Writers AMuse Me Publishing

It feels like a family reunion when you crack open a Dupees of Gray County book. This large family is one that we all can relate to, as it fumbles, stumbles, and charges its way through life, sharing the laughs and love along the way. Fruit Salad and Wings is no different. This is our fourth glimpse at this wonderful family, this time focusing on Elspeth and Corliss (Bozo to you Shakey Smith aficionados). Thankfully this is not the last of the Dupees... the fifth book, Stairbirds in Love, will be available in the fall.

Fruit Salad and Wings by Shakey Smith

Chapter 1 -- Two Oblong Melons

Step 1: Choose two ripe, oblong watermelons. Scoop and ball the first, reserving the melon balls in an airtight plastic container. Cut the second melon lengthwise. After scooping the contents, scallop the edges in a decorative manner…

Strawberries and peaches, grapes, cherries and pineapples were whirling across the gleaming countertop in a mad mazurka. The melon balls were staging a jailbreak from their airtight container to join the shenanigans. Elspeth was doing her best to ignore them all. She was wearing a pigeon-crowned chef’s hat, intent on scalloping a watermelon shell with a handy light saber. The edges had to be just right or the whole fruit basket would be a lopsided mess. She knew this from sorry experience. Obi Won Kenobi, dressed as Martha Stewart, gave her a reassuring wink.

“Past the prime! Soft and faded and weepy… look at those wrinkles!” An angry voice rasped through the open screen of her bedroom window. Elspeth dropped her light saber and frowned.

“She is only rape,” a lower voice reasoned.

“Ripe? Rotten! I can’t make a fruit salad with that bruised mess! A cobbler maybe… but this is July! It’s too blazing hot for…”

“Is only rape!”

“Ripe? Ready for the worms! I can’t serve that to Corliss!” the angry voice ranted.

Shut up, you bawling cow! The words raced through Elspeth’s torpid mind. For a heart hammering second, she chewed her pillow. Had she spoken the words or merely thought them? Five seconds ago she was dreaming up a harmless, if animated, fruit salad. Now her happy dream was vaporized. The one before had been so sad.

“Shut up! The sun isn’t even up and you’re on your broom!” A voice, very like Elspeth’s, shrieked from the next window.

“Oh, Jeez!” Elspeth stumbled to her feet and pushed her tousled hair out of her eyes. She pulled a seersucker robe over her late husband’s softball jersey, which now served as a nightgown, then stumbled down the hallway to defuse the situation.

Too late. The voice of Connie Dupee railed from the driveway below. “Augusta Zaiser! A twenty-year-old girl who’s still abed at this hour of the morning is a disgrace! When I was your age, I had my own house, a husband and three babies to tend!”

“No doubt you delivered them yourself while plowing the south forty!” Augusta shouted from her bedroom window.

Four swift, bare steps carried Elspeth across the room and to the window. She caught a tiny ball of dark-haired fury by the back of her nightshirt then slung her from the window seat, onto the double bed. “Stay! Gusty! Stay!” she commanded.

Connie Dupee ranted on, standing in the driveway below, shaking a diamond-studded fist at the Zaiser house. “I’m sure there’s some housework you could be doing to help your poor, widowed mother. God knows, your grandmother is turning in her grave the way her house is being kept. There’s a garden out here needs some attention; might be a project for you and your lay-about sisters. So full of foxtail and spurge that it would shame a white person. Studded with heathen talismans and popish idols, a Christian would take a hoe and tear into that satanic mess…”

Again, Elspeth caught her hell-bent daughter as she sprang for the window. She held her by her shoulders.

It was Augusta’s turn to rant. “Mom! We didn’t get home from work until three. How can I sleep with that old bitch haggling over fruit? A husband and three babies at twenty? That’s nothing to brag about!” Gusty tried to push past her mother.

“Stay!” Elspeth guided Gusty into an armchair then stepped to the open window. “Give it a rest, Connie. That’s not an idol, popish or otherwise. It’s a statue of Mary. You know that. It was my mother’s. It’s been there for thirty years and it’s not going anywhere.”

