HOLY DAYS - Luke Was Real

Most of the questions I get from readers about my novel Holy Days are personal, about my experiences. However, some readers have asked me about a couple of seemingly far-fetched elements in the book – namely the bow and arrow and the handsome young Italian who seems to step out of Romeo & Juliet (Luke was more of a Tybalt than a Romeo) right into Holy Days.

I wrote Holy Days almost exactly as it happened. I had to. In order to do justice to what happened and how it happened. To do justice for the victims. I did not want to change the truth. 

*First, I’ll address the bow and arrow. A few readers have said the bow and arrow seemed to appear out of nowhere. “What a surprise!” I wondered if they’d been paying attention? As a young girl, Gloria was enamored of the Robin Hood story. She loved Robin, and Maid Marion, whom the story told, was a better rider and marksman than Robin. Gloria found the words wonderfully beautiful. She found the ideals courageous and powerful. Gloria, after being raped, regresses somewhat into the comfort and strength she found in childhood in the noble beauty of the Robin Hood legend. The night of the rape, Gloria falls asleep with her body wrapped around her old Robin Hood book so tightly, she wakes with cramped arms. The next day, when her friend is molested in broad daylight on a crowded street, Gloria is furious; she runs after the man clutching the long bow she just bought. So passionate and distraught is she that she forgets she has it and nearly trips over it. Remembering, Gloria stands and readies the weapon. Gloria had to use the bow and arrow. No other weapon would have sufficed because Gloria commits a hero’s murder and she needed a hero’s weapon. The truth of the matter is that the molestation really happened and I ran after the molester. I obviously did not have a long bow and arrows or you would have heard about it.

Now, our young man, Luke.

It may be astounding to my readers, but Luke was real. I was his teacher, not his love. Such an amazing person really did appear in my classroom on the first day of my student teaching. He really was from Italy. He really had long, dark hair. He really was 20 and turned 21 during the school year. The other kids really did love him. They were a wonderful class, full of joy and affection for each other. It was a revelation to me to witness how they treated one another, as I had mostly known spite and violence. They really kidded him gently about his name, which was not Luke, but in its formal expression did sound feminine like Luciano. He really was working as a shoe repair guy and he really planned to return to Italy against his father’s wishes. His girl friend really did not want to go back with him, which caused him pain and confusion. She really preferred to enjoy her material success as a Firestone tire saleswoman. Luke really drove a classic red Alfa Romeo of which he was very proud.

The real Luke inspired me. He showed me that living another kind of life other than the one expected of you was a possibility. (Sometimes I think he was an angel sent by God to show me another way to live.) I developed him into a character because I wanted Gloria to have someone unique. Someone younger than she, someone to inspire hope for the future, someone with a fresh outlook, someone brave and smart enough to take her on, someone who desired a simple, natural life. I never would have believed such a young man existed in reality if I had not met him myself. Luke was real. He was really fine, really intelligent, really sweet. Quiet, and more serious than the others. I never forgot him. I gave him to Gloria.

*Note: Holy Days was finished in 1996. Obviously, I wrote the murder scene long before The Hunger Games books (2008) were written. Not crazy about sharing my hero’s weapon, but I’ll be gracious to a fellow writer.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2016

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation.

The Greatest Violence Upon You

          What is the diet of choice of terrorists? It may surprise you to know that terrorists favor American fast food, which, of course, thanks to so-called Western Imperialism, may be found anywhere, even in the desert. Terrorists like to wash down their chicken deep fry with high-octane energy drinks like Red Bull, topped with a few Captagons for dessert. What’s a Captagon? A synthetic drug called fenethylline. Users have reported a feeling of emotional numbness allowing them to kill with “reckless abandon.” "You can't sleep or even close your eyes, forget about it," said a Lebanese user. “And whatever you take to stop it, nothing can stop it." "I felt like I own the world high," another user said. "Like I have power nobody has. A really nice feeling." "There was no fear anymore after I took Captagon," a third man added.

     A gamer's dream, a pill that refuses to let them sleep for days while they shoot, shoot, shoot, a pill that pumps them up like Rambo. Remember Rambo? That screaming banshee who mowed down his enemies with an automatic weapon. What was Rambo’s rifle anyway? The classic M60 that usually took two soldiers to operate: one to aim and shoot, the other to feed the ammo into the gun. Sly, slung with ammo like a bandido, shot and fed the gun himself, the lone wolf, the loose cannon, the working class hero who took matters into his own hands.

Rambo
This is not a video game and this is not a movie.

