Michael Stephen Daigle's Blog, page 16

THE STORY OF DEV. The end.

“This is the sun. Think of me. We are together in  the sun.”

This is the end of  the story of Theo, Dev and the Cherry Street School, called  THE STORY OF DEV.

They came for Bobby Danforth and his friends during the school day, Sergeant Ellingwood and three officers.

Jacob pulled Theo out of the  crowd of silent students huddled along  the sidewalk to the side wall and said he had been told by his parents that the authorities were going  to make a display of Bobby’s detainment.

“There was a big discussion at city hall about this,” Jacob said. “The family has allies, but the police chief said he would resign if nothing  was done this time, as did Sgt. Ellingwood and Mr. Younger. The family promised they would handle it, but the chief took them into the back room alone and played them part of Dev’s tape.”

“Howdja  know that?”

“My father’s on the town council, so he was there.”

“Wow.”

Jacob blinked away tears and took a deep breath.

“There were twenty-two.” He took several halting breaths, eyes wide staring at the ground.  “Twenty-two kids, Theo. Beatings, thefts, threats, and sexual assaults.” His voice gained weight.  “Including me.”

“I thought there was something, but…”

“It was a year ago.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Jacob.”

“But I do. I’ve already told my therapist, my parents, the police, and I thought I should tell you because you made me stronger.”

“No…I just,”

“The three of them. They cornered me behind the library and put their hands in my pants and made me kneel in front of Bobby…”

Jacob turned to face the school wall, his head in his arms, shoulders shaking,   and wailed.

All Theo could do was put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and say, “I’m so sorry.”

****

The bricks were wet and cold. The sun had yet to poke above a tree line still shrouded in the mist of a morning shower.

In a while, Theo thought. One shot, the only shot. From the front, over the fire escape, across the rear door with no footholds, along the playground side, hanging in mid-air, then the last turn to the front door, a quick jump to the ground.

Done.

The wall crawl.

Of course, no one would be there to see it, not even Jacob, whose mother grounded him after learning about the betting scheme.

He pulled Dev’s  letter from his pocket. He had been carrying for weeks.

“I think you knew I was leaving,” she wrote. “If I saw you, I maybe would have stayed or just made this harder. I’ll hitch  a ride on a truck making a produce run to Buffalo, where I’ll take a bus to New Mexico.  I have an open invitation  to stay at the home of my mother’s brother, a tribal leader. We are the people of the sun, T. There was too much darkness. I needed to get back to the sun, back to my home. You are in the light I see each morning  when I look to the east. I will always see you. T.”

At the bottom of the page she had drawn a spiral with radiating spikes.

“This is the sun. Think of me. We are together in  the sun.”

He leaned his head back against the cold stone wall and for the first time since he read that letter, he smiled. Dev’s warmth filled him.

He pushed away from the wall and crawled up the side of the fire escape. At the top, he looped his left arm around the frame and leaned out as far as he could. He pulled a nail  from his back pocket and scratched away at a brick until he had carved, “Dev. Sun girl.”

He crawled down and walked to the front of the school.

One last wall crawl. For Jacob. For Dev.

He glanced up at the three-story building. It no longer seemed so large and foreboding, and he no longer felt small. He jumped to the top of the cement foundation and slipped his fingers between the bricks. “Got this.”

As he maneuvered around the corners, he replayed the  report he gave Mrs. Adams’ class on the Louisiana Purchase.

“Before I begin, I want to thank my friend Jacob Sheridan for his help with the historic research of all of your names. His family name was Swartz, and was changed to avoid harassment. Many of your family names changed, too. The handout explains what we found. We all were someone else, and there’s no reason to hide from it. My name is Theophile. You know me as Theo because I was ashamed to use my real name. You can call me ‘T-ao.’ My family is from Louisiana. We are French and my last name is pronounced ‘Du-boi.’ This report is about the girl who gave me the courage to use my real name. Her name is Andrea Duarte. This is the story of Dev.”

‘Love me some Frank Nagler’

Some new top reviews for the Frank Nagler Mysteries.

Thanks to all the readers for taking the time to drop a review.

5 stars  Love Me Some Frank Nagler!

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2020.

The third book in the series won’t disappoint. Frank Nagler has a serious challenge – he’s the one with the target on his back. He’s not sure why, but “A Game Called Dead” is using the internet to play this game with the seasoned detective in Ironton, N.J. The cruel opening murder scene is only the tip of the iceberg! Well developed and as always, the author keeps you on the edge of the seat!