“The commandments say…”

“We’ve been over this before. There seems to be some discrepancies between my commandments and yours. The statue stays.” Elspeth crossed her arms.

“What about that heathen fetish?” The tall, steely-haired neighbor lady pointed to a quasi-scare-crowish, but decidedly female, effigy mounted on a pole, overlooking a weedy patch of tomatoes, peppers, floppy dill, bolted lettuce and parched corn.

Wearily, Mrs. Z. peered out of the upstairs window, taking in the family vegetable garden. She stifled a shudder and smiled politely. “That’s Annie’s corn dolly.”

“It’s a slap in the face to the First Commandment!” Connie Dupee’s voice cleared the pigeons out of the eaves.

Elspeth blew a sigh through her dark bangs. She spoke slowly. “It’s an old Celtic custom. Annie researched it. It doubles the fruit of the plot it guards, and it does keep the jays out of the strawberries.”

“The girl says she’s a witch! Flat out owns to sorcery!”

Elspeth managed a smile and a scoff. “It’s a phase. She’ll outgrow it when she goes to college this fall. Look, the girls worked a double shift last night. Could you and Eleno take your transaction over to your backdoor? Gusty needs to sleep before she reads to Corliss at nine. ”

“Six dollars an hour to sit in the shade and read? I call that taking advantage of a blind man.” Connie shook her head. Not a single strand of her stainless steel bouffant was disturbed.

“Corliss set the wage,” Mrs. Z. replied, her smile stretched into a grimace; her arms still folded.

“Girl told me to shut up,” Mrs. Dupee grumbled.

Elspeth uncrossed her arms and put her hands on the window sill. “The girl is short on sleep. She and Annie are taking all the hours they can get at the nursing home this summer. They’re saving for college. I’d rather have them sleeping late than help me around the house. Augusta will apologize to you this morning, when she comes over to read to Bozo.”

Mrs. Dupee gave this some thought before taking her hands from her hips. She pointed to the backyard. “I took your laundry down this morning… the cutwork table linens that your Aunt Gusty made; didn’t want the dew to spoil them. They’re folded and in a basket by the kitchen door. I picked a bowl of cherries for you last night. It’s in the jam closet. Corliss will never remember that it’s there. I made up a sauce to top your rice pudding. It’s in the refrigerator. Be sure to remind Corliss about that, too.”

“Oh, thank you,” Elspeth said. “I forgot those things were on the line when I went to bed last night. Thank you for the cherries. I was just thinking of doing a fruit salad for supper tonight… the one Mom used to make, in the watermelon shell. Do you remember it? I can’t find Mom’s recipe. If you have it, could I borrow it?”

Connie pursed her lips. “Well, that’s no wonder to me; there’s no rhyme nor reason in that kitchen of yours. I have the recipe. It’s the same as your mother’s, but I use a can of ginger ale instead of wine.”

“Yes, I remember that.” Elspeth smiled.

“I’ll leave it on the counter for you. I’m going to Meade today for a funeral. I’d thank you if you could give Corliss his lunch as well as his breakfast. You know how absent-minded he gets when he’s writing.”

“I have to go to Cimarron this morning, to the bank and to the library. Tell him to come over at twelve-thirty.”

Connie nodded.

Elspeth turned to address the man standing in the back of a produce-laden pick-up truck. “Buenos días, Eleno. ¿Hay sandías?”

“Buenos días Señora Zaiser. Mis sandías are nice. Very sweet. Very rape. También los duraznos. ¡Mira!” He gestured to a pyramid of rose and amber globes, shooting an aggrieved look at Connie Dupee.

Connie was not having any of it. She dismissed the peaches with a wave of her hand then entered her house, slamming her screen door.

Elspeth ended the transaction. “Entonces, dame dos sandías y una cesta media de duraznos. Te pagaré en sábado.”

“Hokay. Where I put she?”

“Por la puerta.”

“Hokay good,” Eleno agreed, taking two watermelons to the porch and parking them on the top two steps. Next, he tucked six peaches into a plastic basket and settled them on the porch rail.

