Since it's going to be another 30 until the Dark Slab will be released, I thought I might give you a chance to read the first chapter of my new novel.
It is book 2 in the Lost Slab Trilogy. Magee O'Hara is back and ready to take on a dark and evil killer by the name of Rex Malum.
I am posting Chapter 1 to give a little taste of the story. It is actually a prologue that sets up the current day story. If you like it, there are 104 chapters to follow. It is by far my longest novel at almost 200,000 words, but I think you will find out it reads fast.
Please comment at the bottom of the post. All the material is of course, copyrighted as property of Rick Kelsheimer and SARK Press, but feel free to share Chapter 1 as much as you like.
* On a side note the events in Chapter One are based on an actually Klan Rally that was held on the Crawford County Courthouse lawn during the 1930s.*
*This is a work of fiction and all character are part of the author's mind. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is strictly a coincidence...
The Dark Slab
By Rick Kelsheimer
Chapter 1
1934 Robinson, Illinois
reddie Taylor spit into his shine rag as he prepared for the next
customer. “It ain’t a shine
without the spit, Mr. Mayor.” He snapped a rag and then draped it over his
shoulder while waiting for the portly man in a loose-fitting seersucker suit to
take his seat.
Mayor Myron Meskiman acknowledged the crippled shoeshine’s remark with a grunt. Even though he had
frequented Freddie’s Shine Shop six days a week for the past twenty years, he
rarely gave Freddie the time of day. In fact, he rarely paid for his services.
The price for a shine was twenty-five cents. Myron looked at Freddie much in
the way he did one of his servants. A low-life like Freddie should consider it
a privilege to work for a man of his stature. He considered it the duty of the
lower classes to cater to the needs of the wealthy. If he felt generous, he
might throw a dime or nickel at Freddie, but never the full two bits.
Freddie took it all in stride. He considered it to be the price of
doing business. Besides, it allowed him to keep up on the local gossip in City
Hall. Since most of the local business establishments knew that the Mayor came
in for his shine at 10:30 am every morning, many arrived for their shine at the
same time. Sometimes it was easier to conduct business in Freddie’s tiny shop without following the protocol of
calling the mayor’s secretary. Especially so, if someone needed a favor and was
willing to pay for it. Whenever something nefarious was being discussed,
Freddie kept his mouth shut and tried to make himself invisible. It was amazing
what men would say in front of him. He was treated as if he wasn’t there or was
too stupid to even understand the behind the back insults.
Because he was a hunchbacked old man and shined shoes for a living,
many people considered him to be the village idiot. It used to bother him, but
over the years he learned to live with it. Even though he only went to school
through the sixth grade, he was nobody’s fool. As a child, he wasn’t allowed to play with the other
kids. Despite being a chronic drunk, his mother was a doting caregiver and
wanted to protect him from the taunts of the other children. Freddie felt
trapped inside of their four-room tar-paper shack on the wrong side of the
tracks. One Saturday morning he was falling into a deep despair when a neighbor
girl walked past their house with a stack of books. She told him that she had
borrowed them from the Carnegie Lending Library on Main Street and more
importantly that a library card was free. He pestered his mother until she
relented and signed a permission slip. Through books, he found the escape he so
desperately needed. He read everything from adventure novels by Zane Gray to
sonnets by William Shakespeare. He had a photographic memory and retained everything
he read. His appetite for knowledge was insatiable. Unfortunately, his future
prospects for making a living were limited by his disability.
While reading a novel where the protagonist made a living by
shining shoes at Grand Central Station in New York City, Freddie realized that
he could do the same. Even though The Big Four Railroad Station in Robinson,
Illinois wasn’t Grand Central
Station, there were at least a dozen passenger trains coming through town every
day. His father had abandoned his mother shortly after his birth without
leaving a penny. She waited tables at the Jitterbug Bar and Grill and barely
made enough to cover the rent. Any money left after buying a roll of bologna
and bag of potatoes usually went for a fifth of Old Crow Bourbon. After
agreeing to help with the rent, his mother loaned him ten dollars toward the
purchase of a shoeshine kit. Two days later, Freddie was in business.
