I Am Diving

By Joseph Valentinetti

The story is a fiction based on fact. My protagonist, Jack York, is an ex-sailor. He suffers from Fugue, a distinctive dissociative disorder characterized by geographical displacement and amnesia for the episodes. The misunderstanding of his condition is the reason for his dishonorable discharge from the Navy. The story concerns the events that lead Jack York to be in Dallas on November 23, 1963. The premise of the story is the Dallas tragedy was carried out by two men who had no prior knowledge of each other and different targets in mind.

`There exists a type of phenomenon...which has puzzled man. The seemingly accidental meeting of two unrelated causal chains in a coincidental event which appears both highly improbable and highly significant.’
Arthur Koestler

The significant factor motivating Jack York is the loss of the Atomic Submarine Thresher with one hundred twenty-nine men aboard. The premise is based on letters, part of one is excerpted here. Please note the date.

Letter date: August 12, 1963. Notarized and mailed/receipted August 12, 1963
To: Hon. John Connally, Governor of Texas.
From: Field Engineer on Thresher.
Dear Governor;
A plot is underway to assassinate you. As former Secretary of the Navy you are well aware of the Submarine Thresher disaster, and how Bendix used fraudulent pressure/depth curves on equipment designed and built by Bendix for submarines of the Thresher class.
An organization...Justice For The Crew Of The Thresher is being formed.
Sir, I beg you, if you do visit Dallas and ride in an open car, please do not allow your loved ones to ride in an open car with you. If a sniper’s bullet, meant for you, was fired from a high powered rifle by one of these disgruntled former service men...

The letter’s author was questioned in August 1963 by Naval Intelligence, The FBI and postal authorities. The FBI and the other investigative agencies, failed to file a report concerning this and later failed to inform the Warren Commission.

The letter, sent three months before the Dallas event, named the three salient factors of the crime: disgruntled ex-serviceman, high powered rifle, open car.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Valentinetti
• Release date: Jul 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9780983406327

