Fathers of Myth
Richard Wyatt
Fedora Press
Fathers of Myth
By Richard Wyatt
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2001 by Richard Wyatt
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system or
transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission from author.
Book Cover design by Richard Wyatt
ISBN 978-0-6151-4739-0
Published by:
[email protected]
Printed June 2007- First Edition
Printed in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to:
My wife Charlotte…
Any man would feel fortunate
To wake up to her sweet face every morning.
Out of all of the men in the world,
I get to be that man.
PREFACE
There are so many mysteries and secrets about the past that continue to go unexplained. Legends and myths, mysterious disappearances and deaths, baffling disasters and enigmatic events have plagued mankind’s history, leaving in their wake only speculation and the frustrating absence of truth.
Matthew Brooks, a young rookie journalist working for the Portland Herald, along with his beautiful photographer partner Kelly O’Hara, run head on into the mystery of their lives. As they pry open the mystery that has been purposely kept a secret for thousands of years, they discover that knowing the truth about the past, could very well cost them their lives.
Matt and Kelly soon discover that many mysteries; such as the disappearance of the dinosaurs and the ancient story of a global flood, to the real identity of Jack the Ripper and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, to the kidnap of Charles Lindbergh’s son and the assassin of John F Kennedy, to the Hindenburg and the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion disasters, as well as legends; all possess one common thread of truth.
Come along with me! Unearth the hidden secret about our past. Learn the real truth behind the history of mankind, and the truth about the ‘Fathers of Myth.’
Fathers of Myth
§
ONE
The humidity must be 100% as I awake to the sound of the wobbling ceiling fan and drenched sticky sheets. My first thought of the day; on a scale of one to ten, my hangover headache is about twelve!
It all comes back to me, like a fast train hitting a car stuck on the tracks. Last night, my boss gave me the ultimate motivating speech of my short, but uneventful career. If I don’t come up with something worth reading in the next two weeks, I will have my boss’s permission to explore other employment possibilities.
My so-called career: a newspaper writer for The Portland Herald. My boss: the very unlikable Lloyd Hatch, a somewhat tyrannical and sanctimonious, smirk-smiling, city desk Editor at The Herald. Instead of feeling motivated and exhilarated, I guess I felt like having a drink. The rest is kind of hazy.
I see a very blurry 7:05 AM, glowing red on the clock radio, a couple of feet away from my pillow. If I focus on how good a cold shower will feel; I am pretty sure I can get out of bed.
I scratch my head and look in the mirror. It appears as though my eyes have been on a long trip, since each eye looks as if it is carrying
luggage. “I am too young to have bags under my eyes—I’m only twenty-six,” I think to myself.
I dig the sleep from my eyes as I walk down the hall to the living room. I open the drapes to have a look outside. As I peer out, my mind crudely fabricates a thought. It looks like rain.
All of a sudden, I am startled by what I can only describe as an overwhelming prehistoric screech. The shock of the noisy blast subsides as I realize it is only Cashew, my pet Amazon Macaw.
“Morning, Cashew, how’re you doin’?” I yawn and toddle slowly over to his cage, pick some seeds out of a bag, and poke them through the wire cage. He immediately husks the seeds and quickly devours them.
As if performing an Amazon jungle dance, his head bobs up and down in an effort to hold my attention.
“Good morning. Cock-a-doodle-doo. Good morning, Cock-a-doodle-doo,” he squawks.
“Well, Cashew, two lonely bachelors living together, you and I.” Sticking my hand in Cashew’s cage, I allow him to squeeze onto my finger.
“What we need, old buddy is a large dose of femininity and perfume,” I tell him. Cashew negatively shakes his head back and forth and from side to side.
“You’re right, my friend. It’s probably too late for you and me. We’ll probably be bachelors right down to the end.” I return him to his perch, close his cage, and amble back down the hall to the bathroom.
I flip on the light and look in the mirror; I become re-acquainted with my image. Staring back at me is a tall and skinny blond, blue-eyed young man—the male version of my mother. I smile at myself, satisfied at being somewhere between a charming handsome gentleman and a daring heroic swashbuckler.
After a long cold shower, a pot of coffee, and a handful of aspirin, I am on my way; ready to drive through rush hour traffic by eight A.M.
As I ponder over the idea of stopping by the drive up window at a donut shop three blocks from The Herald, my car radio broadcasts a breaking news announcement of a jet airliner crash, killing all on board. I make a quick educated guess that my officious interrogating
Editor will definitely want the low down on this latest disaster, sooner than possible.
From my cell phone, I give a quick call to Kelly, the best photographer working at The Herald, not to mention drop-dead gorgeous. However, I get Betty in reception, instead.
“Sorry, but Kelly ain’t at her desk right now,” she replies crudely.
