An Excerpt from the Novel The Benevolent Lords of Sometimes Island by Scott Semegran

1.

The first time I experienced real, life-threatening danger was in the seventh grade. I may have been in real danger before the seventh grade, but if I was, then I don’t remember it. That’s the funny thing about memories. Some memories are these delicate, wispy things like dandelion seeds caught in a breeze—maybe sprouting someday, maybe they simply vanish. Other memories are these technicolor, vibrant things filled with music and smells and emotions—powerful and evocative mental cinema. Looking back, a lot of my memories of my friends in the seventh grade are living, vibrant things. I didn’t need danger to make these memories of my friends stick in my brain. But there was once this remarkable time with them that you won’t believe. When I finally tell you the whole story, you’ll most likely say, Nah! That didn’t happen. But it did. It really did.

Before I tell you about the time me and my friends got ourselves into some real danger when we were in middle school, first let me explain about myself and where I grew up. My name is William Flynn. I’m from a little suburban town outside of San Antonio, Texas called Converse. This town’s sensibility was more strip mall than metropolis, but it did have the basic necessities for middle school kids: a dollar cinema (cheap flicks and all-you-can-eat popcorn), an arcade (with our faves Donkey Kong and Joust), a comic book store (Marvel titles more than DC), a skating rink, plenty of convenience stores, and the like. What more could a kid want? Back then, my parents called me Billy—a nickname that referred to my uncle who died during the Vietnam War—but I preferred my real name, William (even more so since Bloody Billy came into my life, but more on that later). My birth parents divorced when I was a baby, so I grew up mostly with my mom, Pam, and her new husband, Steve. He was a nice enough guy, although mostly quiet when it came to me. He loved my mom very much. That was obvious by the way he kissed and hugged her. I don’t think he cared for me too much since he rarely acknowledged my presence back then, not even with a pat on the shoulder.

Anyway, the middle school in Converse, Texas that I attended was called Franklin D. Roosevelt Middle School—a better president I couldn’t think of for a school moniker. Funny thing was, it was rare to have a school in the South named after a Northerner like Roosevelt, especially a liberal do-gooder like F. D. R. Most of the schools in and around San Antonio were named after Confederate war heroes like Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis. Don’t ask me why. It’s just an observation. But fortunately for me and my friends, we went to Franklin D. Roosevelt Middle School (Now, don’t get me wrong, the name was great, but the outside looked more like a state penitentiary than an institution of learning). Most of the kids had a parent who worked at the nearby Air Force Base: Randolph. And because F. D. R. had students whose families were from all over the United States, the kids were all the possible shades of human beings, from pale white to middling brown to dark black. In the mid-1980s, it must’ve been a rare thing having a school population like that in Texas. Looking back, I can’t imagine my childhood any other way. It’s where I made my best friends, my posse, mis compadres. Their names were Randy Moss, Brian Johnson, and Miguel Gonzalez.

We were thick as thieves, as they say, or four peas in a pod, or whatever you want to call a tight crew of close friends. We did everything together, and when we weren’t together, we made plans to meet up. We usually met after school in the wooded area behind F. D. R., a path cutting through the oak, pecan, and cedar trees that led the students home to the surrounding neighborhoods like Thousand Oaks or Hidden Oaks. As you rode your bike down the path, a small clearing appeared deep in the wooded area, and there was always some extra sporting equipment and metal bleachers laying around, left there by school district workers after football or baseball games. And on this day—the day that would be remembered as the day the real danger seeped into our lives—it was hot as blazes as Randy and I rode our BMX bicycles to the clearing to meet Brian and Miguel. It was the second to last week of school and even though it was technically still spring, it felt like summer had already arrived. The end of school always exuded the promise of fun. Summer couldn’t come fast enough.

An Excerpt from the Novel To Squeeze a Prairie Dog: An American Novel by Scott Semegran

1.

When J. D. Wiswall arrived outside the building of the Texas Department of Unemployment and Benefits in downtown Austin, Texas, he already needed to go to the bathroom, his bladder full from drinking thirty-two ounces of soda during lunch—something that sounded good at the time but had become an unfortunate inconvenience. He was excited to start his first day of work but his excitement had gotten the best of him. He simply ate and drank too much, something he was prone to do all too often.

