End of Summer by Michael Potts - Book Tour + Giveaway
End of Summer
by Michael Potts
Genre:
Coming of Age
Coming of Age
A young boy. An old man. And a journey of the heart.
A middle aged man, Jeffrey Conley, has obsessive interests, including a
fascination with death and the process of dying and a fetish for the
sound of a woman's heartbeat. His wife, Lisa, encourages him to get
help. His psychologist diagnoses him as having Asperger's Syndrome, a
mild condition on the Autism spectrum. When his granny dies, Jeffrey
returns to Tennessee for her funeral, and then walks the same field
he walked with his granddaddy as a child. On that cold, late November
day, Jeffrey walks toward The Thicket, an outcropping of trees and
vines from the woods adjoining the field that crossed the fence and
are invading the field. In that special place he and Granddaddy would
sit and talk as Jeffrey swung on vines or sipped cola. The middle
aged Jeffrey looks back to that time, to the summer of his ninth
year, an idyllic year and a terrible year, a year of joy, a year of
loss and grief. Will Jeffrey Conley be able to discover and
understand his struggles by this journey back into his past. While
remembering Sunday dinners with relatives, hunting rabbits with his
granddaddy, or visiting the town square, Jeffrey rediscovers pain and
the worst loss of his life. Will he be able to make sense of his
life, his past, his obsessions, his faith? Or will he sink into
despair, The Thicket becoming a place of pain rather than redemption?
That is the fundamental problem of the book.
fascination with death and the process of dying and a fetish for the
sound of a woman's heartbeat. His wife, Lisa, encourages him to get
help. His psychologist diagnoses him as having Asperger's Syndrome, a
mild condition on the Autism spectrum. When his granny dies, Jeffrey
returns to Tennessee for her funeral, and then walks the same field
he walked with his granddaddy as a child. On that cold, late November
day, Jeffrey walks toward The Thicket, an outcropping of trees and
vines from the woods adjoining the field that crossed the fence and
are invading the field. In that special place he and Granddaddy would
sit and talk as Jeffrey swung on vines or sipped cola. The middle
aged Jeffrey looks back to that time, to the summer of his ninth
year, an idyllic year and a terrible year, a year of joy, a year of
loss and grief. Will Jeffrey Conley be able to discover and
understand his struggles by this journey back into his past. While
remembering Sunday dinners with relatives, hunting rabbits with his
granddaddy, or visiting the town square, Jeffrey rediscovers pain and
the worst loss of his life. Will he be able to make sense of his
life, his past, his obsessions, his faith? Or will he sink into
despair, The Thicket becoming a place of pain rather than redemption?
That is the fundamental problem of the book.
Selection from End
of Summer, Chapter 6 (in part)
I
liked to hear Brother Noland’s sermons best when they focused on Bible heroes.
I always enjoyed the stories of Old Testament heroes, especially the battles
between the good prophet Elijah and Ahab, the wicked king of Israel. I would
shiver at the story of Naboth’s vineyard. I did not know for sure what a
vineyard was, but I saw it was something that the evil king desired. I imagined
Ahab’s wicked wife, Jezebel, nagging Ahab, then whispering in his ear, “Don’t
worry about that vineyard. Just let me take care of it.” I felt fear when
Brother Noland spoke of Naboth’s arrest and of the liars hired by Jezebel to
accuse him of cursing God and the king. In my mind I heard Naboth’s cries as he
was murdered. I was glad when God sent the prophet to tell Ahab he would die
and dogs would lick his blood. However, Ahab repented and God told Ahab that
bad things would happen to his family - but only after he died. I always
wondered if maybe God was too merciful to Ahab.
This
Sunday’s sermon was not to be about an Old Testament hero after all. Brother
Noland began in a tone of voice that made me shiver.
“If
you died today, would you be ready to face God in eternity? One day, you will
die - this is a certainty. Not one of us will leave life alive. When Judgment
Day comes, will your name be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life so you can
enter into heavenly glory? Or will your name be missing? What a terrible thing
it would be to fail to hear your name when they read from the
Book
of Life! To face eternity without God, to be without hope, to be lost in hell
forever!”
