I have run amok!

Now, I know you popped in here to read the next installment, but I got some bad news for you.  Since the sales of my first book are stalled out I have rethought the whole thing.  Don't get me wrong, I am full of ideas and there is another book just busting to get out, but I am not a rich woman.  So until I can pay for the last one, I am not going to worry about the next one.
And how silly is that to put it on here for free and then think some one might actually buy it?  Not good marketing from this end.  So the book is on a flash drive waiting to be finished. When the first one is paid for the second one will be printed and that is how it goes.
In the meantime, here is this blog and nothing to put on it.  So my thoughts are that I am going to wander around this town and pop in to businesses here and there and then give you a report.  Say I decide I want a hamburger and I drop in to McDonalds.  Does the clerk smile?  Make eye contact?  Is the place clean?  Was the hamburger what I expected?  You get the drift.  Trust me I have been in some places that would not like to have my report published!  I am thinking I may need to take some one with me to verify my findings.  I think I will carry a clipboard and when I leave get a permission slip.  Thinking I may want to consult my attorney before I even embark on this, so give me some time and then check back in and see where I am.
And I would like your feedback on whether you would even read this or not.  So email me your thoughts.  loumercer3@aol.com  In the meantime...

 

************************************************************************
This is the novel I have for sale on Amazon. Do not be confused by the title. Chapter One simply means this is my first book. There may never be another, or there may be many more. I am very proud of this endeavor and guarantee you will enjoy the book in it's enirety. Lou Mercer

From the back cover

Chapter One...Loose Ends
Lou Mercer

Meg Parker led a simple life.  She was a widow of three years and lived on a chicken farm at the foot of the mighty Rockie Mountains.  Life was good and her little store on eBay made her extra spending money.  But snow and wildlife were not the only things lurking in the forest above her house.  Nor did it stay in the forest for long.

Marshall Purcell came home a wounded veteran from vietnam.  He still had his dreams, but they were of an incestuous past that threatened to consume him.

When Meg and Marshall met it seemed an inconsequential meeting, but it changed both their lives forever.  And change is not always a good thing.

This is adult fiction at its best without all the sex.  Well, maybe just a little bit. 

About the author.  Lou Mercer was born in Nickerson, Kansas. She came to Pueblo, Colorado in 1977 and is now a product of the majestic Rockie Mountains

Installment #13 Greg and Kevin

 Greg smiled as he watched Kevin adjust the mirror, move the seat, flex his hands, and finally grip the steering wheel.  Kevin met his eyes and exclaimed, “What?”
 Greg laughed, “Is everything quite right for your stint behind the wheel?  Anything left to adjust? “  Secretly he was proud that Kevin wanted everything just right.  Made him feel secure.  And that was part of Kevin’s charm, always the same.  Always dependable.  And he would drive the speed limit and not go over.  He would be careful passing and never take chances.  Greg liked that in  partner.  Not that he had many partners, but he had his dreams and knew what he wanted.  Dependability.  Trustworthy.  Honest.  Loving.  What more could he ask for in a man?  They would board the plane at DIA and be home before dark.  Greg wondered briefly how the pub was doing and then flipped the lever on the side of the seat and reclined just a little.  Not going to sleep, just wanted to be in the semi vegetative state that he liked when riding in the passenger seat.  They would be at the airport in just a little over an hour.  Course that security thing at the airport was the worst.  It actually took less time to get home than it took to get through that mess.  But soon.  And then he realized that they would be landing in San Francisco and they would not have a car to get home.  He had taken Kevin to the airport and his mother had taken him.  Two cars were in the garage at home and they would be in a cab.  What a waste.  Then he laughed.  Kevin glanced at him and reached for his knee.  Giving it a squeeze he smiled.
 “Well, what is so funny on that side of the car?”
 “I just realized that we are going to have to take a cab from
the airport to the house and there are two cars setting idle in the garage.  We are just pretty wasteful.”
 “We could ride the shuttle into town and then catch the city bus if you would rather.”  The look of horror on Greg’s face made Kevin laugh loudly.  He knew how Greg abhorred public transportation.  He pulled into the center lane at the toll road entrance and pulled the ticket.  Handing the ticket to Greg he accelerated and blended into the west bound traffic.  In the distance he could see the big planes heading for the tiny dot on the horizon.  DIA was getting closer.  He felt the familiar knot in his stomach that he always got before a flight.  But he did not want Greg to know, so he smiled and squeezed the hand that lay on the seat near his leg.

