown paper job like all the others, about the size of an unabridged dictionary with no return address. Each on he was sure held the message he’d been fearing ever since he’d signed on with Botis Dorjan and Pravus golf.

“Fuck it,” Max said.

With great effort--for his body was still extremely weak from the stroke--he cut away at the packaging tape with the scissors attachment of his Leatherman and a few minutes later was able to peel the flaps back.

“Oh, my God,” Max said.

“What is it?” Anna asked.

“Nothing,” he said, pushing the flaps of the box shut.

“Is that another pair of underwear from one of your groupies?”

“Uh, yeah underwear,” Max said.

“These women are ridiculous,” Anna said.

“Who said they were from a woman,” Max said and smiled like he meant it.

Anna couldn’t help herself she giggled. Max made her feel good and he knew this. She wouldn’t hurt a hair on his mullet.

In his mind Max saw a physical showdown, two nude bodies charging at each other from across the landscape of freshly made bed, the flicker of candlelight in the background as their flesh clapped together, their tongues like great pink serpents met. Something stirred in Max’s shorts.

“What’s wrong with you?” Anna asked.

“Wrong?” Max said.

“You’re blushing.”

“I’m not blushing. It’s the exhaust from the mini-Ferrari.”

“Whatever. I have to go to the grocery store. Can you behave yourself while I’m gone?” Anna asked.

“Yes mother,” Max said.

He enjoyed the alone time when Anna went to the store. It allowed him to get into things he knew she would disapprove of including his stash of high end titty magazines.

I don’t have full motion on my left side yet. The doctor said I should recover a good portion of mobility on my left side and one day I might be able to speak so someone other than Anna can understand me. Even she still has trouble sometimes when I get agitated or too excited. I still wear a notepad around my neck to scribble notes on.