I
usually liked sermons about hell. I found them exciting - like horror movies. I
wrapped my fingers around the edge of the pew as Brother Noland continued.
“How
long is eternity? It’s hard for our minds to follow. Imagine that the earth and
sun are solid balls of steel. Imagine that an eagle flies constantly to and
from the earth and sun. Each
time
it reaches the earth, it brushes a wing against the earth. Each time it reaches
the sun, it
does
the same. Now the eagle’s feathers aren’t really hurt by all this, but they
wear a little
scratch
of the steel away from the sun and earth every time! The time it would take for
that
eagle
to wear away the earth and sun is nothing compared to eternity.”
I
listened - transfixed. Until now, my sense of time and space had been limited
and
circumscribed.
About the longest time period I ever thought about had been summer vacation,
and
distance was either measured in tilled acres like Granddaddy’s field, or in the
time it took
to
get to school in Gilead or else to ride to Randallsville. The geographical
limit of my world
was
the Sears store in downtown Nashville. Going there was a voyage of adventure.
I
shivered in my seat, even though the seventy bodies in the building had made it
warm
despite
the squeaky air conditioner. I felt constricted, as if I were smothering. The
immensity of
eternity
was like a weight, the steel sun and earth crushing me. I felt my small size,
my short
life.
The lives of others grew smaller, too, as did the things I thought were
permanent: the
house,
the field, The Thicket, the earth itself. As these thoughts ran through my head
like a
rabbit,
I tried to stop them. I focused on Brother Noland’s eyes.
“Do
you really want to spend eternity in hell, in a place prepared for the devil
and his
minions?
Imagine the hottest heat you’ve felt on earth. Take a stove eye. Imagine you
turn your
stove
on high, until the eye turns bright red. Then take one hand, hold the other
hand with it
against
that stove eye. Feel the searing pain. Listen to your hand sizzle. Then turn it
around to
the
other side, do the same. Repeat with the other hand. The agony you feel is a
small pinprick
compared
to the pains of hell. The pain of your sizzling, swollen hand will stop one
day. The
pains
of hell never end. Trillions of times hotter than the sun. Darkness all around.
Demons
taunting
you. And eternal regret. You’ll know you could have followed God, could have
been
baptized,
could have become a faithful Christian, could have gone to heaven to be with
God
forever.
But now you can’t! Not now! You’re lost, lost, lost for eternity.”
Brother
Noland never raised his voice. He sounded like the calm of the sea. Yet I found
that made the message more frightening. I held my hands over my eyes, which I
shut as if squinting to avoid the light of the sun. That made things worse - I
felt pulled into darkness and saw a demon face with thick, leering lips
sneering at me, its razor claws coming to cut my face before throwing me into
eternal flames. I opened my eyes, focused on the schoolhouse lights hanging from
the ceiling. Their warm yellow light calmed me. I was just a boy and had not
yet reached the age of accountability, the age at which you had to be baptized.
Most people figured that was about the age of twelve. When you reached that
age, if you died without being baptized,
you’d
go to hell. No exceptions. But I was nine and should be safe for a while. If I
died, I would
go
to heaven because I did not fully understand right and wrong. At least that’s
how Brother
Martin
had explained it in Sunday school class.
I
thought about Granddaddy. He was lucky. He waited until he was sixty-five to be
baptized. He did not die first and go to hell. I was grateful that Sunday when
I witnessed Brother Noland lower Granddaddy into the water, then raise him up,
dripping wet, out of the baptistery.
Granddaddy
was safe unless he sinned again. Even then he could ask God for forgiveness. I
hoped
that he asked God for forgiveness whenever he was mean to Granny. I could not
bear the
thought
of Granddaddy burning in hell.
