Kindle Edition Amazon Writing From the Blue Ridge Mountains Category:  Literary Fiction Publisher: CreateSpace ISBN-10:  1456300830 Type: Fiction Pages: 166 Copyright: December 7, 2010 ISBN-13: 9781456300838 A ratty bicycle helps a young boy cope with his childhood, and beyond.  Artie Royal has had a rough life and he has suffered more loss and rejection than anyone should have to bear. Still, he rises above the problems confronting him, and he does it with charity and grace and understanding. In fact, it eventually becomes as easy for him to push his concerns aside as it was at age eight to soar down Main Street on that blue bike, wind whistling in his ears.       Excerpt Lord, Art Royal could aggravate. Take that fateful weekend a year ago, for example. He called late on Friday afternoon, somewhere the other side of Charlotte, where he’d been supervising a road project for Travelways Contracting, to tell me he’d picked up Mortie for the weekend. Gil Wayfarer, his assistant, was with him, too. Art had invited both to stay for dinner and an overnight. So there I was, cooking what I’d hoped would be a nice meal for the two of us, with leftovers for Saturday’s lunch, and now I had to make dinner happen for four. Mortie. Of all the aggravations Art ever caused me, he was the biggest. It all began one spring night a couple of years ago with a phone call. I’d been waiting on another agent to call about one of my property listings. I jumped up, but Art already had it. He was on a long while, part of it outside under the pretext of taking out the garbage, something he never did unless I nagged him. And trying to eavesdrop when he came back inside was a waste of time, because he mostly grunted and said Really? and That’s great, and Uh huh. Finally he hung up and gave me a sheepish look, guilt written all over it. I dropped the needlepoint to my lap, just knowing he was going to fib about something. He didn’t do that often, but when he did, he’d squint a little and his face would turn red. It never failed. “Who was that?” I asked. “You remember me telling you about that girl I dated senior year?” Of course I remembered, how could I not? He used to go on and on about her, how good-looking she was, that cool convertible she had, how she was such a comfort during a difficult time. How old Merle, Art’s great-grandpa, just adored her. As casually as I could, I said, “Sandy, wasn’t it?” “Right. Sandy.” His expression changed, then, telling me he was amazed I’d remember something as trivial as that. There wasn’t a sign of a squint yet, but the blush was there. “Well, that was her.” The needlepoint slipped off my lap. I glanced his way after picking it up and, lo and behold, there was the squint. “What’d she want?” “Tracked me down, just wanted to connect, I guess, old school friends and such.” Uh huh. Guys might do that, but a woman doesn’t cold call an old boyfriend just to say hello. There’s always a reason. Be careful, Katie, I thought, don’t let on you’re upset, or you’ll scare him. Let him dig himself in deeper. So I waited a second or two, then asked, “That’s pretty odd, don’t you think, calling out of the blue like that?” He tossed the book he’d just picked up back on the coffee table, ran a hand through that mat of unruly dishwater blond hair, flipped on the TV and fell across his recliner, one of his long legs dangling over a chair arm. “What’d she want?” I repeated. He knew I hadn’t bought that old friends business. You could almost see a big G for guilt on his forehead. The blush turned a bright crimson. All he could manage was, “Sandy?” “Of course, Sandy. Your old flame. Your high school hottie.” He took a deep breath and smiled, probably figuring he’d charm his way back into my good graces. I lost it then. I threw my needlepoint back on the floor and said, “Art Royal, turn off that TV and tell me what’s going on. I mean it, right now!” “Take it easy, Katie,” he said. He hit the OFF button. “Just take it easy, okay?” “I’ll take it easy when you tell me what that phone call was about.” His voice took on a resigned tone, the kind somebody like him is left with when he’s worked himself into a corner and the other person’s going to regret asking. “Turns out she has a kid.” “A kid? Surely, you don’t mean a billy goat.” He laughed, cleared his throat, and pushed himself to his feet. Hands in his pockets, he stood over me. Big people do that when they’re trying to lord it over someone, especially small women such as myself. “Right,” he said. “A little boy. Mortie. Named him after her father. A goofy name for a kid these days, but he can always change it, I suppose.” “Okay,” I said, giving him a cautious nod. What was she looking for from Art? Probably in some sort of financial trouble, needed money. That’s what happens to those intellectual, liberated, I Am Woman types. They rip off their bras and start trying to fight their way to the top of the men’s world. When they can’t make it, they run home to mama, an ex-husband, or some patsy like Art, who’s still carrying a torch. “All right, here it is,” he said, edging onto the couch beside me and placing one big hand over both of mine, “She says Mortie’s my son.” Well, he had me there. I was flabbergasted. “We were very close back then. Intimate, I mean—” “I know what intimate means,” I said, hoping the moan I felt coming up wouldn’t surface. “She went to college at Chapel Hill, and I went into the Navy. We lost touch. If I’d known—” The moan broke free. Lord help me, I thought, what am I going to do with this? I wanted to double up and bawl, but I couldn’t; I had to get a handle on what this news meant, to me, to us. He shifted closer, patted my hands. I pushed him away, my way of saying, This is no time for tenderness, Art Royal. “You would have married her,” I said. “Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what I would’ve done.” “You would’ve married her. That’s what men do when they get carried away like that, acting on their urges. They have to pay for their sins.” “You know I don’t think about it that way, Katie.” I pushed his hand away again. “Of course you don’t. What am I thinking? You were raised a heathen. Then you left home, ran off to join the Navy, and left her holding the bag, didn’t you? You