“Gracias,” Elspeth called after him as he pulled his faded blue pick-up out of the driveway that both houses shared.

She lowered the blinds and unknotted the lace curtains that framed the bedroom window. A small paper bag tucked into the window sash caught her attention. She opened the bag and dealt her second-born a scowl.

“Firecrackers left over from the Fourth,” Gusty answered, without being asked, all wide violet eyes and dark tousled hair.

“Not firecrackers; cherry bombs. I’ll keep these,” Elspeth said through clenched teeth as she rolled the bag shut.

“They’re not even mine. I’m keeping them for some-one else… someone with a nosy mother.”

“Augusta,” Elspeth began, not unkindly. “Let me tell you a scary little piece of gossip that I heard the other day from Glenn Pfannenstiel at the Co-Op. It seems that there were some juveniles playing out at the sandpit this weekend. They were swimming out there, which everyone knows is illegal, not to mention plain dangerous. These misguided delinquents went so far as to make a big bonfire, which is especially stupid when one considers that there isn’t a tree, a house, a hill, or even a tall tumbleweed between here and the Sheriff’s Office in Cimarron.”

Gusty sighed one of those weary, eye-rolling sighs that so vex a mother’s heart. Elspeth wanted to holler. She did not. Hannah, Gusty’s older sister, was sleeping in the same room. The last thing Elspeth needed was Hannah awake and growling.

“Any way, these juveniles were cooking hot dogs and hamburgers at this bonfire. Rumor has it that they were not drinking soda pop. Rumor also has it that these juveniles had stolen a box of watermelons off one of the Doemler’s produce trucks.”

There was another frustrated sigh.

Elspeth continued. “When Deputy Simmons went out to the sandpit to investigate, some brazen juvenile bombarded her with cherry bombs from the top of the dredging tower. When Deputy Simmons tried to give chase, the child dove from the tower, swam the pit, and disappeared: a very illegal and flat stupid thing to do.” Elspeth paused to deal Gusty a look that she hoped was disconcerting.

Gusty returned the stare with a chilly one of her own.

Elspeth leveled her forefinger. “Deputy Simmons could only describe this juvenile delinquent as small, female, weighing one hundred pounds or less, dark-haired and one hell of a swimmer. Until this very moment, I, like the rest of the county, have been wondering who that delinquent female could be.”

“Mom! That’s high school stuff! I’m in college!”

Elspeth took a seat on the edge of the double bed, and folded the bag of fireworks in her hands. “You’re good; very convincing. You never confess. You never deny. I especially admire your tone of righteous indignation. Your father would have fallen for it in a heartbeat. I, on the other hand, am convinced that you are the mad bomber. Only the fact that I would have to cover fines and court fees prevents me from calling Chief Khorf and ratting out your unrepentant and incorrigible little fanny. I’ll keep these.” She shook the bag.

“Mom, you don’t have any proof...”

Elspeth pulled the sheets back and motioned Gusty to bed. “I don’t need proof. I am your mother. I urge you to remember last summer when I paid out… let’s see – the tow bill, MIP, the diversion, court fees, and legal fees to Dupee and Dupee, Attorneys at Law – at a special rate, thanks to Tre Dupee, who has always had the hots for me – five hundred seventy-two dollars and six cents; money I had to pull out of Grandpa’s CD…”

Gusty slugged her pillows in disgust. One fell to the floor. “Put away the keys, Mom. I’m not going on your guilt trip. It’s your fault… for moving us here, to Wodan, Kansas – the shit-kicking, cousin-humping, yee-haw capitol of the world. Why couldn’t we have stayed in Chicago Heights?”

Elspeth picked the pillow off the floor and plumped it. “I couldn’t afford the house in Illinois after Daddy got sick. You know that. We had to move here.”

“Why couldn’t I stay in Emporia for summer school?”

