CJ Johnson, Writer
Willing Spirit
Willing Spirit
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| Website Content (c) 2007 CJ Johnson, Writer ©2003 webtemplateszone free templates |
Willing Spirit
Excerpt (c) 2009
“That’s not a request, Jake. You take thirty days to reorganize your
priorities or sign your resignation today. Never in the history of Harrison,
Harrison, Caldwell and Harrison has one of our attorneys raised their voice to a
judge. It’s unthinkable.”
“I didn’t yell at him.” Jake felt like a school boy caught peeking in the girl’
s bathroom and he didn’t like it worth a damn. It didn’t help knowing the junior
Harrison currently chewing on his ass had paid his bail.
“The brainless ass wouldn’t know a plaintiff from a defendant if we didn’t
sit on opposite sides of the room.”
Chris Harrison tunneled his fingers through his hair, massaging the back
of his neck. “Jake, you punched a state Supreme Court Judge in the nose.
What happened to that cold, logical brain of yours? The man I went to law
school with would never dream of pulling the stunt you did yesterday.”
Jake pushed away from the window and sat down in the chair across the
desk from his friend and colleague. “Hell if I know, Chris. Everything was so
simple in college. I knew I wanted to be a lawyer – and I’m a damn good one.
Somewhere over the years things have changed – I’ve changed – I just don’t
know anymore. The law isn’t black and white, I know that, but when I know my
client is guilty and I still bust my ass to find a careless mistake on the part of the
prosecution or some remote legal euphemism so that he goes free … there’s
something wrong.”
“ I suggest you spend the next month figuring out what’s wrong. The old
man is livid over this. If it had been anyone else, they would have been
terminated on the spot. Judge Dixon filed assault charges and is determined to
see you disbarred. Use the time until the trial to find the old Jacob Fletcher or
come to terms with the new one. Here.”
Chris pulled his key ring from his pocket and slipped one off. “If you stay
in town the media circus will crucify you. My condo is as good a place as any
to escape.”
Jake caught the key in mid-air. Knowing Chris was right didn’t make it
any easier to run away from his problem. His instinct was to stay and fight but
Judge Dixon was one of the most powerful legal figures in the state. Thirty
days should be enough time for tempers to cool – and to heal the judge’s
broken nose.
“Thanks, man. I owe you one.” Jake shrugged into the navy blazer he’d
worn into the court room – yesterday? – and grabbed his briefcase.
“Get out of here. Call me when you get there. Hell, call me if you just
need to talk. Don’t throw away everything you’ve worked for, Jake.”
A half hour later Jake let himself into his apartment and couldn’t
remember a single detail of the drive across Birmingham. After a hot shower to
wash away the stench of lock-up, wearing nothing but a pair of sweat pants, he
headed to his favorite retreat – the kitchen.
He loved the entire process of cooking - the selection of ingredients; the
precision of cutting, chopping and dicing; the aroma of the spices; the artistic
presentation; and the explosion of flavors in his mouth. With his current
problems weighing heavy on his mind, he chose his favorite light meal – a
shrimp omelet with sliced avocado and a glass of Chardonnay. This morning
he’d take his creature comforts where he could get them.
* * * * * * * * * *
Priscilla Conroy raced down the stairs from her apartment to her store. It
was a good thing she lived on the premises or she’d never make it on time. No
matter how early she started, she always got the doors open at the same time
every morning.
She’s been experimenting with a bath oil mixture. One of her regular
customers asked for a bath oil that her husband wouldn’t mind using. Seems
they enjoyed sharing a bath together but he didn’t relish smelling like jasmine
and roses. While she didn’t see the sense of bathing together, she always
tried to give her customers what they wanted. She had three possibilities
ready for them to try.
Grabbing an apron from the armoire, Priscilla grabbed the feather duster and
began the daily chore of dusting her shelves of handmade, all natural bath and
beauty products. A quick spritz of vinegar and ammonia water had her glass
cabinet fronts sparkling like diamonds in the early morning sunlight. She could
hear Kizzie already busy at work in the kitchen preparing the rolls and muffins
for this morning’s breakfast session.
Priscilla’s Pantry and Pleasures was a unique blend of her love of
creating unusual fragrance combinations from nature’s bounty with Kizzie’s love
of cooking. When she inherited the one hundred and twenty year old house
five years ago she didn’t even know how she could pay the taxes on it much
less the constant maintenance required to keep it on the National Register of
Historic Homes. The large, airy rooms with their twelve-foot ceilings were
perfect for displaying the myriad items she created. From the lacy white
curtains on the tall windows to the polished oak floors, every room echoed with
the grace and elegance of days long past.
Her wish list of things she wanted to re-do was staggering but she would
continue doing one thing at a time until her home was restored to its former
beauty – at least the downstairs areas that welcomed the customers. Her
apartment upstairs would just have to wait.