Dang it! he thought. Even when he cussed in his mind, his cussing was toned down as if someone might hear him.

He ascended the granite steps to the building entrance with trepidation, his left hand over his gut, his right hand clinching his lunch box full of afternoon snacks: roasted pecans, pecan rolls, and pecan pralines. He loved pecans; they fondly reminded him of his rural hometown: Brady, Texas. Inside the great, granite building, the mustiness of decades of public service molested his nostrils, but he was determined to relieve his bladder before starting his new job. He approached the only person he thought could help him: a security guard. The black fellow in uniform manned a desk—holding a telephone receiver to the side of his weary head with one hand and supporting his body with the other hand planted on the desktop—and spotted J. D. as he frantically approached him. The security guard’s name was Emmitt, as stated on a name tag pinned to his starched white shirt. Emmitt raised a patient index finger to J. D., indicating silently to wait for him to get off the phone. J. D. danced impatiently. Soon, Emmitt hung up.

“Can I help you?” he said, flashing a pleasant, toothy smile.

“Is there a restroom I can use?” J. D. said, still dancing a urination two-step.

An Excerpt from the Novel Sammie & Budgie by Scott Semegran

Chapter One

I discovered that my boy, Sammie--my son, my first child, my spawn, a chip off my ol' block, my heart and my soul--could see the future, that he could tell me what was going to happen before it happened, when he was in the third grade. I discovered this by dumb luck. Now, what I'm about to tell you, I'm telling you in the strictest of confidence. I mean, I'm telling you because I feel you need to know and I just don't go around telling everyone in the goddamn world my business because, well, it's my business; but I like you and that's all that matters. My boy, Sammie, was considered special by all accounts, not just special because I learned he could see the future, but special for two reasons: 1) he went through intensive testing and was designated as a child with special education needs by the State of Texas and 2) he's special because I said he's special. A father knows what a father knows, and I knew, without a doubt, that my boy was special. It's true.

Even before Sammie Boy was born, I had a feeling he was special (I call him Sammie Boy all the time--even now--because that's what I like to call him). When he was still living in the cramped efficiency apartment that was his mother's womb, he would kick and punch all over the place in a manner that made me feel like he was communicating with me in some type of fetal Morse Code. His mother would always tell me, 'Play our baby some music because I've read that playing our baby music while it is still in utero helps its intelligence.' So, I would do that. I'd get a Walkman or iPod or whatever was around, I'd put some classical music on, and place the headphones around his mother's overgrown stomach, and play the music loud so Sammie Boy could hear it. And whenever I would start the music, he would start kicking and punching all over the goddamn place, more punching when he disliked the music and less punching when he seemed to like it. Whenever I played any pop music, good ol' Sammie Boy seemed to hate it. He'd start punching and kicking and jabbing and stomping at such a furious rate that I thought he'd bust out of his mother's stomach like one of those hideous alien babies in the Alien movies. I played him all kinds of music to see what he would like: classical music, rock music, hip-hop music, country music, and even movie soundtracks. But the type of music that I discovered that he liked the most was jazz music, particularly John Coltrane songs and albums. He loved the shit out of some John Coltrane music--all the punching and kicking and stomping and jabbing and head-butting would cease the minute this music started. It really did, especially when I played the album Blue Train.

But what really made me aware of the fact that my boy Sammie was special was the day I picked him up from elementary school and he told me his after-school counselor was going to hurt herself in a serious way. I thought that to be a very strange thing for him to say, since Sammie didn't particularly have a malicious bone in his body, but was unsettling even more since my boy wasn't known to tell lies. Outside the school, out in the back where the playground and basketball court stretched beyond the portable buildings, I watched all the kids run and play while his counselor stood alone, keeping an eye on the children. It was a warm, humid day and the kids swarmed around the counselor like excited bees circling a sunflower.