Brother
Noland gave the invitation for sinners to come forth during the invitation
song. “If there’s anyone here is not a Christian, you should believe with all
your heart that Jesus is the
Son
of God, repent of your sins, and confess them before men. Then you should be
baptized
into
Christ for the remission of sins, and you will be a new child of God. If
there’s anyone who is
a
Christian who has fallen away, we invite you to come forward and confess your
sins so we can
pray
for you. Whatever your need, won’t you come forward as we stand and sing?”
We
all stood, stretching our legs to the sound of opening song books. Brother
Martin began singing the words, and I sang along. I loved the first verse about
judgment - the second verse was about heaven:
There’s
a bright day coming,
a
bright day coming,
there’s
a bright day coming by and by.
But
its brightness will only be for them who love the Lord:
Are
you ready for that day to come?
It
was the third verse that reminded me of the sermon’s end and made me want to
scream. I almost did. Words struck with the force of fear itself.
There’s
a sad day coming,
a
sad day coming,
there’s
a sad day coming by and by,
when
the sinner shall hear his doom, “Depart, I know thee not;
are
you ready for that day to come?
I
was about to leave my seat to come forward, but I caught myself, recalling that
I was only nine and not old enough to sin.
Still,
God’s all-seeing eye seemed to be everywhere. I wanted to hide, to play outside
for a while so I could avoid God’s fiery glare. I felt as if God were waiting
for me to sin before killing me. Then he could send me to hell. Maybe I would
be one of the eternally damned.
What
about my mama and daddy? Did they curse God just before the other car hit them?
If they cursed, they did not have time to pray for forgiveness. And if they did
not have time to
pray
for forgiveness, God would not forgive them. Unless God forgave every one of
their sins,
they
would go to hell. I remembered that Brother Noland said in another sermon that
it was
wrong
to assume that God would forgive someone in an accident who didn’t have time to
pray.
I
read most of the Bible and knew what God did to sinners. God told the Children
of Israel to stone a man to death who picked up rocks on the Sabbath Day. I
figured that was kind of unfair. Not only would the man suffer when the rocks
hit him; but, when he died he would go to hell. Later, in the New Testament,
Ananias and Sapphira had lied to God about the amount of
money
they gave the church, and God had killed them both. I figured they went to hell
too.
It
seemed so easy to get to hell and so hard to get into heaven. Didn’t Jesus say
that the
way
was narrow? What if Granddaddy died and went to hell? What would I do? I
thought about
that,
and figured that if I saw Granddaddy falling into hell on Judgment Day I would
do
something
bad right then and there and go to hell myself. I would not want to be in heaven
for
eternity
without Granddaddy. Then I was scared God would be angry at me for thinking
such a
thought,
and I wanted to go home and hide under the covers.
I
felt better after the invitation song. No one had come forward today. Most of
the time,
nobody
did. It was time for the Lord’s Supper. That, at least, was a break. Several
men from
the
congregation assembled in the back of the church, then walked to the front.
They stood
behind
a long wood table loaded with metal trays. Some trays contained what I had
always
thought
were Saltine crackers, although people called them “unleavened bread.” The men
would
then distribute the trays row by row to the congregation. Church members would
break
off
a piece of cracker and eat it. I did not understand what they were doing or why
I was not
permitted
to partake. Only those who were baptized could eat the crackers. I figured that
was
good
in a way, since my mouth was already dry.
The
men returned to the front, replaced the small trays, and distributed the big
trays filled
with
tiny cups of grape juice. A man would pray for “this cup, the fruit of the
vine, which
represents
Christ’s shed blood. May we partake of it in a manner well-pleasing in Thy
sight.” I
wanted
to take one of those cups and drink, but I knew I would be in bad trouble if I
did.
After
that, the men took two bamboo baskets and passed them out. Aunt Jenny gave me a
quarter
to put in the basket. I would hold the quarter flat in front of my eyes, where
it would
shine
like polished silver. I liked the “clink” it made when it fell into the basket
full of dollar
bills
and change. I calculated how many tiny tootsie rolls a quarter would buy. Then
I thought
about
Sunday dinner. My stomach growled.