With a final loving glance around the main sales area, Priscilla headed to
the foyer to unlock the door for the day’s business. Before she’d gone more
than two steps a blood-curdling scream that would crack eyeballs at a hundred
yards shattered the morning calm.
“Kizzie!” She screamed, running for the kitchen where the horrific
screams could still be heard. She found the eighty-year old woman huddled in
the corner, her eyes squeezed tightly closed, gripping the cross she wore on a
chain around her neck and yelling like the demons of hell were after her.
“Kizzie! What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Talk to me.” Priscilla tried to get
her to stand up but for such a tiny little woman, she was impossible to budge.
“Thay’s a haint, Prissy. A haint. I ain’t stayin’ no place wit no haint.”
She pushed out of Priscilla’s arms and scurried into the studio apartment that
came with her position as cook.
“A what? Kizzie, you can’t be serious. Will you slow down so we can talk
about this?” She entered the room to find her cook frantically pulling at a
battered old suitcase in the closet.
“Ain’t nothin’ to talk about. This place be hainted and I’m leavin’.”
Priscilla felt like she’d stepped through a time warp. Everything started
out so normal this morning. Suddenly nothing made any sense. What in the
world was Kizzie talking about?
“Please, Kizzie. If we sit down and discuss what you think happened we
can figure out how to fix it.”
“Cain’t fix somethin’ that ain’t broke, Prissy girl. It’s all them spells and
potions you been makin’. Thay done brung in a haint and it’s only the first’un.
Once thay gets an open invite thay brings all thay friends from the other side.
You mark ole Kizzie’s word.”
Priscilla shook her head at the woman shoving clothes into the suitcase
now open on the bed. She couldn’t seriously believe her house was haunted.
“Kizzie,” she fought to keep her voice calm, “you know I don’t make
spells. I make natural soaps, creams and lotions and sell dried herbs. There’s
nothing mystical or supernatural about what I do. If you would just tell me what
you saw, I’m sure we can work through it.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to work through and I didn’t see nothin’. I gots the sight like
my mama and my mama’s mama – clean back to befo’ thay was slaves and I
tell yo’ thays a haint here. It weren’t here yestiddy but it’s here today and tha’s
a plain cold fact. I can feels it and I ain’t stayin’ in the same house wit no
spirit.” With a curt nod of her snow white head, she snapped the lock on the
case and struggled to get it off the bed.
Priscilla pulled the suitcase from the older woman and followed through
the sales areas and out onto the wide front porch where she waited for her to
make a phone call. This couldn’t be happening! A ghost? She had to be
kidding. She loved Kezia Tremble like her own grandmother. If nor for her,
Priscilla’s Pantry and Pleasures would still be floundering along barely making
ends meet. But a ghost?
Five years ago, in the middle of a cold, rainy day, Kizzie marched into the shop
and announced that her recipe for chicken soup would bring in a lot more
people than Priscilla’s ordinary salad bar offering for lunch. The aroma of that
pot of chicken soup simmering in the kitchen brought triple the number of lunch-
time customers and they kept increasing until she had to add the glass
sunroom last year. They now served coffee and pastry from seven until nine
and lunch from eleven until two.
“. . . them cheese rolls is coolin’ on the cab’net and the teas a steepin’ on
the back stoop. I’m gonna sit right here on dis porch until my taxi cab comes to
take me to my granbaby’s house. I be back when you gets rid o’ that haint.
Damn! She’d been remembering how they started and completely
missed what Kizzie was telling her about today’s menu. Great. Her morning
was getting better by the minute. At this rate, she’d be suicidal by noon.
“Please, Miss Kizzie, at least give me a chance to write down these
instructions. You know I can’t cook.” Priscilla was desperate and had no clue
how to reason with the older woman.
Kizzie laughed until tears ran down cheeks the color of dark
mahogany. “Baby girl, I ain’t never in my born days seen such a sorry
cook as you. The Good Lord gived you lots of talents but cookin’ ain’t one of
‘em.”
The cab pulled up to the curb and the driver got out to load the suitcase.
Priscilla wanted to cry. Her whole life was spinning out of control and she was
powerless to know how to get it back under control. “But . . .”
“You gonna be jus’ fine, Prissy. Now come here and give dis old black
woman a hug.”
Priscilla closed her arms around the small woman, hugging her as tight as
she thought her frail bones could take. She didn’t even try to stop the tears
from falling. “I’ll miss you. You call me if you need anything, you hear me?”
“You got a good heart, Baby, and I loves you like you wuz one of my
own. Now you just get rid of that haint and its all gonna be right again.”
She climbed into the back seat of the yellow vehicle but before she
closed the door, she looked back at Priscilla.
“An’ don’ you run off that fella that’s gonna help. He’s a powerful good
lookin’ stud muffin.”