I knelt next to my boy, placing my hands on his arms, and braced him gently, when I said, "What do you mean she will hurt herself?" Now, you have to understand, my boy Sammie was the cutest kid you will ever lay your eyes on, with big, round, brown eyes and a round face, tussled brown hair that never seemed to keep the style it started with in the morning, and a smile that would make a serial killer renounce his depravity and perform cartwheels in a field of daisies. Even in this serious situation, where I would have to compose myself to find answers, I had to fight the urge to pinch his cheeks and giggle. He was just that cute. "She looks fine to me," I said.

Sammie Boy looked over where the counselor stood, his sparkling, brown eyes examining her, the lids closing slightly as he peered at her, as if making out what her next move might be, and resolute sadness appeared on his cute, little face. "Daddy, can I ask you a question?" he said.

"Of course, my boy. You can ask me a question."

"Will you be mad at me if I tell you the truth?"

An Excerpt from "Boys" by Scott Semegran

I slid the key into the dead bolt of the door to my apartment, turned the door knob, and in we went, to-go containers from the P.W. in our hands, smiles on our faces when we saw Mr. Whiskers waiting for us by the door. He always waited for me by the door. He was a good cat.

"Hey buddy!" I said, leaning down to scratch his head. He purred loudly. "I bet you're hungry."

I turned the lights on and we made our way to the coffee table, setting our food on it, plopping on the floor, our dining area. Alfonso noticed a gang of slaughtered roaches on the floor next to the couch, still twitching, almost dead, flopping on the carpet. Mr. Whiskers pounced on them, jabbed at them for the last time, then promptly ignored them. He lost interest for some reason.

This was a typical haul for Mr. Whiskers. When he was on the prowl, he liked to crouch low to the floor, digging his claws into the carpet, his tail slithering side-to-side like a snake easing through a forest, his eyes narrowing into focus, his whiskers spreading out, stiff, quivering, waiting for bugs. The roaches made their way from the sliding patio door to under my couch and my dutiful cat would watch them, the bugs tip-toeing around dust bunnies and cigarette lighters and waded up hamburger wrappers and sticky bent straws. My apartment complex was surrounded by oak and cedar trees, straddling creek beds that fed Town Lake a couple of blocks away, making fertile ground for bugs and rats and mice and snakes. To say my complex was infested with vermin was almost a stretch (almost) but it was not unusual for roaches to make their way daily under the sliding door from the rotting wooden deck behind my apartment, and that was where Mr. Whiskers would lay, crouched on the hearth of the fireplace next to the back door, his eyes aimed at the bottom of the door where the sliding rails were, looking for tasty bugs, waiting to pounce on them and rip their legs off. He was an effective insect exterminator. The roaches under the couch attempted to make it to the kitchen like starving idiots. Mr. Whiskers wound up his hind legs, sprang into action, jabbing his front right leg under the couch, and pulled the roaches out, his claws ripping the roaches open in one swift motion. As the roaches flip-flopped on the carpet, Mr. Whiskers licked himself clean, setting his paw on the roaches whenever they bounced around too erratically, keeping them in check until their demise. He would leave the bugs to die, alone, in the middle of the living room--or actually, Alfonso's temporary bedroom--as a symbol of his love to me and my new roommate. Fucking gross.

An Excerpt from the book "Boys" by Scott Semegran

We sat across from each other in the small living room of my small apartment, on the floor around my beat-up coffee table, piles of coins and dollar bills on top, two tall boys of beer on ratty paper coasters from the restaurant there too, counting our tips. It was not a good night for tips but the quantity of coins and bills looked deceiving in their unorganized state, looked like we had a lot more money than we actually had. We enjoyed the optical illusion, briefly. We smiled as we pushed the piles of coins and bills around in front of us then raised our cans of beer to toast.

"To Pasta Warehouse," I said.

"To Pasta Warehouse!" my friend Alfonso said.

"Cheers!"

"No, say it the Mexican way. When you toast, say 'Salud!'"

"SALUD!"

