Bountiful Calling

Fred Burton

Description

Joe has a successful government position working with a state senator in Pennsylvania, Nicole and her family enjoy their life on their rural campgrounds, and the two seem headed towards romance and possible marriage. But Nicole's very way of life is threatened when the government takes over her father's property for fracking, stealing away the life her family has known for years. Responding to this tragedy, Nicole finds her personal relationships strained, even the one with Joe. What will she do? As Joe weighs his career goals against his personal morals and individual aspirations, he's left with this fundamental question: Does he put his job above everything else, or risk a total professional loss for Nicole's sake?

Informations

• Publié par: Bancroft Press
• Date de parution: 30 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781610885119
• Langue: English

Extrait

BOUNTIFUL CALLING
A NOVEL

FRED BURTON
Copyright 2019, Fred Burton
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote passages in a review.
The people and events depicted in “Bountiful Calling” are fictional. Any resemblance to people, living or dead, or to events is unintentional and coincidental.
Published by Bancroft Press (“Books that enlighten”) P.O. Box 65360, Baltimore, MD 21209 800-637-7377 [e-mail] www.bancroftpress.com
978-1-61088-509-6 (HC) 978-1-61088-510-2 (PB) 978-1-61088-511-9 (Ebook) 978-1-61088-512-6 (PDF)
Cover Design/Interior Layout: Tracy Copes
To all the people in the Marcellus Shale region locked in unfair fights because of fracking. Their stories deserve to be told.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
About the Author
CHAPTER 1
J oe proudly carried three prized tickets to the grandstand. For the inauguration of Pennsylvania’s newly elected Governor, Jim Cemcast, he’d snared seats for himself and his parents, both of them strong Republicans active in the party for as long as Joe could remember. Joe’s dad still displayed pictures of Ronald Reagan in the family’s finished basement.
Still, he’d been surprised by his folks’ reaction to news he’d obtained entrée to such an important and prestigious event. His usually undemonstrative parents made him feel as if he was giving back in some important way, that he had made good. Such a rite-of-passage needed to be earned, and Joe thought he had, that his fortunes were indeed rising in Pennsylvania’s high-level political game.
As Joe and his parents waited for the ceremony to begin, his mind drifted back to his very first visit to the state capitol. It was during a school trip as a student in Ms. Marr’s fifth grade class. The 90-minute bus ride to Harrisburg had been unlike any he had experienced. Far from the standard school bus, it was a big, roomy charter with comfortable seats raised high above the ground. Joe looked out the window and felt as if he too was flying, like the birds swooping through the breeze.
The class of 25, all eleven-and twelve-year-olds, disembarked directly in front of the state capitol building, and immediately ratcheted up their exuberance to a degree that threatened Ms. Marr’s fragile hold on the assembled group. Normally, Joe would have been right there with his friends, riding the crest between naughty behavior and punishable acts, but this time he felt uplifted by his adventure. This trip, the carrot placed in front of him at the beginning of his civics class, captured his imagination.
On that early spring morning, the air still contained a wintry quality, so the students’ pace was far from leisurely. The building they entered was larger and grander than any they had ever seen. Joe felt his own significance diminish as he approached a domed archway protected by assorted gargoyles streaming down and around the façade.
After passing through a revolving door, the class was led to a checkpoint. All of a sudden, Ms. Marr began herding everyone through a metal detector by grabbing students by the shoulder and pushing them forward. A few steps brought them to the middle of the rotunda, an open space leading to hallways and passageways, darkened and removed.
Joe’s friends began joking and carrying on the way you would expect fifth graders to behave. But Joe was overcome by the rich mystery of his sensations. The floor was slick and shiny, as if it had just been polished the night before, the waxy smell presenting a smooth, appealing aroma. Joe looked up from the floor and spotted light goblets of various sizes all around, as if to announce a formal ball that could have occurred here hundreds of years before.
The walls contained continuous murals about seemingly important subjects. Phrases describing the journey set upon by our young nation rimmed the perimeters in a font bestowing authority. The four corners contained the words: SCIENCE, RELIGION, ART, and LAW.
Nearby, curving staircases were made of white and off-white marble. The statues and gold-painted doorways perfectly conveyed the same gravitas. Lost to the class, and captured by his surroundings, Joe looked up and up, until his gaze met the canopy directly above him, and then the center, the peak.
