by Mark Treble
In Cameroon, toward the end of the journey another boy, Janopo, became homesick and was allowed to leave. One of the adults took him to a nearby bus station and gave him a ticket home, just like Prosper. In both cases the adult man had returned in less than twenty minutes. Kupake marveled at how many bus stations countries outside Congo had.
Finally the bus arrived at a building site that had to be part of the school. The boys were led off the bus by the adults and put in a line. Always, curious, Kupake looked around.
A camouflaged roof had been erected over the largest building Kupake had ever seen. It was round and seemed to go on forever. There were all sorts of strange pieces of equipment nearby. The whole area was guarded by school security guards with guns. One of the boys from Niger pointed at them and said “Boko Haram,” but Kupake didn't know what that meant. He assumed it was a term for school security guard in the boy's native language.
Kupake and the rest of the boys were taken to a smaller building and told to shower before dinner. One of the boys from Rwanda knew how to operate the shower controls and demonstrated for the others. More than twenty naked boys laughed, giggled and played games in the water.
After their showers the boys went into a dormitory room where they found simple white vazis to put on. Their clothes had been taken away to be washed and would be returned tomorrow.
Each boy sat on his own bed and was brought a tray. On it were yams and three pieces of Spam. Each boy had a bowl of soup that one of them identified as Isapa. Kupake found the taste strange and wasn't sure he was going to like having it often, but he ate it anyway. On a separate plate were slices of a yellow fruit called pineapple. It was absolutely delicious.
Most miraculously, every single one of the twelve and thirteen year old boys had a whole cup of fermented parm tree sap. Kupake's father had let him have a small amount on his thirteenth birthday, and it was fabulous. It warmed his insides and left him feeling good. After he drank his whole cup Kupake finished another boy's parm wine. He was feeling light-headed and happier than he could ever remember.
One of the adults came in and told the boys they would have to get a good night's sleep because school would start tomorrow. Each would be given a pill to help him sleep well, so he could awake refreshed and ready to go. Kupake eagerly swallowed the pill with a small sip of water.
Kupake thought about his old life. Some days there was not enough to eat, but daily back-breaking labor was needed to cultivate the few crops they could grow. There was no time to laugh or play. He was sad that he wouldn't see Prosper or the rest of his family for a while, but he cheered up quickly when he thought about Spam and fresh water and the games he would play. And maybe the ukes he would get to poke.
With a smile on his face Kupake fell asleep. Tomorrow would begin his new life.
The End
Thank you for reading this story. Its sequel, Life Continues, will be available shortly on Amazon in the Kindle Store.
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Books by Mark Treble
The Gulfside City Series
The series chronicles decades of a basketball-crazy small town in rural Florida. Current high school players struggle with relationships, trauma and sexual identity while the former stars struggle with advancing age and vanishing youth. Fans find themselves in positions that are at once awkward, funny and heart-breaking. Characters move fluidly across the stories, never falling on their faces until they're inside.
The Trip to Helen Gawne (Volume 1, comedy),available in fall 2015
Four lifetime friends go on a road trip to take one last shot at winning the heart of their mutual former crush, the Prom Queen. Except it's almost fifty years after high school and the guys are all in their sixties. What can possibly go wrong?
Jake, the class clown, is longing to restore his youth. Plus his knees, his colon, his hips, and half a dozen other body parts that will no longer cooperate.
Alessandro, once nicknamed by the high school girls TDP (Tall Dark and Promiscuous) nowadays eats Viagra like candy. His third wife left when the sex went from bad to none, and he's desperately seeking something to revive his flagging libido.
Elvis divorced his wife after finding the new lawn care guy trimming her bush, plowing her garden and fertilizing her field. The town's #1 (and only) dentist, Elvis needs a break from looking down in the mouth. Not to mention hackneyed dentist jokes.
Woody, the perennial bachelor, is along for the ride. Plus, if he goes, his sister's twenty-some grandchildren can't pester him to come out and throw the football with them. The one-time high school football star can no longer throw, can no longer hold the ball, and most importantly, can no longer remember where he left it.
Helen Bradley, the Prom Queen, had married Richie Gawne, the basketball star in a sports-crazy town. An unfortunate accident with a bouncing basketball knocked loose a nasty clot in Richie's brain and, well, he's now playing for another team. And his widow, Helen Gawne, is once more available.
As their golden years tarnish before their eyes, the four friends take off cross-country on their last desperate shot at youth. They're on The Trip to Helen Gawne.
Four Seconds on the Clock (Volume 2, coming of age & m/m romance),available now in the Kindle Store at Amazon.com
Logan Matthews has it all: good grades, a leading position on the basketball team, a hot girlfriend, a smart best friend, a great part-time job and his own car – and a slam-dunk basketball scholarship to a nationally-ranked university. Everything's going his way. So, why does life suddenly feel as though everything is spiraling out of control?
A substitute teacher with an agenda is threatening to fail him in an important class. Some of his hidden activities on the job have been caught on video. There is even a whole website devoted to what he is doing. If it gets out, his father will throw him out of the house. And, if it stays secret, things could become infinitely worse than just being homeless.
