Marshall Ramsey

The full moon sprinkled diamonds across the inky reservoir.  The cool, crisp November air chilled a lone figure as she drank her coffee and admired the view.  A big, yellow dog soon joined her. He wagged his tail and began barking joyously.  His voice echoed across the lake and the silence of the countryside soon shattered into a million pieces.  Pink hues appeared on the eastern horizon. Like the Biblical camel, the sun’s rays snuck their nose under the night’s tent.

A new day was here.

Vapors from her cup of coffee danced a mystical dance into the sky.  Piper McDaniel took a sip and looked down at her dog Lincoln.  “Lincoln, what do you think today will bring us?”

Lincoln looked up at his master with a goofy grin.

“Joy?” then let’s make it so.

Lincoln had really thought, “Food.” But Piper’s dog language skills were as bad as Lincoln’s English.

But it would be a joyful day. Every day was joyful for Piper.  A chance decision to catch a later flight six months ago had kept her off a doomed airliner.  Three coworkers had perished in the crash of AirNorth Flight 230.  Piper hadn’t been the same since.

Gone were her procrastinating ways.  She began to live in the moment. Complaints? No more.  She never criticized either.  Positive suggestions became her style.  She spoke her mind. She was a woman of action.

Lincoln saw a rabbit and took off across the field.  Piper took another sip.  “Why am I still alive?”

Every morning she came here and asked the same question. And every morning the sun and moon exchanged positions without giving her an answer.

Moses had it easy. He at least had a burning bush.

Piper took the last sip off coffee and called Lincoln. She had to get to work.

“Good morning, Piper.”  Her boss smiled as he passed her cubicle in the giant office building downtown.

“Morning, Steve. I’ll have that project on your desk later today.”

“I didn’t need it until tomorrow.”

“That’s OK. You know me, I don’t like to procrastinate.”

Steve looked into Piper’s eyes and noticed them tear up.  It had been six months since the plane crash.  He knew that she was still walking on emotional eggs.  “I know it will be excellent as usual.”

Steve walked down the hall and into a conference room. The 9 a.m. meeting had begun.

Layoffs had left the building empty. The once powerful company was like a museum battleship — There were hints of its former glory, but they were few and far between.  Piper headed around the corner heard what sounded like a loud firecracker.  And then what followed made her blood chill

She heard a scream.

She rushed back toward her desk and ducked down.  There, standing 25 feet from her was a middle-aged man with a gun.  On the ground was an administrative assistant in a pool of crimson blood.  Piper grabbed her cellphone and texted her friend, “Call 911. We have a shooter in the building.”

The shooter was roaming around the roam like a pacing cat.  He’d spot someone under a desk and open fire.  Another shot. Another scream.  Piper felt the terror paralyze her.  But then she realized that she was in a part of the building where she could not be seen.

“OK,” she thought. “I am safe.”

But safe wasn’t good enough for Piper McDaniel.  She looked around the office for something to stop the crazed man.   A red sign hanging from the ceiling gave her the best option.

The gunman began ranting about her boss.  Piper recognized his face as a man who had been laid off last year.  The Great Recession has destroyed so many lives. And now this man was taking it out on the wrong people.  “I hope Steve keeps his head down,” she thought as she opened up the door.  She could hear the gunman’s breathing and footsteps as he approached.  He began to chant, “Stevie! Come out and play Stevie!  I’ve got a surprise for you….”

Three. Two. One.

As the gunman walked around the corner, the fire extinguisher’s chemical spray hit him squarely in the face. In an effort to protect it, the gunman threw his hands up — and dropped his gun.  Piper ran and kicked it as hard as she could. It slid across the room as the gunman tackled her.   He started hitting her face as hard as he could with his fists.  She began to blackout from the pain when she heard one more gunshot.

The gunman fell to the ground in pain.

Standing above her was her boss, holding the gun.

“You’re my hero,” he said with a grin.  As blood flowed out of Piper’s nose, she began to cry.

The next morning, the full moon once again sprinkled diamonds across the reservoir. Lincoln ran up to her as she read the local paper.

“HERO STOPS OFFICE SHOOTING. SAVES DOZENS OF LIVES.”

There was a picture of her on the front page, black eyes, broken nose and all.

Piper McDaniel watched as the eastern sky began to glow.  She took another sip of her coffee and asked one last time: “Why am I here?”

She looked down at the paper and finally got her answer.

I’m sitting at my desk and looking at a copy of my new book Fried Chicken & Wine.  It’s more than a book to me.  It’s lemonade. That cool, tangy drink made out of one of life’s bitterest lemons —  a sudden change in my life that I wasn’t expecting. But it was an upheaval that led to something very special to me:  I now have done something I never believed I could do. I’ve written a book.

I had a teacher once who told me that I couldn’t write well. The biggest sin committed that day wasn’t her discouragement. It was me believing her. Since then, I’ve resisted writing because when I did, I heard her voice.  Don’t get me wrong — life turned out just fine. My creativity blossomed in other ways — as a speaker, a cartoonist and a radio host. But I always shied away from words.  I didn’t want to hear her voice again.

So when my world was shaken up two years ago, walls began to fall. Walls of doubt. Walls of fear. I began writing short stories that rattled in my head.  And I enlisted talented friends to help me launch them in book form.