It
was finally time for the closing prayer. After the prayer, I quickly moved
outside to shake Brother Noland’s hand. I didn’t have time to play with the
other children on Sunday morning because the service ended after twelve noon,
and Granny was not happy if the roast beef
dinner
in the oven burned.
I
walked to the car and waited for my family members. I got inside and sat in the
back seat. I was glad Uncle Lawton had parked the car in the shade. It was hot
enough in the car without the sun cooking it. When everyone else was finally in
the car, Uncle Lawton put on the air conditioner, and once we were on the road,
he lit a small cigar. In the enclosed space I felt as if I were about to choke,
but I knew it was no use to ask Uncle Lawton to stop smoking. Aunt
Jenny
said, “Jeffrey, why don’t you crack your window just a little if that cigar
smoke’s
bothering
you?” I did, and it helped some.
We
pulled into the gravel drive and parked under the Kiefer pear tree where a
swarm of
wasps
had congregated to enjoy the fallen fruit. Stepping carefully to avoid the
wasps, the
whole
family went inside as the screen door slammed shut.
Michael Potts has taught philosophy at Methodist University since 1994. A
native of Smyrna, Tenn., he received a B.A. in Biblical languages
from David Lipscomb University in 1983, a M.Th. from Harding School
of Theology in 1987, a M.A. in religion from Vanderbilt University in
1987, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Georgia in
1992. He is the author of Aerobics for the Mind: Practical
Exercises in Philosophy that Anybody Can Do(Tullahoma, TN: WordCrafts
Press, 2014) and has co-edited an anthology, Beyond Brain Death:
The Case Against Brain Based Criteria for Human Death, published by
Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000. He has twenty-five articles in
refereed scholarly journals, nine book chapters, six encyclopedia
articles, nine book reviews, and ten letters, including one published
in the New England Journal of Medicine. He also has over fifty
scholarly presentations, including an invited presentation at The
Vatican in 2005. He has written three novels, End of
Summer (2011), Unpardonable Sin (2014),
and Obedience (2016), all published by WordCrafts Press.
His poetry chapbook, From Field to Thicket, won the 2006 Mary
Belle Campbell Poetry Book Award of the North Carolina Writers’
Network, and his creative nonfiction essay, “Haunted,” won the
Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Contest the same year. He has also
authored Hiding from the Reaper and Other Horror Poems. He
enjoys reading, creative writing, vegetable gardening, and canning.
Potts, his wife, Karen, and their eight cats live in Coats, N.C.
native of Smyrna, Tenn., he received a B.A. in Biblical languages
from David Lipscomb University in 1983, a M.Th. from Harding School
of Theology in 1987, a M.A. in religion from Vanderbilt University in
1987, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Georgia in
1992. He is the author of Aerobics for the Mind: Practical
Exercises in Philosophy that Anybody Can Do(Tullahoma, TN: WordCrafts
Press, 2014) and has co-edited an anthology, Beyond Brain Death:
The Case Against Brain Based Criteria for Human Death, published by
Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000. He has twenty-five articles in
refereed scholarly journals, nine book chapters, six encyclopedia
articles, nine book reviews, and ten letters, including one published
in the New England Journal of Medicine. He also has over fifty
scholarly presentations, including an invited presentation at The
Vatican in 2005. He has written three novels, End of
Summer (2011), Unpardonable Sin (2014),
and Obedience (2016), all published by WordCrafts Press.
His poetry chapbook, From Field to Thicket, won the 2006 Mary
Belle Campbell Poetry Book Award of the North Carolina Writers’
Network, and his creative nonfiction essay, “Haunted,” won the
Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Contest the same year. He has also
authored Hiding from the Reaper and Other Horror Poems. He
enjoys reading, creative writing, vegetable gardening, and canning.
Potts, his wife, Karen, and their eight cats live in Coats, N.C.
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