This blog will now feature a serial release of my novel, Don’t turn on the sun. The full novel will be available on Amazon later this year.
Here is the book cover.
I will post a link for preorders in one of the coming posts.
For now, enjoy the danjerous world of JAMES Sanstroni.
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Chapter 1
JAMES Sanstroni was never much of a liar.
He hated lying.
He was what an average set of parents might consider to be a good boy, had a strong sense of honor and duty and a keen devotion to justice and righteousness cultivated over almost 17 years by numerous gruff and imposing Italian relatives and by his all-encompassing Catholic education, the latter often leading him to have cold sweats in the night from nightmares of wasting away in purgatory due to a cocktail medley of venial sins like making fun of his sister for having a haircut like the American rock legend Meatloaf or for spitting in the shoes of his second grade teacher who apparently never even noticed that their feet were as smelly as a sweaty ball of mozzarella di bufala and who often remarked upon how well-moisturized they seemed to be as if they were having a good hair day. He rarely got into trouble at school and tried to keep his rap clean like the floors of his home—swept daily and mopped biweekly—his parents often lauding him for his tame teenagerdom, at least compared to his siblings. Generally, those around JAMES had little reason to worry about him, at times this bothered him. He wished others might take a little bit more interest in his ongoings, his dreams, his fears, his looks, his stench, but he figured that it was better to weigh light on the minds of others than to be a burden.
JAMES really was not much of a liar. A bar of soap could sense deceit in his voice like an experienced camper knowing well before it happens that the marshmallow they are roasting will burst into flames. For most of his life, JAMES had been very inquisitive. His peers reprimanded him for it constantly, yelling at him for asking “why?” to everything they said, and telling him that that’s just the way it is and to sit down and shut up and get used to it because dammit that’s the way it is. He got so used to these answers that he finally gave up trying to figure out the way the world works and finally understood that any order in the world is unknowable as far as humans were concerned, otherwise people might have given him an answer or two.
On a dreary October morning in Michiana, JAMES awoke and came downstairs to his mother ELANOR preparing his lunch for the day. “Good morning Jim Jammmmm!” She gave him a hug and then resumed packing a lunch for JAMES’s father. “You know actually I saw on the radio sorry I saw on the TV on WNDU that there might be a storm in the afternoon today so just be sure to be careful when you’re driving home because we love you and would never want anything bad to happen to you so if you need to, just stick around until the storm clears or call one of us and we’ll come pick you up.” He thought to himself how then the car would be stuck at school and she’d have to take him in the morning or some other time at night after guitar practice and that it made utterly no sense and then he remarked, “That would be great. I’ll let you know.”
“Of course!” She ruffled his hair and smiled widely at him then continued, “That ain’t no trouble honey as long as you’re safe. Do you want peaches or bananas with your breakfast?”
He thought to himself, “Dammit I hate peaches and I say this every morning, why can she not remember?” His aversion to the nectariotic fruit had started at a young age after he had accidentally visited a website where a middle aged man with significant body hair and a cardboard helmet and an aggressive spray tan was cutting holes into peaches and fucking them. He had thoroughly suppressed such memories and could not even remember himself why it was that he had hated them so. He sat for some five seconds; his brows contorted and his nose scrunched and his eyes squinted. And then, as if a neutrino came from the jet of the nearest blazar to cause a kind of avalanche in his central processing system, he softly answered, “peaches”.
ELANOR raised her head; it was tilted, her dirty blonde hair gliding along her readers, her mouth unwittingly ajar, slid her jaw to the left, blinked twice, could have sworn that he hated peaches, and before she went to grab one for him, she finished spreading some peanut butter on a set of sourdough slices with pickle and pimento loaf in the bullpen for FRANCESCO, JAMES’s father. She asked JAMES to repeat himself. She told him it sounded like he had marbles in his mouth. Like the marbles were trying to make a ruckus and like they had something to fight for. That he needed to speak up if he wanted to make a name for himself one day. He let slip in a calm tone, “Peaches sound great! I’d love to have ’em as part of my breakfast every day for the rest of my life.” He wondered how he could take it back, thought to himself, “How could I survive eating peaches? The scourge of the south! Is there anything worse than all that fizz fang fuzz? The sticky juice sliding down my arms and the splatter with every bite! Oh what the devil do I do?” He could not put them back. His mother kept a careful ledger of her pantry inventory because the local raccoons had begun to hustle her when they would stop by for some supplies that she sold on the side for a little extra pocket change and because the neighborhood really needed a shop owned by someone they could trust. ELANOR had been feeding them for more moons than days in a year, throwing numerous leftovers and untouched, spoiled goods that she had ambitiously purchased with the plan to cook them but which were put so far back into the fridge that she could not see them and so she bought more ad infinitum. JAMES had been convinced she did this on purpose to supply her business.
