Wild Goose Moon: A Story of Love, Death, God, Sex and 1968 - Softcover

Shepperd, Ben

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0595523595 ISBN 13: 9780595523597

Publisher: iUniverse, 2010

Synopsis

Molly Ivins, Texas columnist and wry observer of American culture, called 1968 "the year everything happened." 1968 finds America engulfed in political and racial turmoil, assassinations, and a war seemingly without end. The year finds Tom Windham trying to deal with a few of life's basics - love, death, God, and sex. A sophomore at a conservative university in Dallas and the veteran of an upbringing in a small East Texas town, Tom sits uncomfortably on the cusp of adulthood. He is joined there by his roommate Brandeis. Along with the young women in their lives, their college friends, and their families, they experience the joys, struggles and tragedies of the year on a human scale. While the events of the operatic year keep intervening, changes in American attitudes toward sex, race, women, war and religion are also reflected in Wild Goose Moon.

About this title

About the Author

As a student in 1968 at a conservative southern university, Ben Shepperd was imprinted with the crosscurrents of that period while also experiencing great changes in his personal life. His story novelizes an overlay of those changes against what was going on in the country. Ben lives with his wife and cat in Savoy, Illinois.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

WILD GOOSE MOON

A Story of Love, Death, God, Sex and 1968By Ben Shepperd

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Ben Shepperd
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-595-52359-7

Chapter One

Four Months Earlier

As he focused on her across Fat City's smoke-and-dust-fogged dance floor, Tom's mouth opened slightly and he stood frozen in place. Multicolored streamers hung from the Happy New Year sign swagged above the bandstand, and with Rhode Kill beating out an ear-splitting "Judy in Disguise", bobbing and swaying high school- and college-age dancers pulsated in a blur of motion between them. Clair Kennerly was deep in conversation with a girlfriend. As Tom stared, though, he saw her demeanor change. She had been smiling, talking, and observing the action on the dance floor. First he saw her focus shift - drawing in as if in thought. Then she closed her eyes slowly. And as slowly as she had closed them, she opened them while turning her head toward the opposite wall - toward Tom. She looked directly at him, the smile gone from her face. There was no surprise or excitement in her eyes, but there was an unmasked depth to them. She did not return his stare so much as she drew him into hers. For his part Tom made no pretense of trying to deny the sincerity and the power in her eyes, which he remembered as crystalline blue. The awkwardness that he had felt - first in being caught staring at her and then in being so helplessly ensnared by her gaze - fell away. He allowed himself the unadulterated moment of honesty and of reverie that their eye contact afforded them. Neither moved. Neither smiled. Tom finally nodded slightly. She did not respond.

Suddenly, the club's strobe lights were activated in time with the band's hard beat. As the light jerked their faces from black to ghostly white, they continued to stare. Finally, Tom saw Clair's mouth frozen open for a split second, and he knew she had said his name. At that moment he heard her molasses-rich drawl in his mind as she said, "Tom", and somehow made two silken syllables of it - her voice rising slightly on the second, suggesting both acknowledgment and anticipation. The connection across the room was so pure, so complete that he could clearly call up the fragrance of her hair, her skin - as if his face were again buried in the softness of her neck. The memory of the joy and pleasure lasted for but a moment before being pushed aside by the pain of their last time together.

The delicate squeeze on his arm caused him to jerk and to spill several drops from the drink he held. His awareness widened to the music, to the dancers and to Meredith suddenly at his side.

With her dark brown hair flipped up at the shoulder, and with eyes of ebony, chiseled cheekbones, and a smooth, olive complexion, she looked older than her nineteen years and more exotic than she was. With his hazel green eyes looking out from a ruddy, rounded face along with his fine, thick, gel-dried short brown hair, Tom looked less than his almost twenty years and every bit as immature as he was.

"What are you staring at?" Meredith asked with a smile.

Tom whipped his head toward her and with unguarded guilt, replied, "No one ... uh, nothing. Here ... here's your drink."

"Thanks," she said, turning to scan the crowd on the dance floor into which Tom had been looking. Tom, too, turned toward the opposite wall in search of the eyes that had captured him moments earlier. He saw only Clair's thick blonde hair tumbling to the middle of her back. Scanning down, he saw her familiar full hips and her legs - made for the miniskirt she wore. As she faced the wall with head bowed, her friend stood beside her wearing a concerned expression.

Tom turned to Meredith and said, "I've got to -"

The slap on the back almost took his air, and he wheeled quickly. Rob Carver greeted him with a toothy grin and a beer-breathed, "Howdy!"

Glenda Bell, a short plump blonde, was wrapped around Rob. She yelled, "Hey, Tom," above the din.

Tom smiled and turned to Meredith, whose expression asked, 'who are these people?' "Rob! Glenda!" Tom yelled. "Meet Meredith Blaine. She's from here in Springfield - a freshman at The College. Meredith, this is Rob Carver and Glenda Bell - old 'Noofer' High buddies of mine. Rob goes to The University and Glenda's at Baylor."