We touched our cans together then gulped the cheap beers, crushing the cans when we were through, tossing the cans to the side on the floor, returning to organize the coins and bills, hoping to make rent. We were an odd looking pair of friends. I was lanky and short and white. Alfonso was massive and tall and Hispanic. But what we lacked in commonality of outward appearance was made up by similar character traits of kindness, empathy, and extreme loyalty. We were good young men and good friends to each other.

A Novelette by Scott Semegran

My dreams were sturdy when I was young; they became more fragile as I got older. Summer of 1986. All I thought about was the car I hoped to get for my 16th birthday the following summer. That was all I thought about when I was 15, all day, all night. I thought I had a pretty good chance of getting the car I wanted too because I lived in a pretty good neighborhood and I thought my dad made pretty good money, and the majority of my friends got good cars for their 16th birthdays. The odds looked pretty good in my favor, at least. Plus, I made good grades. It seemed like a no-brainer to me. The car I wanted was a 1980 Mazda RX7. I really, really, really wanted that car, preferably a stick shift even though I didn't know how to drive stick shift, let alone drive a car.

Every summer since I could remember, I spent a couple of weeks at my grandparents' house in Moore, Oklahoma, probably to give my parents a break. During the drive from San Antonio, Texas to Moore, I read the classifieds of the San Antonio Light newspaper, scouring the used car section, looking for Mazda RX7's for sale, particularly 1980 models or ones that were close to that year like the '78 or '79, just not an '81 cause they were different. I found a few for sale with prices ranging from $4,000 - $6,000. That seemed like a pretty good deal to me even though I had no idea really what a good deal was for a car. I was only 15. I didn't know shit.

"What are you looking for?" my mom said. She was somewhat thin with auburn, short cropped hair, kind hazel eyes, and had lightly freckled pale skin. She gripped the steering wheel of her Toyota Camry confidently and sat up straight, ready to bear the heavy burden of the long, boring drive to Oklahoma.

"The car I want for my 16th birthday," I said.

"What makes you think you'll get a car for your 16th birthday?"

"Isn't that what you get when you turn 16?"

"Sure, some kids get a car for their 16th birthday. What kind of car do you want?"

"A 1980 Mazda RX7. Stick shift. Silver."

A Short Story by Scott Semegran

The little boy sat on the floor in his room surrounded by his toys--Micronauts action figures, Hot Wheels race cars, Star Wars action figures and vehicles, Evel Knievel doll and motorcycle, Shogun Warriors in various sizes, and a pile of Legos intermixed from various sets. His name was William. His mother called him Billy, just like his uncle who died ten years earlier in the Vietnam War was called, but he liked to be called William. More than anything, he liked to play in his room all by himself with all of his toys surrounding him on the floor. In his room, he was safe. He liked that.

He had a vivid imagination and enjoyed introducing the different toys to each other, intersecting their fictional worlds into one. The few times that other neighborhood children were allowed in his room, they had an issue with that, the fictional worlds colliding.

They all said to William, "Micronauts don't fight Star Wars people!"

"And why not?" William said.

"Because Micronauts aren't in the movie Star Wars, dummy!" they all said.

The other neighborhood children weren't allowed in his room after that. William spent most of his time after school in his room although he would occasionally venture into the back yard, a large grassy area with a tall oak tree in the back near the fence, a mostly completed treehouse perched up in its canopy. With two rooms to play in--one inside and one outside--his world seemed rather large; there wasn't much need to go anywhere else except for school. School, to him, was an evil place. He hated going to school.

William stood up one of his Shogun Warriors, the one called Brave Raideen (the tall one painted red and black with a bow and arrow and a crazy, silver mask that made him look like King Tut or something), and he said, "What are you going to do about that jerk Randy at school?" William made his voice as low and gravelly as possible to speak like what he thought Brave Raideen would sound like.

"I don't know," William said in his normal voice.

"You should do something to scare him real good," Brave Raideen said.

"Like what?" William said, curious.

"You should get the thing in your mommy's nightstand. That'll scare him real good!" said Brave Raideen, then laughing an evil laugh.

