Twenty One Days to Nowhere, Man - a novel
First draft started April 2005
Final draft completed April 2014
overview:
The year is 1967. The summer of Love has just concluded in San Francisco and its repercussions are sweeping across the country. And nowhere more than Champaign, Illinois, the home of the University of Illinois, where 17-year old Mark Delaney and his friends are out on their own for the first time as college freshmen. Drugs, sex and rock'n'roll abound, particularly the latter, in this coming of age story in which a young man finds out that in just three short weeks, choices can be made that have lifelong repercussions, and that when one door is opened, many others swing shut.
21 Days to Nowhere, Man is a fast moving story that appeals to both young adults and to those millions of aging baby boomers who lived through the late sixties, with its allure of Hendrix, hashish and antiwar protest. The recurrent references to the war in Vietnam and the draft echo in today's uncertain times, but the thrust of the story remains on Mark and the music he loves so much. How he transforms from a boy just months out of high school into a young man with more serious goals and problems make for a fast paced trip through a musical world laced with marijuana smoke that some only imagine, while some still remember from a time long ago.
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synopsis:
Even before attending his first classes at the University of Illinois amid the swirling beginnings of the counterculture and antiwar movements in 1967, Mark Delaney and his friends put together a rock'n'roll band. Their performances are met with acclaim, and in no time they establish themselves as an up and coming group with designs on bigger venues.
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Mark meets and falls in love with Lynda Henrick, herself an incoming freshman, and their torrid romance flavors the early part of the novel. But his singleminded drive for rock'n'roll success apparently sabotages the affair, and they drift apart, only to be brought together later in the story under even more unhappy terms.
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Meanwhile, a powerful local booking agent takes a liking to the band and begins to book many jobs, including performances in other cities, at which the boys perform flawlessly. All seems well on the music front until the agent secretly offers Mark and Pat DeGrazzi, the tough Italian drummer from Chicago, a job with a nationally known group in the Windy City. The chance for stardom is too tempting and the two split up their successful band to try their hand at stardom.
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Their efforts in Chicago are thwarted by a botched dope deal, and Mark finds himself turned from teenage musician to fugitive after undercover police intervene and gunfire ensues. How he escapes from this tense situation and the decisions he makes immediately afterward make for a compelling narrative.
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an excerpt:
A steady rain was falling, the temperatures were falling, and it was almost dark. The streetlights were coming on, and the little raindrops danced through the beams of light like tiny insects. Reflections of the lights bounced up at me from the puddles forming in the street, somehow blurred and softened.
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I walked east on Gregory Drive toward Lincoln Avenue Residence Hall. Few students were out in the rain on this Sunday night, most likely hunkered down in their rooms preparing for tomorrow, the beginning of the second week of classes. Those few that saw me took no note, or else they moved either to the far edge of the sidewalk or cut abruptly to the other side of the street.
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My intent was to walk it off, to take some needed time to digest what had just happened. Gone were the formerly great dilemmas of my life. Now Lynda had dropped this bombshell on me and I was totally overwhelmed. I needed to move.
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I walked faster, ignoring the rain pelting my face like little bb's. My hair became soaked, and plastered against my forehead, dripping down into my eyes. I paid no attention. I walked faster still, trying to outrun my fears and feelings, seemingly just a step behind me and gaining.
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My path led through Illini Grove, a remnant stand of huge trees next to LAR. A trail wound through the woods and I followed it, my feet drumming a rhythm through the night. I passed a girl walking quickly the other way, her umbrella nearly hitting me in the face as we came together. She may have turned and looked back at me, as one would look back at a man possessed. But I never knew if she did; my mind was elsewhere, my heart pounding and my lungs burning.
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By then I was running. I was not aware of any point of transition; one minute I was walking hurriedly toward no destination at all, the next running madly toward the same exact place. My breath was coming in rasping gasps, my quad muscles aching and my calves stretching painfully. The rain had redoubled in strength, and I could no longer see more than a short distance ahead. I couldn't differentiate between my sweat, the rain and the tears which may or may not have been streaming from my eyes.
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Gone, too, was any conscious thought, of Lynda, of the baby, of my life. I only thought of running and continuing to run and that is all that I did.