Logan's hot girlfriend is finally loosening up on the physical relationship side. She's promised him a special treat at the party. But Logan's father has grounded him, ordered him to drop his girlfriend and find a new best friend. The current best friend is black, the girlfriend's twin brother is gay, and Logan's father the bigot has spoken.
Tommy, Logan's former best friend, despises Logan almost as much as Logan despises him. But, they have to work together or both lose their scholarships. And Coach won't let up on forcing the issue. Either they put aside their differences or Coach will put aside their scholarships. There's just too much history and pain to overcome.
The pain boils over and Logan gets sick. Then Tommy gets sick. Finally, secrets both glorious and gruesome, buried too long, surface and the young men have to face the past to get on with the future.
As Logan pivots his feet on the squeaky gym floor, he's counting on a desperation play to win the game. And he wonders just how many more desperation plays, on and off the court, will have to succeed to get his life in order. It could all start with winning this game, but can he do it? After all, there are only four seconds left on the clock.
The Life Stories Series
These books revolve around the complex and combative relationship between a thirty-one year old stepfather, journalist Ethan, and his eighteen year old stepson, rebel Alex. The rich cultural life of Louisiana serves as a backdrop to mystery, adventure, drama and comedy.
Life Struggles (Volume 1, mystery-thriller), available in August 2015
Ethan McQuade is a recently-widowed investigative reporter for a New Orleans newspaper. Thirty-one year old Ethan and
his step-son of eighteen, Alex DeLauder, live together in a fragile truce that is broken and repaired at least daily. Unfortunately, the glue is running out as the relationship deteriorates.
Then Alex mysteriously disappears and his clothes are found at the curb. Ethan's search for his step-son is fruitless. Frantic, he calls the police with little hope of any assistance. He is happily surprised when Detective Danny Flint shows up quickly with reinforcements. The reason the police are taking this seriously, though, is frightening. Alex is the tenth young man to have gone missing without explanation in the past year.
The police and the FBI's profilers can find no pattern. No one knows who is responsible, why this is being done, or where the young men are. As the police conduct a search Ethan enlists the help of his own confidential sources to navigate the danger-filled underworld of New Orleans crime. He looks for explanations in sex, drugs, murder and elsewhere. Each step into this cesspool brings Ethan one step closer to his own death. An avaricious Motor Vehicle clerk, a convicted murderer and a gay graphic artist are only a few of those who lend a hand. Ultimately, though, Ethan is on his own. And he's running out of time. Before Alex can be found Ethan is left for dead. Finding Alex just unpeels the first layer of the onion.
Simple kidnappings rapidly evolve into a medical mystery. These young men all have something the kidnappers want, but for what purpose? Where are the young men, who are the perpetrators and who is behind this? Every time a layer is peeled back another, more complex, one is revealed. And, the final questions are not answered until the last page – if then.
Life Continues (Volume 2, coming of age/comedy) available in October 2015
Alex acts out while Ethan tries to cope. The stepson/stepfather duo cycles among fighting, sulking, looking for love (and sex if available), and having spectacular meltdowns.
Being a teenager awash in hormones and deep in grief is no fun for anybody, least of all Ethan. Alex is arrested for soliciting prostitution. A cast of unlikely characters – a gay artist, the artist's straight boyfriend, a music groupie and Monica, the vibrator queen of the South – all pitch in to help. Is there anything wrong with this picture?
A bawdy trauma nurse and a sexually-frustrated policewoman keep the rest of the characters on their toes – and their backs and their knees and in other positions. A brilliant nurse trainee is learning diagnostic technical terms. For one patient, those turn out to be wacko and horny. A house full of raucous hedonists throws a party nobody can remember. Except for the policewoman who ignores Ethan's advances in favor of pursuing attractive, suave and debonair Mike. At least until Mike calls Luke his boyfriend.
Ethan and Alex wind their way through strange situations and characters. Alex's politically correct grandparents see no conflict in their support of Women's and Gender Studies at a university while deploring the fact that Ethan lives next door to a ho-mo-sex-wall. Their NAACP membership is in fully consistent with lamenting the integrated nature of Ethan's neighborhood.
A visit from a couple of Swedish-speaking Finns raises serious questions. Are most Americans prunish? No, not that prunish, that one's a breakfast pastry. The other prunish. Would America ever have invaded Iraq if its men's manslems hadn't been mutilated as infants? Read and find out.
Alex gets arrested again, this time for attempted murder. His innocence can be proven, of course. Just as soon as a woman comes out of a coma, a young girl regains the ability to speak, and a violent drug-maker stops clinging to his right to remain silent.
Other characters make brief appearances. Officer Ding Dong and Officer Pantyhose are but two. The studio filming a movie of Ethan's book wants a high-budget all-star cast. It also wants to use an actor who has been dead for thirty years in a lead part.
Then Deidre, Alex and Ethan's lawyer, wants to give legal advice to Alex's Zanderpinky behind closed bedroom doors. Attorney-client privilege, you know.
