Throwback Thursday: On the road — I remember the warrior

(The following originally was published in the Sunday edition of The News Herald, October 16, 2005.)

I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. Most of all, I remember the man we called Max, the road warrior.

Here, the signs stripped of numbers, the bags over the nozzles. There, cars backed up 10 deep and into the street with a police officer directing the lines and watching for drive-offs as the last drops are drained of premium.

And finally, cars following a tanker as it drives from the Chevron terminal on St. Andrew Bay to deliver thousands of gallons to a station on U.S. 231. There, the lines form again, and only hours later the underground tanks again are dry.

There's desperation in the eyes of those who sat at the ends of the lines, those who did not get a taste of the golden juice, those whose needles rest on the red "E."

Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. Suddenly their machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled.

I was one of the lucky ones during the recent shortage who found gasoline — enough to make a trip out of town — and there I found gasoline enough to make it back home again. It was a worrisome thing to do.

You become afraid to travel. If you give any thought to the ready availability of fuel, then you do. Can you get from here to there? And if you make it one way, can you get back home again?

Traveling last weekend, we passed any number of gas stations with empty signs and bagged nozzles in Walton, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa and Escambia counties. We paid more to travel one way to the old homestead and back again than it would have cost to drive three times that far a year ago.

Abandoned cars sat on roadsides, more than I've ever seen on that journey, and I wondered how many of them simply were out of petrol.

We'd been making Road Warrior jokes for weeks around the office because of the shortage, and now I was facing the images for real and wondering: Where was Lord Humungus? Where was the lawman, Max? How far were we from feral children roaming the wasteland with boomerangs?

To understand who he was we have to go back to the other time. When the world was powered by the black fuel, and the desert sprung great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away.

Strangely enough, AMC's "A One and A Two" (in which the cable network plays a movie and its sequel as a double feature) on Wednesday night showed Max Max followed by The Road Warrior.

And Thursday, the prices on the convenience store signs began to fall. I wondered if there was some karmic connection.

"You want to get out of here? You talk to me."

Here he would learn, amid the dark wreckage, that the fire which burns in the heart of man, will endure. Hope survives.

Peace.

Writers Wednesday: Angier enters fictional realm with ‘Political Animal’

PANAMA CITY — A beautiful but ambitious wife, a delusional blogger, a police detective and a newspaper reporter are among the characters vying to understand lawyer Peter Madden. He’s running for State Attorney in the Florida Panhandle, and he’s pleading self-defense for having shot a client to death in his own law office.

This is the situation readers face in David L. Angier’s debut novel, “Political Animal,” the opening salvo of a trilogy that will explore Florida politics, courtroom drama and wacky characters. (Book two, which is not yet complete, is currently titled “Strange Bedfellows.”)

For Madden, a claim of self defense just might make him the ideal candidate for an ultra-conservative political group with a gun rights agenda. With the help of a savvy campaign manager and a mysterious “dirty deeds” man, Madden turns the election process on its ear, molds the killing into a political statement and runs as “the candidate who isn’t afraid to do what needs to be done.”

“Political Animal” is Angier’s first novel after publishing two nonfiction books, “The Madness of Joe Francis” (2013) and “Salvaged Santa” (2011, with Greg Wilson). He has two more nonfiction books on his schedule, but unlike his other work — which has focused on telling the true stories behind the headlines, and which is written with the audience in mind — this novel was about having fun.

David L. Angier

“I didn’t write this one for anyone else but me,” Angier said during a recent conversation at Amavida Coffee & Tea in St. Andrews. “I decided right off I was just going to have fun with this project, and I enjoyed writing it. I used to say I didn’t think I’d ever write a novel, but now I don’t want to write nonfiction again.”

Angier, 50, was raised in the Clearwater area near Tampa. He earned a degree in Journalism and Communications from the University of Florida,  where he “suffered along with my classmates through a spree of murders by a serial killer that terrorized the campus.” After graduation, he worked as a courts and crime reporter with several newspapers in Florida, Missouri and Illinois, before landing at The News Herald, where he covered courts and crime for the next 12 years.

“Florida is a great place to grow up, especially if you have an appreciation for tropical weather, string bikinis and warm Gulf of Mexico waters,” he says in a biographical note. “Panama City has turned out to be the richest area for news I’ve ever encountered, and my first two (and next two) nonfiction books are from events in that area.”

As a reporter, Angier said he often would find himself composing an article in his head as he drove back to the office from court or the scene of a crime. Now, he does the same thing with fiction, as an inspiration strikes and he begins letting a scenario play out in his head.