The station manager, Harley McNair who had a boy that was
afflicted with the palsy, was sympathetic toward Freddie’s situation. He agreed to let him borrow a
couple of chairs and set up in the corner of the station for fifty percent of
the take. At 5 cents a shine, Freddie made 75 cents after his split with
McNair. He also took in 57 cents in tips that he didn’t share. The $1.32 he put
in his pocket for his first day in business was the most money he had ever seen
in his life. When he went back the second day, he made even more. Within a
month, he averaged $2 to $3 dollars take home per day. With the exception of
buying polish and some new rags every now and then, he had no expenses. The
exception was the fifty percent he gave to the station manager. The old coot
was making as much as Freddie, without raising a finger to help. It didn’t seem
fair. After all, he didn’t own the train station. It belonged to the Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad. Why should he pay a man who was
stealing from his employer?
When Freddie approached McNair in an attempt to renegotiate the
deal, the station manager responded by demanding another 10 percent of the
take. Freddie refused and rented an alcove in the front of the Woolworth Hotel
on Main Street. Instead of depending on the transient traffic at the train
station, he now catered to businessman around the town square. It wasn’t long before every banker, lawyer and merchant
frequented Freddie’s Shine Shop on a regular basis. Freddie treated every
customer as if they were Lord of the Manor and it paid off. His regulars were
loyal, and the hotel guests tipped well.
Men came to the shine shop to bullshit and learn the latest
gossip. Even though Freddie had managed his successful little business for
twenty-five years, most of his customers viewed him in the same way they would
a servant. While some looked at him as a charity case, others shunned him as an
undesirable hunchbacked cripple, who was lucky not to be committed to an
asylum. Through it all, Freddie kept his mouth shut. He had a bed in the back
of his shop and was comfortable. He was content with his station in life
considering the lousy hand he’d been
dealt. For the most part, he had learned to ignore the insults. He had also
learned to keep his mouth shut when someone managed to get under his skin.
“Assholes will always be among us,” he told himself. “All you can do is smile.”
Freddie considered Mayor Myron Meskiman to be the biggest
sonofabitch in town. He always went out of his way to give the mayor his best
shine, but it didn’t matter. Meskiman
acted as if everybody owed him something. It took everything he could muster to
keep a smile on his face while Meskiman was in the chair. The mayor complained
about Freddie’s poor attitude if he kept quiet during the shine and ridiculed
him when he attempted to engage in small talk.
Freddie sensed the uncomfortable
silence in the room, so as he finished the first shoe, he said the first thing
that came to mind. “Going to the Parade this afternoon, Mr. Mayor? It sounds
like the whole town’s shutting down. Just to see a bunch of guys walk around in
white sheets. I don’t get it.”
“No, I’ll be busy this
afternoon,” Meskiman replied. “Better watch what you say, Freddie. If it
weren’t for the Klan…some nigger shoeshine boy might move into town and work
for less. You’d be out of business. You ought to be grateful those good old
boys are protecting your God-Given rights as a white man.”
“I don’t know, Mr.
Mayor,” Freddie replied. “From what I’ve read, the Klan would just as soon ship
off all of the cripples along with the Negroes, Catholics and Jews.”
“You got the Klan mixed
up with the Nazi’s, Freddie,” Meskiman told him. “I’d take a cripple over a
Nigger or a Jew any day of the week. I’d put you in the same boat as the
fish-eating Papists. You’ll be tolerated as long as you don’t get too uppity.”
Freddie knew better than to respond. He finished the spit shine on
the Mayor’s second shoe and
started to put the polish away without making eye contact.
The pudgy mayor looked at his shoes and nodded approvingly. “Not bad work for a cripple,” Meskiman grunted
and tossed a nickel into a half full spittoon and walked out the door.
