Miles To Go Before You Sleep

By Dennis James Browne

From an email to the author:

"Dennis,

I have just finished MILES and love it...Truly, it is a wonderful novel. Sort of Catcher in the Rye meets Dangerous Liaisons."

Best,

Rachel Joiner
Acquisition Editor
Turner Publishing
www.turnerpublishing.com

Excerpts from a review at Miles To Go Before You Sleep (Kindle Edition):

"Deliciously Sinister . . .

Miles To Go Before You Sleep, by Dennis James Browne, is a riveting book reminiscent of Wuthering Heights with a Mephistophelean twist--an evil narrator who bears a chilling resemblance to Holden Caulfield. It’s one of those love stories that will keep you spellbound to the very end. With meanings on multiple levels, and multidimensional characters, this is destined to be a classic. The character of Miles Spaulding is especially the one who has the potential to be discussed and analyzed in future English literature courses.

Miles Spaulding is convinced that Clare Rothstein is his soul mate. He and Clare are childhood friends and Miles will go to any lengths to make Clare happy. At one point, Miles and Clare bring home a bird, Leopold, who has a broken leg. For Clare’s happiness, he feigns putting the bird back in the nest when he has actually put the bird out of its misery. He states, “That night she gave me a kiss. On the cheek of course, she was so happy. I never told her what really happened because even years later she remembered Leopold with that big happy smile...”

Jimmy Andreos, nicknamed “the Greek,” and Miles Spaulding are both after the same girl, Clare. While Miles is a rich mute, his father states, "Jimmy here is a straight A student and all-state quarterback. His father Frank and I are good friends." It would seem that Jimmy has all the attributes of the ideal protagonist; however, Miles, with all his imperfections, is the true protagonist of this story.

When Miles witnesses Clare and the Greek making love, the demon within him awakens and the story takes a sinister turn. Miles dedicates his life to revenge, stating, “Sometimes when you're wounded like that--real bad and so deep you think you'll die--it takes awhile to heal. But when you finally do, the scar tissue grows and protects you, like a coat of armor, and when you come back, you come back stronger, even smarter than before.” Miles To Go Before You Sleep takes yet another wicked turn when Miles gives sleeping pills to Clare while they're on a picnic, and then he rapes her.

He described the situation as, “When I was finished, I put her clothes back on. It was incredible. She looked exactly like nothing had happened. After all that work I felt sleepy myself. I put my camera and pictures away and poured another glass of rum and coke.” Miles then tries to frame Andreos in a cocaine raid, but his plan backfires and only succeeds in ruining Clare's reputation. This one act of retribution changes the lives of Miles, Clare, and Jimmy Andreos forever.

Will Miles succeed in altering the course of fate, or will Jimmy and Clare find their way back to each other? Read Miles To Go Before You Sleep to find out just how sinister Miles Spaulding is. It’s a must read full of surprising twists and turns that is sure to fully engage even the most discriminating reader."

--Todd Rutherford, book reviewer

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dennis James Browne
• Release date: Mar 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9780981687421

Dennis James Browne

Dennis James Browne was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, and graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin, where he also received a master's degree in English. He left graduate school to become an investment advisor and founder of a limited partnership finance program, as well as the owner of several other businesses.He also holds about a dozen patents, among them the world’s most compact life vest, the first Coast Guard approved life vest that's so compact it can be worn by swimmers (seapromarine.com).Following the death of his daughter, Tara, he wrote a biography about her, The Reptile and The Rose, which discusses her life and his research for scientific evidence that confirms the existence of a life after death.He is presently a college professor in New Jersey.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Some time ago I was looking for a good film adaptation of a famous novel to show my college literature class, and I came across the classic Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon version of Wuthering Heights.

The movie brought back a flood of memories. The story reminded me of my first true love. We were in high school and she sat right in front of me in history class. She was a dead ringer for Grace Kelly and always wore a ponytail. And right under that ponytail was a thin wisp of hair that trailed down the center of her neck. Every day in class when I sat behind her, I couldn't take my eyes off that beautiful wisp of hair.

I finally worked up the nerve to ask her out, and then we dated for most of our high school years.

But there was a problem...

She was rich and I was poor.

At first it didn't make much difference. I was a jock, had good grades and we had a lot of the same friends. We were in love and had great times together.

But then, as our senior year approached, it was clear that we had different plans. She wanted to settle down, but I was in no position to get married--I had no money and no future. I knew that I had to go on to college. My freshman year we saw each other less and less...

Then one day someone told me she was dating some rich lawyer who was old enough to be her father. That night I drove over to her house and saw this red Corvette in the driveway. Her parents' car was nowhere in sight. I ran up and started beating on the door, screaming at the top of my lungs, asking her if she was doing the same things with him that she did with me.

I think if he answered the door that night, something terrible would have happened, and my life would have never been the same...

But no one answered the door. I cooled off and finally drove back home.

And that was about the last time I ever thought about my first true love.

A few years later, I met someone else and got married. We had a beautiful little daughter, Tara. I finished college and we moved far away from my home town. After seven years, my wife and I were divorced, and not long after that I became rich. I lived alone on the Jersey shore in a big house on the water with an indoor swimming pool, sauna, jacuzzi, suntan room and a fleet of classic cars.

But then, on a gloomy Sunday, just before she started her first day in college to become a nurse, my daughter suddenly died, and my whole life changed.

For months I spent most of my days alone, and I took long walks on the boardwalk, thinking about Tara and how I might have been a better father. I rarely went out and became more reclusive than ever...

Then, a few months later, after watching a particularly depressing film version of Wuthering Heights, I went back and revised a manuscript of mine, Miles To Go Before You Sleep. This is my own version of Wuthering Heights, starring my fantasy self, Jimmy Andreos as Heathcliffe, along with a new Mephistophelean twist, Miles Spaulding, a teenage psychopath who's in love with Clare, the novel's heroine,

But when I gave the manuscript to some of my students and friends, no one even mentioned Wuthering Heights or Jimmy Andreos--

They were all raving about Miles Spaulding, who reminded them of an evil Holden Caulfield!

I was completely taken back. Granted, in high school I enjoyed Holden Caulfield's story as much as anyone else, but that was years ago and he was definitely nowhere in sight when Miles Spaulding was born--unless of course I was asleep and Holden did to me what Miles did to Clare!

In fact, probably the main reason I wrote my own version of Wuthering Heights is because it was a catharsis--I wanted the hero to be the good guy, Jimmy Andreos, my own alter ego!

But as the months passed by and I occasionally again read parts of my story, things changed even more. I realized that even though my first love was a beautiful teenage Grace Kelly, she was just that, a hot, passionate flame that was forgotten almost as soon as she was gone. And even though years later I got married, I never really cared much for my wife. Today I know that the only person I ever loved was my daughter, and I only realized how much after she was gone...

So what does that say about me? I wanted Jimmy Andreos to be the story's real hero, but I also wanted to create a narrator who was seductively evil, who makes everyone think he's a good friend, but is really the consummate deceiver, always lurking in the shadows, manipulating his victims behind their backs and destroying their lives.

In short, I must confess to you that before Tara died, I was more like Miles Spaulding than Jimmy Andreos, a selfish, ruthless Gordon Gekko type who was obsessed with America's real First Commandment--Greed Is Good--and more than anything else I wanted to be rich, because that's what we're all programmed to believe...

But now I think about others who are like the man I used to be--the Miles Spauldings of the world who really own America: the super rich and the politicians they own, who have us all believing that the more they get rich by destroying our lives, the more they love God and are patriots who are just trying to help us.

So while I had hoped that Jimmy Andreos would be the hero of my story, I had no idea that I was creating a much more sinister character who glorifies my darker side: the evil little chameleon who changes colors every time I read what was once my story, but now belongs to him.

And sometimes I also have an even more disturbing thought. I wonder if Miles Spaulding is the man I still really want to be--the person all of us want to be...

Maybe you can help me out with that one.

Dennis James Browne

PART I

BENSON, WISCONSIN

CHAPTER 1

I committed my first murder at the age of fifteen.

She and I were knee deep in the waters of the creek at the back of the estate. It was wide in spots, cold as ice even in the hot July sun. If you looked down, the waters ran fast enough to make your head spin and lose your balance, so you had to hold your eyes on the opposite bank in order to get across. At the time we stood in a quiet spot behind a bend in the creek, smooth as glass with a clean white bottom. She looked much older than she really was, and had long blonde hair, down past her waist that looked quite beautiful in the hot July sun. It was only later, when her mother realized how fast she was growing, how beautiful she was really becoming, that the old lady had it cut, cropped into that horrible tomboy.

But at the time it was quite long, she was next to me, and we were alone, looking down into the water for...clams. I say it like that and all the romance is gone, but it was romantic in a way because we thought we might find a beautiful pearl--King Solomon's Pearl, that's what she called it. Today of course it seems a lot different, the way the mind works, holding the two of us forever in that delicate suncrystal, the creek flowing around the side of town, and in the town with the factory being closed and people out of work and all--and even if we did find King Solomon's Pearl, her mother would have just taken it from us and dropped it into her jewel box, with all her other precious stuff.

We were climbing out of the water when we heard a noise overhead. In spots the sides of the creek rose sharply to steep dirt banks riddled with hundreds of nest holes by swallows. A pair of swallows was noisily flying over our heads, trying to frighten us off for some reason--either we were too close to their nest or...

