RichEisbrouch
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5 Four days after the accident, Brad Coghlan came into Doug's room. They were still in the same hospital though Brad seemed in better shape, since he could walk. Doug hadn't left his bed. "How you doing?" Brad asked. Doug could only see with one eye - his left was bruised to the point of danger - and he couldn't easily talk because his jaw was wired shut. But he tried conversation. "I hurt," he said. "Tell me about it. I'm on painkillers I didn't know they made." Doug
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Not quite sure what that means, but thanks for taking the time to write.
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Yep, it's not an open-and-shut case by any means -- not when alcohol and then too many bright people get involved.
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4 Ben Carleson woke up thinking about the Hodges case. He didn't usually wake up thinking about work and didn't usually wake up this early. It was just after 6:00. But it wasn't unheard of for him to wake up even earlier on a trial day or on a day he'd be meeting a new client. He also remembered he'd had a restless night's sleep, checking the clock several times in the dark to see if it was time to get up yet. Normally, he woke up around 7:00, often wondering if his husband ha
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Fortunately, it slows down some, and the main character gets introduced. It's interesting how a person can nearly get killed in an accident and still not be the main character in his own story.
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3 Ben Carleson was negotiating on his office phone. It's what he did best, and he often told his young associates that everything they did as lawyers was a negotiation, so they'd better learn to be good at it. At that moment, Carleson was completing personal business. Five years earlier, he and his husband had bought the apartment in New York they'd been dreaming about for fifteen years - while raising their two wonderful kids in the absolutely perfect Long Island suburbs. The a
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2 Randall Uzoma was heading south on Mill Road, taking his girlfriend, Vivian, to one of his favorite Italian restaurants - Marinara's in the Peninsula Shopping Center. His family had gone to the restaurant since he was a kid, but this was only the first time he'd taken Vivian. It was that special. Randall was almost to his turn and in the left lane, when he heard a whining sound behind him and glanced in his rear view mirror. A small car - maybe a sports car - was swerving along t
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Oh, yeah: Harry learns a lot. Among them, patience. Lots of patience.
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Ben Carleson, an established gay lawyer, deftly juggles a pair of complicated trials. His client: a very nice guy. His opponents: a pair of as-bright lawyers, one a bit more skilled and slicker than the other. The object: justice, as usual.
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1 Doug Hodges got off his train, patiently worked his way down the long, crowded flight of stairs, passed the Railroad Inn, then jogged the half-mile home. He couldn't jog to the station in the morning because he'd get all sweaty, but there was no excuse not to run home. That was easy, since he rarely carried anything heavier than his phone and was able to do his job in casual clothes. He almost stuck his head into the bar for two minutes, just to see who was there. But he'd be
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Nah, Fluff lived to be 12 1/2, and if I do the math right -- 12.5 x 7 -- it comes out 87.5. Still not bad, considering the oldest man in my family hasn't made it past 80, so that's what I always figured would be my expiration date. And I sometimes think that Fluff learned more in her fewer years than I have in all of mine.
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Coda And they lived happily ever after. Well, mostly. The dog, Fluffy---now St. Fluffy, who art in Heaven if you believe in that, or is waiting for us at the Rainbow Bridge if you prefer that---lived with us for almost another ten-and-a-half years. She died comfortably on our dining room floor, after she let us know it was time. Our family vet said Fluff would do that. And after untypically sleeping nights for a couple of weeks in the backyard, under a cooling bush, she crawled
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Yep, I've also crisscrossed the United States, seeing 48 states, so when I was planning to take this trip, I wanted to do something new and decided to drive the perimeter of the US and occasionally detour into Canada. What first got Tom interested in coming along was my description of Lake Louise, which my great-aunt had seen in the 1920s, and I first saw in 1970. It was beautiful then, and I wanted to see it again. Of course, I initially saw it in August, and the joke in the book is that Tom and I saw it in late May, under very different conditions. Glad you enjoyed the book. It's been fun taking the trip again in memory, but, boy, I've got to go back and re-proofread and repunctuate.
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First, I'm really sorry to hear about your dog. But eighteen years is terrific. Fluff's mixed breed might have made her last another couple of years. But our present dogs, Boxers, usually don't live past ten, and they're already eight. And, yep, I knew that adding that coda was a risk, and I wrote it for this edition, but now I'll add it to the print and e-book versions. Though I suppose the risk with any pet is you know you'll probably outlive them. So you just have to focus on the time you have. Again, thanks to all for reading along.