As greetings were exchanged, the two couples moved in closer and ducked their heads together to hear one another. "So Tom," Rob began, "how are you liking W-S-U so far? Little more happening there than at Stover County J-C, huh?"

Tom recognized the beginning of the standard and obligatory "Joe College" conversation. He had heard variations on it countless times the prior semester, his first at Wesleyan Southern University since transferring there after a year at his county junior college. Rob dominated the ensuing discussion as he related fraternity party hijinks, beer bus trips to football games, uninhibited antics of inebriated co-eds, and pledge class hazings. Tom could tell that Glenda, who had attended Stover with him for a year, was still taken with Rob's line just as she had been off and on through high school. He understood that Glenda shared with him the subtle, unspoken inferiority of having attended a junior college her first year. Tom observed Meredith's reaction to Rob's braggadocio as being amused but detached. Hers was a different college experience at Springfield College, a small private liberal arts school.

Finally Rob came to the inevitable 'who did you pledge?' question.

"I'm a G-D -" Tom caught his language in deference to Meredith. "I'm an independent." As soon as the words left his lips, he knew he owed Rob, who had given away a barely perceptible face drop, and Glenda an explanation. "Yeah, I've been coming home to see Meredith every two or three weeks, so I didn't see any reason to pledge. Hey, miss the parties on the weekends," he offered with his best world-wise grin, "and be around all week for the work. Uhn-uhn. Not for me." His explanation seemed sufficient for all present, but as insurance he added, "Anyway, I may go through Rush next fall."

The conversation continued along its natural course with Glenda and Meredith comparing notes about Glenda's high school friends at Springfield and Meredith's at Baylor, and Rob and Tom also discussed their old chums. Tom was the only 1966 New Fredonia graduate at WSU, but a number of their classmates were now at The University of Texas. The only obvious omission from Rob's spiel was that of his sexual exploits. With Rob's burly blond good looks and considering his formidable record of conquests in high school, Tom knew that the fifteen thousand-plus co-eds at UT had not gone unserviced. But he realized that the omission was in deference to Glenda and that it resulted from Rob's desire to add one more exploit to his list - to start the New Year with a bang.

As they conversed, Tom raised his head periodically and searched without success the opposite wall, the dance floor, and the trickle of departing revelers at the door. Tom was experiencing the gnawing anxiety of an opportunity lost. He stopped short of excusing himself to go look for her because he knew he had no acceptable reason. The risky choice of doing it without an acceptable reason was in combat with the status quo. But as the foursome's conversation wound down, Tom glanced up and saw Clair as she was turning her gaze away from him and moving toward the exit. For that split second, with her standing in the glow of the track lights, Tom saw the high, wide cheekbones, the tapering chin, the small, sensuous mouth ... and the eyes. He saw the pain and the passion in them, and the tide turned against the status quo.

Interrupting, he blurted out, "Meredith," before switching to a hurried nonchalance. "Y'all, excuse me. I just saw someone I need to talk to. I'll be right back."

As Meredith said, "Okay, but -" he plunged into the crowd and moved toward the exit. He gave a glance to the short line at the door having their hands stamped for re-entry and bypassed it. He walked outside only to be greeted by a wintry blast through his sweat-dampened shirt. The wind cut through the East Texas night as if it had come straight and unimpeded from Canada. Crossing his arms and shrinking his shoulders in against the cold, he looked quickly left and right. Across the parking lot he saw her as she closed the passenger door of a white Camaro. He watched as she leaned back into the headrest before dropping her face forward into her hands. The Camaro pulled away, and Clair did not see Tom as he stood still in the dark until the taillights were out of sight. His chin began to quiver and his legs and shoulders to shake. He told himself it was from the cold.

Chapter Two

Tom awoke in the semi-darkness of the Boys Room, which he had shared with his brother Mark. The room was large and square; comprising the south rear wing of the house, it had windows on three sides. The light from a backyard gas lamp reflected dully off the varnished knotty pine paneling. The two corner built-in bookcases were still filled mostly with Mark's books - Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Chip Hilton, Lee's Lieutenants, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, a smattering of novels on Africa including Robert Ruark's, and on the top shelf: Hemingway, Salinger, Dostoevsky. In Tom's absence his parents had turned half of the Boys Room into a TV room. Two easy chairs rose near the foot of his bed and stared at a large boxy color television against the opposite wall.

He tiptoed across the cold floor to the Boys Bathroom and showered. Toweling off he could hear the voices of his parents in the breakfast room. The aroma of bacon frying made him rush through shaving and dressing. He donned his standard attire of light blue button-down oxford cloth shirt, blue jeans, navy wool socks, and well-worn oxblood Weejuns. Entering the breakfast room he was greeted warmly by his parents, both of whom were smoking Winstons and drinking black coffee. He looked first at his mother's eyes. The relief that he felt at seeing that she had not been crying was instantaneous and liberating. 'Maybe this whole day will go well,' he thought.

Nancy Windham was the source of Tom's rounded features and dark brown hair as well as his short, stocky frame. Her brown eyes were sad, the eyelids perpetually puffy. Her genuine smile, which she gave Tom this morning, was warm and pretty. Her skin was pale and lined, and, along with the grey streaks that had appeared when she quit dyeing her shoulder-length hair, it made her look her fifty years.

