From Chaff to Wheat

By Wayne Morrison

This is the story of a little boy starting life on the praries of western Minnesota. How he learned about love, life, sex, joy and heartache. Becoming a cop, he must learn how to cope with the brutality and violence of mankind as well as the dizzying excitement and tenderness of a beautiful, bazaar, brilliant drug dealing hooker and lover. Will he overcome incredible odds and become a whole healthy man or will he eat his own 357 magnum to end the insanity and pain. Sometimes the bad guys win and the good guys die!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne Morrison
• Release date: Jun 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311008046

Wayne Morrison

I have spent half of my life as a Minneapolis Suburban City Police Officer, Special Deputy US Marshal and Chief of Police for a small bedroom community of Minneapolis. I retired in 2001 shortly after 9/11 and began my career of writing. What started as a memoir, ended up being the beginning to my first novel, "From Chaff to Wheat" The story of a gorgeous ,19 year old ,drug dealing hooker who turned into my lover and later had my daughter. I have lived in Waikiki for the past several years. My children , Eric, Lisa and Bryan all live in the Minneapolis area.

Book preview

From Chaff to Wheat

Wayne Morrison

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Wayne Morrison

License Notes: 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 ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The photo on the cover was taken by : Aliaksandr Nikitsin and obtained from photo.com on 4/9/2014 by the author.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Table of Contents

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

Part Ten

Part Eleven

Part Twelve

Part Thirteen

Part Fourteen

Part Fifteen

Part Sixteen

Part Seventeen

Part Eighteen

Part Nineteen

Part Twenty

Part Twenty One

Part Twenty Two

Part Twenty Three

Part Twenty Four

Part Twenty Five

Part Twenty Six

Part Twenty Seven

Part Twenty Eight

About the Author

Part One

The dark oxblood paint on the old barn siding was peeling and fading. Each door and window was outlined in white. This looked great when you drove into the yard, however if your 9, its much more interesting to see who can peel the longest stripe off the wall. Of course this makes the wall look more trashed than it already does. I would look down and always find a sapling that had punched its way up, wiggled its way under the first siding board and continued growing, it would reach a quarter of an inch in diameter and start pushing the board away from the wall. Once in a while, I would grab one and pull it out and in the process strip the leaves and some of the bark off the baby tree. They made great marshmallow sticks and would grow to five or six feet long .

The big bonfire was going full bore, the flames leaping 12 feet into the air ,with tiny sparks littering the black sky. There was a murmur of pleasure from the people ringing the fire. They looked like a bunch of bricks standing on end. Each time a log would fall deeper into the pit, Another huge bunch of sparks, like little fireflies, would jump into the air.

It was July, 1955, on a little quarter section of good Red River Valley farm land. Dad and Mom bought it in 1947. Life was good and the nights were often enchanted.

Mostly ,it was a night of magic, because my teacher, Mrs Earlier, and her two daughters, Jannie and Judy where there. I had a serious crush on Jannie for perhaps a year. She would, on rare occasions, come to school with Mrs Earler and spend the day with us. Jannie was 9, Judy was 8. Excellent!!. Jannie was a petite blonde and Judy had the dark auburn hair of her mother. Both girls were of course perfectly beautiful in the eyes of brother Gary , 8 , and myself, 9.

When your 9, a nice 4 foot marshmallow stick is huge! Its almost as tall as I am, but it was what I had this evening and being a huge fan of swords and marshmallows, Im on a roll! Out of seven of us in grade 1 thru 7, 5 of us had our sword/marshmallow sticks ready for the big moment. Soon the flames would die a bit and be excellent for a roast. In the mean time, nothing wrong with a bit of sword play and much to our dismay a bit of yelling by several of the moms present about poking out our friends eyes. Im sure being 9 I also know I'm totally immortal! Well, mostly anyway. So the play went on in the dark until mom said marshmallow time boys!