A GAME CALLED DEAD. Frank Nagler must track down an Internet terrorist whose past intertwines with his own. Paperback and ebook and audiobook. A Runner-Up in the Shelf Unbound 2016 Best Indie Book contest.

4 stars

 A good and entertaining story

Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2022

A well crafted and convoluted story-line with a use of metaphors not often seen in writing today. This is a different type of mystery where the reader feels as though they are unraveling the mystery along with detective Nagler.

THE SWAMPS OF JERSEY. Paperback, ebook, and audiobook

 5 stars  Page Turner

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2022

I enjoyed this story. This story kept me on the edge of my seat. I kept turning the page to see what was going to happen next.

THE WEIGHT OF LIVING: The discovery of  young girl wearing summer clothes on a bitter March night leads Frank Nagler  into a search through a dark history that has surprising connections to his group of friends. Paperback and ebook.

First Place for Mysteries  in the 2017 Royal Dragonfly Book Award contest;  Notable 100 Book, Shelf Unbound 2018 Indie Book Awards; Named a Distinguished Favorite, 2018  Independent Press Awards; Distinguished Favorite in the 2018 Big NYC Book Contest; Finalist in the 2019 Book Excellence Awards.

Named A Gold Star Award winner in the 2020 Elite Choice Book Awards

5 stars  Great storyline

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2020.

We all are ordinary person until we do something really great. This book contains a story of an ordinary guy who became a great detective. That’s the reason I’m giving 5 stars.

THE RED HAND: Frank Nagler’s beginning, a struggle in a terrorized city with a serial killer and a personal battle as his wife fight for her life. Paperback, ebook audiobook. Distinguished Favorite in the 2019 Big NYC Book Contest; Second Place winner for mysteries in the 2019 Royal Dragonfly Book Awards;  Notable 100 Book in the 2019 Shelf Unbound Indie Book Awards;  Distinguished Favorite  in the 2020 Independent Press Awards; Nominee in the 2020 TopShelf Book Awards

COMING THIS FALL: Dragony Rising, a new Frank Nagler Mystery.

DRAGONY RISING: ‘WOW! Great story! So much going on and it all ties up.’

It’s been an exciting few days as I comb through the manuscript of DRAGONY RISING, the next Frank Nagler Mystery.

I got the edits back from my publisher, Imzadi Publishing, after our copy editor Katherine Tate completed her work. Kate brings to her work the sharp eye of an editor and the voice of an accomplished author. Frank is in good hands.

The title of this piece is the comment she left at the end of Dragony. (THANK YOU, Kate!!)

It is gratifying to hear her enthusiasm, but also exciting because it means my effort to pull together  a 5-book subterranean story apparently worked.

Readers of the series know the books tell the story of the city of Ironton, N.J., a troubled manufacturing center, and the investigations of Detective Frank Nagler.

Each book has its own crime story and Frank Nagler deals with sets of trouble in his person life.

But underneath each separate story has been the long-running saga of historic corruption and manipulation that I decided to bring to the surface in DRAGONY RISING.

The under story comes to life as Frank Nagler battles the Dragony, a shady organization of  thugs, politicos, financiers and followers. The organization traces its beginning   back to the iron mining days of  Ironton and in modern times has it tentacles into all parts of life in the city.

Of all the Nagler books, DRAGONY RISING has the strongest sense of being ripped from the headlines, as they say.

So in order to prepare yourself for DRAGONY RISING, due later this year,  I strongly urge you to read the other four books in the series: THE SWAMPS OF JERSEY, A GAME CALLED DEAD, THE WEIGHT OF LIVING and  THE RED HAND.

You can read them in order of  publication  starting with THE SWAMPS OF JERSEY.

Or you can read them in the chronological order of Frank Nagler’s story and begin with THE RED HAND,  a prequel to the series. In this sense. DRAGONY RISING chronically follows THE WEIGHT OF LIVING.

Kirkus Reviews called Nagler, “One of  modern fiction’s expertly drawn detectives.”

All the books are available in paperback and e-book formats.

THE SWAMPS OF JERSEY is available in an audiobook read  by Lee Alan.

And A GAME CALLED DEAD, and THE RED HAND are available in audiobooks, read by Dane Petersen.

Available at:

Amazon.com: Michael Stephen Daigle: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

Online Bookstore: Books, NOOK ebooks, Music, Movies & Toys | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com) (Search for individual titles).

Glow

There’s something I’ve been trying to say

But the world get really loud sometimes.