“I can’t afford your apartment rent this summer, not with Annie starting college next month. You know Daddy’s medical bills…” Elspeth tucked the pillow behind her daughter. “Look, you are putting me on a guilt trip for something that I can’t help. When you go to read to Doctor Dupee, you will apologize to his mother.”

Gusty slumped back against the pillow, the picture of shock and outrage. “Didn’t you hear what that horrible woman said? She said that I’m ripping him off. I’m never going over there again.”

“Corliss asked you to read. You can’t renege on your agreement to spite his mother. He needs that research, the books are old and faded, and his eyes can’t take the strain. You’ll have to stick it out.”

“I hate that woman. She’s the nastiest person in Gray County.”

“In Western Kansas,” Elspeth corrected. “But you can’t hate her. Mrs. Dupee and your grandmother were neighbors for forty years. She’s still grieving for Grandma, just like we are. Grandma wouldn’t want us to be rude to her. Mrs. Dupee means well. She just doesn’t realize how she comes off.”

“She’s so prejudiced.”

Elspeth patted absent-mindedly at her daughter’s knee. “Mrs. Dupee didn’t used to be this... grim. She was always nuts, but not mean-spirited, not like this. Then she became a zealot. Wild-eyed fundamentalists are never pleasant company. Annie’s herb garden is getting a bit bizarre. A couple of saner citizens have mentioned it.”

“She hates everybody! For Christ’s sake, she says Disney is undermining our moral values! Disney, Mom?”

Elspeth nodded. “Small town people tend to be xenophobic.”

Gusty scoffed. “Xenophobic? Wodan is the actual setting of ‘The Lottery’. Shirley Jackson had car trouble here, in the early forties…”

Elspeth cut this diatribe short with a stern finger. “Okay! Here are the facts: I’m in debt. I owe a hospital in Chicago more money than I make in a year. I own this house free and clear. I have a teaching job here. This is my hometown. As tough as they are on outsiders, they always take care of their own. It’s a tribal kind of thing. This is our home now and Connie Dupee is our neighbor. We will respect her! Don’t wake your sister. I cannot deal with two of you at once.” She added this because Hannah had made a soft moan, rolled onto her back, flinched at the milky sunlight filtering through the east window, and thrown her arm across her lightly-freckled nose.

Gusty whispered. “Mrs. Dupee is always on Hannah’s case, too. She tells her she had better stop loolygaggling and get a job. What the hell is loolygaggling? I can’t find it in any dictionary.”

“Lollygagging; one o, two ls. Mrs. Dupee may have a point. Graduation seems to have unhinged Hannah. When those college loans come due…”

Hannah pulled her pillow over her head.

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” Mrs. Z. whispered wryly, tugging the pillow to ensure that her firstborn had a breathing passage.

“She’s plain brutal,” Gusty observed.

“Oh, no, Sweetheart; she may be irritable but she doesn’t have a mean bone in her body.” Tenderly Mrs. Z. patted at Hannah’s Hollywood- bronzed shoulder.

“Not Hannah. Mrs. Dupee. She’s so negative,” Gusty explained.

Elspeth shrugged. “Negative doesn’t touch it. Connie Dupee is a hard, bitter old woman. In my day, old people were supposed to be bitter. We expected it of them. When Connie Dupee was your age, hard work and scolding were what made the world go around. Western Kansas in the thirties…”

“American Lit. 303 – The Dust Bowl,” Gusty groaned, eyes cast heavenward.

Mentally Elspeth tucked away her lecture notes and stood to leave. “Regardless of how annoying, abrasive, and plain goofy Mrs. Dupee is, you will apologize before noon.”

“But Mom…”

“Why are you sleeping in here, anyway? You have a bedroom across the hall where you almost can’t hear Mrs. Dupee.”

“It’s an oven in there. We need air conditioning!”

“Need and afford: two vastly differing concepts. Why didn’t you sleep on the back porch with Annie?”

“She creeped us out with her Wicca… and Walter.” Gusty ran her fingers through her straight, dark hair.

“It’s a phase.” Elspeth took her fingers through her own straight, dark hair.

“That’s right, Mom. Look the other way.”