As the class moved away, he stepped forward, but he failed to turn his gaze downward, and the slippery floor deceived him. His balance upended, he fell backwards, briefly smacking his head against the stone surface. Ms. Marr ran over to him, both concerned and annoyed. Fortunately, an initially dazed Joe quickly returned to normal. His friends laughed until tears seeped from their eyes. The girls tried not to register yet another instance of a boy’s clod-like behavior.
If ever there was a bellwether for the direction a life would take, this was it. For the rest of his school years, Joe could reach back and recall the awe he felt at that moment: the magic of the aged wood, the abundance of marble surfaces that were hard and substantial but at the same time dream-like and inviting, and the colors swirling through the marble like a picture of the Milky Way. But mostly it was the shuttered passageways, the first awakening of intrigue, that stayed with him. The march through his school years began at that very moment.
Today, though he’d soon be entering his fifth year of employment as a state senator’s legislative assistant in Harrisburg, Joe still experienced roughly the same emotions when he came to work as he had on that field trip in the fifth grade. The rotunda was a wild, entertaining theater a lot of the time. Bands of concerned citizens, polished lobbyists, cranks, and weirdos were on display most days, everyone promoting their cause as if it was the only cause, the only point of view that mattered or was valid. The state capitol was such a grand building that it could hold all these disparate elements and still retain a sense of order and wonder.
This day, Joe was dressed in his best business attire, as was everyone else in attendance at the inauguration. It was bracingly cold and the sky steel gray, but this only made the well-coiffed attendees more determined and committed to this important event. He looked at his mom and dad. His mom wore a long, bright red coat. His dad’s white hair, not unlike Governor Cemcast’s, stood out against his deep black overcoat. His parents projected strength and character, and a sense they belonged at this celebration with the state’s political and business elite. Joe felt the same. He also felt proud.
They did not have to wait long before Governor Cemcast emerged from the entranceway. The audience stood, anticipating the proceedings that were about to begin. The Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court awaited the govern-elect’s advance.
At about this time, when the fruits of long, hard work were about to be harvested, another activity, behind and away from the ceremony, began to make its presence felt. The chants were muffled at first. Joe could hear the couplet, something like, “No fracking. No way. Governor Cemcast must go away!” Looking first at his mom and then his dad, Joe saw a pained expression on both of their faces.
Why now? Joe thought. Why can’t they let it alone for one day ? It was just like any other day at the capitol, but it shouldn’t have been. There should have been a honeymoon—for a day, anyway.
The racket did not abate. If anything, it grew louder, even as Cemcast delivered his inaugural acceptance speech. The new Governor seemed unnaturally blind to the demonstrators, and proceeded without acknowledging them, which added to the strangeness and tension of the situation.
The only time the noise lessened was during the singing of the national anthem. The final phrase of the song, “The land of the free and the home of the brave,” was met with a whispered, plaintive comeback by one protestor: “WE are the free and the brave.” Slowly but steadily, the chant spread among the demonstrators, growing in volume to the point where it would have been impossible for this assembled mass of a few hundred people to get any louder. Joe glanced over at them from time to time, although his father’s pointed refusal to look conveyed his strong choice that the protesters should be ignored. Joe imagined the chant causing them to levitate off the ground. They were maybe 100 yards down the esplanade, held back by a protective barrier.
The last time he looked, he saw the back end of a dozen cops on horseback. They were dressed in full riot gear, and were directly in front of the protesters, maybe 30 yards from where they lined up. He wondered what they looked like to those doing the chanting, if they feared for their safety. It was a great photo op for the demonstrators that he knew would soon be widely broadcast.
What insanity! he thought. What a lost possibility for a fresh start. Not even on this day could the craziness of the outside world be held off. Apparently, there was no rest for those who felt excluded from power .
CHAPTER 2
S enator Jeff Bain started the meeting by telling Joe he wanted him to organize an important event. Bain’s district was located in the coal country of north central Pennsylvania, and the economy had been depressed for as long as anyone could remember. Drive through the few towns dotting this region, and you wonder what held them together. The economic engine that coal once fueled had long been broken. One by one, the small textile industries that provided jobs became victims of globalization, the polit