had to go fight in that stupid Persian Gulf War. In the meantime, Sandy had to eke out a living. She had to raise little Mortie on her own.” He stood, backed away, fell across the recliner. “I don’t think there’s been much eking going on,” he said. “Her family’s well-off. They helped her, and after college she hustled up a job with a television station in Charlotte. A year later, they offered her a position as news anchor, and she took it. Now she heads the Governor’s media team in Raleigh. Does consulting work on the side. All told, she knocks down in the low six figures.” “Then what does she want from you?” “Like I said, just connecting.” He smiled, squeezed my shoulder, picked up his book, and sat to read. Despite my flying off the handle and his guilty looks, there didn’t seem to be anything else to it. She thought Art should know he was a father, and after that, she never made any demands on us. In fact, this past fall she drove up, brought Mortie. She’s rather nice, as it turns out, and much as I wanted her to, she just wouldn’t give me a reason to dislike her. And she was gorgeous. Art said even more so than back then. Of course, he took to fatherhood, which was probably part of her master plan. So here it was mid-January and Art was driving back from that construction job in Wilmington, had stopped in Raleigh to pick up Mortie for a long weekend, figuring I wouldn’t mind. He’d asked Gil, too, to help with our addition, a loft over the garage for Mortie when he comes over. And did I mention, among the other ghosts of Art’s past, I had to endure living in the house he grew up in on South Main in Weaverville? He’d turned it into a real showpiece, I have to admit, painted inside in eggshell, my favorite. He even stained the kitchen cabinets in antique white and let me buy matching bedroom, living and dining furniture. Art has a way with house building, with construction in general, something he picked up from that old Merle he had to live with. He told me some time back that after all the killing and burning in Kuwait and Iraq, he’d decided it was time to build things. He’s always had a burr in his britches, though, and it wouldn’t surprise me now to hear he’s gone into land development. He talked a lot about it, even had an in with a big developer wanting to build out part of Elk Mountain. He promised me the listings if it worked out. Anyway, he called twice more from the road, once while waiting for Gil to pick up some things in Hickory, then again deep in the mountains. Black ice was forming on the Interstate and he had to take it slow, so dinner went on the back burner. They finally drove up just after eight that evening. “Katie!” he called out from the front door while Gil and Mortie stomped about on the front porch Art had added on. Knocking the slush off, I hoped. I gave the corn a last stir to make sure it didn’t scorch and called back, “Make sure they take those boots off.” Having them scuffing my pretty hardwoods and tracking up the area rugs I’d just bought for the living and dining rooms was an absolute no-no, and Art knew it. “We know the rules, ma’am,” Gil laughed, and they came rumbling into the kitchen like the herd of heathens they are. Art swept me up, gave me a kiss, beer on his breath. No wonder they were so jolly. Then he poked under the pot lids. Gil smiled, all sinewy and tall and good looking as can be, and he and Mortie backed up to the stove to warm their behinds. Mortie was a handsome fella of twelve then, almost thirteen, and growing like a weed. He’ll probably be taller than Art by the time he’s done. He has his mother’s brown hair and her eternally tanned look, and is in no way shy. He’s going to drive the little girls wild. Their parents, I should say. After a good warming and a glance at his wristwatch, Mortie grinned and edged toward the living room. “I gotta watch the news. Mom’s gonna be on.” Oh, that’s just fine, I said to myself. A house full of guys wanting to watch TV, to see Mortie’s mom, no less. So, as usual, I have to be the meanie. “No, honey, the news shows are long since over. Besides, dinner’s ready.” “They’re doing a profile on CNN,” said Art. “It’s just a two minute spot.” I turned off the burners and gave everything a last look while they trooped into the living room. The spot had just started, the sort of filler that’s so popular these days, about beautiful, successful, husbandless mothers. Oh, my. No wonder she landed that anchor job and now fronts for the Governor. She was made for the camera, even more beautiful under those glaring lights than in person. She managed to show off her cleavage without looking like a hussy, bestowed a winner of a smile on us you know she’d rehearsed, even gave her long hair a little flip as they panned away. I glanced down. By comparison, my breasts looked like BBs inside this peanut shell-size bra of mine. And this stringy hair I’ve never been able to do anything with? It couldn’t possibly hold up to that sort of exposure. I had to wonder what Art saw in me in the first place. After all, he and this beauty had had a child together and were now in constant touch. So maybe I’d been a substitute all the while, a skinny, string-haired convenience he was now ready to dump.

Shadows of Legacy
In The Blue Bicycle, through artfully constructed vignettes spanning over the central character's life, Bob Mustin has developed an intriguing story of a troubled family's redemption. Mustin is able to thread central images -- the indestructible blue bicycle being the most notable of these, to create both an easy sense of continuity throughout the crisp novella, and also to reflect the core message the writing tenderly offers.
Blue: for the defensive layers we hide beneath which cover the emptiness inside.
Emotional pain resonates through the years for all that has been taken or missing in his life, yet Artie Royal is able to transcend the hurt inflicted upon him as an innocent child; sacrifice proves to be a doorway through which he is able to make peace with the ghosts of his past. Artie's longing for meaningful family opens a brighter, and freer future for himself and his accidental circumstances.
This beautifully edited novella is a charming and refreshingly straightforward read.