My footsteps led me to Florida Avenue and across. I was in the country then, the uneven blacktop road flanked by rows of brown corn, seed corn not yet harvested. The rain continued unabated, the only wind was that made by me running ten miles an hour. I reached a stasis point and the pain of running leveled off. My breathing was deep and even, my legs churning a powerful rhythm, furiously pumping up and back. The old Converse basketball shoes, the only athletic shoes I owned, became chariots of fire, allowing me to glide purposefully southward further and further from town, a mile and then another mile.
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Soon I reached a rural intersection, no one around but stalks of corn and a few lonely crickets sheltering from the rain. On a whim I turned right and headed west. From this vantage point, however, I could see the Assembly Hall, the football stadium and the dorms, so I stopped and turned around, not wanting any reminders or symbols of what I was trying to escape.
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Resuming a rhythmic pace I ran eastward, my back sprinkled with the last faint light of dusk. No cars accompanied me on my quest, and I ran alone for uncountable minutes, somehow maintaining the pace and sense of purpose that had driven me thus far. I'd never run this distance, ever, and yet I felt no fatigue, no fading of strength. My insane dash had been fueled by a tankful of anguish and confusion, and it apparently had not yet been spent. I continued to run.
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Far in the distance I heard the mournful wail of a diesel engine. I couldn't tell from the sound how far away it was, nor could I see the lights of the train in the growing blackness. Yet it somehow beckoned, reenergizing my footsteps, calling me to witness.
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I ran what must have been another mile before, far to the north, as I was cresting a gentle rise in the earth, I saw a faint light moving steadily on a path at a right angle to my course. There was another whistle, this one louder, as the train continued its approach to our rendezvous. I continued to run.
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Again the train whistle sounded, its sad refrain wafting over the flat prairie to where I ran. I had no idea why seeing this freight train meant so much, but I just knew it was important. The three big lights of the immense diesel engine began to illuminate the terrain ahead as it drew closer and closer. I could see the ghostly white crossbars of the otherwise unmarked rail crossing ahead. I was getting closer, and so was the train.
Then I understood what I had to do. I was going to outrun the train. Me, a frail, five foot seven inch human being capable of running not much faster than ten mph, would get to and across the railroad crossing before that ten thousand ton freight train moving at a speed four times faster. I had absolutely no idea why this imperative had occurred to me, only that I would do it.
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Moving now at my absolute maximum I ran on. The train whistle sounded again, alarmingly loud and close at hand. It was full dark here in the country, and the engineer never saw me. The roar of the engine was deafening as it approached, the clacking of the wheels vastly more violent and powerful than my own timorous cadence.
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I never once gave thought to failure, never thought for an instant what would happen if my foot caught in the rail or stumbled or slipped on the wet pavement for even a brief second. Instead, I sprinted madly toward the crossing, a maelstrom of light and sound converging, merging with my own puny footsteps. I burst through the invisible plane of the undeclared finish line just as the train reached the same place. For just the tiniest fraction of a second I thought I hadn't made it but, by the time I finished thinking that, I had already leaned forward and across, feeling the hot blast of wind from the engine on the back of my legs, at the same time feeling but not seeing the panicked look of the engineer as he looked out his window in absolute disbelief at the crazy man who had outleapt death on a lonely country road in the rain.
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Laughing deliriously as the long freight train passed by just six feet away, I collapsed in a puddle of exhaustion,. Six feet away, not six feet under, I thought hysterically, I sure showed them, didn't I?
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Finally the caboose sped by, its small red light flashing brokenly through the night air, as the cold rain continued to fall and I sat there on the pavement beginning to question what the hell I had just done. As I started to get cold, pride and jubilation gave way to wonderment and self-recrimination. What in the world was I trying to prove? Had I tried to kill myself? There was no earthly reason for me to have done what I had just done, it had been the depraved act of a lunatic, nothing more, nothing less.
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Understanding little, but finding myself getting rapidly chilled, I staggered to my feet. Thoroughly spent from my incredible run, I realized I had to get home, and I had probably several miles to walk. I couldn't imagine running any further. My feet hurt, and my muscles ached, and my lungs felt like they'd been through hell in the land of Marlboro. Still I had to get home.
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The rain seemed to be letting up just a little, but the wind began to rise as it did. When I'd started the wind had been gentle and warm, from the southwest, but now it blew raw and cold from the west, and that's exactly the direction I needed to go. Shivering in the darkness, I stumbled across the rails and began my long walk back to sanity. I wasn't sure I'd ever quite get back to where I'd left.