The idea rises when the yard is quiet and what sounds like your voice whispers through the flowers or when the rain raises the lavender  and the rose’s soft scent hovers.

When the sunlight  silhouettes your face and you glow.

For that moment I don’t actually have to say it because you take the words from me, taste them and give them back.

Those things you know

That I wish you’d teach me.

Because one day you might stop.

One day the sky may be empty.

One day the road may be dark.

One day.

Hey, Americans, we all are apparently ‘sour and angry’

I returned today from  supporting the local economy to  read a headline on Politico.com that said we are all “sour and angry.”

Of course, Politico, based in Washington D.C, is a political website and no matter the day of the week, everything on that site is sour and angry. Because our politics must be sour and angry because someone is always losing  and they are annoyed about it and need someone to blame and there always is trouble in River City.

So I’d like to report what I saw of us, out among the sour and angry Americans.

A good number of them were doing 80 in the interstate, apparently burning off that sourness and anger by speeding. The one guy who maybe had a right to be sour and angry was the one guy who got caught, which is the risk of speeding past the state police barracks.

At the home center those sour and angry  Americans had loaded up their double-wide pick-ups with lawn furniture, cement, grass seed, bricks, and tools so they could  express their sourness  by adding a patio and raising their property value.

Other sour and angry Americans were eight deep at the paint counter, because nothing seems to express dismay more than brightening a long-unpainted room.

And even more of them were lined up ten-deep at the gas station, where the price of gas dropped 20 cents in the past 2 weeks,  to fill up their double-wides because clearly absolutely nothing  expresses sourness and anger than by purchasing more of the one thing you complain about the most.

Of course my own neighborhood was not able to escape this wave of unhappiness.

Neighbors across the street are expressing their sourness by remodeling their kitchen while next door to them the anger was palpable as the family remodeled the cellar of their  McMansion probably to give  their sons a place to burn off the energy.

And next to them you could feel the sourness as you walked  by during the renovation of the first floor of the 100-year-old house.

And you had to admire the effort  by the owners of the oldest house on the street who made a point of letting the powers that be know their anger  by bringing up to code the electrical and plumbing  systems in the 125-year-old house. Bully for them.

But the big thinkers say we are all sour and angry.

So I returned to read this:

“The big run-up in gas and food and home prices has really caused great hardship for many households,” said Richard Curtin, a veteran economist who has run the University of Michigan consumer survey since 1976. “And the Biden administration made a critical error in saying it would be transient and people should just tough it out. It wasn’t transient. A lot of people couldn’t just tough it out. And it caused a big loss of confidence in [President Joe Biden’s] policies.”

Which is not untrue.

But, no mention that the “big run-up” in gas prices began two years ago when the world’s largest oil producers, including the U.S., cut production 10 percent.

And no mention that a severe and continuing drought in many of the U.S.  food-growing regions kicked up prices five years ago.

All of which was made worse by Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. 

Stories like this  a just part of the daily  churn of the news business: So and so is still in office? Find something to complain about.

And the big thinkers do love to complain.

So this in that same article: Mark Zandi, who has been a leading American economist since the Revolutionary War, it seems,  said Americans have never seen gasoline prices rise so fast so quickly.

Really?

In 2008 the average price of gas rose a  buck in 20 seconds and everyone traded in their pick-up truck for a Prius.

And then there was  the Arab Oil Embargo in the early 1970s when there was no gas and we all waited line for hours to get  5 gallons.

But according to the economists, it’s worse today than ever.

Because in the prediction business, it has to be worse.

Worst sells.

Know why they get those results?

Because they ask a question like this: “Last week gas prices rose substantially. Does that  bother you?”

Unless you’re John D. Rockefeller, you’re going to say Yes.

And in today’s click-bait online  news business, bad news sells.

In the old print days, the axiom was, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Today, the business I grew up in is a hedge-fund addicted crack head street walker who will say anything  for a buck.

Yes, to simplify, today unemployment rate is 3.8 percent, the lowest its been since 1968, when the Beatles were hanging around in an aircraft carrier of a movie studio waiting for Peter Jackson to show up to make sense of all their musical noodling.

In the day, newspapers would run that story atop Page One and reporters would be sent out to interview new shopkeepers,  and people buying goods, workers just hired, who bought a new car, put their kids through college.

And yes, there was a certain cheerleading  hokeyness to it,  but it was something we all shared because we do share good times and bad.

But today, we want the truth, so  the story is written as if something is wrong that all that many people are working.

You know who should be sour and angry (besides the Ukrainians)?

Teachers, and public health officials, doctors and nurses, firefighters  and cops, and that said I have no patience for those  among these groups who declared wearing  a mask or getting a shot  violated their rights when it is that posture that threatened the health of the people they were  paid to serve. Ya got vaccinated as a kid, that’s why you’re alive today.

Want tough, snowflake, try running a live shooter drill for fourth graders, terrifying them for an hour and then telling them that it was just a drill and everything is fine.

Welcome to the new normal.

And if you don’t hate it, you’re  not breathing.

There is so much to do, and we waste all this time.

We need better job training, a complete health care system, help for care givers and the working poor; higher wages, more affordable housing. Fix the roads before they fall into the rivers. Clean up the rivers before everything in them dies. Build more parks. Make life better.

We’re the richest fucking country in modern history, so we can do it.

Sometimes I think we are sour and angry because it’s easier.

New piece: THE STORY OF DEV. Police visit Theo’s house looking for Dev

New segment of THE STORY OF DEV. Theo is plowing through his presentation on the Louisiana  when he gets a visit from Office John  Ellingwood.

A knock at the side aluminum storm door pulled him away from the table. Theo edged behind the  open kitchen door to see who it was.  They’d never had a visitor.

The storm door squealed open. Another knock, this time on the  main door. Louder, longer.

It was that policeman, Officer John from the school.

Theo wished his mother was home, but she had left early for her other job.

He gulped and walked to the door.

“Hi, Officer…”

Water dripped from his wide-brimmed hat and his official slicker with a little white badge on the left breast. His face was tight, but his eyes were puzzled.

“It’s Theo, right? Anyone else home?”

[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://michaelstephendaigledotcom.fi..." data-large-file="https://michaelstephendaigledotcom.fi..." src="https://michaelstephendaigledotcom.fi..." alt="" class="wp-image-3426" width="340" height="509" srcset="https://michaelstephendaigledotcom.fi... 340w, https://michaelstephendaigledotcom.fi... 680w, https://michaelstephendaigledotcom.fi... 100w, https://michaelstephendaigledotcom.fi... 200w" sizes="(max-width: 340px) 100vw, 340px" />Photo by elifskies on Pexels.com

“My little brother and sister.”

“Oh, all right. I’m sorry. I’m Sergeant Ellingwood. I met you at Cherry Street School with Dev. She here?”

Theo just offered a wide-eyed stare. His hands shook.

“I know she’s been staying here. Not a problem. Good of you. You know I sort of keep an eye on her. I just need to know if she’s here.”

Something’s happened. I knew it.

Theo coughed an answer. “She went to work at the farm yesterday. I’m guessing she’s still …”

The sergeant’s tight lips and downward glance told Theo that was not true.

“That was the first place I checked. They said she worked yesterday, got paid and  left. She wasn’t scheduled to work today.” He nodded to Theo. “Your brother and sister okay alone? Can you come with me?” He waved a  hand. “You’re not in trouble, Theo. I just need you to come with me for a few minutes.”

Theo’s voice  ripped open and his face crumbled. “What happened? Where is she?”

“I don’t know.  The school bus was vandalized.”

“Holy crap. But why do you need me?”

“Because they left you a message on the side on the bus. I need you to confirm something.”

“Jeez. Okay, just a minute,” and he turned from the door to the living room. “Hey, guys, I have to go with…”

“Oh, Ta-o’s in trouubble,” sang out Paul from his upside-down perch on the couch, feet planted on the wall, head hanging off  the cushion.

“No, I’m not,” Theo said, grabbing a ball cap. “He needs my help.”

“Right, needs your help to put you in jail,” Paul laughed. “I’m tellin’…”

“Just lock the doors.”

On the porch the sergeant asked, “No rain coat?”

Theo shrugged, embarrassed. “No, it’ll  be…”

“Got an extra in trunk. Come on.”

They drove in silence. The officer muttered into the car radio. Theo only understood, “10-4.”

Theo hunched in the front seat, confused and scared.

Why don’t he say somethin’? It’s gotta be really bad.

“Her father’s not a vet, is he?”

“Is that what she’s saying?” Sergeant Ellingwood flicked a glance at Theo. “He’s a farm worker, migrant. Thorntons adds a dozen or so seasonal workers every year, generally late spring to the end of October.  Something happened to Enrico’s paperwork. That’s her father name. His work visa was never processed. He was sent to another Thornton farm in the Finger Lakes, but he never showed up. That was maybe a month ago.” He pulled the car into the grocery store lot. “Here we are.”

By the time they got to the Red & White the rain had picked up, blurring the view of  the school bus. Sergeant Ellingwood hauled a black slicker from the trunk. “You’re really going to need this now.”

Theo slipped in to the oversized slicker.

“Aw, man, look at that,” Theo said as he saw that the school bus windows had been broken out and a chair and clothes and books, pans and other stuff had been thrown into the parking lot. Black paint had been splashed across the windshield and the entry door torn from the side of the bus.

“I need you to see this,” the officer said.

On the side of the bus facing the street had been painted, “Hey Theo-awful-lee we got Onion Girl    You next”

“Bobby Danforth. He called Dev ‘onion girl’, ”

“We know,” the sergeant said, with a nod. “That why it’s trouble. That family.”

“He’ll get away with it, won’t he?”

“I’d like to say no,  but, no guarantees.” Ellingwood nodded to the police car. “Let’s get out of this.”

Inside the car, the officer said, “I just needed to you to verify that it’s Bobby. You had a couple run-ins, right?”

When Theo hesitated, the officer said, “Don’t worry, you’re not  the only kid.”

“Yeah, a couple. First day, he knocked change out of my hand in the lunch room, and last week him and his guys were following me.”

“Didn’t you and he have a discussion when you beat him on the wall crawl?”

Theo felt his face heat up. “You know about that?”

Ellingwood laughed. “Everybody knows about it.”

Theo leaned back. “Oh, crap.”

“Hey, you’re not in trouble  We all did the wall crawl. I did the wall crawl. Only got  half way.”

Theo shivered, then huffed out a fresh breath. “No way.”

“It’s a tradition, as I’m  sure you’ve heard.  And know what? We all bet on it. Cokes, an ice cream sandwich, little stuff, not real  money. My God, Jacob has about a thousand dollars in bets so far. “

“A grand?”

“I told him  to shut down the online betting and figure out how to give back the money. He’s not in trouble  but parents have been calling. Nickel and dime bets are one thing,  but if it gets too  big, someone besides me in law enforcement notices, understand?”

Theo pursed his lips into a fish face  and opened his eyes wide and tried not to laugh. That little hustler.

“So where do you think Dev went?”

“Dunno,” Theo said, lying. The old factory. “I knew about the farm and the bus. When she came to our house I thought she came from here, you know, the school bus. I mean she didn’t have anything with her except some clothes, and they were really dirty and the dryer broke so she had to wear my  Mom’s stuff.”

The sergeant started the car. “Yeah, okay, Let me take you home. Thanks for your help.”

At the house, Theo stepped from the car and peeled off the slicker.

“Keep it. You got a phone?”

As Theo nodded yes, the car radio spit to life: “All cars 10-50, multi-vehicle, high school, fire and rescue enroute.”

“Oh, man, gotta go. Car accident,” Ellingwood said. “When she comes back, have her call me.”

He spun the car  in a U-turn and lights flashing sped off north.

Theo stood in the rain listening as  the siren faded in the heavy air.

Oh, Dev.

Only then did he notice  the slicker was a shade of green and had strips of reflective tape around the arms and across the chest.

In a moment when he wanted to disappear he stood out like a Christmas tree.

Look at all you’ve done: Maggie Doyne’s story

Things get better when someone demands they do, and follows up that demand by action.

That’s not the right word.

Things.

Too  cold, too empty. Wrong.

Lives.

That’s better.

Lives and hearts and minds.

That’s what gets better.

When hearts and mind get better, lives get better, then things get better.

Hope.

Grows.

Builds.

But only with sleeves rolled up, tools in  hands, minds engaged.
Rising then to dream.

But dreams are just air unless there is some foundation.

Yet there is no foundation without dreams.

Because ya have to start somewhere.

That’s what Maggie Doyne did.

Started.

Found a place that challenged her pleasant American girl dream.

Not challenged.

Smacked it with all the force of righteous wrong, knocked it silly.

Showed her a place so antithetical to  her Jersey suburban upbringing that the choice for her was simple: Stay.

Simple, heart-felt.

Jumping off a cliff with nothing but a prayer simple.

Yet.

Yet.

Here was this place, Surkhet, Nepal, seemingly forsaken, poverty stricken, wracked by war, chained by traditions and practices as old as the people who first settled there.

Here was the dirty face of a tiny girl who stopped breaking rocks  because that was her job, to smile and say “Namaste” to this young American who watched her work.