***
Freddie was on his fifth Falstaff when a brass band started to
play ‘Onward Christian
Soldier’ to signal the start of the parade. He had closed the shop before the
Klan Rally began and walked over to the Lobby Bar and Grill on the west side of
the square. Nobody would want a shine once the parade started and he didn’t
want to be around all those racist bastards. He was a regular at the Lobby and
knew nobody there would give him a hard time. He was worried that the out of
town Klansmen would see him as a target. Even though he was every bit as white
as the assholes beneath the sheets, they looked at him as an undesirable.
Freddie had learned to be thick-skinned after a lifetime of insults, but down
deep, he knew he was different. He was as smart as anybody, but nobody cared.
He was the crippled monster who shined shoes. Children called him “Quasimodo”
and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Others cried with fright and ran away when
they looked at him.
Even though Freddie had done well for himself, considering the
circumstances, the insults cut deep. Over the years, the pain eventually turned
into rage. He had learned to control his anger because he knew nothing could be
done. He was allowed to make a living as long as he knew his place and kept his
mouth shut. And that is exactly what he’d done—until now.
A fire had been kindling inside of Freddie ever since Meskiman
tossed that nickel into the spittoon. He was used to his insults but this one
had cut to the core. Meskiman was an asshole by nature and had crossed the line
when he dropped the coin in the spit can. He was basically telling Freddie that
he was sub-human. “Here’s a nickel for
your trouble if you stoop low enough to dig it out from a can of human filth.”
The fact that he plucked the nickel out of the muck added insult to injury. It
wasn’t that he needed the nickel. He wanted it as a token to remind him how
people actually felt about him. He needed the coin as a reminder to keep his
guard up whenever he got too comfortable.
Freddie ordered another beer and almost used the mayor’s nickel to pay for it, but carefully placed it
back in his pocket. He replaced it with two bits and told the bartender, Joe
Owens, ‘to keep the change.’
“Thanks, Freddie,” Joe
replied. “Can’t help but notice that you’re a little out of sorts. What’s got
you so worked up? I ain’t ever seen you this quiet before.”
Freddie looked down at the bar and shook his head. “Shot at and missed. Shit at and hit,” he
grumbled.
“Bad day?” Joe asked.
“No more than usual,
except…” Freddie stopped himself in mid-sentence.
“Except what?” Joe
asked. He had never seen Freddie this down in the dumps before.
Freddie hesitated and then explained how the mayor had humiliated
him that morning. “I just stood there and
smiled.” He paused to play the scene over again in his mind. “The worst part of
it is that he’ll be back in for his shine tomorrow and I’ll smile and say, ‘Yes
Mr. Mayor’ and ‘Anything you say, Mr. Mayor’ and act like not a damn thing was
wrong.”
“What a bastard!” Joe
replied. “But what can you do? Guys like us work all day, take what we can get
and hope it’s enough to get by.”
“Guys like us?” Freddie
laughed. “No offense, Joe, but I don’t exactly see you and me in the same boat.
People look at you and see a normal guy. They look at me and see a hunchbacked
monster.”
“That’s bullshit,
Freddie,” Joe fired back. “I don’t treat you any different than any other
swinging dick. You and I work hard for our money. We do what we can and don’t
ask for help from nobody. And I’ll do you one better. Crippled or not, you’ve
come through the depression a hell of a lot better than a lot of able-bodied
men I know.”
“I hear what you’re
sayin’ Joe, but those guys out on the street look at me like I’m not human.
They’d just as soon as knock me in the head and throw me in the Wabash.”
Freddie finished his beer and signaled for a refill.
Joe returned with another beer and wiped the bar before setting it
down. “This one’s on the
house.” Joe held his hand up when Freddie tried to refuse. “And one more thing,
Freddie, what makes you think you’re the only one who was born with the deck
stacked against him. How would you like to go through life with a face like
mine? And besides that, I’m a confirmed Irish Catholic. Those sheet wearing
goons out there would like to throw me in the Wabash right next to your
crippled ass. If the Klan is so high and mighty, how come they have to hide
their faces under a hood? Ninety percent of those cowards wouldn’t be out there
if people could see who they are.”