Unfortunately, JAMES did not have time to gather together an alternative plan of any kind to address his impending encounter with a peach. He had to be out the door in just a few more minutes and he still needed to put his shoes on. He hated tying his shoes. He took a bite. He would rather use his time and energy on a paper route or as a Jimmy John’s delivery driver than to tie his fucking shoes. His parents had harped on him for years to get a job. They thought that he did not have an appreciation for work and repeatedly regaled him with tales of the kind of gusto his Italian great-grandfather had when he came to Indianapolis in the early 1900s and worked some seven or so jobs, most of which were as a delivery boy. Another bite. However, they would discourage him from any positions for which he had received offers primarily because they were worried about how such a position might affect his grades—his folks had emphasized consistently the value of a well rounded education and how if he knew how good he had it compared to his great-grandfather who had only a fourth-grade education before having to help with the family farm in the hills of calabria—while his father toiled in these UNITED STATES OF AMERICA before sending for his sons—and who worked hard to make sure that his kids got a right proper schooling—but also because they had hoped he could get a job spinning pies at the Bruno’s Pizza which was owned by friends or maybe cousins of his grandparents. JAMES was never quite sure of their exact connection. However, he had been rejected from the position when he had applied because he was not 100% Italian—as his mother was German, Irish, Hungarian, and Canadian—and he never relayed this tidbit to his parents out of shame. A job would have made JAMES a real man, so he had learned to think, and because he hadn’t gotten the pizza gig he felt even less like a man. He nibbled some more. It was difficult for JAMES to comprehend the nuance of their position, mainly because they did not properly communicate with him, and so his short sighted underdeveloped teenage mind did not fully appreciate school because it was all he had ever known and so instead of heeding their confusing advice, he longed for a day when he would be able to work at a Circuit City or a Dave and Busters and how cool it would be to get tip money and how many movies he could see with all the cash and how he could buy a new guitar and how he could pay for Steak n Shake of his own accord. Despite the rhetoric they had expressed, his parents ultimately could not have cared less, and frankly they had not thought much about it even when they had brought it up. they were simply parroting the talking points they had received as children and they figured that they turned out fine so something must have worked. They knew they could not be too easy on him and so ensured that he would feel the kick in his butt.
Before JAMES made a move to gather his cell phone and his wallet and his keys and his backpack, ELANOR left to return to her room—to get ready for her day as a school nurse at JAMES’ old grade school—and on her way gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him to have a most excellent day and to be careful if there’s a storm and to not hesitate to call them if he needed anything.
JAMES finished the Carnation Instant hot chocolate that his mother had readied for him—topped with shaved coconut and cynamon—before he came downstairs. It apparently contained enough nutrients to get him through the day, which ELANOR had repeatedly told him and which the box also proclaimed. The drink had finally become cool enough for him to chug now, which he preferred over the supple act of sipping whilst it was steaming. He did not understand why people liked to draw things out in their tasting through all that sipping nonsense. He was kind of dramatic. He filled his chocolate-crusted mug with water at the fridge dispenser. He thought about his classmate NATHAN Block, he could have sworn it was his birthday that day. He didn’t want to run into him and say happy birthday if it wasn't really his birthday and he didn't want to forget to say it to him if he was in a one-on-one conversation with him. He scratched his head and slid his thumb against his fingers in an oscillatory fashion. He swished the water in his mug. He tried to check NATHAN’s birthday on Facebook but he got distracted checking his notifications and then realized he had forgotten to reap the crops on his farm and then after some scrolling for a few minutes he remembered what he was supposed to be doing and checked finally and saw that NATHAN had it hidden. He sighed and gave in.