Alone on the Shield: A Novel - Softcover

Landers, Kirk

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1613739915 ISBN 13: 9781613739914

Verlag: CHICAGO REVIEW PR, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Eric Hoffer Book Award honorable mention

I hope you get drafted and you go to Vietnam and you get shot and you die there!

Those words, spoken in the anger of youth, marked the end of the torrid 1960s college romance of Annette DuBose and Gabe Pender. She would marry a fellow antiwar activist and end up immigrating to Canada. He would fight in Vietnam and come home to build an American Dream kind of life.

Forty years later, they have reconnected and discovered a shared passion: solo canoeing in Ontario's raw Quetico wilderness. They decide to meet again to catch up on old times, not in a café but on Annette's favorite island deep in the Quetico wilds.

Though they try to control their expectations for their rendezvous, they both approach the island with a growing realization of the emotional void in their lives and wonder how different everything might have been if they had stayed together. They must overcome challenges just to reach the island. Then they encounter the greatest challenge of all'each other.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kirk Landers launched his professional writing career in the US Army, later entering the special-interest and trade magazine worlds. His magazines won more than a hundred awards for journalistic excellence, and he is a member of the Construction Writers Hall of Fame. He lives in the suburbs of Chicago.

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Alone on the Shield

A Novel

By Kirk Landers

Chicago Review Press Incorporated

Copyright © 2018 Kirk Landers
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61373-991-4

CHAPTER 1

Pender couldn't get his mind back into his body. He could see himself in profile, striding through the office bay, but he couldn't feel his feet touching the floor and he couldn't hear anything but the vague whistle in his ears, the tinnitus that had been there from the first week of rifle training long, long ago. The cubicle farm floated in and out of focus, like a dream. His scalp tingled as if his hair was standing on end.

He recognized it. An adrenaline surge, like working a jungle trail in pitch darkness, hoping to hear Charlie before he heard you.

Except this walk was in daylight, in the full upright position, and when he got to the end of the hall, he was going to get shot. Not with a bullet. With a termination notice.

The most worthless, miserable, stupidest empty suit in the Global Media executive corps was finally getting his chance to fire Pender.

Charles Jamison Blue pretended to scrutinize something on his computer when his assistant announced Pender's arrival. He signaled with one hand that he was busy, like a lord instructing a peasant to remain standing and try not to stink.

Pender waved back like a guy who couldn't give a shit and took a chair at Charles Jamison Blue's conference table. From the table you were supposed to gaze in wonder at his wall of honors, which included his degrees and awards and, in the center of it all, a framed photo of Blue shaking hands with President Reagan. But Pender didn't look at the wall of honor. He looked out the window. This year, 2008, had been rough. The divorce. The economy going up in smoke. Two wars being waged. The publishing business in a death spiral. The world in chaos.

"Have a seat, Pender," Blue murmured as he punched his keyboard. He waited a moment before turning to face Pender. It was one of his games. Pender was supposed to think Blue didn't see him sit without permission. In Vietnam you'd just shove a frag up the ass of an idiot like Blue and be done with it, but here in civilization you had to let them run things, even when they ran them into the ground. Everything Blue knew about publishing was on a spreadsheet, and his only deeply held belief was that making his budget numbers every quarter would keep him highly paid and employable, which was all that mattered. Ass-kissing frauds like Blue were devouring American businesses from within, like giant tapeworms passing through an organism without vision or thought, just a relentless appetite.

Blue finally turned to Pender and smiled widely. He was wearing a hundred-dollar pinstripe shirt and his Ivy League tie, a striper in the colors that other Ivy Leaguers would recognize, a sartorial version of the secret handshake for the snobbery elite. His Savile Row suit coat hung like a precious tapestry on the back of his door. Pender laughed. Despite a thousand dollars' worth of clothing and a two-hundred-thousand-dollar education, Blue was just a fat, paste-eating kid who had become a fat, incompetent man.

"I'm sure you know why we're here." Blue said it like a teacher preparing to discipline a miscreant pupil.

"I do. No need for speeches. Just give me the paperwork." Pender said it without looking at Blue. The man's arrogance and stupidity had always brought out the worst in Pender, and today there was a volcano brewing in Pender's head. Today, his worst wouldn't just be an insulting remark or an untimely smirk. Today, what he'd really like to do is push Blue's sneering face through the glass top of his completely empty desk.

"It didn't have to be like this, Pender."

"I agree. You could have gone into some other field, and all these magazines would still be healthy."

"I didn't cause the recession. And I tried to save you from yourself."

Pender shook his head. "For five years you've been cutting pages and cutting people and raising rates. What did you think was going to happen?"

"Just following company policy. If you'd done the same thing we might still have a place for you."

Pender focused on Blue's immaculate desk to keep his anger at bay. He had defied Blue's brainless edicts from the start, often going over his head in the company to do so, more often just ignoring him. It kept the magazine strong, which made their relationship even worse.

"Anyway," Pender said, "who tells me about health insurance and severance pay?"

"You can pick up a severance packet in HR when you leave. We'll mail you whatever else. Don't expect much in severance, though."

"Twenty-five years doesn't get much love anymore, huh?"

"The old days are long gone, Pender. You never understood that."

"I understood more than you think. What I misunderstood was, I thought it was about profits. It's not. It's about something even baser, though I'm still not sure what that is."

Blue struck his Ivy League MBA pose, straightening his back, sucking in his gut a little, holding his head erect so he could look down his nose at Pender like a learned scholar patiently coaxing intelligence from a naive student. "It is about profit, but not the glacial growth you old guys look for. These magazines? Yesterday's news. They'll never operate at more than a ten or fifteen percent margin ever again. Time to move to some other field. Information technology. Digital communications. It's a new world, and you aren't part of it."

Pender stirred. "I find honor in that."

"Honor!" Blue said the word with contempt. "Business isn't about honor. It's about winners and losers. You're a loser."

He stood. It was an imperious gesture to a subordinate that the meeting was over. Pender slouched in his chair and crossed one leg over the other.

"So, are you going to the bathroom or have I been fired?" Pender asked.

"Nothing left but the handshake," said Blue. He tried to keep his voice nonchalant, but Pender's act was irritating him.

Pender uncoiled his six-foot frame and stood in front of Blue. Neither of them offered a handshake or tried to hide the contempt he had for the other. "I wish I could say it was a pleasure working with you," said Blue. "But it wasn't. You are an arrogant, egotistical, self-righteous editor, and you've been earning this termination from the time I met you."

"Well, thank you," said Pender. "I can only hope I irritated you as much as you have me. It's a lot to hope for, but I do."

"There you go again. Do you even understand what you've done to yourself? Your wife left you. You've got no job. You're sixty years old in an economy where forty is ancient. You'll never work in magazine publishing again. You won't be trotting off to Paris to speak. No more interviews on CNN. You've won your last award. You've chaired your last meeting. All that's left of your life is an empty house. Get it, Pender? You're dead."

Blue put his hands on his hips and rolled on the balls of his feet, a corporate warrior's victory dance. Pender stared at him with an expression that began as curiosity and morphed into an intensity that made the executive uncomfortable. That was the very moment that it came crashing into Pender's head with a force that pushed out all other thought. That was when he realized everything he had done, everything he had believed in, everything he had wished for had been truly and completely corrupted in the space of his adult life. This company was a lie. America was a lie. He was a lie. The truth was Charles Jamison Blue, standing in front of him like a braying jackass. Rage clouded...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: CHICAGO REVIEW PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1613739915
• ISBN 13: 9781613739914
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar