The Writer's Life 8/18 - Hemen

It was inevitable. Opponents of President Obama's policies have been dubbed racist from the get-go. The operative word now that Hillary has been nominated is "misogynist." "Xenophobe" has been in play for months. Expect the left to become even more unhinged now that polls are showing the race, if not dead even, has fallen within the margin of error. The charges are as serious as the following:

Thank you, Spanky.

Here's a brief excerpt from Five Cents, a novel I plan to self-publish through Create Space in January. The protagonist, a Vietnam vet, has traveled to NYC, circa 1970, during spring break from his job teaching introductory college lit courses. On this day he is in Coney Island. He is not a member of the aforementioned organization:
   He strolled toward the Boardwalk. The beach was practically deserted. Nearby, a man was throwing a stick that a German Shepherd eagerly tracked down. The excited bark rose above the sound of the retreating tide. He approached the shoreline and gazed out at the seemingly endless horizon. The tide was retreating. He strolled along, deep in thought. A series of jetties divided the vast beach into sections more than 100 yards long. He sat on a large, flat boulder and scooped up a fistful of sand and tossed it about idly in his hand. An elderly couple passed, holding hands, and he experienced an acute pang of loneliness. In the distance he spotted a bridge to seemingly nowhere. He focused on the sand in his palm. The moist particles clung together. He sifted through them, forcing the bulk of them out of his hand with an index finger. The final particles would not separate. He let them fall, rubbed his hands together, and moved to where the sand was dry. He scooped up another fistful and watched the excess flow over the sides and seep through his fingers until it leveled off. He then shook his hand until only specks remained. He sifted carefully through these until only one was left, and stared admiringly at it, one of an infinite number that comprised Coney Island Beach. He let it fall and looked toward the sun, avoiding the literary pretension burgeoning within him.

My thanks to the gentleman who purchased Basic Judaism, and to Barry Spunt, author of Heroin and Music in NYC, who overpaid for bios on Tina Turner and Dion. The good doctor is always on the look out for works he can use in his ongoing research on the subject. Without his continued generosity, the session would have been bleak.

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