Joseph Valentinetti

The Type Of People I Write About There are many reasons a person will pick up a book. They’re looking for something, it could be anything. So let me give some idea of what you’ll find when you open a book of mine. But first let me tell you what you won’t find. None of my characters are innocent. They are not finding love for the first time. They are not stunning symbols of ideal beauty or intelligence. They may be jaded or naïve but they are not brand new. None of my characters are capable of turning into bats, wolves or anything requiring a special uniform, especially a cape. They can’t leap over tall things, least of all buildings. They don’t wear masks or have faithful Indian companions. They don’t dress like they’re in Sherwood Forest and they don’t have a shapely fairy with dragon-fly wings who can sprinkle them with pixy dust and make their dreams come true. No ruby slippers, no magic Lamps. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with characters like that or people who write about them, it just that I don’t. What you will find are people, ordinary average people who find themselves in extra-ordinary circumstances. People who have gotten themselves into a position that’s completely new to them and they have to figure out how to get out of it. If they don’t find a way the consequences will be severe and most likely fatal. There’s a spiritual song called The Lonesome Valley. It says, `Nobody can go there for you’. While that’s true, there are many people willing to help them find the path to it, if they’re not careful. My characters can’t buy their way out, they can’t wish their way out. They can’t hope for the best, they can’t pretend it isn’t happening. They can’t say it’s all someone else’s fault. It’s their time in life to face the facts. E.M. Forster said the only way to end a work of fiction in a satisfying way is with death or marriage. Both satisfactorily signal the end of the adventure. My writing never ends with all the questions neatly answered. Some of the conclusion is left to the reader to ponder. Some readers think this isn’t the way books should be but some books are, mine for example. About Me Whenever I’m faced with the prompt to say something about myself I’m stumped. Maybe it’s because when I read how other people have responded to that, with dates of birth, schools attended, jobs held, marriages tried, children raised, accomplishments they’re proud of, I’m a little to a lot bored by it. Resumes and vita sheets-I don’t know. I always thought the only difference between a resume and a prison record was who’s doing the writing, who’s the record keeper. I was born in New York City. From a national perspective it’s a world class place, full of everything anyone could ever want. From someone who grew up there it was the biggest small town in the world. Most New Yorkers live in enclaves of a few thousand people and spend most of their lives in a limited geographical area. My years there were spent in Washington Heights-some trips downtown, once to Jersey, to a camp, sponsored by the church for poor kids, but mostly within the confines of a square mile or two. I failed to graduate from George Washington High School because I failed to attend most of the time. By the authority vested in the City of New York I was transferred from GWHS P.S. 192 to P.S. 614. The 600 schools were special. To put it simply, you went on Monday and came home in June. I’d probably still be there but, about this time, the transit authority built the second level of the George Washington Bridge through my bedroom, forcing us to relocate, relieving the city of its responsibility toward my education. One night, some friends and me were sitting around bored, playing cards, in a furnished room, on 48th and Palisades, over the 300 Club, in Union City New Jersey. We were mostly jobless, older teenagers. I don’t remember how the subject came up but we were talking about military service. Henry said he liked the Air Force, they had cool raincoats. I said the Army was three years and that was better than the four years the air Force demanded so it was the better deal. We cut the cards for it. I drew a queen. We enlisted the next day, on the buddy plan, Henry and me. He got pneumonia the first week of basic training and that was the last I saw of him. Through no fault of my own I served in the peace time army. I got my GED in the service. I earned the GI bill for my time. All in all I got the better of the deal. It paid all the way through to a master’s degree in education. My undergraduate advisor told me I was the brightest undergraduate he’d ever met. My son’s mother said I was the dumbest bastard she’d ever met. A hand full of one, a handful of the other. Neither held the ring of truth or the aroma, for that matter, I wanted from either relationship. I was probably somewhere in the middle. I was a counselor/instructor at the University of Minnesota. I worked with federal grants to help underprivileged students access higher education. I did that until the university and federal government decided educating the underprivileged was no longer something worth doing. During this same period I worked in public relations photography for the music industry, photographing their artists when they came to town for concerts. I also did studio photography as well as teach photography for Metropolitan State University. I taught training classes for state employees in utilizing media to improve agency communication. I had five one-man shows of my Photographs at the universities and private galleries. I have since worked as a Public Guardian and a private detective. There is a block of time in this later period that I refer to as The Lost Years. You’ll have to wait to hear about that. Some days I am happy and some days I am sad, some days I feel good and some days I don’t. I dropped out of high school because I didn’t see the connection between tin exports from Bolivia, solving for X and teachers who didn’t seem to understand the limits of their responsibilities, but, more likely it was because I didn’t understand the limitlessness of my own. So. Now I’ve said something about myself.

Book preview

I AM DIVIN

By Joseph Valentinetti

Copyright © 2011 by Joseph Valentinett

An imprint of Joseph Valentinetti 2011

Published by Joseph Valentinetti, Upland California, USA.

Cover by G.W. Puffer

Smashwords Edition

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

www.valentinetti.com

http://vimeo.com/user3391619

Thanks to:

Tom Peterson

Mary Trumbell

Ned Nothing

Ben Altovilla

Paul Jaurique

S@#$%y

Etal.

Special Thanks to:

Raymond Thompson

Laurie Flynn

Dan Daniel

Lucy Freck

Steve Hazlett

Toynebe Dobb

Tobias Whitherspoon

Etal.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 1

Jack York touched his wife for-it was like the first time, though it was a familiar strangeness, soft, warm and fragrant. He was a well built man with a ruddy complexion. His large graceful hands made him appear able and gifted, ready. Physically he was facile and nonchalant and, except for Teri, everyone thought of him as unflappable, aloof. His soft green eyes and his mouth, with its casually parted lips, were the only outward signs of his vulnerability.