I can tell by the smacking noises over the phone, Betty is chewing bubble gum and probably doing her nails at her desk. Asking for anything further could quite possibly tax her beyond her abilities.
”Just ask her to meet me at the airport.”
“Meet…me…at…the… airport,” she repeats very slowly.
“And who may I say is calling?” she speaks with a Brooklyn accent that just can’t be real.
“Betty. It’s Matthew Brooks, Don’t you recognize me?”
“Oh yea, sure, Mr. Brooks. I’ve got it wrote down. You want I should repeat it to yah.”
“No, Betty, I’m sure you’ve got it...thanks.” I push the off button on my cell phone and head for the airport.
When I was a child, I remember my mother would fill large glass jars with a variety of dried beans and display them on the kitchen counter. The Portland rush hour traffic gives me that same, tiny navy bean stuck in a jar with a thousand other beans, feeling. It will take me at least thirty minutes to go just under four miles to the Airport. I wonder how many people contemplate suicide during rush hour.
“When the saints go marching on,” ditties from my cell phone. I hope it is Kelly.
“Hello?”
“Matt, this is Kelly. Sorry I missed your call.”
“Hello, beautiful. Ready for the most exciting date you have ever dreamed of?”
“What’s up?”
“I need you and your camera down at the Airport a.s.a.p. There has been another plane crash.”
“I’m leaving right now. I’ll be there as soon as possible,” she assures me.
“Has Lloyd said anything good about me this mornin
g?” I ask her.
“I think your name was mentioned between a couple of well chosen curse words. I told him you were checking out a hot story.”
“Well, maybe this time you won’t be lying. Thanks, beautiful. I’ll meet you at Incoming Flights in the D-4 wing.”
Inside the airport, I drop fifty cents into the newspaper vending machine, thinking I should at least try to keep up on the latest headlines of the paper I work for. “UFO Seen in Night Sky over Portland” the headlines read. Just as I sit down, I see Kelly coming.
You know how everybody has his or her own distinctive walk? Kelly not only has her own distinctive walk, but speaking for myself,
seeing her walk is more enjoyable than it would be to drink an ice-cold glass of water after being in the desert for three days! In my short twenty-six years of life, I have not witnessed anything more teasingly pleasant. I smile at her and savor the moment.
“Hello, beautiful!” I call out. “Beautiful, dedicated, and prompt. What more could a man ask for?”
“So what is the setup, Matt? You want pictures of the airplane crash itself, or do you want pictures of the people you interview, or both?”
Still recovering from the night before, it takes me a few extra heartbeats to respond to Kelly’s down-to-business questions.
“I think we’ll go for pictures of both, if we can get Airport Security to give us a ride to the crash site. I hear the crash is almost a mile from here, at the west end of the runway.”
The smell of rubber and plastic seem to dominate the air as the little Airport Security shuttle approaches the crash site. The fire looks as if it has taken on a life of its own, and seems to be intent on consuming the remaining corpse of the jet. The firemen are pouring rivers of water on the blaze, with little or no effect. The heat is still intense, even though we are still a hundred yards from the main body of the plane. It will be hours before the fire is out, I think to myself.
Before we come to a complete stop, Kelly steps off and begins taking pictures. She is amazing! Kelly is like the cordon bleu of professional photography. I watch her for a few seconds and then turn to the horror of the burning plane. There are pieces of airplane everywhere, for as far as the eye can see.
“Oh my God!” I say out loud, as I start to see what must be bodies of people lying on the ground. It looks like some bizarre massacre.
The total impact is overwhelming. I need to turn away for a moment. Kelly, seemingly undaunted by what’s happening around her, plays the professional and continues taking pictures.
As I force myself to turn and look back, I think of all these poor charred, slaughtered people. I can almost hear them only a few minutes before talking, laughing and excited about a new adventure. Now they, along with their thoughts, dreams, and laughter are gone forever. I could use a drink.
As I stand, weak-kneed and languishing in the abhorrence of the scene before me, the ring from my cell phone comes as an ill-mannered obnoxious irritation.
“Hello, this is Matt.”
“Lloyd here, what’s going on?”
My editor also has impeccable timing.
”Lloyd, I was just about to call you. Kelly and I are on top of the jet airliner crash story. We’ll have something for print later today.”
“May I remind you Matt, we are in a competitive business? If I have to read The Oregonian or some other newspaper in order to get this story, I really don’t need you, do I? Remember that. The deadline is five o‘clock. I’ll expect it then.” The phone clicks. Lloyd ends the conversation in his usual cold, stonehearted manner.
Pressing the off button on my cell phone about as hard as I can, I turn back in Kelly’s direction, when I bump into someone with a jarring impact. I look down on the ground and see a gentleman stretched out flat on his back, as he begins to move to pick himself up, I reach down to help him off the ground.