"Yeah!" William said, jumping to his feet. He tossed Brave Raideen to the side, opened his door, and ran down the hallway to his parents' room, his long, lanky arms swinging like those of a spider monkey. His mother heard him running and called out to him.

"Billy? What are you doing?"

"Nothing, mom!" he said, entering her bedroom and running around the queen-size bed to where her nightstand sat. He laid down on his stomach in front of the nightstand and reached under the bed. "Randy is going to be sorry he messed with me."

An excerpt from The Spectacular Simon Burchwood, a novel by Scott Semegran

The best advice anyone has ever given me was this gem from my grandfather: Always, always brush your teeth. Insight from a 90 year old man (who still has all of his teeth, for crying out loud) is priceless. It's true. Unfortunately, old people get the short end of the stick from society most of the time. It seems young people get too caught up in the fact that old people can be forgetful or cranky or smelly or sentimental or resentful or all of these things rolled up into one cantankerous son of a bitch or one spiteful old witch. The one thing most young people gloss over is the fact that they themselves are selfish to the point of narcissistic catastrophe. It's really a goddamn shame. It's true. Young people can be a bunch of selfish assholes, the whole lot of them. Now, it is true that I've encountered some old folks who smelled like a McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwich that had been left in a sock drawer for an indeterminate amount of time, which is quite horrifying in the olfactory sense. But that is beside the point. So here it is: to live to be 90 years old is a real feat and any insight into how someone gets to be that old is important. Period. Because to be honest, I'm surprised that some of the idiots I encounter on a daily basis live to see tomorrow. It's true. Young people can be a bunch of goddamn idiots.

Back to what is important here. I was sitting with my grandfather and some of his good buddies one time when I was a teenager. They were all quite old, as old as my grandfather or close enough I'd imagine, but were all very lively and talkative and happy. They were all beer drinkers and very enthusiastic about making each other laugh so jokes were being volleyed about between sips of beer. They weren't much into being reflective unless someone asked and for some reason, I felt like asking for advice this time. Once I did that, the floodgates opened. "Finally!" I imagined them thinking collectively. "A youngster interested in what we have to say!" I wanted some general good advice, what to do as I moved forward in age toward adulthood. And here, in no particular order, is what some of them had to say:

• Don't get attached to your job
• Never hit a woman
• Ejaculate at least once a day, either through intercourse or masturbation
• Drink at least one alcoholic beverage a day, preferably beer
• Keep in touch with your parents
• Volunteer your time to people in need
• Drink plenty of water and eat lots of fruit and vegetables.
• Always ask for bacon on your cheeseburger
• Follow your dreams
• Never be boring
• Be true to yourself
• Eat ice cream when you're sad
• Never judge a book by its cover
• Etcetera

When it was my grandfather's turn, he said, "Always, always brush your teeth." Of all the advice given that day, this one piece of advice seemed to get the largest amount of consensus from the group. An agreeable mumble was groaned as they all nodded their heads. It was an amazing goddamn thing to witness. It's true. Their collective age must have been over 1,000 years and this was the best advice: Always, always brush your teeth. So, being young and foolish and curious and a goddamn idiot, I asked my grandfather why that was good advice. He said, "Son, of all of your bodily functions, eating is the top of the heap. They have remedies for the other functions but this one, it's the most important. If you can't walk, then they'll put you in a wheel chair. If you can't crap right, then they'll put a diaper on you. But if you can't eat, if you can't enjoy your sustenance, then there ain't no remedy for that. Life ain't worth living if you can't chew your own food." So there it was: wisdom from the elders. Who was I to question this wisdom? They obviously had lived a long time and I was just a little shit. It's true. It must be very important advice.

The reason I bring this up is because my coworker (who will now be formally nicknamed Snaggle) had the absolute worst teeth I had ever seen on a human being in my entire goddamn life. The slang term snagglepuss was invented specifically for Ryan, my young genius coworker, whose teeth looked like they had all been pulled out with pliers at some point in his early life and jammed back into his gums by a maniacal chimpanzee on mescaline. It's true. Snaggle had one busted-up grill. However, his dental condition didn’t keep him from socializing. In fact, he was at my cubicle at every opportunity to flap his gums and play a vigorous game of pocket pool, yapping about computers and software and programming and batch files and girls. He loved talking about girls but, I imagined, he probably had never touched a girl in his entire life. With the way his breath smelled, I was absolutely sure of it.

