Today's post wasn't written by me but was instead written by guest poster, Andrew Joyce. Enjoy! :-)
Hello, my name is Andrew Joyce. I have a new book out
entitled Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups. It
came about because my editor hounded me for two years to put all my short
stories into one collection. Actually, it was supposed to be a two-volume set
because there was so much material. I fended her off for as long as possible. I
didn’t want to do the work of editing all the stories. There were a lot them.
But she finally wore me down. Instead of two volumes, I put all the stories
into a single book because I wanted to get the whole thing over with. I had
other books to write.
Bedtime
Stories is made up of fiction and nonfiction stories and some of
’em are about my criminal youth. I must tell you, I never thought any of these
stories would see the light of day. I wrote them for myself and then forgot
about them. By the way, there are all sort of genres within its pages, from
westerns to detective stories to love stories and just about anything else that
you can imagine.
Anyway, here’s one of the shorter fiction stories from the
book.
Good-Bye Miami
For
the first time in my life, I’m in love. And I think she feels the same about
me. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we may have to break up … sort of.
Shit happens. Allow me to explain.
Her
name is Jill; we met early on a Sunday morning. I was jogging along the beach
at the water’s edge one minute, and the next I was splayed out in the sand. I
had tripped over a woman’s recumbent body.
After
the requisite apologies, we started talking. One thing led to another and we
ended up having lunch together. That was eight months ago and we’ve barely been
out of each other’s sight since.
Today
is another Sunday much like the one when Jill and I met, but things are a
little different now.
I’m an
FBI agent assigned to the Miami Field Office. I was awakened at five o’clock
this morning by an urgent phone call to report in immediately. There was a
terrorist threat. Hell, this was the granddaddy of all threats. At 4:00 a.m., a
local television station received a call stating that there was a nuclear bomb
planted within the city, and at exactly 4:00 p.m., it would be detonated unless certain demands were met. The
caller said there was a package sitting in the parking lot of the North Miami
office of the FBI that would authenticate the threat.
It
turned out to be a small nuclear bomb, which is also known as a suitcase bomb.
An attached note informed us it was exactly like the one planted in downtown
Miami. It also stated that if there was any effort to evacuate the populace,
the bomb would definitely go off the instant word hit the media.
Every
law enforcement officer—city, state, and federal—was called in. We were given
gadgets that register radiation, and all personnel were assigned grids. Each
person would drive his or her grid. If the meter went off, a team would be
dispatched with equipment to pinpoint the emanations. Then the eggheads would
dismantle the bomb.
That
was the plan.
We
were ordered to tell no one of the threat, but there were many surreptitious
phone calls made that morning, telling family members to drive to West Palm
Beach for the day. I made my own call, telling Jill that I had planned a
romantic day for the two of us and asked if she would meet me in Boca Raton. I
gave her the name of the hotel where I had made a reservation before calling
her, and said I’d be there in the early afternoon. She readily agreed, and now
I know that she is safe.
So
here it is nearing four o’clock and we’ll soon see if it was a hoax or not. The
clock on the dashboard reads 3:59 … 4:00 … 4:01 ... 4:02. Nothing! I’ll be
damned, the whole thing was a ...
Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups is a jumble of
genres—seven hundred pages of fiction and nonfiction … some stories included
against the author’s better judgment. If he had known that one day they’d be
published, he might not have been as honest when describing his past. Here is a
tome of true stories about the author’s criminal and misspent youth, historical
accounts of the United States when She was young, and tales of imagination
encompassing every conceivable variety—all presented as though the author is
sitting next to you at a bar and you’re buying the drinks as long as he keeps
coming up with captivating stories to hold your interest.
Comprised
of 218,000 words, you’ll have plenty to read for the foreseeable future. This
is a book to have on your night table, to sample a story each night before
extinguishing the lights and drifting off to a restful sleep.
Mr.
Joyce sincerely hopes that you will enjoy his stories because, as he has
stated, “It took a lot of living to come up with the material for some of
them.”
Andrew Joyce left high school at seventeen to hitchhike
throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico. He wouldn't return from his journey
until years later when he decided to become a writer. Joyce has written five
books. His first novel, Redemption: The Further Adventures of Huck Finn and
Tom Sawyer, was awarded the Editors' Choice Award for Best Western of 2013.
A subsequent novel, Yellow Hair, received the Book of the Year award
from Just Reviews and Best Historical Fiction of 2016 from Colleen's Book
Reviews.
Joyce now lives aboard a boat in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
with his dog, Danny, where he is busy working on his next book, tentatively
entitled, Mahoney: An American Story.