Throughout the narrative the single most important character is already dead. Alex's now-deceased mother (and Ethan's now-deceased wife) drives the characters' actions, motivations and accomplishments. Dana DeLauder's sudden passing left her widower and her orphaned son each trying to save himself while working to sink the other. She left a legacy of lifted hearts and golden opportunities for the large number of musical groups she helped launch. She left a gift of unconditional love for many others. How does the extended cast cope with her death?
As Dana said, Life Continues.
Life Creates (Volume 3, drama) available February 2016
Alex feels cast aside. He had finally accepted his mother's death and begun developing a healthy relationship with his stepfather. Then Ethan remarries and starts a new family. They're back to Square One.
While Ethan tries to help Alex adjust to the new circumstances, Alex plots to sabotage Ethan's new marriage. How do you deal with a teenager trying to create new victims to join him in his misery? How do you love the stepson working to destroy you, the police officer wife who loves you, and the baby still on the way?
Life becomes a pinball machine. Alex and Ethan are silver balls bouncing off one another as well as a host of traps and obstacles, both real and perceived. Friends, neighbors, rivals, strangers, enemies and lovers are flipping paddles faster than the balls can react. The only thing certain in the game is that a ball will go down a hole. Just where it pops up is anybody's guess.
Life destroys and life creates. The balls move faster and less predictably. As Ethan and Alex work to establish some kind of balance, they're in a race with the machine. Each wants to win the game before the machine calls Tilt.
The Flint Files
This series of mystery thrillers follows Danny Flint, the new Deputy Commander of the New Orleans Police Department's High Profile Case Squad. If it's a high-profile homicide, robbery, fraud or any other kind of case, it belongs to the HPC.
Taunting (Volume 1, mystery thriller) available Spring 2016
Somebody is killing the elderly members of New Orleans' venerable Martyrs' Episcopal Church. Are bigots targeting the church for holding gay weddings? Are activists targeting the church because its priest wants to preach instead of politicize, and minister instead of marching? Or, perhaps it's because the church's congregation has shrunk while the value of its land has skyrocketed.
Or maybe something else is going on here. Follow Danny Flint and the HPC as they pursue clues to the killer and bring him in – only to have him die while the bodies keep piling up. Something else is definitely going on here, but what?
Harassing (Volume 2, mystery thriller) available 2016
Danny Flint and the HPC are faced with an inexplicable series of smash-and-grab jewelry store robberies. They all share the same M.O. but the perps are all different.
The robberies spread across the state, and then something changes. Somebody dies. Suddenly the jewelry store robberies cease and now it's pawn shops. Same M.O. as the jewelry stores, just different perps every time. Then one of the perps dies. With an identity should come motive, but none can be found. He's a successful businessman with nothing to gain from robbery, but everything to lose – including his life.
When another businessman comes forward with a tale of intrigue, blackmail and shame, it provides an explanation but puts the squad no closer to finding the people behind the crime spree. When an audacious crime is pulled off flawlessly, the well-to-do criminal is killed during the getaway by his own accomplices. Can the squad find the masterminds before anybody else has to die?
The Finding Series
This series follows the lives, loves, relationships, adventures and growth of two men in New Orleans. A straight management consultant is sexually attracted to a gay artist, but to no other men. The books explore their relationship, how they got there, what each needs from it, and why.
FindingFriendship (Volume 1, m/m romance), available soon in the Kindle Store at Amazon.com
Note: This is a complete reimagining of the Life Changes story. If you have previously downloaded Life Changes, e-mai
l me at [email protected] and I will send you a free PDF version of the new book.
Straight Mike is newly divorced. He moves from St. Louis to the city of Mardi Gras for a fresh start. As a business consultant, he can work from anywhere. In New Orleans, he rents a room from gay Luke and decides that his landlord's sexual orientation is irrelevant.
Things quickly go from irrelevant to complicated. Mike misunderstands the dress code for a party and winds up in a compromising position. While at a club, he meets a gorgeous woman and learns to ask more questions next time. He finds the city unlike anything he has ever before experienced: Breakfast in a nudist club, naked karaoke, and so much more. And he and Luke become much closer every day.
Mike is completely straight and wants physical contact with gay Luke. Not a single other man appeals sexually to Mike. Life sure changes.
Finding Each Other (Volume 2, m/m romance) available in early 2016
Mike and Luke explore what they want from their relationship, and why. Luke has reason to avoid commitment, while Mike has reason to want it. The casual attitude toward sex of many in the gay community – including some of Luke's friends – troubles Mike. He wants someone close with whom he can share affection, pure and simple. Cuddling becomes kissing becomes slightly more. Sex is actually optional for Mike, not so much for Luke. Luke would be thrilled to have a boyfriend, if he just weren't so scared – and scared with good reason.
This story overlaps with Life Struggles and the characters and actions move between the two stories. We get glimpses of the Decadence festival in New Orleans and see a few of the events from the perspective of on-lookers, and occasionally of participants. The sexual energy of Decadence interferes with the more important need for love and affection.
Recollections of early childhood emerge as Mike struggles with something he cannot understand – a romantic relationship with a man. Those memories, with Luke's help, offer Mike a possible explanation. Is it the answer? Mike does not know, nor does anyone else. Some things are simply not meant to be understood easily, if ever. In the immortal words of Alex, “Explain it? I can't explain television.”