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Friday, July 9, 1999 Goin' Earp City, gonna have some fun. Yep, there it was---right on the California border: the one-room, Earp post office, "Wyatt" added in script on its stucco side. Why? 'Cause. And we were almost home. "Gonna kiss the ground?" I asked Tom. Instead, the dog baptized it for us. But I did swing from the Welcome to California sign. Between Wickenburg and Earp, there was little to recommend: Salome. Quartzite. East Blythe. Between Earp and Y
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Thursday, July 8, 1999 Our supposedly easy day's drive got chewed all to pieces. The plan was to hang out with Tom's mom till late afternoon, then drift the less than two hours to Scottsdale, to have dinner, then stay, with some of Tom's friends. But when we got there, Syd's mother was too sick for me even to be introduced, though Tom, who's known the family for years, did sit by her bedside. The dog trotted in and out as well, but I was confined to the living room. I
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Wednesday July 7, 1999 The same day we saw the San Xaviar del Bac Mission, just south of Tucson, I glanced at an article in Smithsonian magazine---Tom's mom's a retired librarian and has an eclectic collection. The story explained why England is littered with the wrecks of cathedrals: basically, Henry VIII destroyed them all after breaking with the Catholic church. For the same reason, San Xaviar could now be a mound of clay: The church was founded by Jesuits, who, due to shifting po
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OK, Boot Hill fixed. Thanks. And I even threw in a couple of extra sentences -- not that it makes the chapter much longer. Sorry. That day, there just wasn't a lot to see.
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Tuesday July 6, 1999 I know why Faulkner drank. And he wasn't even in New Mexico. Further west, indistinguishable southern Arizona didn't get much better. Along the border, it was dust, and heat, and midget cactus. The north half of the state boasted mountains, rivers, and the Grand Canyon. We got Tombstone. Tombstone without the good bodies---they'd all been moved somewhere else. Or sold, if you can believe that. Tourists, scraping between boulders in the graveyard on nearly-le
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Many dogs seem to have different reactions to loud noises. The one that traveled with us didn't really seem to be bothered, but she was a very patient dog. Our present pair, a different breed from her, also have different reactions: the female seems occasionally bothered by the volume, while the male seems more bothered by the suddenness. I'm still learning.
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Monday, July 5, 1999 As one of my dumber ideas---and let me tell you, I've had plenty, though none involved investing in water bras---I thought we'd take the dog to the Fourth of July Celebrations. She'd been alone all day, locked in a strange room. She'd behaved perfectly, not even messing up the bed she'd probably been loafing on. Nothing was wet or chewed. What better reward than a night out? How about a night huddling under the mattress? Dogs don't like fireworks. I sho
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Sunday, July 4, 1999 Yeah, well, sometimes you plan, and you plan, and you still wake up to find your bathroom flooded. "You're sure?" I asked Tom sleepily, when I woke up to find him flopping towels on the ugly carpet. "The dog didn't just knock over her dish?" "I'm sure," he said. "It's the toilet." I looked. Not that I don't trust him. And it was. He went to see the manager. A very nice woman who was completely helpless at seven in the morning on a national hol
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Saturday, July 3, 1999 Before leaving, we quickly explored Fort Stockton, not that there was much to see. At its modest edges, the roads simply turned to dust. There had once been an actual shoot-'em-up fort there, back when well-intentioned immigrants were taking over from more established folk---that's the nicest way I can put it. Fort Stockton had been one of a chain of armed outposts, and innocent people died there. Now their pictures, and some of their clothes, lived on in the A
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Friday, July 2, 1999 Fredericksburg is also where Admiral Nimitz, the World War II Pacific Fleet commander, was born and raised, and there are two museums in his honor. One's indoors, but we had the dog so couldn't easily go. It was hot and sticky anyway, and even during breakfast when we tied the dog outside our restaurant window, she yelped, and yanked, and generally embarrassed us in front of every other tourist. The second museum, a few blocks from downtown, is The Walk of History,
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Thursday, July 1, 1999 Dinner last night was a Whataburger. Dessert was supposed to be a chocolate chip cookie the dog instead filched off my nightstand while I was in the john. Chocolate can kill a dog, but this morning this one was frisky. We grabbed a free, if bland, breakfast at the motel, not caring 'cause we were heading Back to the Beach. We stayed till noon and might just have moved in, taking time to get proper permits. But the Fourth of July was coming, and we'd made r