Her chemistry tingled through him like current through a wire. Her near pore-less flesh along her shin, her thigh, her hip, her belly, her breast, the knobby nipple close to his lips, the sweat beginning to dry with the faint aroma of smoke it always gave off after they had made love. He worked his way to the coil of his wife’s soft ear and whispered his love. He watched the downy hair along the nape of her neck stand up and he smiled a lazy smile.

I missed you, Jack. I missed you, she whispered as she flexed her embrace.

They lay silent for a moment. He pressed his ear to her chest to listen to the rumble of life inside her.

We have to get up,’ she said. It’s almost time to open. We can’t keep up like this, like rabbits these past three days."

You complaining?

I have to straighten myself. My face-my hair. My God.

The reverberation of her voice echoing through her chest excited him. He pressed himself against her. She pushed him back, looking down at his crotch. God, where did that come from? Put that thing away.

Jack rolled up to sitting position and handed Teri her blouse from where it had carelessly landed a short excited time before. He looked down into his lap. You heard her. Go away.

Thanks honey, she said giving the blouse a frown and a shake, stirring dust in the air. Look at this blouse. Why didn’t I hang it up?

Still looking down at his lap he began to hum taps. She slapped at him playfully. Get over it. Straighten yourself up. She got up from old brown leather couch in their office, a long narrow room off the foyer at York’s Crossroads Bar & Grill. Cases of liquor were stacked on the yellow file cabinets at one end of the room. A rifle leaned against the yellow metal side. A hooded light with a green shade, like a casino dealer in a movie might wear, hung over a battered walnut desk. The blotter was vacant, surrounded by neat stacks of folders.

Jack watched her stretch and walk to the other end of the room where the chiffonier stood. Teri York had a small waist which made her narrow hips appear pleasantly larger then they actually were. Her step was animated with a gentle bounce that caused her blond hair to jostle when she walked. When she opened the double doors the smell of cedar drifted into the room. She had a small scar, darker skin, the shape of a simple leaf on her back, between the blades, like a secret coda, that he loved to run his fingers across.

I saw the new Caddy today, out on the street. Wow, he said.

Teri pulled a second blouse from the chiffonier. What do you think of this one, holding up one and then the other before he could answer. "The blue or this-this other blue. The lighter blue do you think?’

The fins are getting smaller.

What fins? She slipped into the light blue silk blouse.

On cars. The fins on cars. The new `63 Caddy hardly got fins at all.

Do we need a new car?

No. I’m just saying…

What’s the time?

We got time, he said, tucking in his shirt. On his way out of the office he paused to kiss her cheek. When she looked up he saw a weary sadness in her azure eyes. You OK?

OK, she said, drawing on red lips with a bullet of Revlon.

The foyer at York’s Crossroads was longer than wide. Across from the office there were two similar heavy wood paneled doors: Men’s-Women’s. Between those doors was a comfortable oxblood bench where a patron could relax for moment if they felt the urge. The back wall was beveled mirror floor to ceiling with a cylindrical steel stand ash tray in front of it. A dais and cigarette machine sat toward the front, separated from the front door by a partition; a blind to keep the outside light outside. Above the blind, in a narrow window a blue neon sign read `York’s Crossroads Bar & Grill’, its outline in reverse from inside. Jack and Teri named it the Crossroads because of its location near Times Square in Manhattan, a crossroad of the world. A place where strangers cross paths, a place where fates intersect, a place of opportunity, a place to catch one’s breath. Jack’s grandfather had told him Times Square was the loneliest place on earth. You never saw anyone you knew in Times Square. The old man never explained what he meant. Isn’t that what made it a place of renewal and second chances? Jack thought.

It was good to be back or at least to be here, now. He epitomized the Be Here Now philosophy, since at least part of his life was a mystery even to himself, he had no choice. Jack ran his fingertips along the dark patterned wallpaper, tactile as the fuss on a Valentine’s card.

