CJ Johnson, Writer
Willing Spirit
Willing Spirit
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| Website Content (c) 2007 CJ Johnson, Writer ©2003 webtemplateszone free templates |
Willing Spirit
by CJ Johnson
Excerpt (c) 2007
“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.)
by CJ Johnson
Excerpt (c) 2007
“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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