************************************************************************
This is the novel I have for sale on Amazon. Do not be confused by the title. Chapter One simply means this is my first book. There may never be another, or there may be many more. I am very proud of this endeavor and guarantee you will enjoy the book in it's enirety. Lou Mercer

From the back cover

Chapter One...Loose Ends
Lou Mercer

Meg Parker led a simple life.  She was a widow of three years and lived on a chicken farm at the foot of the mighty Rockie Mountains.  Life was good and her little store on eBay made her extra spending money.  But snow and wildlife were not the only things lurking in the forest above her house.  Nor did it stay in the forest for long.

Marshall Purcell came home a wounded veteran from vietnam.  He still had his dreams, but they were of an incestuous past that threatened to consume him.

When Meg and Marshall met it seemed an inconsequential meeting, but it changed both their lives forever.  And change is not always a good thing.

This is adult fiction at its best without all the sex.  Well, maybe just a little bit. 

About the author.  Lou Mercer was born in Nickerson, Kansas. She came to Pueblo, Colorado in 1977 and is now a product of the majestic Rockie Mountains

Installment #12 Jack Farley

 Jack unlocked the door and opened it into his condo.  Home.  It had been a very frustrating day.  Hot as hell.  He dropped the mail on the hall table and headed for the refrigerator and a cold beer.  He was only mildly surprised that there was no beer to be had.  Should have gone shopping.  Shoulda, coulda. Oh well, grab a quick shower and hit the corner bar.  He was ready for a little meaningless chatter with the boys anyway.  He stripped as he headed for the shower leaving a trail of clothes behind him on the floor.  Wasn’t really littering, just storing them there for later.   Yeah, the cleaning lady would pick them up tomorrow.  And she would call him a pig.  She would tell him the floor was not a storage area.  And he would ignore her.  She should know if he picked up after himself, she would not have a job.  That was the way the game went.
 Clad only in his “whitey tighties” as  he like to call his Fruit of the Loom briefs he suddenly remembered the mail.  He should be hearing from his oncologist about his PSA test last week.  Surely it was alright.  He felt alright.  It had been over a year since he had been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and he was faithfully taken the chemo shot every 3 months.  That and the radiation seeds the doctor had planted in his scrotum were surely working.  He was sure if he ever got the notion that he could get a hard on.  At least he sure hoped so.  Just the other day he had felt life down there just thinking about Meg Parker in the shower.  Sex had never been a big motivator in his relationships.  There were things far more important that brought him back to a woman for a second or third date.
The first and most important thing was that she be pretty.  He preferred stunning and he had many of those.  A woman must be intelligent and able to carry on a conversation and not become flustered or rude.  She must be a lady at all times.  There was that one back in St. Louis who had been perfect or so it seemed.  He had entertained the idea of her as a wife and then she had done the unthinkable.  He and a friend had been out riding the trails on their dirt bikes and were close to Janice’s house.  Why not stop in for a cup of coffee.  Jack wanted to see what Roger thought of Janice.  So they popped in unannounced.
 Of course Janice was happy to see him and immediately made coffee.  Soon she appeared in the living room with a plate of his favorite cookies and two cups of steaming coffee on a tray which she sat on the table in front of the sofa.  Jack and Roger reached for their cups.  Jack noticed a bit of coffee on the tray, but what troubled him most was the lack of a saucer.  If he picked the cup up off the tray, the bottom would be dripping and it would drip on him.  He was not in the mood to be saturated with hot coffee just because Janice was inept at serving coffee properly.  He suddenly saw a future before him of a dirty house, cold lumpy gravy, snot nosed kids and probably a hairy dog laying somewhere near where he would want to eat. 
 He arose briskly and headed for the door leaving a completely confused Janice and Roger staring after him.  He had to leave because he suddenly felt like he was choking.  Smothering.  Dying a lonely old man would be better than compromising all the things he believed in and God help him a saucer and a doily under his cup was nothing short of civility.  Mother had not understood at all when he explained that, “No, I will not be marrying Janice.  If you are so concerned about her, you go talk to her.  I never talked marriage with her so I am clear on this one.”
 And mother had.  Janice’s mother was her best friend, after all.  There had been recriminations and even father had voiced an opinion that dating a girl exclusively for three years  usually gave people an idea that more would be coming.  So he had left home and taken an apartment in the Gas Light District.  After work he would go “clubbing” and weekends were spent antique hunting.  He found he had a flair for design and so pursued the free lance design business in his spare time.  He took up photography and developed his own film.  He loved taking pictures of people being people.
 And so he had spent his life.  Cleveland, Sacramento, back to St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and now Denver.  He had worked in the Post Office, been a draftsman for a plumbing company, an engineer, day labor, dog trainer, and now he was a detective.  Analytical mind had gotten him here.  And over the years he had come to know that he was dyslectic and had retrained himself in the way he learned things.  He knew he could only concentrate on one thing at a time and that was why Meg had upset him so bad.  Ah, yes, his mind had come full circle and it was back to Meg.
 He found the envelope with the return address of  the oncologist.  He picked up the letter opener and slit the top.  With two fingers he removed the single sheet of paper.  It was short and to the point.  His PSA was elevated and he needed to come in for a consultation.  He dropped the letter in the basket and returned to the shower and his plans for the evening.