“Then I go back to my home office and start writing,” he said. “I try to follow the flow and let the story dictate itself. ... Dialogue moves things along. I do a lot of character development through dialogue.”

Real people are complex collections of sometimes contradictory personality traits. Angier said he builds characters by focusing on just a few traits, which allows him to divide aspects of “a normal human being” into several characters. Readers fill in the gaps, but the traits make the characters memorable.

“I find characters I want to write about and put them in completely fictional settings,” he said.

Angier doesn’t plan to hold formal book signing events, but he said you’re liable to catch him hanging out at The Wine Dog off 23rd Street any given Friday evening, having a cigar and a beer; he’ll have some books with him that he’s selling for only $5 each (they cost about twice that online).

“Like I said, I’m not trying to make a ton of money with this book,” he said. “It’s about having fun. If people read it and enjoy it, then I’ve succeeded.”

 

• ‘Political Animal’
• What: Debut novel by David L. Angier (242 pages, paperback)
• Where: Available on Amazon.com or via DavidLAngier.com
• Price: $8.99 online or $5 in person

Forecast for a Blood Moon: Cloudy with a chance of snark

PANAMA CITY BEACH — I set up three lawn chairs in front of our house Sunday night and positioned them to face the glowing blotch floating overhead, where the full moon’s glow struggled to pierce the cloud cover.

We hoped to glimpse the supermoon and the “blood moon” effect of the total lunar eclipse. Clouds moving in opposing directions, depending on their altitude, worked to obscure our view — a condition made all the more frustrating by the open gaps showing black space and sparkling stars at the wrong angle from our position below to allow a view of the moon.

Occasionally, a piece of moon would peek from behind a passing veil of vapor, but only for a moment. Blue light flickered through the neighbor’s blinds and dogs yapped from somewhere beyond the surrounding trees. I listened for coyote howls, but heard none.

Strangely, I offered no howls of my own, and never once wondered about werewolves; I’d almost think I must be growing up, if I didn’t know better.

I did, however, think about the silly warnings I’d seen posted on Facebook about the “Blood Moon!” event, as well as the exhortations from various world religious leaders not to panic. Apparently, some people actually thought a full moon/eclipse augured the end of the world; I would have thought that kind of superstition had died out long ago.

But then I see the sort of things that become viral on Facebook — please stop sharing that blasted privacy notice thing! — or that become points of contention between otherwise “enlightened” and educated persons, and can’t help but accept that we, as a species, will believe almost anything.

I mean, there are some things “I want to believe,” as Special Agent Fox Mulder’s office poster used to declare. But I don’t want to be stupid about it.

Apropos of Mulder, my son tossed in the metaphorical towel early on, returning indoors to continue his binge-watching of “The X-Files” on Netflix as he anticipates the revival of the series early next year. I suspect he’s genetically predisposed to enjoy that kind of thing, and I know which of his parents is to blame.

Meanwhile, cloud-watching and eclipse-waiting, it seems, is an old-person’s game. My wife and I persisted in our quest for another half-hour or so, as she experimented with different settings on her camera and I experimented with magical cloudbursting spells.

Surely, just the right gesture and exhortation — “Expelliarmus!” perhaps, or “Rain, rain, go away!” — would pierce the veil in time to see the moon blush in humiliation over all this misdirected attention.

The wife was less amused by my silliness than I was, I suspect, but more patient than she might have been in earlier years. A lunar halo effect, perhaps, though it may be that she allowed me some leeway because our pearl anniversary was the next day and a dozen roses had mysteriously materialized on the dining table earlier in the afternoon.

But try as I might, I failed to dissolve the cloud cover with either magic or telekinesis. Whether that’s a testimony to the strength of the tropical weather pattern or an indictment of the weakness of frequency or amplitude in my brainwaves — you can decide.

Peace.

GIANTS IN THE EARTH — Now available on Kindle!

Ritualistic child murders bring FBI profiler GABRIEL STREET and occultist SIR ARTHUR MAGUS to the town of Junction, Alabama, just as a young woman seeks shelter on her estranged father's farm. REBECCA CALIBAN is pregnant, tormented by the belief her dead husband came to her in the night, leaving her with child. She descends into madness as the investigators battle the killer, an ageless shapeshifter preying upon the innocent in service to a forgotten god.

... Darkness haunts young Tom Caliban, who grows up in the shadow of his mother’s mysterious death, raised by his grandfather. Unaware of Tom or his connection to their shapeshifting enemy, Magus meets each year with the men who helped him battle the Changeling — but distrust begins to grow between them.

