chapter 01

In the moonlit mist of a farm road just east of town, a candy apple sports sedan made time. Major time. The tires scorched the blacktop road as the engine's pitch raced higher and higher, piercing the air like an arrow. Inside the car, the sound of the latest Mariah Carey C.D. accompanied the burning roar of the engine. The car gained speed down the straight, dusty road. With mysterious determination, like an arrow to a target, the car smashed into an huge oak tree. The torrid sound of shattered glass and crushed metal followed by a loud explosion interrupted the hush of an otherwise peaceful night. The devastating collision echoed through the meadow.
The car, now an obliterated mass of flesh and steel scattered debris along the road and into a muddy ditch. The scene was horrific. The driver's body was thrown forty-five feet from the vehicle. Her neck was twisted and broken. Her skull was shattered and bloodied. Multiple fractures lined her small frame. Susan Stedham was dead.

Across town, under the bleachers of the old Summit High Stadium, Tad, Troy, and Lester were flat on their backs. Lester was out cold, floating into the ozone on a combination of grass and cheap wine. Tad and Troy were trying to carry on an intelligible conversation despite the fact that their brains were separated from their tongues by about a mile.

"She did what?" Troy replied as he contorted his face in utter surprise.

"She said she was open!" Tad said.

"Open? What are you talking about?" Troy said.

"She said if you'd call, she'd be open to you."

"Are you talking about a date or straight sex?"

"You really are a barbarian?" Tad said laughingly.

"Hey, don't be makin' fun of my family tree." Troy said as he pitched the empty bottle which shattered on a sidewalk about 20 yards away.

"You're avoiding the offer."

"I don't have time for the dating game. Why can't we just be honest with'em?" Troy said.
"What would you say?" Tad asked.

"I'd say ?I want sex'."

"That only works on MTV. She'd slap you." Tad said as he smiled, amazed at Troy's ego.

"That's stupid. Dating is just a more civilized form of prostitution. You pay the bill and you expect somethin'." Troy said and then belched.

"You won't get anywhere with Lisa by saying, ?Here's fifty bucks in cash, go buy you're own lunch. Let's just get down to business- right here and now.'"

"Maybe I'm just hangin' with the wrong crowd. At least I'm not a ?Jesus freak' like Justin."

Justin Henderson, a senior at Summit High left the fast lane of parties and binge drinking for a different lifestyle which brought sudden and total conflict between him and Troy's Sunday night under the bleachers drinking club. A few of Justin's other friends dragged him to a youth rally back in October. Kidnapped would be a more discript term. He had an experience that changed his life. He was still a leader at Summit. But anyone on campus could tell that the entire direction of his life and leadership had been changed. Justin, a linebacker on the football team, a utility guard on the basketball team, President of the Key Club, also became an active member of Grove Community Church in Indy.

It irked Troy. He just couldn't believe that someone could just make a choice and change their lifestyle. Sure, Troy went to church, too. But it wasn't the same for him. He was soused on Saturday night and pseudo-spiritual on Sunday morning. Still, there was no hiding . Everyone knew who Troy was.

"I'm outta here," Tad said as he stumbled to his feet.

"Wait a minute, bud. We all came together." Troy said.

"I forgot."

"Who's our designated driver?" Troy asked and then crushed.

"I think it was Lester."

Tad and Troy looked over at Lester.

Tad chuckled, "He only snores when he's stoned. Somehow I don't think he meets designated driver specs." Troy pilfered through Lester's pockets until he came across Lester's keys to the truck.

Troy grabbed Lester by his shoulders. "Get his legs," he grunted to Tad. They threw him into the bed of the pick-up. Troy and Tad jumped in laughing and mispronouncing obscenities. They would fail any breathalyzer, but they were invincible. They had done this automotive version of Russian roulette three times this spring. So far, they survived.

Ten thousand feet above, a jet began its final approach to the Indianapolis International Airport. Kandi Roper was joining her mother in Indianapolis to begin a new life there. She didn't want to move from Amarillo, Texas where she had lived all her life. Kandi's mom and dad ended a long family war with a bitter divorce. Kandi's mom needed the increase in salary and the distance from Kandi's dad that a transfer to Indianapolis offered so she jumped on the opportunity. Kandi's heart pounded as she looked down at the lights of Indianapolis. Amarillo seemed light years away. She wrote in her journal:

For the past few months- for most of my life, really-I've felt like a loner. I want to be happy. I want Mom to get a new start but I didn't know it would mean a move in the middle of my junior year. I've worried so much about the marriage, Dad's drinking and what would happen if it all fell apart. Now that it's over, I don't even know who I am anymore. I miss Blake. I wish he was here... right here on this plane. But I know he will probably never be near me again. It's time to move on. If I can just make it through the first month, maybe I'll survive.

She closed her journal and tapped her pencil nervously against the cover, frightened and yet hopeful that maybe this move would give her a chance to find some identity.

Kandi lived for five years in an emotional battle field, complete with threats, verbal abuse, and rage. The voices of loneliness and isolation echoed in her mind as the plane approached the runway. She didn't hide her the tears since the "red eye" from DFW to Indy was almost empty. Despite this, she brushed her hair and prepared to see her Mom for the first time in a month.