(Excerpt unedited and may differ from published version.)
Excerpt (c) 2009
“That’s not a request, Jake. You take thirty days to reorganize your
priorities or sign your resignation today. Never in the history of Harrison,
Harrison, Caldwell and Harrison has one of our attorneys raised their voice to a
judge. It’s unthinkable.”
“I didn’t yell at him.” Jake felt like a school boy caught peeking in the girl’
s bathroom and he didn’t like it worth a damn. It didn’t help knowing the junior
Harrison currently chewing on his ass had paid his bail.
“The brainless ass wouldn’t know a plaintiff from a defendant if we didn’t
sit on opposite sides of the room.”
Chris Harrison tunneled his fingers through his hair, massaging the back
of his neck. “Jake, you punched a state Supreme Court Judge in the nose.
What happened to that cold, logical brain of yours? The man I went to law
school with would never dream of pulling the stunt you did yesterday.”
Jake pushed away from the window and sat down in the chair across the
desk from his friend and colleague. “Hell if I know, Chris. Everything was so
simple in college. I knew I wanted to be a lawyer – and I’m a damn good one.
Somewhere over the years things have changed – I’ve changed – I just don’t
know anymore. The law isn’t black and white, I know that, but when I know my
client is guilty and I still bust my ass to find a careless mistake on the part of the
prosecution or some remote legal euphemism so that he goes free … there’s
something wrong.”
“ I suggest you spend the next month figuring out what’s wrong. The old
man is livid over this. If it had been anyone else, they would have been
terminated on the spot. Judge Dixon filed assault charges and is determined to
see you disbarred. Use the time until the trial to find the old Jacob Fletcher or
come to terms with the new one. Here.”
Chris pulled his key ring from his pocket and slipped one off. “If you stay
in town the media circus will crucify you. My condo is as good a place as any
to escape.”
Jake caught the key in mid-air. Knowing Chris was right didn’t make it
any easier to run away from his problem. His instinct was to stay and fight but
Judge Dixon was one of the most powerful legal figures in the state. Thirty
days should be enough time for tempers to cool – and to heal the judge’s
broken nose.
“Thanks, man. I owe you one.” Jake shrugged into the navy blazer he’d
worn into the court room – yesterday? – and grabbed his briefcase.
“Get out of here. Call me when you get there. Hell, call me if you just
need to talk. Don’t throw away everything you’ve worked for, Jake.”
A half hour later Jake let himself into his apartment and couldn’t
remember a single detail of the drive across Birmingham. After a hot shower to
wash away the stench of lock-up, wearing nothing but a pair of sweat pants, he
headed to his favorite retreat – the kitchen.
He loved the entire process of cooking - the selection of ingredients; the
precision of cutting, chopping and dicing; the aroma of the spices; the artistic
presentation; and the explosion of flavors in his mouth. With his current
problems weighing heavy on his mind, he chose his favorite light meal – a
shrimp omelet with sliced avocado and a glass of Chardonnay. This morning
he’d take his creature comforts where he could get them.
* * * * * * * * * *
Priscilla Conroy raced down the stairs from her apartment to her store. It
was a good thing she lived on the premises or she’d never make it on time. No
matter how early she started, she always got the doors open at the same time
every morning.
She’s been experimenting with a bath oil mixture. One of her regular
customers asked for a bath oil that her husband wouldn’t mind using. Seems
they enjoyed sharing a bath together but he didn’t relish smelling like jasmine
and roses. While she didn’t see the sense of bathing together, she always
tried to give her customers what they wanted. She had three possibilities
ready for them to try.
Grabbing an apron from the armoire, Priscilla grabbed the feather duster and
began the daily chore of dusting her shelves of handmade, all natural bath and
beauty products. A quick spritz of vinegar and ammonia water had her glass
cabinet fronts sparkling like diamonds in the early morning sunlight. She could
hear Kizzie already busy at work in the kitchen preparing the rolls and muffins
for this morning’s breakfast session.
Priscilla’s Pantry and Pleasures was a unique blend of her love of
creating unusual fragrance combinations from nature’s bounty with Kizzie’s love
of cooking. When she inherited the one hundred and twenty year old house
five years ago she didn’t even know how she could pay the taxes on it much
less the constant maintenance required to keep it on the National Register of
Historic Homes. The large, airy rooms with their twelve-foot ceilings were
perfect for displaying the myriad items she created. From the lacy white
curtains on the tall windows to the polished oak floors, every room echoed with
the grace and elegance of days long past.
Her wish list of things she wanted to re-do was staggering but she would
continue doing one thing at a time until her home was restored to its former
beauty – at least the downstairs areas that welcomed the customers. Her
apartment upstairs would just have to wait.