Johnny Windham was a small, handsome man of fifty-three. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair wet and combed straight back from his prominent widow's peak as he had from boyhood when the style was called a "Rat". His finely honed facial features and pinkish complexion along with small sparkling blue eyes suggested he would age well.

"'Morning, Son," Johnny said. "Where'd you and Meredith end up last night?"

"After Paco's we went to Fat City. What about y'all?"

Tom circled the breakfast table and kissed his mother on the forehead as his dad gave him a brief discourse on the winners, the losers, the surprises, and the food at the '84' party they had attended. Nancy filled in the gaps in Johnny's anecdotes, laughed along with him, and even mentioned a couple of personal highlights of the evening. Tom was encouraged and happy to feel the pleasantness at the table.

After breakfast Johnny dressed to go feed the cattle at the farm and to do some light fix-up work on the barn. He promised to be back in time for a late lunch and the start of the Cotton Bowl game between Texas A&M and Alabama. Tom and his mother did not begrudge him this time on his holiday. They understood Johnny's passion for his sixty-acre showplace five miles south of town, and they honored his unalienable right to piddle around out there to his heart's content. Tom had been pleased to learn over the holidays that his mother had started going to the farm with him again.

Tom sat with his mother looking out the glass doors into the expansive backyard dominated by towering, barren pecan trees. "Tom," she began gently and without shifting her view from the backyard, "it's a new year." She smiled as he looked toward her and nodded. "And I want it to be a better year for all of us."

"I do, too, Mom."

"I'm so sorry I'm the way I am," she said, the smile vanishing. "Sometimes I just can't control myself. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Mom. I know you can't help it." Tom lied. It was not okay, and he most often thought that she could help it - that anyone should be able to control oneself better than she did. But though he had heard the same promises and resolutions before, only to have them disappear amid shrieking, tearful fits of anger, grief, and self-pity, directed principally at his father, Tom was willing every time - every morning after - to hope that a real change had occurred. This time was no different. He hated feeling the resentment toward her that her out-of-control behavior caused. He loved his mother, and he knew she loved him, but he felt at his core that she had ruined his father's life, his brother's life and her own life. Tom, at nineteen, held out a subconscious determination that she would not ruin his.

Tom also loved his father - and liked him as a friend. But Johnny had introduced two complications to his mother's problems for which Tom resented him and which resulted in a diminution of Tom's respect for his father. Johnny had been drinking for a number of years. It mellowed him out, eased his mind, and made him sleepy. He could handle it. Alcohol had become a problem for the Windhams when two years earlier Nancy had started drinking heavily. It took her deeper into her depressed moods, and it took her farther out of control of her screaming fits. And it had taken her occasionally into hand-to-hand combat with Johnny. When he stood aside and considered it, especially now with the opportunity afforded him by the one-hundred-twenty-mile distance separating Dallas from New Fredonia and by multi-week stints at WSU, he felt that one of the reasons she had taken to the bottle was what he considered a perverse notion that becoming his father's drinking partner would bring the two of them closer together. And Tom saw her need to get closer to Johnny as an offshoot of the second complication that his father had introduced - also about two years earlier. It was the specter of infidelity. Nancy's evidence was circumstantial, and the only time the subject was raised in front of Tom was when she was at her most out-of-control and, therefore, least able to rationally substantiate her charges. Johnny, of course, denied them. Though Tom and his father never spoke of it directly, both knew that the specter had resulted in a lessening of Tom's respect for his father. And Tom understood that while Johnny had almost numbed himself to Nancy's darkest moments, it was this loss of position with his son that hurt him most deeply. Because they loved each other, though, and because each still desperately wanted the other's friendship, there was an unspoken understanding that they would try to spend time together and do things together whenever possible.

Tom had always been more like his father in temperament - quiet, optimistic, a seeker after peace, romance and life's small joys. Tom felt that these attributes were natural to his father. In himself, though, he left open the possibility that they were at least partially acquired as a defense - and sometimes a hiding place - from the strife that his mother was able at any moment to visit upon their family life. But also remembered were Mark's independence, obstinance and willingness to go at it with his mother day after day. The lesson was not lost on Tom that Mark's chronic state of conflict with his mother must have been a significant - if not the most significant - source of his destruction.

In the mood in which he found his mother this morning, though, Tom could not resist the opportunity to plant more seeds of optimism and hope. "Mom, with me off at school now - and eventually getting out, getting a job, getting married - well, you know, it's just going to be you and Dad here most of the time. And in a few years I'll give you some grandkids to run around underfoot. Mom, you'll be a great grandmother -"

"Great-grandmother?" she cracked quickly. "Well, I've got to be a grandmother first," she laughed, and added, "and I'm in no hurry for that."

Tom took joy from this reminder of his mother's humor, and he allowed Himself to hope.

Excerpted from WILD GOOSE MOONby Ben Shepperd Copyright © 2009 by Ben Shepperd. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0595523595
• ISBN 13: 9780595523597
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 484