“I can tell you who most
of them are,” Freddie bragged, feeling the full effect of the beer.
“How is that?” Joe
laughed. “You got x-ray vision like Buck Rodgers?”
“No, but I do have what
is called a photographic memory,” Freddie told him. “I can name them by their
shoes.”
“You gotta be kidding
me,” Joe laughed.
“I remember ever shoe I
ever shined.” Freddie admitted.
Joe looked down at the bar for a moment and then looked back at
Freddie. “I’ve got an idea.”
“See those two-tone
saddle shoes?” Freddie pointed at a hooded Klansman as the parade circled
around the square. “Those belong to that insurance salesman, Rick Hamilton. I
just shined them yesterday.”
“Are you sure?” Joe
asked. “That Hamilton guy comes across like a straight arrow to me.”
“No doubt about it. It’s
him,” Freddie assured.
Joe nodded and passed the word around to the dozen patrons of the
Lobby who had followed them out to join in the mischief. He gave the signal and
they all started calling the Klansman out.
“Hey Hamilton, we know
that’s you!” a voice shouted. “Why don’t you get rid of the sheet and let
everybody see your face?” “What’s the matter, Hamilton?” another voice chided.
“You too chicken-shit to let everybody know who you are?”
Rick Hamilton was horrified. How could they know? He was covered
from head to toe by his robe and hood. He was only one of five hundred in the
parade. Every one of them were dressed the same. What if his policy holders got
wind of this? He sold to Catholics and Jewish merchants on the square, not to
mentions scores of God–fearing Protestants who wouldn’t take kindly to doing business with a
Klansman. He tried to act normal until the drunks started to chant his name in
unison. “Hamilton! Hamilton! Hamilton!”
The mob in front of the Lobby cheered in victory as the terrified
insurance agent headed for the far side of the square at a dead run. Smelling
blood in the water they all turned toward Freddie waiting for him to point out
the next victim. It didn’t take long.
“See those oxblood
loafers,” Freddie pointed at a Klansman who had apparently made up for his
short stature by sporting an extra tall hood. “That would be J. Reagan Head.”
“No shit?” Joe replied.
J. Reagan Head was one of the town’s more prominent lawyers. He was also a
deacon at the Methodist Church and a member of the local school board. Just
like Rick Hamilton, the lawyer seemed dumbfounded about being singled out.
The taunting began to spread beyond the core group of drunks from
the Lobby when the surrounding spectators caught on to the game. Freddie
remained in the background as he continued to point out the identity of more
Klansmen as the parade continued. Part of him realized that he was identifying
men who were his customers. There were a few he chose not to expose on account
that they had been kind to him. Besides there was no shortage of assholes under
those robes to choose from.
Freddie pointed out three councilman, two doctors, a judge, four
ministers and several local business owners. All were fair game for the mob.
Every one of them seemed terrified about being exposed. He decided he’d had enough fun and didn’t want to press his
luck. There would be hell to pay if word got out that he was the one who ratted
them out.
Freddie was ready to go back inside the bar when he spotted the
black and white wingtips. “Well,
well, well. If it isn’t Mayor Myron Meskiman in the flesh.” Freddie felt the
anger rise up in him. The sting of the insult was still fresh in his mind.
Freddie reached into his pocket and pulled out the very nickel Meskiman had
tossed into the spittoon that very morning. The combination of anger and
several beers past his limit ignited a fuse that couldn’t be extinguished
without action.
Freddie waited until Meskiman had passed by and then, much to the
shock of the spectators, walked out into the middle of the street. Before
anybody could react, he approached the mayor from behind and removed the hood
from his head. “I just wanted to return
the nickel you dropped this morning.”
At first Meskiman was paralyzed at being exposed. He wasn’t alone. The gang from the Lobby was just
stunned when they recognized the unmasked Klansman. Everybody realized that this
was no longer a game. There would consequences for this.