“Hey, I’m really sorry. I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going,” I feel embarrassed.
As the dewy-faced young gentleman looks up, his eyes meet mine. His ice-cold piercing blue eyes look like two ghoulish beholders imprisoned inside his face. He stares at me in a manner of expression that I have never witnessed before, nor will I ever forget.
Refusing to take my hand, he slowly rises up from the pavement. Continuing to magnetically stare into my eyes, he walks backwards away from me and from the plane crash.
Turning around toward Kelly once again, I notice the gentleman’s crushed hat on the asphalt. Pleased to be able to offer some kindness to the man I had just knocked down, I pick up the hat and spin around to deliver it into his hands.
Somehow, in just the few seconds it has taken me to make this maneuver, the man has totally disappeared from sight. Very strange, since there are no vehicles, buildings, or anything for him to hide behind or escape to, for at least a half-mile in all directions. I stand there stunned for a few moments.
I then notice Kelly removing a roll of film from one of her cameras, and I motion to her.
“I’ve had enough Kelly. If you think you’ve got enough, let’s call it good. I’ll get all the rest of the details I need from the airport management before we go.”
“Matt, I know I’ve got some awesome shots. You won’t even need to write a story. Of course, if you want to write something down to go along with my photos; I guess that’s up to you,” she is spiritedly confident.
“You and I make a great team. I write the stories and you take the pictures that make my stories look good.” I smile. What a woman, I tell myself.
Back at The Herald, I wait at my desk for Kelly to develop the film into photos, when I hear Betty’s voice over the intercom
“Mr. Brooks, your father is on line three.”
It has only been six months since my mother died after a long hard fight with cancer. My father and mother were married for thirty-seven years. They retired and moved three thousand miles away to Florida, only one year before she died. Now Dad is a bachelor, living by himself three thousand miles away.
“Dad, it’s about time you called. I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Matt! How are you doing, son? You do know that the phone line goes both ways, don’t you?” he jokes.
“Yeah I know, Dad. I’m sorry, I should have called by now. I’ve just been busy trying to make this new job work.”
“Don’t worry about it, Matt, I understand.”
“Hey Dad, have you thought any more about forsaking the life of a beach bum and coming to live with me here in Portland?” I ask.
“Yes, I’ve thought about it son, but I’m still not quite ready to be taken care of; not yet anyway.”
“That’s just it, Dad; I need somebody to take care of me. You know, to keep me on the right path.” I hear my Dad chuckle at my logic.
“I’m serious, come on, move in with me. We could be pals, you know, amigos.”
“Tell me, what about meeting someone and getting married? Sometimes a father and son living together can throw a wrench into such things.”
“Now that’s the last thing I am worried about, you ruining my chances of getting married,” I assure him.
“I’m not worried about you, son, I was thinking more about myself.” My father’s words put an instant smile on my face. His comment also makes me realize the need to re-adjust the way I think of my father.
“How’s your career going at The Portland Herald?” my dad continues.
“It’s just barely going. The boss and I don’t quite see eye to eye. Plus, I think it has to be longer than three months to qualify as a career,” I tell him.
“Hang in there, son. You have more talent than you realize. I’ve seen it.”
“I think I’d like to quit, Dad. This job is going nowhere fast.”
“Don’t give up yet, Matt, your career has just begun,” he trys to encourage me.
“I think I’m a little lost; I don’t really know which way to go from here. You got any suggestions?”
“You’re a grown man.
I don’t want to tell you what to do, but there are some things I would do different if I were a young man like you again. For one thing, I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get each part of my life over with, thinking that all of life’s real spectaculars are just ahead. You got to live your life to its full right now, Matt.
“Your career may seem trivial now, but take time out to experience it; try to experience everything to its full. Your boss may be hell to work for, but even the most ill natured cuss on earth can teach you something. You don’t have to like your boss, Matt, just learn everything you can from him while you’re there.”
“You’re right as usual Dad. I guess I’ll have to work hard on getting an attitude adjustment,” I appreciate his fatherly advice.
I still find myself in awe of my father. He has the ability to evaluate my life from a phone 3,000 miles away, giving me the direction I need to walk down the right road.
“Anyway, I just called to tell you I would like to come out and visit you in a couple weeks, if that would fit in with your plans.”
“That would be great, Dad. I would really enjoy that.”
“Maybe we could do a little sailing or something?” he suggests.
“Dad, we’ll do it. I’ll count on it.”
“Okay then, that will be the plan. I’ve got to go now son, but I’ll keep in touch. Take care of yourself, Matt. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
As I hang up I think; there goes the only man I have ever truly respected and wanted to get respect from.
My father has always worked hard at not being too intrusive in my adult life. He has always expected me to stand on my own two feet, but has always been there whenever I needed him. Too short of a call. I really miss him.
Wyatt, Richard Page 1