This young American whose mind was reeling,  whose heart was breaking, and whose determination to stay and help swelled each time she saw some new aspect of life in that dusty settlement.

I had the privilege of interviewing Maggie twice 15 years ago for two pieces

I wrote for the Morris County Daily Record in the days when her dream for her foundation BlinkNow .. https://blinknow.org/ was taking shape.

A remark she made then stuck. It was about how she had to reconcile that she was  the only white American woman in Surkhet.

She is on a book tour, talking about her  story, “Between the Mountain and the Sky.”

When she was speaking recently at her West Morris-Mendham High School, her alma mater, an answer to that old question became evident.

How did Maggie deal with being an American woman in a decidedly non-American place?

In a way by being less American. By shaving down the great American need to fix everything all at once, by morphing that aggression into listening and learning.

Not everything moves at the pace of a  New York minute.

But it moves.

If Maggie Doyne teaches us anything it’s that dreams don’t die, only the effort to shape them falters. Her next best lesson is this: Keep moving forward.

Her best lesson: Remember to love one another.

In  fifteen years since she first entered Nepal, she attracted a talented team of advisors, teachers and supporters to become mother to more than 50 Nepalese kids, to build a home for them and a school for  more than 500 students, some of whom are graduating from college now; to develop a woman’s center that offers job training and support  for the women of Kopila Valley; to fight off the worry and depression of potential failure (because it feels so  personal, because it is: She had  promised all of herself to make this real); to swell with pride as her kids succeed; and to feel the weight of loss when a child fails at school, grows sick, when they die.

The BlinkNow world was shattered when in 2015, it was announced the Ravi, a three-year-old who had exemplified everything Maggie  was – mother, teacher, healer – died. It seemed like there would never be enough love to salve her grief.

I remember getting the email that announced his death. I stared at the ceiling for hours before writing a piece at 3 a.m. New Years Day, 2016. https://michaelstephendaigle.com/2015/12/31/ravi/

People still read that piece today.

It has nothing to do with me but everything with how Maggie Doyne and her mission connected with people around the world.

I posed a question in that piece: What will the world be like when the Koplia Valley kids are unleashed.

We’re about to find out.

Read her book.

She’ll show you how she did the improbable:  Turned heartbreak and deprivation into light.

Her kids are spreading that light.

https://michaelstephendaigle.com/2015/12/31/ravi/

Look at all you’ve done

Things get better when someone demands they do, and follows up that demand by action.

That’s not the right word.

Things.

Too  cold, too empty. Wrong.

Lives.

That’s better.

Lives and hearts and minds.

That’s what gets better.

When hearts and mind get better, lives get better, then things get better.

Hope.

Grows.

Builds.

But only with sleeves rolled up, tools in  hands, minds engaged.
Rising then to dream.

But dreams are just air unless there is some foundation.

Yet there is no foundation without dreams.

Because ya have to start somewhere.

That’s what Maggie Doyne did.

Started.

Found a place that challenged her pleasant American girl dream.

Not challenged.

Smacked it with all the force of righteous wrong, knocked it silly.

Showed her a place so antithetical to  her Jersey suburban upbringing that the choice for her was simple: Stay.

Simple, heart-felt.

Jumping off a cliff with nothing but a prayer simple.

Yet.

Yet.

Here was this place, Surkhet, Nepal, seemingly forsaken, poverty stricken, wracked by war, chained by traditions and practices as old as the people who first settled there.

Here was the dirty face of a tiny girl who stopped breaking rocks  because that was her job, to smile and say “Namaste” to this young American who watched her work.

This young American whose mind was reeling,  whose heart was breaking, and whose determination to stay and help swelled each time she saw some new aspect of life in that dusty settlement.

I had the privilege of interviewing Maggie twice 15 years ago for two pieces

I wrote for the Morris County Daily Record in the days when her dream for her foundation BlinkNow .. https://blinknow.org/ was taking shape.

A remark she made then stuck. It was about how she had to reconcile that she was  the only white American woman in Surkhet.

She is on a book tour, talking about her  story, “Between the Mountain and the Sky.”

When she was speaking recently at her West Morris-Mendham High School, her alma mater, an answer to that old question became evident.

How did Maggie deal with being an American woman in a decidedly non-American place?

In a way by being less American. By shaving down the great American need to fix everything all at once, by morphing that aggression into listening and learning.

Not everything moves at the pace of a  New York minute.

But it moves.