A week ago, the lemonade arrived in 79 boxes.  And so far, it’s an early hit.  Reviews and comments have been strong.  I have a book that I am very proud of.

I’m not proud because it’s a literary masterpiece. No, it just shows me that I can do anything I put my mind to — if I get out of my comfort zone.

Tonight at 5 p.m. I have a book signing at Lemuria Books in Jackson. It’s off the I-55 frontage road in Banner Hall.  Get off the Northside Drive exit and head south on the frontage road.  Don’t think of it as me personalizing a book for you. Think of it as me serving you a sweet glass of lemonade.

I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

Two Air Force F-16 jets cut through the crisp November sky. The planes’ razor-thin wings were breathlessly close as they roared over the small southern city. Beneath them, thousands in the crowd gasped and then cheered. The planes’ afterburners screamed a deafening scream as the jets disappeared over the horizon. The annual Veteran’s Day parade kicked off in glorious fashion.  A little boy named Sam vigorously waved his American flag.  A Humvee drove past followed by Marines marching in Swiss-watch precision. All veterans were being honored.

Sam’s father had been a veteran, too.  Earlier in the year, Sam had worn his clip-on tie as he watched his daddy lowered into the ground. At eight-years old, he understood the sacrifices the military made more than most Americans.  Several Army soldiers marched past.  His father Alex had been in the Army; a captain who died in a part of Afghanistan that Sam couldn’t pronounce.  It was at that moment that Sam went from being an 8-year-old kid to an old man.

Sam’s grandfather looked down at him.  The little boy looked so much like his son, Alex.  Alex had been all-everything in school.  The local Congressman agreed and like his father before him, had entered West Point, the Army’s military academy.  There he blossomed, graduating in the top-third of his class.  The grandfather watched the soldiers pass by with precision. He saw their closely cropped hair and their steely gaze.  One of them could have been his son.  The thumping of helicopter blades woke him from his daydream.  A National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter flew low over the parade route. His heart thumped with the rhythm with the rotors.

A block off the parade route, in the shadows of a cold, dark alley, sat a man far removed from the cheers of the loving crowd.  Kenneth Gibson’s thick, matted beard, hid the scars on his face.  The scars on his outside, though, did not compare to the scars on the inside.  He had seen too much in combat.  He had been covered in the brains and blood of his best friends.  The Battle of Hue was his breaking point.  After that battle, his friends didn’t make it home. And truthfully, all of him didn’t either.  Post-Tramatic Syndrome Disorder haunted him for the rest of his life.  Alcohol and drugs numbed the flames of hell, but they couldn’t extinguish them.  He sat alone, feeling the cold brick of the alley’s wall.  The cheering crowd one block away had no idea he was even there.  On this Veteran’s Day, he had been forgotten. He reached for the near-empty bottle and felt warmth as the cheap whiskey burned his throat.  The light of the morning sky faded quietly into darkness.

When the parade had ended, the Sam and his grandfather walked back to their truck. Sam looked up at the city’s tall buildings. Never had freedom seemed more glorious. He gripped his small American flag proudly. It was a pride from the knowledge that all veterans were being properly honored.  They headed south along the sidewalk and for some chance reason, Sam turned his head and saw a man lying on the ground.  “GRANDPA!”  Sam ran into the alley.  Horrified, his grandfather ran after him into the darkness.

“SAM! COME BACK HERE!”

Sam came up to the man lying on the concrete and gagged. Kenneth smelled like alcohol, urine and death.  The grandfather, a former medic, checked the homeless man’s pulse. “He’s still alive, but barely.” He pulled out his cellphone and dialed 911.  Then he began to check the man’s coat for any form of identification. There he found a phone number on a yellowed, crumpled piece of paper:  1-630-555-2348.

“Hello?” the female’s voice answered in a sing-song fashion.

Hello, my name is Samuel Johnson.  I found your number in the pocket of a man who we found in an alley. We’ve called the ambulance. He’s unconscious.”

There was nothing but silence on the other end.

Then she said, “I think you found my daddy.  We’ve been looking for him for four years now.  We had given up and though he was dead.”

“Where are you, ma’am?”

The lady on the other end noted the grandfather’s southern accent.

“Naperville, Illinois. We’re near Chicago.  Where are you?  My father is a Vietnam veteran by-the-way.”

The grandfather paused for a moment.  “I am, too. I’ll make sure he’s well taken care of. Here’s my number. ”  The grandfather gave the lady his information.

The daughter paused and said calmly, “I’ll catch the first flight. Thank you.”

Later that evening, Sam and his grandfather walked into the local VA hospital.  They checked in with the front desk and headed down the hall.  There was the daughter, her husband and two other couples. Kenneth Gibson’s family stood around a ghost.   Sam and his grandfather stood in the back of the room and looked at the scarred face of the Vietnam veteran.

Five minutes had passed until the daughter noticed that they had company. “May I help you?”

“I’m the man who called. My grandson Sam found your dad.”

Her tired face lit up with a smile. “Thank you, Sam.” She walked over and gave the boy a crushing hug. “Thank you for bringing my dad back from the dead.”

Sam wished someone could do that for his father. He looked into the lady’s eyes and then said, “You’re welcome ma’am. You’re welcome.”

And on that cold, clear Veterans’ Day, those who had served their country were honored. Even a lost veteran who had been completely forgotten.