Time seemed to stand still as Freddie stood defiantly next to the
mayor. After a few seconds passed by, Meskiman grabbed his hood from Freddie’s hand, quickly replaced it on his head and
walked away. Under Meskimen’s orders, several nearby Klansmen surrounded
Freddie and began to attack in mass. Freddie felt the wind go out of his lungs
and the sky turned to black as he fell to the ground, unable to protect himself
Realizing that Freddie couldn’t take much more, Joe Owens and a few of the Lobby regulars ran
into the street and pulled Freddie out of the melee. The Klansmen started to go
after Joe, but Meskiman called them off. Everything was too public. He would
take care of the situation when there weren’t any witnesses.
That evening, Freddie was back on his barstool at the Lobby. He
was bloodied and bruised but could still walk. For the first time in his life,
people looked at him like he was a hero. “You should have seen the look on the mayor’s face,” Joe told him.
“If there was a hole in that street, Meskiman would have crawled into it.”
Freddie smiled and accepted free beer from people he didn’t even know. He knew he probably should stop
drinking, but how could he say no? As it got closer to closing time, Freddie
decided he’d had enough. He almost fell off of his barstool and had to steady
himself as he staggered toward the door.
“You don’t look so
good. Do you want me to call a taxi?”
Joe asked.
Freddie waved him off. “It’s only a couple of blocks. The air will do me good.”
“Be careful then,” Joe
warned him. “The mayor is going to be looking for some payback.”
“He won’t do anything.
If something happens tonight, everybody will know that Meskiman did it. He
doesn’t scare me.” Freddie assured him.
Freddie felt the sidewalk move as he staggered around the square.
He could usually handle his liquor, but he had downed enough beer to make his
drunken mother proud. His head was spinning, and he realized he needed to
relieve himself before he reached his shop. He made his way to an alley behind
the post office and took care of business. “What a night”, he thought. For the first time in his life, he
felt proud of himself for standing up to a bully.
After fumbling with his zipper, he finally managed to get things
in order. As he turned around, he came to an abrupt halt. Six hooded men with
baseball bats and lead pipes were silently waiting for him. He had to laugh. “Your hoods are a waste of time, gentlemen. I’d
know your shoes anywhere.” Freddie went on to name the owner of each pair of
shoes. The last being a black and white pair of wingtips owned by Mayor Myron
Meskiman.
After suffering a merciless beating, Freddie Taylor clung to life
as every breath became more difficult than the one before. Eventually, he
realized he was going to die. Despite the night of heavy drinking, he had been
beaten into complete clarity. Part of him was ready. He had endured a lonely
life of hardship. His physical deformity had painted a bullseye on his back and
everyone from children to clergy had taken their best shot. He hoped to go to a
better place, but his life had conditioned him to expect the worse. Anything
was better than this, he thought. He wasn’t afraid to die and sure as hell wanted the beating to end. Yet
part of him wanted to know what crime he had committed to deserve this wrath.
He forced another painful breath as blood began to fill his lungs.
Suddenly, the beating stopped and his assailants stepped away to
make room for a thin man in a black suit. With his face swimming in a bloody
pool, Freddie managed to open a single eye. He didn’t recognize the shoes. The shadowy figure
casually walked to Freddie and looked down on his broken body.
“Why?” Freddie asked.
“What did I do?”
The dark man knelt down, so Freddie could see his face. “Nothing,” he answered. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Then why are you
killing me?” Freddie’s voice was barely audible.
“Malum in Se,” the man
replied.
“What does that mean?”
Freddie asked.
The man smiled. “Evil
for evil’s sake.”
The dark man pulled out a switch blade and shoved the blade
through Freddie’s sternum and into his
heart while gazing directly into his eyes. He savored the surge of ecstasy as
Freddie lost the spark of his life force and faded into eternal blackness.
There was quite a bit of speculation about the fate of Freddie
Taylor when he failed to open his shop for the first time in twenty years. Most
believed that the Klan or Mayor Meskiman himself had taken revenge on the
crippled shoeshine man, but not a single shred of evidence was ever found.
Without
a body, there wasn’t any proof that a
crime had ever been committed.