Miles, Miles, a baby sparrow--and look at its leg!

In a small patch of grass on the bank lay a baby swallow. Its mouth was open, gasping like crazy, and its little black eyes were filled with terror. One of its legs was broken, bent like a twig.

Miles, what can we do? We can't just leave it here.

Of course that would have been the best thing--to just leave it there, I mean, because anyone could see that in a few hours it would be dead anyway. But the way she looked at me with those big sad blue eyes...Its parents dived straight at us, shrieking like mad as I picked it up. We ran up the hill toward the house. The swallows followed after us for a while, still darting and shrieking. Then, when we nearly reached the top of the hill, I looked back over my shoulder and they were gone.

We kept the baby sparrow in a cigar box filled with bright pink cotton stuffing from an old doll, then hid it on a dresser in Clare's room, near the sunlight. Clare fixed up its leg with a splint made out of toothpicks and sewing thread while I caught some worms and tried to feed it, but it wouldn't eat. On that same afternoon we gave it a secret code name--Leopold--because we knew Clare's mother, Georgianne, would have a coronary if she ever found out we had a filthy little bird in the house. (She always had a way of making us feel dirty and guilty about everything we did, like we were some kind of secret Nazis.)

But Georgianne already knew about the bird, like she seemed to know about everything else. So the next morning at breakfast, when Clare tried to get clever with her...

Miles, did you hear Leopold broke his leg?

My heart nearly dropped into my socks. Georgianne, who had just walked into the kitchen--that was before her stroke and the wheelchair--looked at us with those icy hazel eyes. She poured herself a cup of tea and sat down next to Clare, reminding me exactly of the Ugly Duchess and Alice.

Who's Leopold, Victoria?

Victoria was Clare's middle name. No one ever called her Victoria except her mother, and the way she asked, grim and flat, was more like a command than a question.

Clare just kept on eating without looking up.

Nobody, Mother, just somebody I met in school.

Georgianne's eyes turned ice cold. They flicked in my direction for a split second, then she lifted her cup to her lips and kept looking at Clare.

Victoria, I've told you a hundred times not to go down to the creek. Or have you forgotten what happened to the Jaeger boy?

Clare must have known right then that the cat was out of the bag. The old lady must have been watching us from the living room window. But Clare kept right on eating her breakfast, playing out her part to the very end.

You're right, mother, I'm sorry...But maybe Bobby Jaeger would still be alive if you were by the window watching him instead of us.

Georgianne looked like she'd just been slapped in the face...

But then, suddenly, a small, strange smile crept across her face. She leaned over, talking to Clare in a slow, creepy voice--

And how do you know that I wasn't watching him?

Clare and I stared at each other. Georgianne got up from her chair and turned away from the table without looking at us.

We knew what she meant of course. The Jaegers were a German family she'd hated for as long as we could remember, so in a way her remark shouldn't have surprised us. It was just the way she said it--so strange and creepy--like maybe she really did watch Bobby Jaeger drown!

--Birds spread disease, Victoria. I want that filthy little creature out of this house immediately!

But Mother, I--

Immediately! Do you understand?

Clare bolted from the table in tears. I ran after her. I knew that soon my father would be home and he'd straighten everything out...

But by that time it didn't make any difference. We went back upstairs and I could see that Leopold was dying. Clare didn't think so of course, but the way it was just lying there, hardly moving, I knew that something inside it had just snapped, and that in a few hours it would be dead.

I couldn't let that happen--it would break Clare's heart, I knew it would.

So I settled on a plan. I took the baby swallow and made Clare promise to stay in her bedroom until I got back. Then I hid Leopold down in the basement, and ran outside back down to the creek. Minutes later I was back down in the basement.

I decided to use the killing bottle. The one I use for my moths. I only collect cecropias because they're so beautiful and easy to find. In the fall the cocoons stick out on branches like ripe fruit. Quite a few of them have little brown holes, which means that the pupas have been sucked dead by birds. Anyway, I collect the good ones and in the house where it's warm they hatch in a few weeks. Then I mount them in glass cases. In only two years I've collected five beautiful cases in my bedroom, with the largest moth--a real beauty, almost seven inches across--right in the center. I never show my collection to anyone except Clare...

She thinks it's beautiful, and that's all that really counts.

Anyway, Leopold went with a few weak flutters, almost immediately. In the killing bottle I mean. Of course I didn't use cyanide, just the rubbing alcohol I use for the cecropias, and some of the pink cotton from the cigar box. And when it was over I hid Leopold down in the basement and buried him a few days later out back near the rose garden.

At the time I actually felt good about what I'd done because of Clare, and I knew that the baby swallow would only suffer for maybe hours more and then die anyway. It was only years later that I realized how much like children some animals are, and that taking one of their lives is far worse than killing certain people...