 

Installment #11 Fred

Fred
 Fred closed the door as Kevin and Greg turned and headed back down the mountain.  He looked at the bottle of Calamine lotion they had brought him.  That surely was nice of them!  Bet Meg had put them up to it though.  Didn’t matter.  It was still nice.  He had some creosote salve that was doing the job of drying the rash up, but he took the Calamine lotion anyway.  Wouldn’t hurt.
 He hated to hear that Meg had to take pills.  Guess she had it way worse than anyone else.  Bet it would be a cold old day before he went picking anything for a woman again.  He crossed to the shelves in the kitchen and gazed idly at his canned goods.  Nothing looked good.  He knew he should eat, but eating alone wasn’t much fun.  Sure he had done it for years, well all of his life mostly.  Food was what fueled his body so he had to eat.  But yesterday had been nice.
 Yep, there they sat at the table with silverware and drinks and he had felt really good.  He liked the boys and he really like Meg, and she was really nice.  Kind of reminded him of his own mother.  Momma.  Momma had short hair like Meg’s, but Meg’s was getting gray in it.  Momma would never be gray.  Momma would be forever young.
Fred walked to his bed and knelt beside it.  Reaching far back he brought out the green box and placed it on the bed.  Lifting the lid carefully he peered inside.  He slowly picked up the picture of the pretty woman with the smiling face and kissed it.  “Oh, momma, where has the time gone?  It was only yesterday that you were making me cookies and smiling when I came home from school.  Then you were gone!”  He laid the picture gently in the box and took out another picture.  This one was of a stooped, tired man with an air of hopelessness about him.  Father.
 Fred did not like to look at his father.  That made him sadder than when he looked at mother.  Mother made him happy, but father made him sad.  Why?  He had never wondered why before, but tonight he wondered.  He remembered the years that he and father had been alone with mother gone.  Some times he would find his father watching him very closely.  That always freaked him out.  But why?  It was his father and he could watch him if he wanted to.  But he never talked about mother.  Neither one of them.  It would have been normal for them to talk about her, but the subject just never came up.  Maybe he would think about that tonight.  Yes, tonight he would wonder about father and why they never talked about mother.  Surely they both missed her.  He made a mental note to think of father later then he opened the door and went out into the yard. 
 He pulled the vial out of his shirt pocket and knelt by the Antlion’s den.  This time he had a different plan.  He pulled out his long tweezers and held them near as he popped the cork with his thumb and dropped the ant into the funnel shaped depression.  The sand began to move as the antlion prepared to grab it’s prize, but Fred was faster and caught the antlion by the leg and held it gently as it struggled trying to get the ant, trying to escape whatever held it fast.  The ant scrambled frantically trying to climb out of the pit of death.  Maybe mother had tried to escape father that way.  Surely she had tried to escape.  He closed his eyes and he saw the struggle.  He saw mother’s eyes wide with terror.  He saw her backing away.  He heard her sobs as she flailed at father.  He heard her scream.  “No!  No!  For God’s sake stop!  Stop!”  He heard her dying breath and he saw her vacant eyes.  But he did not see father.
*************************To purchase Chapter One...Loose Ends*******************

