WILL BE AVAILABLE IN NOVEMBER 2010

When the woman Jake Massry lives with leaves him for another man because he can’t succeed as a writer, and his old world father, on his deathbed, orders him to get a “real” job, Jake, to get his head straight, hits the highways of America in his worn-out VW bus, Old Bones, in search of himself and his country.

It’s Spring 1974—prices are spiraling upward and President Nixon is embroiled in the Watergate fiasco. As he travels from place to place in Old Bones, Jake meets a colorful cast of characters: sexy women, gays, born-again Christians, philosophers, racists, bullies, and Gary Morse, a 19-year-old hitchhiker who possesses a large “red ruby” given to him by a young heiress.

Excerpt from Chapter 9 of Highway Sailor: “The Cops are Comin’”

As Gary and I were walking by the Maricopa County Courthouse, I said to my partner, “Do you want to go inside and watch a trial?”

“What for?”

“It interests me,” I said.  “I thought it might interest you since you said you’re going to be a lawyer some day.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go in.”

We entered a brand-new building and asked the lady at the information counter if she could tell us what floors the trials were on.

“Floors six to ten,” she said.

We took the elevator to the seventh floor. We peeked through the small door-window of the first courtroom we came to and saw a trial in progress. We quietly entered the room and sat in the back row.  Scattered around the room were about thirty Mexican-Americans, young and old, who turned in their seats and stared at us.

Their dark eyes asked, “Why you two hombres come into thees courtroom?”

“We’re just observing,” Gary and I replied with our blue eyes. “We just got into town and thought we’d see how the court system in Arizona is working. We see one of your kind is on trial. What did he do?”

“He keel Hector Morales.”

The jury was all white, made up mostly of older men and women. One of the jurors was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. The defendant’s attorney was questioning a witness for the defense.

“Were you in the bar when the fight broke out, Mr. Orosco?”

“Jes.”

“Who threw the first blow?”

“What you say?”

“Who started the fight?”

“Hector Morales.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Orosco?”

“Jes, I’m sure.”

“Where were you when the fight began, Mr. Orosco?”

“Seeting at a table weeth Miguel. Hector come over to our table and tell Miguel he was looking for heem.”

“Why was he looking for Miguel?”

“Hector wanted Miguel to stay away from hees seester.”

“You say that Hector Morales hit Miguel first?”

“Jes.”

“What did you do when the fight began, Mr. Orosco?”

“I stand back weeth the other men and watch.”

“At first they fought with their fists. Is that correct, Mr. Orosco?”

“Jes.”

“Then one of the men picked up a pool stick. Which man did that?”

“Hector Morales. He peek up the steek and sweeng at Miguel.”

“Tell us what happened next.”

“The steek heet the pool table and break een half. Then Miguel, he peek up a pool steek. He start sweenging at Hector and heet heem. Hector go down to the floor and Miguel keep heeting heem.”

Gary and I left the courtroom as soon as Mr. Orosco finished his testimony.

We were sitting on a bench next to the courthouse fountain, taking in the hot Arizona sun, when Gary said, “You wanna know what bugs me, Jake?”

“What?”

“When people just stand around and watch a fight. Why don’t they ever try stoppin’ one?”

“Come on, Gary, it’s human nature not to get involved in a fight.”

“That ain’t human nature, it’s what our society allows. Human nature is tryin’ to stop a fight.”

“A person could get killed if he stepped in to break up a fight. You read about it in the papers all the time.”

“It ain’t true, man, and I’m gonna tellya why. All you gotta do is use your brains. Like when these two guys in Brooklyn was fightin’ on the street one day, a whole bunch of people was just standin’ around and watchin’ the show. Everyone was sayin’ how ugly and terrible it was. Talk, man—talk is cheap. You know what I did? I yelled out real loud for everyone to hear, ‘The cops are comin’, the cops are comin’.”

“Did it work?”

“Man, it surprised me it worked so good. Them guys beat it outta there like two scared rabbits.”

“Gary, are you telling me the truth?”

“I ain’t puttinya on. It worked, it really worked.”

“Then that’s a fantastic deed you did for humanity. I’m proud of you, Gary.  You deserve high praise for that.”

“Look, man, somethin’ like that ain’t gonna work all the time. But for sure you gotta do somethin’ instead of just sit on your ass and watch the world go by.”