With a final loving glance around the main sales area, Priscilla headed to
the foyer to unlock the door for the day’s business. Before she’d gone more
than two steps a blood-curdling scream that would crack eyeballs at a hundred
yards shattered the morning calm.
“Kizzie!” She screamed, running for the kitchen where the horrific
screams could still be heard. She found the eighty-year old woman huddled in
the corner, her eyes squeezed tightly closed, gripping the cross she wore on a
chain around her neck and yelling like the demons of hell were after her.
“Kizzie! What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Talk to me.” Priscilla tried to get
her to stand up but for such a tiny little woman, she was impossible to budge.
“Thay’s a haint, Prissy. A haint. I ain’t stayin’ no place wit no haint.”
She pushed out of Priscilla’s arms and scurried into the studio apartment that
came with her position as cook.
“A what? Kizzie, you can’t be serious. Will you slow down so we can talk
about this?” She entered the room to find her cook frantically pulling at a
battered old suitcase in the closet.
“Ain’t nothin’ to talk about. This place be hainted and I’m leavin’.”
Priscilla felt like she’d stepped through a time warp. Everything started
out so normal this morning. Suddenly nothing made any sense. What in the
world was Kizzie talking about?
“Please, Kizzie. If we sit down and discuss what you think happened we
can figure out how to fix it.”
“Cain’t fix somethin’ that ain’t broke, Prissy girl. It’s all them spells and
potions you been makin’. Thay done brung in a haint and it’s only the first’un.
Once thay gets an open invite thay brings all thay friends from the other side.
You mark ole Kizzie’s word.”
Priscilla shook her head at the woman shoving clothes into the suitcase
now open on the bed. She couldn’t seriously believe her house was haunted.
“Kizzie,” she fought to keep her voice calm, “you know I don’t make
spells. I make natural soaps, creams and lotions and sell dried herbs. There’s
nothing mystical or supernatural about what I do. If you would just tell me what
you saw, I’m sure we can work through it.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to work through and I didn’t see nothin’. I gots the sight like
my mama and my mama’s mama – clean back to befo’ thay was slaves and I
tell yo’ thays a haint here. It weren’t here yestiddy but it’s here today and tha’s
a plain cold fact. I can feels it and I ain’t stayin’ in the same house wit no
spirit.” With a curt nod of her snow white head, she snapped the lock on the
case and struggled to get it off the bed.
Priscilla pulled the suitcase from the older woman and followed through
the sales areas and out onto the wide front porch where she waited for her to
make a phone call. This couldn’t be happening! A ghost? She had to be
kidding. She loved Kezia Tremble like her own grandmother. If nor for her,
Priscilla’s Pantry and Pleasures would still be floundering along barely making
ends meet. But a ghost?
Five years ago, in the middle of a cold, rainy day, Kizzie marched into the shop
and announced that her recipe for chicken soup would bring in a lot more
people than Priscilla’s ordinary salad bar offering for lunch. The aroma of that
pot of chicken soup simmering in the kitchen brought triple the number of lunch-
time customers and they kept increasing until she had to add the glass
sunroom last year. They now served coffee and pastry from seven until nine
and lunch from eleven until two.
“. . . them cheese rolls is coolin’ on the cab’net and the teas a steepin’ on
the back stoop. I’m gonna sit right here on dis porch until my taxi cab comes to
take me to my granbaby’s house. I be back when you gets rid o’ that haint.
Damn! She’d been remembering how they started and completely
missed what Kizzie was telling her about today’s menu. Great. Her morning
was getting better by the minute. At this rate, she’d be suicidal by noon.
“Please, Miss Kizzie, at least give me a chance to write down these
instructions. You know I can’t cook.” Priscilla was desperate and had no clue
how to reason with the older woman.
Kizzie laughed until tears ran down cheeks the color of dark
mahogany. “Baby girl, I ain’t never in my born days seen such a sorry
cook as you. The Good Lord gived you lots of talents but cookin’ ain’t one of
‘em.”
The cab pulled up to the curb and the driver got out to load the suitcase.
Priscilla wanted to cry. Her whole life was spinning out of control and she was
powerless to know how to get it back under control. “But . . .”
“You gonna be jus’ fine, Prissy. Now come here and give dis old black
woman a hug.”
Priscilla closed her arms around the small woman, hugging her as tight as
she thought her frail bones could take. She didn’t even try to stop the tears
from falling. “I’ll miss you. You call me if you need anything, you hear me?”
“You got a good heart, Baby, and I loves you like you wuz one of my
own. Now you just get rid of that haint and its all gonna be right again.”
She climbed into the back seat of the yellow vehicle but before she
closed the door, she looked back at Priscilla.
“An’ don’ you run off that fella that’s gonna help. He’s a powerful good
lookin’ stud muffin.”
(Excerpt unedited and may differ from published version.)
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