An excerpt from The Spectacular Simon Burchwood, a novel by Scott Semegran

I tried to call Jessica several times but she never answered her phone or returned my calls. She was really starting to piss me off. I mean, who the hell did she think she was, wanting to move to Dallas and take our kids? It was all a goddamn mess. It's true. And I'm sure Sammie and little Jessica didn't appreciate it either. All of their little friends were here in Austin. Their school was here. Their life was here. Their father was here. I imagined that they would have no interest in moving to Dallas away from everything they knew. But, then again, kids have no choice in the matter. They will do what they're fucking told to do and my kids were no different. They were good kids. It's true.

After getting the go ahead from my supervisor Rod, I realized I had one thing to do before leaving town. I had to go see my doctor. Weird, huh? Well, not really. I'm getting old, you know? It's true. This slightly pudgy, slightly balding "Adonis" isn't going to stay beautiful forever. Ha! Besides, everyone needs to go see their doctor every once and a while. It is a goddamn moral imperative. I made the appointment a couple of months ago after realizing I hadn't seen my doctor in quite some time, maybe before all my divorce bullshit. I had been compiling a list of ailments and weird goings-on with my body and health in general and I felt I really needed to discuss them with Dr. Todd, especially before leaving town. I call him Dr. Todd because his last name is so unruly and filled with dozens of unnecessary consonants that I'm not even going to waste precious keyboard strokes trying to spell it out for you. Just trust me, his last name is a goddamn Polish disaster. It's true. But Dr. Todd is a kind man with a caring way about him and I rather enjoy talking to him, even though I'm sure he will be examining my nutsack or prodding his finger in my poop shoot at some point today. Great. Just great.

Here, in no particular order, was the list of things that were bothering me over the last few years: constipation, left eye twitch, hemorrhoids, upset stomach, random headaches, weight gain, hair loss, weird dreams (duh!), knee pain, seasonal allergies, lower back pain, etcetera, so on and so forth. It was a pretty goddamn long list of ailments and nuisances but they were things that were really bothering me. I mean, especially for a writer, having distractions of the bodily nature can really put a damper on your creative spirit and literary output. Nothing is worse than a raging case of hemorrhoids to ruin a marathon writing session. You can't sit down for more than 15 goddamn minutes at a time when you have burning blisters poking out your asshole. It's true.

Anyway, I drove over to Dr. Todd's office. I pulled my car into the office building parking lot and parked in the back. The building was a pretty nondescript place tucked away behind a group of these massive oak trees in a decent part of town. Dr. Todd had his office here for years before I became his patient and I'm sure it would be here for years to come. On the outside, the building looked like one huge metal and glass box but on the inside, it was an elaborate maze of offices connected by a serpentine hallway that zigged and zagged in no justifiable way. If I didn't already know where his office was then it would be damn near impossible to find. I wondered if that was on purpose. Doctors do some sneaky shit like that sometimes. It's true.

I found his office after walking through the maze of hallways and entered quietly, standing next to the front desk. A nurse was sitting there, busy with something. She wore pink scrubs that had Winnie the Pooh and Tigger on them and her hair was long and blonde and styled in a way that reminded me of the TV sitcom moms from the 1980s. She didn't seem to notice me and I stood there for what seemed like a goddamn eternity while she scribbled on some forms on a clipboard. They must have been pretty goddamn important forms because she was carefully and intently filling in the boxes and checking other boxes and crossing her t's and dotting her i's and examining the hell out of that paperwork. Time really seems to stand still when you're waiting unnoticed for something. It's true. I decided to stop the madness and tap on the desk so she would notice me. I think I startled her. She about jumped out of her goddamn seat.

"Oh! I didn't see you there," she said, straightening herself, fixing her 1980s hairdo.