The dancing porch on the Victorian home owned by the Schultz family in Fort Myers, Florida, played a big part of Hank's life with their daughter Kate Schultz, the love of his life. While at college Savannah, looking remarkably like Kate, became Hank's second love. Hank's career as an executive for Honey S, a restaurant chain, takes many twists and turns as he discovers a crime syndicate owns the company. Charley Cohen, a psychopathic family member of the crime syndicate, plots to manipulate Hank to ensure business failure and personal tragedy. Their lives became entwined in a triangle of love, jealousy, and deceit. Kate's untimely disappearance remains a mystery to Hank until an unexpected event with Savannah reveals the real truth.
The Dancing Porch
By Harry AdamsAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2009 Harry Adams
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4389-9200-6Chapter One
The dancing porch became a big part of my life in 1957 with Kate Schultz, the love of my life. Savannah entered my life three years later. Forty-two years have passed and both are gone from my life. Now, I am alone, disillusioned and mad as hell, standing on the dancing porch waving my arms in wild and reckless abandon to the heavens, yelling like a lunatic in the hot humid night air.
"Charley Cohen, you son of a bitch, if ever you are released from prison, I will get even with you somehow, you no account ratfink."
I pointed my arms downward to get a message to Charley. I regarded him as a disciple of the devil. I was bleeding from inside my soul, all the while searching for closure for the losses I suffered because of Charley's transgressions. My best friends and business associates were part of Charley's family, but this envious, racially biased son of a bitch, mixed with his jealous fervor, had caused three lives to be lost for naught.
The disintegrating dancing porch once filled my life with happiness, which changed to tragedy leaving only bitter memories. My heart was beating so hard it made me feel like a bass drum with Charley as the drummer. My life, altered by the experience, reminded me of a tragic three-act play; opening full of energy, with great love escalating to the final tragic ending and the curtain drawn in mercy.
I found my first love on the dancing porch with Kate Schultz. Her father owned the showpiece Victorian home located on the Caloosahatchee River. Kate and I had vowed to keep it in good repair and continue the parties on the porch for the family friends after her father's death. Savannah and I committed to those same vows. Charley's actions assured that those vows would never become reality.
I was wavering back and forth, as though I expected music to start at any moment and one or both of my loves, Kate and or Savannah, would appear. The feeling of loneliness began to manifest itself, cutting ever deeper through the membranes of my bewildered brain. I came to see the dancing porch one last time because of a notice of condemnation from the code enforcement office of the city. The house with the dancing porch and appurtenances are under contract for demolition tomorrow. The home with my special dancing porch filled with memories would soon fade from existence just as the loves of my life vanished in an unforgiving and reprehensive manner.
The ones who cherished it the most neglected the house with all its charm and character. Charley was the cause of this, all of it, and it was the same as if he had set fire to the house that was full of a lifetime of memories and destroyed it. Now, because of his interference, resulting in its neglect and a growing population of voracious termites taking most of the wood, the house will be only a memory after tomorrow. Although I should have been kept abreast of the proceedings, the information was received much too late to place it on The National Register for Historic Places.
Summer is greeting the fall. My hat went airborne in the wind. I ran grabbing at the air reminiscent of when I was a child chasing fireflies. "Ah ha, gotcha," I said, as I was quick to force the hat down onto to my head and without looking back, ran quickly toward my car.
My presence and vocal gestures caused several neighbors to turn on their outdoor lights. I knew I should move on, but did not hurry to escape their curiosity.
I stopped to gaze into a dark sky, one that seemed full of hate and contempt for all of us mortals, as the lightning crashed down sending bolts of fire around me. I was shaking, and my knees buckled when, without notice, I felt the heat of a much too close lightning strike and the thunder roared. I began to hope lightning would strike the house and let nature intervene, rather than having it demolished by the city. Hell, I was tempted to set fire to it myself. I paced the sidewalk contemplating how I would start the fire. I am convinced this house that I have cherished is now in sympathy with my feelings of loneliness and solitude, and decided I could not be the one to decide its fate.
As the lightning reminded me of my peril while trespassing on the porch, and now standing alone and open to the elements, I remembered the first time I brought my eventual bride, Savannah, to a social gathering on the porch. She was one of the best of things that ever happened to me. Thirty-two years have passed and I still rue the day I met her, but ... I continue to miss her.
I opened the door to my SUV, seeking the shelter from the elements, which were more harsh than usual. The conditions were shadowing my life with her, my mind was heavy with torment and felt as though it were spinning as I thrust my fist to the sky and yelled; "STOP, DAMN IT." My outburst was futile, flowing across an empty cloud of time long ago lost to me.
I made a decision not to return to see the finality of the house that was full of memories and tears flowed down my cheeks from the sadness I was feeling. I sat in my car, soaked from the rain, wishing either Kate or Savannah was with me tonight before the final curtain of our past is drawn.
I need to know the reason for the events that took them out of my life. I must accept the harsh reality. I may never know what precipitated the root problems that will haunt me until I die. I must get away from the house and the dancing porch.
Chapter Two
I started the SUV, and was ready to move on when a black and white rolled up beside me. The officer, with a smug smile, motioned for me to come to his car. I thought,
Lord, don't you think I have had enough? It was raining hard and the officer decided I was the one to get wet. I begrudgingly turned off the switch while cursing under my breath; thinking how I should have left sooner.
Already soaked, I got out, stood by his car, and he asked if I was okay. I knew he was not concerned about my health. I replied, "I guess it's all in how you define it, but I think so."
He was responding to a call made by some asshole reporting me on the dancing porch. Purely from my own frustration, I wondered why I pay so many taxes when this lazy ass can't even get out of his car because he might get wet. I had not given thought to my inappropriate trespass and disturbances, and just how lucky I was that he was even talking to me in a calm voice.
"I assure you, I can't get any wetter than I am."
The officer checked my license and registration as we talked and I answered his questions as to why I had been on the porch of the condemned house. He asked, "Are you the Hank Anders who owns a chain of restaurants?"
"I am, sir, do I know you from somewhere?
"No, but you probably know my Uncle Jimmy Straight who worked security for you. He is a retired state trooper. He talked me into taking this damn job." With this comment, he laughed, but acted embarrassed he had opened up to me.
"Yes, he's a good man, and a good friend."
Obviously trying to continue small talk and get the subject less strenuous for myself, I asked the officer if there was a hurricane approaching Fort Myers?
He laughed, "No sir, but the neighbors think there is an insane person in their area."
His expression told me he thought I was searching for words to accommodate his inquiry by asking about a hurricane, and was right in his assessment. He was trying to be nice and I decided to accept, before I had a legal problem.
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