Hi everyone,

A month after the preorder campaign ended, I just wanted to give everyone an update on where things stand. Currently I'm in preliminary talks with a publisher in Florida who really seems to understand the book and has some exciting ideas on how to get it out to the world. I'm reviewing their proposal and talking with the agency about how it fits into the goals we have for the book. I anticipate making a decision in that regard sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, I just wanted to wish you all a happy new year. May everyone be healthy and safe. And if you're interested, here's another snippet from a cut chapter about working for my neighbor refurbishing apartments when I was fifteen. Enjoy.

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The thing I remember most about that summer job isn’t anything I did while I was actually working. It was the process of getting to and from the worksite. I didn’t yet have a driver’s license which meant that when I left my house, I walked back to Mister Harper’s place and he drove me the ten miles east to Delmont. This should’ve been supremely awesome for one reason - Mister Harper’s cherry red 1979 Corvette convertible. From the outside at least, it was sleek and movie star cool. As far as I could tell, most of his evenings were spent admiring it from a folding chair in the driveway with a beer in his hand. When I showed up that first Monday, I figured we’d be chugging to work in his old truck. But to my astonishment, he opened the door to the Corvette and hopped in.

“Truck’s out of commission," he said with a big smile. "We’re taking Lila."

My heart skipped. To that point in my life I’d ridden in nothing but reliable four door family sedans. (And a few unreliable four door family sedans) I had a flash daydream of Mr. Harper and I flying down Route 22 like some kind of freewheeling cannonball run team as he shifted gears and opened it up with the sleek purr of 195 horsepower. I could damn near feel the caress of the wind. This was going to be unbeliev….

“Before you get in, I’m gonna tap on the brake here,” he said. “Let me know if the light on the trailer is working.”

It was then I noticed the rickety wooden trailer connected to the back of the Corvette. It looked like a tiny fishing trawler that had been sitting abandoned on the Alaskan coast for thirty years and then pressed into service to haul shingles out to Delmont. 

What it was, in essence, was a long sheet of toilet paper stuck to the shoe of a runway model.

“Yeah, the brake lights work,” I sighed, opening the passenger door.

I was about to go on the most disappointing ride of my life.

As we descended into the creek valley and crossed the Turnpike, Mr. Harper was forced to tap the brakes on every curve just to ensure the trailer didn’t go whipping off into the woods. Crawling towards Delmont in the coolest car I’d ever been in was agonizing. It was somehow worse than going to church in my grandma’s Plymouth Horizon.

The stretch of Route 22 we had to travel is essentially a giant strip mall with a traffic light every nine feet. You could be sponsored by Richard Petty Motorsports and you’re still not getting up above thirty-five – which made the ride take forever. To compound matters, Mr. Harper had removed the radio during his tinkering so at every stoplight he felt compelled to fill the silence with conversation. It became obvious early on that his interests and my interests did not align.

He’d tap on the steering wheel and look over at the Dunkin’ Donuts. “I heard they got a plan to start widening all this to three lanes in the next couple years.”

“Oh yeah?”

“And you know PennDOT. To justify that budget, it’s gonna take two years longer than it should.”

“Maybe.”

“Tell ya what, you’re gonna want to take Abers Creek Road when that happens.”

“Yup.”

“Gonna back up the whole way to Monroeville at rush hour.”

Realizing that I had no particular opinion on the forthcoming roadwork, he’d fill me in about township ordinances he wasn’t fond of or the differences between major appliance brands. Unsurprisingly, none of that produced much of a reaction either so eventually he’d tap on the steering wheel again. “So how was your uh…baseball last night?”

Finally, something I could answer with more than two words. “Pretty good. We won. I went two for four. Would’ve been three for four if the left fielder didn’t make a ridiculous catch. Robbed me of at least a double.”

I’d just spoken to him in Yiddish. This was a guy who worked on cars and occasionally whittled. He had zero idea what I’d just said. “Well,” he said, searching the sky for a response, “was it at least a guy on your team that caught it?”

“Well...no. A guy on my team couldn’t ya know - get me out. Cause I mean, they’re in the dugout when we’re hitting,” I answered. "So they can't uhhh..."

“Oh. Of course,” he said, glancing back at the Dunkin’ Donuts. “I don’t even want to think about the traffic when they start trying to widen this.”

And so it would go every day. I’d politely nod and pine for the horrible soft rock I knew he’d be blaring if the car had a radio as Mister Harper imagined dystopian futures full of orange barrels. But there was always one last hope. Just past the town of Export, the infinite barrage of stoplights petered out and became a gradual uphill drag strip. If we could just get there, I knew the temptation would be too much for any man - especially a devoted car fanatic like Mr. Harper. He’d fixed up a cherry red ’79 Corvette goddammit and now it was time to reveal his masterpiece to the world. It was time for Lila to snarl. Each morning as the final light turned green and open road awaited, I’d lean forward, clutching the dash in anticipation.

School buses passed us on the left.

In the end though, it wasn’t too bad for a teenage summer job. If I wouldn’t have been a self-absorbed dumbass, I could’ve used the experience to learn critical skills about wiring or carpentry that would’ve helped me out later in life, but I never thought to ask and Mr. Harper never thought to offer. We finished the project in mid-August, a couple families moved into the units and I headed back to high school for my junior year.

I sprinted the hill by his house pretty religiously through the summers when I was home from college. Occasionally as I gasped for air, I’d see him sitting there in his folding chair drinking a beer and admiring the world’s most timid Corvette.

“Well if it isn’t Kurt! How have you been?”

“Pretty good Mr. Harper. How about you?”

“Stressed out. I got stuck in that construction traffic on Route 22 earlier. Backed the whole way to Monroeville. You believe that? Having a beer here to take the edge off.”

“You should’ve taken Abers Creek Road.”

“Dang it, you’re right. I should’ve taken Abers Creek Road.”