COMING SOON: LOST EXIT

It has been a long summer of violence, turmoil, and change in Atlantic City as the city continues its transformation from faded seaside resort to vibrant, entertainment, gambling Mecca. Life styles clash on the Boardwalk, in the casinos, and in gang controlled neighborhoods while a bloody territorial war between rival families has left a trail of bodies scattered throughout the town. LOST EXIT revolves around Timmy Davenport, a self-destructive college basketball player home for the summer, searching for the answers in life that have so far escaped him. The heart of the story is about Timmy and his relationships with his family and friends, as well as the city he grew up in, and the love of a game that was once his salvation. As he prepares for a basketball tournament that can define his future, Timmy, like Atlantic City itself, has to confront the ghosts of his past before he can move forward.

LOST EXIT looks at a character haunted by his own poor choices and addictions in a harsh, brutal world where he has struggled to find himself. The story is about a last chance opportunity for Timmy to prove himself while battling his inner demons on and off the courts before piecing his life back together. Timely and intense, LOST EXIT blends the pain and angst of youth with the emotional struggle of characters coming to grips with their own identities.

CRAWLING TO GRACE (published in Foundling Review)

In the silence of night memories scream awake and the old man is again forced to relive the horror of that island – time hasn’t stopped the waves of panic and fear that flood his sleep. His wife had spent years patiently easing him into each morning, holding him until the crying and trembling passed, but the cancer that finally took her left him all alone to fend off the nightmares. Some how, the loneliness of his bed has made the intensity of the dreams much worse and unbearable.
Despite the years he can still see the bright orange-yellow flashes of the .50 caliber guns on the battleships and destroyers blasting the island, hear the deafening explosions of the Japanese artillery and mortar rounds that blanketed the beach, and feel the stare of every soldier who looked at him like he was supposed to get them to safety. Like his stripes gave him an ability and knowledge none of them possessed, and that somehow that was enough. He remembers rolling over the gunwales on the boat into a cold, violent surf, and the way they crawled on their bellies, inching through black sand and volcanic grit to escape that beach but there was no cover from enemy fire. The Japs were dug in, entrenched inside concrete pillboxes at the top of the ridge, laying down interlocking bands of fire that sliced apart whole companies of Marines, and there was nothing he could do to save anyone. Over and over in his dreams he hears their screams and the heart-breaking agony in their voices as blood runs into the sand. He has spent too many mornings through too many years asking why he survived when so many didn’t – searching for some kind of reason that might make sense of it all.
But it is a question that remains unanswered.
Time has created gaps, eroded details, and chipped away at other parts of his life, but the old man never forgets what he left on that nasty little nothing island named Iwo Jima.
Or how much the fight for freedom has truly cost him.