Back on the ground in his middle class Indianapolis home Justin tried to keep his mind on the last act of "Romeo and Juliet." He shuffled through his notes trying to make since out of the whole poisen buisness. Pretty far-fetched stuff, if you ask me, he thought. The girls in a trance, no pulse, still alive, he thinks she's dead so he kills himself. Not exactly a feel good show. The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey Justin?"

Justin said nothing still trying to figure out who the girl on the other end of the line was.

The girl laughed, "Oh come on, Justin, can't you recognize my voice? Melissa! You can be such a doofus sometimes."

Justin rolled his eyes. Melissa, the Summit High combined equivilent to the "National Equirer" and "Melrose Place," loved being right in the middle of problems and possiblities.

"Oh, Hey Melissa. How's it goin'?"

"The question is, Justin, ?how are you?'"

Justin cleared his throat trying to keep from laughing. He knew this game well. "Great. Just great."

"I heard that you and Dana broke up."

"We were never going together."

"You were dating. Right?" Melissa inquired. (Inquiring minds want to know.)

"No," Justin said, "We were going out. We weren't, like, committed."

"But you aren't dating anymore."

"No Melissa. We're not dating anymore."

"You know what I think it is?" Melissa proposed.

"No. But I have a feeling that I will really soon," Justin said.

"It's the change. Too much change all at once. I mean, I'm a Christian too, but you've got to slide into it slowly or you're gonna make people uncomfortable. I heard she wasn't too keen on you hanging around Clipper either. Nice guy but shesh! The hair. He's really a dweeb."

"Uh... Thanks for the warning, Melissa, but I've been knowing the dweeb for ten years now and I kinda like the dweeb. He's a pretty nice dweeb as dweebs go," Justin said, accenting the word dweeb everytime he said it.

"Touchy, touchy. Just my opinion. Free country , you know. Anyway, I was just concerned. I'd hate for you to get frustrated with being a new Christian just because nobody dates you."
Justin pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it.

Melissa continued, "There's this girl. Her name is Marla and she doesn't have a date to the prom and-"

Justin interrupted, "Melissa. I know Marla. She's nice. I'm flattered that you'd pay some much attention to my social status but I'm a little more concerned about getting past Romeo and Juliet right now."

Clifford Hayes shot baskets outside his family's farm house. No one at school knew him by the name Clifford. At age three he demolished his mom's tulips with the hedge clippers. Ever since then, his family and friends called him "Clipper." He tagged himself with the nickname in preschool, perhaps because Clipper was easier to pronounce. Now, a wiry six feet two inches, with red hair and freckles, Clipper pounded the concrete slab every night with a worn out basketball..

Clipper dreamed of playing varsity for Summit despite being a definite underdog. But a starter injured himself trying to retrieve his jock strap from the flag pole the week before. And now Coach Tupper was planning an informal try-out with three or four of the junior varsity players including Clipper.

Clipper hated free throws, a definite weakness in his game. He had been practicing them since nine p.m. before suddenly entering a fantasy time warp. His imagination transported him to the year 2004. Clipper, the underdog utility power forward who scraped his way to the top the N.B.A. out of sheer tenacity, now played for the Indiana Pasers. He could hear the crowd rise to their feet as they howled and whooped. He imagined that the noise was so loud he could feel the vibration all the way into his bones. He saw in his mind's eye, Michael Jordan, who just recently retired for the third time. Jordan was doing the play-by-play with Bob Costas. He heard them tell the story.

Bob, straining his voice to rise above the roar of the fans, painted the picture. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Have you Michael?"

"No, Bob," Michael responded.

"Clipper Hayes has done it again! With three seconds left in the game, he steals the ball from Shaq and races down the court to lay in the basket in the final second of the game. It evens the score."

"Shaq's age is finally catching up with him," Michael pronounced as he shook his head in pity.

Bob interjected, "And on top of that, Clipper was fouled and will go to the line to complete the three point play to ice the ball game and the NBA championship."

Clipper went to the foul line (which was actually a purple chalk mark that he was constantly measuring and remarking year round). But at the moment this was not the Hayes farmhouse. This was the Market Sqaure Arena in downtown Indianapolis.

"The pressure must be enormous," Costas continued.

Clipper had almost fooled himself into nervousness. His heart beat a bit faster as he looked up at the basket which was lit by a flood light near the garage.

Bob Costas rattled on, "Only .07 seconds left in the game. The whole season is on the line and it comes down to this one shot. He takes a deep breath and-"

"Clipper!" A sleepy male voice yelled out to him.

"Yeah, Dad? I thought you were asleep."

"I was but I kept dreaming that I was being attacked by a bouncing ball." Clipper laughed half heartedly.

"Son, it's midnight! Come on in. Get some rest!"

"One more free throw and I'm done," Clipper called back to his dad. His mind returned to the play-by-play of Bob Costas and Michael Jordan.

"He's as cool as a cucumber, Bob. I don't think he has a pulse!"

Marv interrupted, "He steps up to the line!"

Clipper whispers under his breath, "Come on, baby. Come on."

Marv voice quaked, "HE SCORES! Market Square Arena goes stark-raving mad!"

Clipper pranced around the driveway behind his home, high fiving the air. He grabbed his jacket as he started inside. Off in the distance, he heard the faint sound of sirens.