“Mrs. Dupee is right. The garden is a mess. You can hoe it after you read to Corliss. That gives you about two hours to sleep.”

Taking up her pillow, Gusty stomped, barefooted, out of the room and down the stairs to the back porch.

Elspeth shook her eldest daughter’s shoulder. “Hannah, Tennyson says she will put your resume on floppy disk this evening, if you have it ready to type. I’ll buy extra stamps and envelopes today when I go to town. Did you look at those ads I brought home?” Elspeth peeked under her daughter’s pillow. “The summer after graduation is such an exciting time. Daddy and I stayed here with Grandma and Grandpa. We took all summer to weigh our prospects. Do you remember that? Tennyson and I took you and Shorty to the wading pool in Cimarron every day.” Elspeth knelt down so that she could speak face to face with her daughter. This was not easy because her daughter’s face was squished into the chenille coverlet.

Elspeth sighed and tugged at the coverlet, rolling it down and folding it at the foot of the bed. Hannah slumbered on. Elspeth shook her head in wonder. She went to fetch her husband.

She returned carrying a studio portrait of a long haired, bearded, tie-dyed, college senior. She held the photo up to better enhance her late husband’s view, all the while speaking in a conversational whisper: “So, Jay, do you remember the two a.m. feedings that went on for a year? The screaming nap scenes? The bedtime hassles that we always lost? Take a look at this new development. Your daughter has been sleeping since the twenty-sixth of May. It has me beat. You give it some thought. I’ll get back with you.”

Elspeth settled the portrait into the bookcase in the empty headboard that had once held her husband’s westerns. “Oh, and keep an eye on these, too. I can’t afford another lawless summer.” She tucked the bag of fireworks behind the picture frame.


Fruit Salad and Wings trailer.

Fruit Salad and Wings is available in Print, Digital and Kindle formats.

Lt. Col. Trip Anderson was first introduced to us last year in The Red of Flowing Blood I See, a novel about a draft dodger trying to avoid the Vietnam War. He makes a return appearance in a prequel to that book, Trip Anderson, USMC: The Road Less Travelled. This book follows Trip’s journey from boot camp when he was 18 all the way through to the Vietnam War and how he came to be involved with Chuck. It spans his service fighting in the Greek Civil war, essentially the start of the Cold War, his time in Trieste, then sees him in China as the forces of Chairman Mao finally take control of that country and finally takes him to Korea – the forgotten war. Along the way, he develops bonds with his brothers in uniform, he fights beside them, he buries them and he leads them. He learns the role politics plays in the performance of his duties, and he is forced to accept that not all injuries heal, not all memories fade.

 

TRIP ANDERSON, USMC: The Road Less Travelled

Chapter 1

Vietnam 1966

There wasn’t much left of the hootch. There was never much left of them. “It’s always like this… every side of town is the bad side of town in this god-forsaken country.” Major Trip Anderson cautiously pushed past the rag that served as a door. He was immune to the stench of urine, mold, rot, all magnified by the stifling summer heat. He strained to listen, sure he had heard something. On the floor lay a woman, bloodied and still. Anderson’s throat tightened, his eyes narrowed. He wanted to turn away, to shut out reality, but he knew better.

The source of the noise was already evident, but until he checked the hootch thoroughly, it had to wait. There was little inside: a mattress, a low table, a mat on the floor. He checked under all of them, released a breath then moved to the woman’s side.

“Hey, there.” He smiled at the child, too weak to cry, as he waved away swarms of flies. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

Kneeling in the dust, he first held out a grimy finger that was instantly grabbed. He then picked up the little girl, cradled her, kissed the top of her dirty head. Looking over her, he examined the mother, knowing there was no need to check for signs of life; there would be none. “She probably took her last breath two, maybe three, days ago.” He reached out, brushed the hair back from the woman’s forehead. “Your mother was beautiful, little one.” He had seen this many times, but it would never be routine. It was clear hers had not been an easy death.