When I was done I went back to Clare's bedroom and showed her the empty cigar box. At first she didn't understand, but then I took her down to the creek and we climbed up one of the banks not far from where we found Leopold. I managed to get her to peek inside one of the nest holes--the whole colony was crazy as wasps around us. Inside were three baby swallows almost exactly the same size and color as Leopold--that's why I had to go down to the creek, to find a nest with a baby sparrow in it.

I made Clare believe that I took off Leopold's splint and put him back inside the nest we were staring at, but when she tried to take a closer look, I pulled her back--the swallows were getting crazier by the second!

That night she gave me a kiss. On the cheek of course, she was so happy. I never told her what really happened because even years later she remembered Leopold with that big happy smile...

And that's all that really counted.

CHAPTER 2

Clare and I rarely saw each other during school hours at Benson Memorial High School because our classes were always scheduled on opposite sides of the building, and she was a queen bee, always surrounded by her clique of snobby, adoring girlfriends...

We were a very important family in Benson. My father, Robert Morris Spaulding, was owner of Fairfield-Cody, Ltd., one of the town's two big manufacturing plants. Since Benson is a blue-collar town, my father provided work for a lot of people--including the parents of quite a few of the kids we went to school with.

But that didn't stop some of the people in Benson from resenting us--even hating us because we were outsiders. And the fact that Georgianne kept her maiden name, Rothstein, didn't help either. Some of the old German workers who'd been with Fairfield-Cody for years even threatened to quit when we first came to town and bought the Walters estate, but my father could charm the socks off a snake, and when he made his weekly tour of the plant and they all saw what a really decent man he was, all the fuss just sort of died down.

In a way I can't blame them though. We aren't your typical All-American family. There's a lot of mystery surrounding our past, and to this day even Clare and I don't know much about our parents...

What we do know is that we were both born in London and came to America when my father landed a big government contract for navy ship diesel engines. He bought out the Fairfield-Cody plant when old Leon Cody died, leaving Frank Fairfield's widow the only owner. We all moved to Wisconsin in 1963.

Georgianne is Clare's mother. She was married to a lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. His name was Vincent Crittendon. Georgianne's twin sister, Marianne Rothstein, was my mother, who married my father just after World War II. My father once told me that the Spaulding name is well known in England and can be traced all the way back to the royal family of Plantagenets.

On the other hand Clare and I know nothing whatsoever about her father, my mother or the Rothstein family. Georgianne likes it that way. It was only pure luck that Clare and I eventually found out that my mother and Clare's father drowned together in a boating accident on the Thames! Right away Clare and I assumed that they were having an affair.

And if they were lovers, why on earth would Georgianne and my father come to America together--with us? They certainly weren't lovers, even though they'd been living together for years, hardly saying a word to each other.

As soon as we found out about the boating accident, Clare made the mistake of asking Georgianne about our parents. A big mistake. Georgianne's hand lashed out like a whip and caught Clare full in the face...I don't think she ever realized how much Clare hated her after that.

Georgianne and my father are about as much alike as sulphuric acid and water, and heaven only knows what mysterious bond holds them together. It's not love, that's for sure. In fact, at times I think my father hates Georgianne as much as we do, along with some of the old Germans in town--especially when she treats Clare and me like dirt.

And it can't be money either. Though we can't be sure, Clare and I are almost positive that Georgianne is even richer than my father, though we have no idea where all her money came from.

Anyway, when we found out that my mother and Clare's father died together, Clare was in tears for days. For her sake, I pretended that I was just as upset...but I wasn't really. Whatever happened to our parents happened years ago in another world, and whatever Clare and I did or found out couldn't possibly make a difference...

It was that simple.

You see, in many ways I'm a lot older, a lot more mature than Clare--and worldly too, though I haven't traveled further than Madison or Chicago. Don't misunderstand me. I did care what happened to our parents, but it was more out of curiosity than remorse. I don't even remember my mother, and it all happened so long ago that it really doesn't mean that much to me...

Besides, I have my own problems.

As you may have already guessed, I'm a mute.

I say it like that and I can tell right away you assume that something else is wrong with me--psychologically I mean. But that's all right, I'm used to that kind of response. It means nothing to me...

Besides, it could have been worse, couldn't it? I mean I could be blind--that's worse!--or I could have been born normal and had an accident or gotten some kind of disease like cancer when I got older--and then lost my speech. I think that would have been a lot worse too.

As it is, since I've been this way since I was born, I'm used to it. Georgianne thought I should go to a private school, but my father insisted that I go to public schools like everyone else and learn to deal with my problem like a real man (He loved John Wayne).

But I'm not John Wayne, and the first few years in school were pretty rough, especially since I was one of the richest kids in town and some of the other kids' parents worked at my father's plant. That built up a lot of resentment--especially when we