Paradise Past

Mike Griffin

Description

Drawing on personal experiences, Mr. Griffin has written a humorous, loving look back into a magical world of another time before paradise had passed.

Sujets

• Humorous
• Adventure (Guyana)
• Love Story
• Adventure
• Paradise
• Fiction
• Action

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 07 juillet 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665530385
• Langue: English

Extrait

Other Works by the Au thor
 
The Eagle that Couldn’t Fly
Tales of the Lost Flam ingo
Tropical Kni ghts
Paradise Past
 
 
 
 
 
MIKE GRIFFIN
 
 
 

 
AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: [phone]
 
 
Copyright © 2021 Mike Griffin. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 09/22/2022
 
ISBN: 978-1-6655-3039-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-3040-8 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-3038-5 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021912945
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
 
 
 
For
Jackie and Jayce
Contents
Author’s Note
Part 1 Winter 1974
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part 2 Spring
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part 3 Summer
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part 4 Fall
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Epilogue
Author’s Note

T he book in your hands (thank you for getting this far) is a work of fiction. Nothing you are about to read ever actually happened. It never happened because Columbus was wrong. The earth was not round, and, in 1492, he sailed over the edge and disappeared. How a statue of him managed to turn up hundreds of years later in Ohio is still something of a mystery.
People, places, events, dates, and times depicted in this novel are either coincidental, delusional, or products of the author’s imagination. Reality, after all, depends on what keyhole you’re peeping through.
Mike Griffin
-2021-
 
 
 
I looked over Jordan
And what did I see…
A band of angels
Coming after me…
Afro-American Spiritual
Part 1 Winter 1974
Chapter 1

