The Four Seasons book project has been a wonderful experiment in writing. I’ve no idea where each chapter goes as I start it, yet am constantly amazed by the connections that seem to be automatically made as the story continues to spin. A true testimony to how hard our brains are willing to work on our behalf, even when we are not asking them to.
I appreciate the patience of the Four Seasons subscribers. Thank you, I know I’ve fallen behind on delivery, but I’m flying through the drafts now. JULY is already in your inbox. AUGUST will be there shortly and you will have SEPTEMBER and OCTOBER before you’re saying Trick or Treat. I promise.
If you’re not a part of the Four Seasons newsletter already, there’s no reason to wait. You get the entire story each month and will get them all together, spit and polished in a single PDF by the end of this year. You can sign up (for free!) at the end of the excerpt.
Enjoy!
Reggie fished around in his pockets for maybe a minute and a half before surrendering to the reality of a lost key. He was locked out with nowhere to go and had at least an hour to kill before his dad would be home. He yanked on the front door knob, even though he knew there wasn’t the slightest chance it would budge. After all, he was the one who who had locked it in the first place.
Reggie tucked his bag beneath the bougainvillea that draped over the front side of the house and headed back to the sidewalk to retrace his footsteps, scanning the pavement a few squares in front him. He made it two blocks down Eureka, right to where he would’ve needed to turn onto Burnett, when he decided to abandon his search and head home to wait for his dad on the porch. His dad would be pissed that he’d lost his key, but would be twice as pissed if Reggie wasn’t there waiting when he got home.
Reggie strolled down the street, picking up his pace only when making a quick dash across the Davis’s front yard. “Fag,” he heard, “dumb ass” right behind.
He didn’t bother checking any of the other doors or windows since he always made sure everything was sealed before he went anywhere. Reggie sank to the ground, put his back against the front door, then opened his bag and pulled out a large volume so swollen with tattered and dusty pages, Reggie wondered if the Civil War was a recent event when the book first went to print.
He slowly thumbed through the pages and did his best to lose track of the passing minutes, but found it impossible to ignore the sun dipping behind the far off hills two hours after his father swore he’d be home.
At least it was the middle of summer and the batting cages would be open late. Reggie’s stomach surprised him with a sudden growl and he realized he hadn’t had a thing to eat besides a bowl of cereal early that morning and the half banana he’d chewed on before deciding to dump it into the first trashcan he’d passed on the way to the library.
He ignored the rumble and went back to the book, running his fingers along the pages and picturing his finished project along with all the pride that would march behind it. Reggie knew his father loved what he was doing. He had been leaving evidence of his progress on the table at night. Mostly photo copied cut-outs, though there were a few pages he’d printed from the computer and some handwritten essays in rough draft. Even though he left a mess on the table every night, his father hadn’t asked him to clean it once.
When would he be home?
Another two hours disappeared and Reggie found himself with his back pressed against the front door, now without the book and doing his best to ignore the ominous shadows around him. Every noise rang through the dry air with the echo of a threat, every car a broken promise.
Reggie heard the cackling laugh of a madman, or perhaps the crack of breaking, brittle leaves, and gave involuntary vent to a squeal that barely squeezed through the narrow hose of his throat. His face was crimson from the heat of embarrassment as the sound of mocking laughter from the Davis sisters standing above him…
Writer Dad
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