"How goes it?’ he asked Sal as he entered the bar.

Good. Goes good. Good you’re back, the old bartender said, as he lifted a barstool down from the bar top. None of my business, you understand?

Good to be back, Sal, though his sense of having been gone was learned and something he never really felt or understood. He looked at Sal, the gray thinning hair, the creases around the mouth, his bright smile in which you could see the youth he once was. Almost ready, huh?

Few more of these is all, he said righting another stool then pausing to adjust the bow tie at his loose throat.

Jack pitched in with the rest of the stools from the bar and the chairs from the tables.

Reviews for I Am Diving

[qstewart_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this to be an interesting read. The main character, Jack, is struggling with his past in the Navy and goes into a fugue state and disappears and his wife is left to run the bar that they own. He returns with no apparent memory of where he has been or what he was doing. The stage is set for some interesting twists.The submarine Thresher is lost and former sailor is trying to figure out why it happened. A bar patron plants the idea that the problem with the Thresher can be traced back to the person who was the Secretary of the Navy at the time the authorization came through to build the Thresher. So as Jack enters another fugue state he blames this Secretary of the Navy for the loss of life that occurred when the Thresher disappeared. He goes to Dallas to kill that ex-Secretary of Navy, but another assassin pulls his trigger first and in Jack's mind the wrong man was assassinated.It is an interesting book. The author leaves it up to the reader to tie a lot of the events and characters together but I enjoy that type of story.

[kristincedar · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Such a shame that historical facts can be misused in such a way to further bad writing. Not a terrible story, you really end up feeling bad for the wife in the book, but aside from the poor grammer and mispellings, the plot never developed, except for the two major events surrounding the characters; the sinking and the shooting of JFK. My advice to the author: reread and rewrite.

[mldavis2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is an interesting short novel based on two historical events - the loss of the submarine Thresher, and the assassination of President Kennedy. Author Valentinetti's protagonist suffers from a form of PTSD and fights his own demons as a former Navy seaman. The book is well written and retains the reader's interest. It's limited scope explains the length and several questions are left unanswered as food for thought.This novelette was received in eBook format in exchange for an honest review.

[ironside26 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I received this copy from Library Thing. I found the plot quite original and interesting. While reading it, I found myself picturing it being made into a movie. The font size was large which made for easy reading. However.... There were several spelling and punctuation errors, not a big deal. I found much of the dialog choppy, forced, and unnatural, although with a little work, those scences could work. For example, when Teri and Jack almost bumped into each other and kept going back and forth. I would have liked to learn more about what Jack did while he was "away." Or a little more OMG when they learn of the young sailor's death. I felt like this could be an excellent book with a little more work, a little polish. All and all, I did enjoy the book.

[lg4154 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I won this copy thru Library Thing. I found it to be rather interesting, fact based on fiction and thought that the premise was kind of different. The main character, Jack York suffers from an affliction called Fugue, which is a dissociative disorder characterized by geographical displacement and amnesia for the episodes. He tries to work thru this and coming to grips being dishonorably discharged from the Navy. I do like his wife’s character, Teri and the way she tries to help Jack with his disorder; at times almost frightened of him. I think Men would be more interested in this story than women, but nonetheless it is still a pretty good read. I also like the fact that the author included a wristband with the book.

[sturgeon_4 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

When I first saw this novel come up on the Member’s Giveaway, being a military historian focused mainly on submarine warfare, I so hoped that I would be selected to receive a copy. The concept seemed like it would make a great story.Well, remember that old saying; be careful what you wish for? I received the book around 4:00pm and because of the huge font size and massive spacing in the text, had made it through the 163 pages by midnight. I’ll just quote what my dad used to tell me. 'If you don’t have anything good to say about something, don’t say anything', so I won't say anything.Well, I do have to say one thing - the text on the authors website is great - what happened to the book?