I t was a cold day in paradise. The only thing that was steaming in the subtropical world of Sarasota, Florida was Jake Martingham. Nursing an aching knee, he was on his way to the office on St. Armand’s Key when a tourist in a blister red Caddie with New York plates almost ran him off the John Ringling Causeway. In a flash, Jake hung his head out the window of his beloved Volvo and hollered, “Go home, you carpetbagger, and take a Snowbird with you!”
By the time Jake limped into the offices of Sunshine Realty, he had cooled off a few degrees and the weather had warmed correspondingly. “Morning, Buttercup,” he said to the stunning blonde with the bluest eyes east of Pascagoula. Buttercup, aka Lola Day, was the Director of First Impressions and office manager of the asylum.
“Good morning, Mr. Martingham. Don’t forget you have a nine o’clock conference before the caravan today.”
Jake glanced at his fake Rolex. “Thanks, Buttercup. What would I do without you?”
Buttercup responded with a seductive smile and quipped, “Gee, I don’t know, Mr. Martingham, but you’re going to have to keep on trying.” Jake’s long sigh took him all the way to the coffee machine.
Sunshine Realty employed seven full-time real estate agents, a host of part-timers, and a full support team comprised of compliant gofers, accountants, lawyers, and suntanned beach muffins disguised as secretaries. Orchestrating the entire operation was the Broker-of-Record, the Dapper, Devil-May-Care, Bon Vivant - J. Wilson Saunders.
The old adage in real estate is that ten percent of the people make ninety percent of the money. That axiom was never more apparent than at Sunshine Realty. That is not to say that part-time employees were not important – they were. They played a vital role in the overall dynamic of property exchange. A real estate license was not easy to obtain, requiring many hours of study and a state mandated exam that was emasculating. Nevertheless, the lure of vast wealth was the carrot that convinced hordes of housewives, bartenders, substitute teachers, Mary Kay reps, ne’er-do-wells, and dreamers of all stripes to chase the elusive rabbit of prosperity.
The part-time employees of Sunshine Realty were predominantly what the industry referred to as “listers”. Listers were the human locusts of the land. They descended upon their relatives, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and total strangers alike with wild abandon. Armed with briefcases brimming with contracts and promises of untold wealth, they cajoled the greedy and the gullible into signing on the bottom line and listing their homes and businesses for sale with Sunshine Realty.
The conference room was the staging area for the monthly caravan that would transport agent Jake Martingham and the other six full-time employees on a tour of the newly listed properties. Jake relaxed in a leather-tooled chair and surveyed his fellow salesmen (and women) who sat around the huge mahogany table. Competition was the driving force in sales and survival of the fittest was the Darwinian principle that underwrote the evolution of success. The salesforce of Sunshine Realty greeted each other with the amicable scrutiny akin to pit bulls prior to a dogfight.
At exactly nine o’clock, J. Wilson Saunders made his entrance. At once fourteen individual eyeballs focused on their lord and ringmaster. It was a feast to behold.
On his head, he wore a powder-blue Montecristi Panama hat authenticated with the original black ribbon band. Encircling a starched blue Egyptian cotton shirt rested a pink paisley ascot. Embroidered on the breast pocket of the imported Brooks Brothers button-down were the initials JWS. In order to better elevate his ensemble’s prestige, he wore a hand-tailored blue blazer from Hong Kong with the Sunshine Realty logo emblazoned in three-dimensional color. His trousers were lime-green chinos with little white and blue whales breaching up and down each leg. A pair of alligator-skin tasseled loafers, sans socks, completed his costume. The only thing missing was a host of archangels playing harps and waving palm fronds.
“Good morning, go-getters,” boomed the nattily attired commander-in-chief.
“Good morning, Mr. Saunders,” responded the assembled agents in reverential unison.
J. W. Saunders acknowledged his audience with practiced aplomb and a Cheshire cat grin. With the expertise of a serial narcissist, he launched into his motivational speech du jour. Mentally organizing his plethora of clichés, he began:
“Today is the first day of the rest of your lives and we all know that the early bird gets the worm. All roads lead to Rome but all that glitters is not gold. There is no substitute for hard work and the longest journey begins with the first step. As my hero and muse, Vince Lombardi, was fond of saying, ‘Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing!’”
With that last well-worn injunction, J. W. paused to let his words of wisdom settle over the room. “Today each and every one of you has a chance to seize the brass ring and hitch your wagon to a star. Perseverance in the face of adversity allowed the tortoise to defeat the hare. There is no second best, there is only The Best. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. So get out there today and win one for the Gipper! Preview those properties and bring old J. W. some buyers!”
Taking one last breath, J. Wilson Saunders concluded with his final admonishment. “In the immortal words of Satchel Paige, ‘Never look back, there may be something gaining on you.’ Now, go get ‘em, go-getters! Go, Go, GO!”
The elite sales force of Sunshine Realty piled into a white Volkswagen microbus with smiley-faced suns painted on each door. If we had six of these vans going down the road at the same time, thought Jake to himself, it would look like the attack on Pearl Harbor.
This was Jake’s first caravan and he made it a point to sit next to the firm’s top two salespeople: Lucy ‘Bingo’ Goldberg and the studious-looking gentleman by the name of Neal ‘the Deal’ Sasso. Every year at the Company’s Super Sales Party, Lucy and Neal would invariably vie for top honors.
Jake was a new hire and he realized he had a lot to learn and even more to prove. It had always been his philosophy that the best way to achieve recognition was to associate with it. Jake, by nature, was not an overachiever but he did possess a certain psychological urge to succeed. He also had a unique ability to kick the ladder of success out from under himself.
It was almost ten o’clock when the Zero, as he had nicknamed the microbus, pulled out of the parking garage, and proceeded to loop St. Armand’s Circle. St. Armand’s was a carousel of upscale stores, boutiques, quaint cafés, pastry stands, trendy bars, antique shops, art galleries, bistros, and ethnic eateries from hither and yon. It was Sarasota’s answer to Les Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Jake had never been to France despite his penchant for pomme frites . In fact, he had only been in Sarasota for one week when he applied for a job at Sunshine Realty. Normally only experienced sales reps with proven track records were even considered, but J. W. Saunders saw something in Jake that he liked. Jake was a good-looking, personable, intelligent young man with an air of vulnerability that people naturally gravitated toward. With