      Real life shooters have followed Rambo's example and mowed down former employers/employees; divorce lawyers; ex-wives; ex-girlfriends; classmates and teachers. 

      None of these terrorists were cooking their own food at home. None of them were following their ancient, traditional diet of whole grains, vegetables, beans and fruit. None of them are responsibly washing their bowl by hand after they’d eaten with gratitude. Vegans can get pretty passionate and loud while marching for World Peace, Equal Rights or the preservation of the bees, the monarch butterfly or our wild lands, but no vegan has ever picked up an automatic weapon to fight for the polar bear.

     The AK-47, the Kalashnikov, was the automatic weapon used in the most recent terrorist attack on Paris, capable of a deadly spray up to 328 yards. The cowardly distance between assassin and victim, not counting the yard for the gun itself. 329 yards to murder helpless unarmed men, women and children. People who were relaxing and enjoying life only a moment before. Paris was chosen as a target, like a beautiful woman is chosen as a target. Paris is beautiful, she is loved, she is elite. The typical criminal’s lament of “if I can’t have it, no one can.” Terrorists claim they do not want our Western lifestyle, they want to destroy it and us, yet they choose our smart phones, our social networks, our fast food and our guns.

     But, anyone may choose health and happiness at any time. Fire up the stove and simmer those lentils and brown rice. You’ll feel better. You’ll look around you with fresh eyes. Hate will seem so stupid when there is work and love. Your weapon of choice can be cooking, giving you the ability to change yourself, others and the world.

Renaissance Kitchen
ancient, traditional foods of lentils & brown rice cooking

(photo and kitchen by the author)

     Consider this quote about Iraqi women from Generation Kill – “They say you can see their ovens from outer space.”  Now, that's power! Why would anyone turn his back on that kind of power?

 

 The Greatest Violence Upon You

What is the greatest violence upon you?

but the loss of your ancient memory

the blue drink

the plastic taco

the microwaved orange paste

the 7-11 on the corner

dispensing drugs of every kind

more democratically blind than Justice herself

to race or creed, gender, age, poverty or wealth

stripping your mind and body

stealing your self from you

not a watering hole

but a black hole

on every corner of every small town and big city

drive by drink the blue drink, drive by irradiated orange paste boiling nuclear salt in your veins till you scream bloody murder your brother, drive by orange taco paste seething in your veins till you dose the fire with blue radioactivity murder your brother, drive by fire in your brain, drink the red drink, drink the blood of your brother, drive by

sucking in your children, your strong and clear making degeneration making degeneration, children making shrunken children, disposable children the

army makes sense for you 7-11 convenience the mother who replaces your mother while she works -

why cook when you can nuke some plastic sauce

when grain is your greatest freedom

when it will free you from SLAVERY

why not eat your slavery each and every day

feed the fires of slavery seething in your bellies the hunger that cannot be quenched seethes up like acid from what they tell you to do,

from what they want you do

KILL EACH OTHER! get a gun and shoot into the first McDonalds you see you'll feel better you’ll feel like a man ROAR LIKE RAMBO TILL THE GUN IS EMPTY and your belly STILL BURNS

even the richest man cannot send his butler

to go to the bathroom for him

Cancer used to be only for the wealthy

Now you want it too!

What will you build your civilization upon?

What is the message in the grain?

was it sent to us by aliens,

those who see us from above?

who visit our hangers of nuclear war

who came to these very shores

the year the power plant was built

to tell us

build not upon the split atom or unclean coal

they told us, tossing our ancient cities upon the grain

flinging down the patterns of Ur and Nineveh

Athens and Alexandria

circles we once built upon

the grain is free

it grows under your feet

multiplying like the loaves and fishes

it is the blood of the sacred covenant forgotten

Remember your grandmother?

or if you are young, your great-grandmother?

who would not send you out

without something warm in your belly?

something she formed like she formed you

from nature

with her own hands?

Black or “lily-white”

it makes no difference!

it's the same!

made from love!

to pump your blood to your brain,

your soul, your limbs to carry your soul,

your hands and feet to use your soul

to keep you sane

to keep your head up

to keep you humble before God

so you would not forget

your sacred body is not made of blue drink orange goo chips melted out of the mouths of machines grinding your heart and soul to mush one on every corner of the ghetto and cul de sac, ad infinitum, who wants to cook when you can fill your pockets with forgetfulness you and your food do not come from Taco Bell

©Patricia Goodwin, 2015

“The Greatest Violence Upon You,” from Atlantis by Patricia Goodwin.

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.