If Maggie Doyne teaches us anything it’s that dreams don’t die, only the effort to shape them falters. Her next best lesson is this: Keep moving forward.

Her best lesson: Remember to love one another.

In  fifteen years since she first entered Nepal, she attracted a talented team of advisors, teachers and supporters to become mother to more than 50 Nepalese kids, to build a home for them and a school for  more than 500 students, some of whom are graduating from college now; to develop a woman’s center that offers job training and support  for the women of Kopila Valley; to fight off the worry and depression of potential failure (because it feels so  personal, because it is: She had  promised all of herself to make this real); to swell with pride as her kids succeed; and to feel the weight of loss when a child fails at school, grows sick, when they die.

The BlinkNow world was shattered when in 2015, it was announced the Ravi, a three-year-old who had exemplified everything Maggie  was – mother, teacher, healer – died. It seemed like there would never be enough love to salve her grief.

I remember getting the email that announced his death. I stared at the ceiling for hours before writing a piece at 3 a.m. New Years Day, 2016. https://michaelstephendaigle.com/2015/12/31/ravi/

People still read that piece today.

It has nothing to do with me but everything with how Maggie Doyne and her mission connected with people around the world.

I posed a question in that piece: What will the world be like when the Koplia Valley kids are unleashed.

We’re about to find out.

Read her book.

She’ll show you how she did the improbable:  Turned heartbreak and deprivation into light.

Her kids are spreading that light.

https://michaelstephendaigle.com/2015/12/31/ravi/

THE STORY OF DEV: What might Theo, Dev and Dimitri Yazov share?

In this segment of THE STORY OF DEV, Theo struggles to form his report on the Louisiana Purchase, but finds himself distracted  by the sounds of heavy rain on the tin roof of the barn, Dev’s absence and the discovery of the person who could be Bobby Danforth’s great-grandfather, Dmitri Yazov.

Theo began to worry when Dev had not returned Saturday night, and his concern increased as the rain rattled the loose corner of the barn’s tin roof.

But maybe he misunderstood. She had taken some extra clothes, so possibly she was going to sleep overnight in  one of those shacks, work Sunday and then come back.

He sat at the wobbly metal-legged kitchen table circled under the light of  the single ceiling light until after midnight, trying to concentrate on  his project, but focused instead on the two names he had written: Dmitri Yazov and Andrea Duarte.

Everybody’s hiding something, he thought. And whatever they are hiding makes everyone else suspicious, as if it’s wrong.

He flipped open the Rand-McNally world atlas and found the map that showed the Atlantic Ocean flanked by North America and Europe.

Where did Dimtri Yazov come from? The company website wasn’t specific.

 And how he did he get to the U.S.? England, Theo guessed,  probably to New York.

He traced the route on the map.

And why?

War, most likely.

Theo made a note. War? Which one?

Religion? Persecution? Famine? Some disaster?

Man, so much I don’t know. But whatever, a chance for a better life. Why else leave home?

He placed a finger on Eastern Canada and traced the St. Lawrence river west, then down the Mississippi.

That’s how his family got to Louisiana.

England and France at war all over the world, and England won. Threw the French out of Canada, burned the villages.  Some French, like his ancestors fled west and the south out of the reach of the British. Oh, wait a minute. The Spanish were there for a while, then Napolean won it from them and then sold it to Jefferson…and the British were there in 1812… Man, I’ll have to get all that right.

He switched to a U.S. map and put his finger on New Orleans and followed a  road west to a town called Church Point. That was where his family settled.

He smiled with pride and longing when he saw the name. Maybe that is home after all.

He moved his finger west till he found New Mexico. That was where Dev said she was born. Her father is Mexican and her mother was – oh, what’d she say, Navajo, but that didn’t sound right.

He fingered the map. She said she’d been in California, Florida and other places, until she got here.

He went out to the back porch and watched the rain drip from the roof.

Funny, ain’t it.

Me and Dev and even Dmitri Yazov, from all over and somehow ended here.

That’s how I’ll tell the story of the Louisiana Purchase, he thought, pleased. It’s  not about politics and world war and power. It’s about people trying to settle. That’s what’s important.

New title: THE STORY OF DEV. Theo finds a secret about the family of the school bully

In this segment. Theo goes to the town library to research the Louisiana Purchase for a class report. He learns something about himself but more important learns a secret about the family of school bully Bobby Danforth.

Also, this is where the story takes a twist, and as it did so I realized the name is THE STORY OF DEV.

So, welcome.

The Danforth Memorial Public Library was in Danforth Memorial Park on Danforth Boulevard.

