Start Up Another Yarn

I’m fixin’ to start up another yarn.

For the past 95 weeks (almost two years) I have presented weekly segments of my novel The Second Doublewide on the Right. Sadly it has now come to a conclusion. I want to say “thanks’ to all my readers and hope y’all enjoyed reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it. I used my imagination to invent the fictional setting of Apt-To-Miss, Georgia.

I also strove to present all the fictional characters as real as I possibly could. And even though they all had extreme character flaws, some to the point of being morally corrupt, I did find a glimmer of goodness from some of them.

I couldn’t keep myself from becoming fond of or connected with some of them. I suppose my favorite was Jimmy Ray Hurd. No, I didn’t admire his talented and artful skills at thievery, but I did make a connection with him in that we shared the hardship of being dirt poor as children and in our youth.

I became so fond of Quantavious Cortez Carter that I changed the ending of the story on his part. Originally, he died in the gun battle and was buried with the gold plated key around his neck, which was to his safe deposit box that contained hundreds of thousands of dollars. Instead, I allowed him to switch identities with a victim of the battle and slip away to search for his island in the sun.

I can do that because I was the all-knowing. all-seeing, all powerful Omniscient Narrator.

Now you take the Reverend Ricky Lee Jones, who was cursed or blessed, depending upon how your observation of his behavior may be, even after he was jailed, extradited and convicted of a crime of the heart, the narrator left a little insinuation that he just might be fixin’ to make his way back to Georgia and Marthalene.

Deputy James Earl Murphy went on to a bad end, which usually doesn’t happen to the ones who deserve such an end. Candy Sue, Jimmy Ray’s little sister and Slick kind of just faded into the sunset.

But let us not forget Leon and the Judge, who both in their own way, even though they were socially and economically eons apart, were very much alike, and who ended up spending their time together over liquor and dominoes in front of the second doublewide on the right in Shady Grove Trailer Park.

I hated to end this story and wanted to keep it going forever like some kind of newspaper soap opera, but the editor wisely informed me that all stories come to an end.

So The Second Doublewide on the Right is over—that’s the bad news.

The good news is that we’re going to present part one of a new tale next week.

It begins with the introduction of B. Wendell Hormel, Esquire, a ruthless and conniving attorney, and the cold and heartless gold digger Jackie Payne, along with three modern-day Musketeers.

Next week! We’ll be fixin’ to present Part One of Southern Justice.

(In case you missed any of the past episodes of The Second Doublewide on the Right, you may access it by going to the home page of The News (themonticellonews.com), on the left side of the page under “Colums” click on I’m Fixin’ To and scroll to the bottom for the archives).

(www.teddunagan.com)