... A traveling preacher walks into Junction one summer day, shouldering a rugged cross and promising souls to his unseen Lord. And as Becca’s child reaches his 18th birthday, a new church rises on the site of the Changeling's pyre — and a girl goes missing in Junction. The souleater rises, its hungry call stirring the restless souls haunting the tiny town — including one spirit who has been searching the halls of the hospital for her lost child these past 18 years.

Previously serialized as three novellas, GIANTS IN THE EARTH is the first volume in an ongoing series, The Caliban Cycle. This edition, gathering the entire tale together, includes never-before-published bonus material that includes notes from the author about the origins of the tale and a sneak preview excerpt from the sequel story, AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, which will be published in early 2016.

Weather or not, autumn is coming

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The turning of the season has brought its share of miseries. A death in the family. Illness. Calamity on the road. The first anniversary of another death in the family.

And yet, impossibly, this remains my favorite time of year.

It’s the month my sister was born, and her first son as well. The month I was married (three decades ago, now). The month I mark “Breakaway Day” (40 years, as of Sept. 13).

After a summer of heat and humidity that sapped the will and stifled activity, the world feels ready to be lived in again. The morning sky is a featureless dome of pastel blue when it isn’t filled by fluffy white cumulous clouds. The air feels crisp, smells clean, and makes me feel alive.

Yes, there’s a strong undercurrent of nostalgia — but the best kind. Time collides with recollection on the wake of a passing cold front, stirring echoes of past autumns.

In the misty distance are hints of football Friday nights in the 1970s and ’80s, hanging out with my buddies, driving my first car (a Ford Galaxy 500) with the windows down. From almost as far back comes the reminder of a being newly-wed college student and stopping to enjoy the sunshine between classes at Lake Alice. And later, standing with the kids on early school mornings to wait for the bus. My daughter’s Halloween birthdays.

More recently, the scent of fall in the atmosphere or tumble of positive ions on the breeze bring alive the months we rented a home a few blocks from the Gulf and spent our evenings walking the shoreline.

So yes, there is much joy in the memories that September fosters. But it has been a bad month, too. One in which the hits keep coming. One of those times when all you can do is hunch your shoulders, keep your head down, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I have held people while they cried. Helped to carry a coffin. Given bad news over a phone. Stood by, helpless. Tried to solve problems. Gotten sick and gotten better. Suffered a surreal moment in an old church in my hometown.

And just the other night, back home and back in my routine, I stood in the dark under a crescent moon while the dogs sniffed and circled and looked for places to do their thing, and I looked at the stars. Sometimes I can fool myself into thinking it’s a different year, a different place — the stars are the same, after all, and the air is perfect.

But not this time. This time, despite the energy of the sky and atmosphere, it was all too much.

I saw chain lightning threaten in distant clouds, silent and ominous. The rain never came, the storm never materialized. And yet, it continues to feel like the bottom could drop out, lightning strike, rain pummel, and darkness fall.

Me? I’m holding out hope for October.

Peace.

Visiting author shares secrets of story

Kathy Bennett, me, & Lisa Wingate

PANAMA CITY — Most of Lisa Wingate’s novels develop as she discovers an untold story that piques her imagination. Her new novel, “The Sea Keeper’s Daughters,” began with a tale related by a reader.

“A woman was traveling with her father, driving through the mountains of Appalachia, and she saw these doorways in the sides of the mountains,” Lisa said. “He told her that, during the Depression when families would lose their farms, they would move into the caves and scrap the house for doors and other things to outfit the caves.”

Intrigued, Lisa started looking for documentation about the anecdote, but she found something else instead: The Federal Writers Project, an all but forgotten Depression-era program in which some 5,600 people produced 300,000 documents — millions of pages of poetry, essays, novels and journalism.

Created in 1935 as part of the U.S. Work Progress Administration, the project provided employment for historians, teachers, writers, librarians and other white-collar workers. The original purpose was to produce a series of sectional guide books focusing on the nation’s scenic, historical, cultural and economic resources.

However, most of it was filed away in vaults during the Red Scare, and stayed there for 80 years. Recently, the Library of Congress began putting the documents online. (Link to the documents here<<)

“There’s an unpublished play by Zora Neale Hurston, slave narratives — I could read them all day,” Lisa said. “I’ve been to school, you know, been in the business a long time — this is my 25th novel — and I had never heard of it. It’s sort of sad. ... It’s amazing to me all of this exists and no one knows about it.”

