RITA J RAY

“Come over here, baby,” he said. I went to him. He was seated on the chair, his eyes blinked rapidly behind his round-lensed glasses. He reached out and pulled me onto his lap, leaving my legs dangling off one side of him. I remembered how Uncle Tommy used to sit me on his lap when I was a preschooler and he would tap his cheek and say “Kiss me right here.” My reward for the kiss would be a few nickels or dimes. Afterward, I’d hop off his lap with an enthusiastic “thank you” and show my grandmother the money he had given me. I wondered if he was about to do something similar, but I quickly realized this was different."

       Excerpt from the forthcoming memoir The Sense I Was Born With – Breaking the Shield of Shame


        The oppressive heat, most assuredly, was responsible for 34-year-old Gary Davidson's death. Cincinnati, Ohio logged some of its highest temps ever in July of 1983. Davidson's bullet-ripped body became one more unexpected statistic logged that summer.

        Excerpt from suspense novel-in-progress (untitled at this time).