From the back cover

Chapter One...Loose Ends
Lou Mercer

Meg Parker led a simple life.  She was a widow of three years and lived on a chicken farm at the foot of the mighty Rockie Mountains.  Life was good and her little store on eBay made her extra spending money.  But snow and wildlife were not the only things lurking in the forest above her house.  Nor did it stay in the forest for long.

Marshall Purcell came home a wounded veteran from vietnam.  He still had his dreams, but they were of an incestuous past that threatened to consume him.

When Meg and Marshall met it seemed an inconsequential meeting, but it changed both their lives forever.  And change is not always a good thing.

This is adult fiction at its best without all the sex.  Well, maybe just a little bit. 

About the author.  Lou Mercer was born in Nickerson, Kansas. She came to Pueblo, Colorado in 1977 and is now a product of the majestic Rockie Mountains

Link

Installment #10 The Farewell Party

 Kevin popped the top on a Coors Light.  He preferred Bud but the Coors plant was just up the road a ways so Coors it was.  Colorado and Coors.  He smiled at Greg standing over the grill and poking at a steak.  Greg had made a rub that he was sure Kevin and Meg would like and as the sweet hot smell of the Chipotle wafted upward he knew this was a winner.  This was going on the menu at the pub as soon as he got home.  No hurry though.  Clark was holding down the fort and Greg  knew how much Clark liked playing pub owner in his absence.
 “Hey Kev, when are we going home?  Not that I am in any hurry, just saying.”  Kevin smiled as he reached for another beer.  He popped the top and handed it to Greg.
 “Quiet getting to you, Bro?” He arose and walked over to stand beside Greg at the grill.
 “No, I really like it here.  Sometime you will need to show me Denver.  Do they have much community there?”  Kevin knew that by “community” Greg meant gay culture, like San Francisco. 
 “I never spent much time there.  I do know they have a community center.  Well, so does Colorado Springs.  Pueblo is trying, but they are not so open down there.  Colorado Springs has the world’s largest and most religious centers.  They tried to pass a law one time called Amendment 2 which basically took away any civil rights for gay people.  Guy named Perkins.  It was worded so it looked like a good thing and it passed.  Course it was struck down by the Supreme Court when it was challenged.  You ought to read up on that.”  Kevin leaned closer to the steak sizzling on the grill.  “Damn, Greg!  That smells good.  What is it?”
 Greg beamed.  “Well first you got your basic Chipotle which is just roasted Jalapeno. 
Then I put in some garlic, Vidalia Onion,  cilantro, and brown sugar.  I rubbed that all in and
let it soak for a few hours.  I think it is going to be pretty good.  Going t be hot, but that
is what Chipotle is, isn’t it?”
 Kevin laughed as he hooted,  “ My little Gringo!  Never thought I would see the day!.” 
He reached for Greg and pulled him into an embrace and as he did so he saw the wide eyes of Fred
Himes and suddenly stopped and stepped back.
 “Fred!  Good to see you.”  He stepped forward with his hand extended.  Fred seemed not
to notice the gesture and pulled his hat off his head.
 “Oh, I came for the party, like Mrs. Parker said I should do.”  He rummaged in his
pocket and finally pulled out a handful of bedraggled vines.  He thrust them toward Kevin. 
“Here.  I brang these.”  Kevin stared at the sorry looking offering and then reluctantly reached