According to her online bio at LisaWingate.com, Lisa was inspired to become a writer by a first-grade teacher who said she expected to see Lisa’s name in a magazine one day. She also entertained childhood dreams of being an Olympic gymnast and winning the National Finals Rodeo “but was stalled by a mental block against backflips on the balance beam and by parents who stubbornly refused to finance a rodeo career.”

A born storyteller, Lisa equated the hidden stories of Depression-era America to the untold tales of families. It’s an important link to her, as her first novel was inspired by life stories her grandmother told. The tales changed her opinion of her grandmother, who she had regarded as a hard-edged woman.

“Sometimes there are things you don’t like about someone, but it’s because you don’t understand where they’re coming from,” Lisa said. “Ordinary stories can teach you, inform your life.”

That first mainstream novel, “Tending Roses,” is still in print after 15 years, and Lisa still hears from readers who were inspired by it. Most of them tell her they wish they had gotten their grandparents to open up and tell their stories. That’s why she shares “ice-breaking” techniques when she meets with readers, such as her visits this week to the St. Andrews Coffee House & Bistro on Tuesday and the Blountstown Library on Wednesday.

(You can also find a great list of story catalysts and interview techniques at her website under the heading “Storytelling forFamilies.”)

“People get intimidated. There needs to be a catalyst to get the stories flowing,” she said. “I worry sometimes where the next storytellers will come from.”

Probably, they will be inspired by storytellers like her.

Peace.

Best-selling author shares new novel

Lisa Wingate

PANAMA CITY — “Stories beget stories,” said best-selling author Lisa Wingate, who will share the sources of her inspirations with local readers Tuesday and Wednesday.

Wingate’s latest novel, “The Sea Keeper’s Daughters,” begins in 1935, as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt cajoles her husband into signing an executive order creating what will become Federal Project Number One. The results will touch every corner of a vast but struggling country — yet, 80 years later, will be virtually forgotten.

“Those involved in Federal One were far ahead of their time,” Wingate said. “They were the beginning of the Civil Rights movement before there was a Civil Rights movement. They pushed toward equality for women before anyone was talking about equal opportunity.”

Her new novel.

The new novel follows the struggles of a young woman hired into the Federal Writer’s Project, a subdivision of Federal One.

“Roosevelt’s Federal Writers faced incredible challenges,” Wingate said. “They were told to document the stories of real lives and real people struggling to survive the Depression. Their mandate was to be all-inclusive, to break down hard and fast societal boundaries, much like Kathryn Sockett’s character does in ‘The Help,’ when she interviews black maids in the South.”

The Federal Writers not only documented the natural wonders of the country, but the hidden lives of minorities, working women, immigrant laborers, sharecroppers and others typically ignored by the history books. While Wingate’s tale is fictional, it brings to life the experiences of a Federal Writer when a modern-day woman discovers the letters of a great aunt who was disowned by her wealthy family after signing on with the WPA.

The tale explores the experiences of a woman traveling into the unknown, all for the sake of a story. The Federal Writers often found themselves on the wrong sides of local powerbrokers, special interest groups, and eventually Congressional committees hunting for communists at the dawn of the Red Scare.

The shifting of political fortunes meant the thousands of stories documented by the Federal Writers were quietly hidden away in filing vaults. Only now, as the Library of Congress begins posting the documents online, many of those narratives are being made available for the first time since they were written.

“These stories show us where we come from as a country and as a people,” Wingate said. “They inspired novels like Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ yet so many of us know little about the Federal Writers themselves. I wrote ‘The Sea Keeper’s Daughters’ to bring to light not only the lives of the people on the pages, but the lives of the people behind the pens.”

The Federal Writers is a forgotten part of American cultural history in much the same way as family stories are lost between the generations, simply because someone felt uncomfortable or unappreciated and kept their mouths shut.

Wingate will speak on the importance of preserving our stories — including unobtrusive techniques one can employ to get still tongues wagging and record your own family narratives — during her appearances next week. Besides addressing the Panama City Rotary early Tuesday, she will have two signing and speaking events open to the general public.

She will be at St. Andrews Coffee House & Bistro, 1006 Beck Ave., in Panama City from 5-7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8; and at the Blountstown Public Library from 4-5:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“The Blountstown visit is special to me because my grandmother started that library,” said Kathie Bennett, Wingate’s publicist and the daughter of former Panama City mayor Gerry Clemons.

And one would be correct to suspect there’s an untold story waiting to be shared in that anecdote as well.

Peace.