Lotta Danforths, Theo thought. Why ain’t the town called Danforth?

Turning off the hot Washington Street sidewalk into the shade of  Danforth Boulevard, Theo guessed the park was built just to feature the library, centered in a stand of trees and flowering bushes. The building was red brick like Cherry Street School, and had a towering pillared marble façade.

He hopped up the five steps to the front door and grinned.

“Into the place of my enemies,” he said. He wanted it to sound brave, but it just sounded hollow.

A sign saying “Research” reminded Theo why he was there:  To research the Louisiana Purchase. Mrs. Adams didn’t even say how long the report was supposed to be. Am I supposed to read it to the class? Do I need pictures? I shoulda paid more attention.

Instead, to avoid the assignment, he walked around the library,  examining the old maps and photos hung on the walls. I’ve got more than a week left, I’m good.

The heads of people reading magazines turned as a squeal of laughter burst from the children’s room. Three older kids, maybe high school students, sat at computers, leaving three others unoccupied.

On the wall next to the computer room were eight photos, all marked “Danforth.”

I’m surrounded.

The photos circled a bronze dedication plaque dated April 23, 1918  that featured a profile of a bearded man with a receding hairline. All those guys had long beards, he laughed. Maybe it’s all the same guy.

This guy was Sanford Danforth, president of Danforth Co., chairman of the library association, director of this, founder of that, honorary master of something else, and so on. The description filled about three inches of  the plaque.
          Theo stared at the face he guessed belonged to Bobby Danforth’s great grandfather, which he thought was interesting. But what was more interesting was a line near the  bottom on the description  that said  Sanford Danforth took over the Danforth Co. in 1899 from his father Dmitri Yazov and turned the small woolen mill into a leading manufacturer of clothing.

“Look at that,” Theo whispered. He wondered what Bobby Danforth would do if he replied to the taunt of “Thee-awful-lee” with a call of “What’s up, Yazov?”

By the time he got there, the computer room was empty.

The first items Theo searched on the computer were Dmitri Yazov and Danforth Co.

The company’s website  said he had immigrated to the U.S. in 1870 and opened a hat shop in Brooklyn. The business expanded and moved out of the city in 1917, built a new factory and took a new name, Danforth Co. They made uniforms and other clothing to the  U.S. military.

After World War II the company sold the manufacturing  business and operated clothing stores under various names across the county, largely in shopping malls. Robert J.  Danforth was named president in 2006, and sold the retail stores, taking the company private in 2010, the site said.

Whatever private means, Theo thought.

 Not a bad story, a nice story, but it doesn’t explain why Bobby Danforth is such a jerk.

Theo sat a moment and compared the history of the  Danforths with the history of his own family, based in his grandfather’s stories.

Some Dubois fled Canada during the French and Indian War. Theo knew that was a war that had some meaning in upstate New York.  They settled in Louisiana, founding with other families a couple towns. Over time they owned stores, farmed cotton and sugar, ran fishing boats,  drilled for oil and raised catfish.

“And at some point, they changed their name. Look at that. Hey, Bobby Danforth, we ain’t that much different.”

And you’re not that much different than Dev.

And we’ve all been running from something.

He puffed his cheeks with air, released it, and with a no-avoiding-it sigh searched “Louisiana Purchase.”  The screen was immediately filled with links to history websites,  photos of maps, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, swamps, sidewheel steam boats, oil rigs, the Superdome, hurricane wreckage and people celebrating Mardi Gras.

Chin in his hands, Theo was mesmerized.

But that wasn’t the Louisiana his grandfather told him about. So he searched, “Cajun.”

The screen filled with scenes of bayous, crawfish, fiddles, men in straw hats playing little box accordions; links to jambalaya, Zydeco, Lafayette, Hank Williams, and a college symbol of a Ragin’ Cajun.

Theo had been there once when he was four or five.  Grandpa Te’o took them all on a fishing tour of a local bayou on an aluminum flat-bottom boat, and Theo ate a bunch foreign foods and sat on a rock and tapped his foot while the family played dance music.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He hadn’t thought about that trip since they moved to Lakeside. He recalled how that visit — just a couple days of a cross-country run after his father got transferred by the Navy to the East Coast — filled him with a sense of family and place.

He huffed.

All that’s left of that place  is my name, and I don’t even say it right.

He sounded out the name in is head: “Du-boi. Du-boi.”

Then out loud.

“Hi, my name is Theophile Du-boi. You can call me T.”