for the gift.
 “Why thank you Fred.  Let me go give these to mom.  Take a look at what Greg is making
us for supper.  Do you like hot stuff?”  He headed for the door.  “Be right back.”
 Fred took a few tentative steps toward the grill and Greg.  “Howdy.  That sure does
smell good.”  Greg suddenly felt his heart ache for the old man before him.  What a simple soul
he was, bringing a vine.  At least he knew the rudimentary patterns of behavior.  Greg wondered
at what transpired in this fellows life to bring him to this mountain and his solitary life. 
Well, at least he assumed it was a solitary life.  Greg could not imagine any woman living there
with him.  He breathed a sigh of relief as Meg came outside and went to the man.
 “Oh, Fred.  Thank you for the lovely vine.  I have it in some water and I am going to
try to root it.  I think it would be lovely on the east side of the chicken house.”  She smiled
at Fred and his face lit up like a neon sign.  Meg Parker brought out the best in everyone. 
Kevin and Greg’s eyes met over her head and they both smiled.
 Soon Fred and Meg were seated at the table and the boys were delivering a platter of
steaks and a bowl of grilled vegetables.  Plates were passed and the farewell party was in full
swing.  All were in agreement that the new rub Greg had made was perfect.  Any more heat would
have been to much and any less too little.  Just the right amount of sweet and the tang of the
cilantro melded it together perfectly.  And the crowning achievement was the Flan that Greg had
finally mastered.  Just the right amount of caramel. 
 As the boys began to clear the table, Meg noticed her hands were itching as she held
them up to examine them she detected tiny bumps.  “Well, I must have gotten into something.” 
She excused herself and went into the house where she washed her hands and got out a bottle of
Calamine Lotion which she rubbed on her hands.  “I just don’t understand what I could have
gotten into.” she remarked as she walked back onto the patio.  Kevin turned and held his hands
out to show her that his also were red and tiny blisters.  They suddenly looked at Fred, who was
rubbing his hands together.
 They all three turned and looked at Greg who showed them his hands which were not red. 
It clicked with Meg first.
 “Oh, dear!  Fred I am afraid you have brought us poison ivy!” 

****************This is the place to buy my first novella***************** 

From the back cover

Chapter One...Loose Ends
Lou Mercer

Meg Parker led a simple life.  She was a widow of three years and lived on a chicken farm at the foot of the mighty Rockie Mountains.  Life was good and her little store on eBay made her extra spending money.  But snow and wildlife were not the only things lurking in the forest above her house.  Nor did it stay in the forest for long.

Marshall Purcell came home a wounded veteran from vietnam.  He still had his dreams, but they were of an incestuous past that threatened to consume him.

When Meg and Marshall met it seemed an inconsequential meeting, but it changed both their lives forever.  And change is not always a good thing.

This is adult fiction at its best without all the sex.  Well, maybe just a little bit. 

About the author.  Lou Mercer was born in Nickerson, Kansas. She came to Pueblo, Colorado in 1977 and is now a product of the majestic Rockie Mountains

Hey look! My very own widget.

Wonder if it works?  You will have to tell me because things are strange on this side of the blog!  LOL