He opened his canteen, dribbled a tiny stream of water near the baby’s mouth, hoping she would drink. When she didn’t, he used the corner of his shirt to wipe her little face, smearing the layers of the baby’s existence. Large brown eyes gazed up at him; vacant orbs devoid of sparkle or shine.

“Major?” Lance Corporal Jamie Duncan stuck his head in the hootch then fell silent.

“Is there a goat or something out there? Something we can get milk from for her?”

Duncan shook his head. “No, Sir. The place is deserted.”

Anderson nodded. Duncan disappeared without a word. The baby whimpered, reaching an emaciated arm toward Anderson. He leaned closer, felt the fingers run over his weathered face. “You look like a BethAnn, Sweetheart.” He whispered to the child. “I knew a girl… I fell in love with her – she had beautiful dark eyes, too. She was a BethAnn… sweet as the scent of flowers in spring, a smile that could light up the world.” He started to rock back and forth, at first uncomfortable then giving in to the movement.

Her breathing slowed then stopped.

“You had such a short little life, Sweetheart; didn’t count on any of this, did you?” A tear fell from Anderson’s cheek, landing on the tiny face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have helped you, couldn’t have done more.” He kissed her again then set her gently in the crook of her mother’s arm, straightening the tattered clothes on each. After getting to his feet, he adjusted his pack then walked to the door without looking back. “Jesus Christ, when will this fucking shit end?”


View the book trailer for Trip Anderson, USMC: The Road Less Travelled.

Trip Anderson, USMC: The Road Less Travelled is available in print, digital and Kindle formats.

Here it is... the new cover for DeeJay Arens' brilliant award-winning debut novel The View From A Rusty Train Car.

“No one talks about what happens when you fall in love with the boy next door -- not when you’re the boy living beside the boy next door.”

Congratulations, DeeJay. It looks absolutely perfect there.

View DeeJay's Book Trailer here.
(yes, that is DeeJay singing on the trailer, as well, and the song was composed by our very own Steve Saari. Thanks to Mike Lamon for performing the vocals with DeeJay.)

We have the first new cover done for our award-winning books. It looks like a perfect fit.

“With a Dying Breath” is an amazing book about our world’s precious wildlife. So many animals today are being faced with challenges to thrive in the wild, and Tony Walkden tells the stories of some of the rarest creatures on Earth!”

Jack Hanna,
Director Emeritus, Columbus Zoo
Host, TV’s “Into the Wild” and “Wild Countdown”

View Tony's Trailer here

Congratulations, Tony. It looks amazing, and was very well deserved.

We have received the first stickers for our Award Winners. It looks like it was made just for this cover!

“With a Dying Breath” is an amazing book about our world’s precious wildlife. So many animals today are being faced with challenges to thrive in the wild, and Tony Walkden tells the stories of some of the rarest creatures on Earth!”

Jack Hanna,
Director Emeritus, Columbus Zoo
Host, TV’s “Into the Wild” and “Wild Countdown”

View Tony's Book Trailer here.

Congratulations, Tony. It looks amazing!

We are thrilled to announce that DeeJay Aren’s brilliant novel The View From A Rusty Train Car tied for first place in the 2013 New Generation Indie Book Awards in the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender category! Congratulations, DeeJay. The book is very well deserving of the award.

We are further thrilled to announce that Tony Walkden’s book With A Dying Breath tied for second place in the 2013 New Generation Indie Book Awards in the Nature/Science/Environment category!

It has been a privilege and an honor to be involved with these books. They each tackle social situations that absolutely need to be discussed. DeeJay’s book is about two young gay men struggling to find their identities, and trying to find love in a world that doesn’t allow it. Tony’s book deals with the issue of wildlife conservation – why some animals are disappearing, and how we can all help to stop it before it’s too late. Because Tony’s intention was to help with global conservation efforts, all of his royalties are donated to the IUCN for their ongoing projects.

Congratulations to you both. We are very proud to have been included in these amazing undertakings with two such talented, compassionate authors.

The View From A Rusty Train Car by DeeJay Arens book trailer

 

With A Dying Breath by Tony Walkden book trailer