So we took our swords and headed off to the fire again. Here we loaded up on one or two of the big puffy white pieces to toast and enjoy our first load of sugar for the evening. I, being a big man, decided to slap on two at a time and maybe share one with my little blond sweetheart. Oh lest I forget, she didn't know she was my sweetheart yet. Never quite got around to telling her she was the most wonderful creature I had ever met or was likely to meet. Lord, Id look at her and my heart would jump into my throat, my pulse would skyrocket to maybe 200 beats a minute and my whole body would be dancing and ready to explode! Remember those days? So here I am, ready to start the next to the last step in changing my life for ever and forever being happy.

I was on the south side of the fire, Jannie , in her midnight blue tea shirt, with the little row of silver metal stars, was standing straight across from me by Mrs Earler. She was getting ready to put her marshmallow into the fire. I caught her eye, she smiled and my world was surrounded by a 100 string symphony. I stealthily slid my sword into the fire and watched silently as the white turned to gold, sputtered a bit and lit up like the fires of Hell. Holy Cow, what should I do now? My offerings to this lovely creature were being consumed like a chunk of coal in Hades! I just cant let that happen! My God, Ive waited for over a year , which is almost a lifetime when your 9.. I inherently knew what to do, I took that beautiful 4 foot sword, and slinging it wildly around my head knowing full well these two huge chunks of flaming sugar would be extinguished and save the day and my pride. I just knew this would work! Suddenly both chunks of burning hell flew ten feet in the air , making a perfect , beautiful arc and came down right on the back of Jannie's hand. Next, a blood curdling scream and fire was shooting up from her hand. Mrs Earler was quickly peeling the flaming goo off her hand and immediately poured her cold soothing cool aid on the spot .

My life was over. I was sure in the next moment some big gorilla was going to pulverize me into dust right there in front of everyone, Jannie, Judy and all my other friends. Being the big tough guy, I ran into the dark to hide! What else to do I had no idea. Gone are my treats, my dignity, pride and my girlfriend in one split second. What? I heard someone laugh! What could possibly be funny about this awful mess I'd made of my life?? I was slinking around to the other side of the fire with the intention of telling that pretty little thing how very sorry I was and she was the one laughing. Not only that , she was licking the last bit of sweet marshmallow off her hand. After telling her I was sorry, which I really was, she laughed again with her beautiful lovely voice and said it didn't hurt at all and I was the best shot she had ever seen I felt like I was now 6 feet tall and a real man!

The rest of the evening picnic went well, We spent the evening playing tag and hide and seek. I always tried to find Jannie however she was always more swift and cunning than me. Just sharing a few hours with her made my whole summer until the day I saw her at the Morris fair. Our little country school had just finished its last year. Hence forth, we would all be going by bus to the big school in Herman. It was a huge brick building, with many rooms and home to hundreds of students and teachers. Rather a frightening change for a little boy. However, I learned to play baseball and basketball, made new friends and started learning about people outside our little country school.

Sister was 11 at this time and had a mind of her own. She was bossy and pushy but always up for a new adventure and always laughing. The July heat was stifling with no breeze coming thru our bedroom windows. Still and quiet as death. Darlene and Carol Jean slept in a big bed in the first room , Gary and Dale and I slept on a huge bed in the back bed room. Both floors were covered with linoleum and the walls were cream colored plaster. It may have been 90 outside but the upstairs was around 100 degrees. Each bed had one blanket and a sheet on the bottom with no pillows. They would have been nothing but a plaything anyway. Already having our strict orders to stay in our own room, we would both, boys and girls, swiftly run into the other room , say something outrageous and run back to quickly jump into bed. That was the safe zone. It was against the rules to go as far as the bed, besides, Mom and Dad both had very tuned in ears and could hear those little feet flying. We always went to bed around 8 so we had a great amount of energy still to be expended. What do you do for 2 hours every night while waiting for sleepiness to over come you?. We invented games. The first one was called sawmill. Dale and I would roll Gary up in a quilt, Dale and I got on one side of the bed and kicked him over and over. This was accompanied with huge gales of laughter , shrieking and the ultimate "THUMP' when poor Gary fell off the bed. Of course this game often begged for a little larger audience so Darlene and Carol Jean would come to the door between the two rooms sit on the floor and cheer us on, laughing and yelling also. Needless to say the inevitable

If I hear one more Peep out of you, Im coming up there

Suddenly it would get very still and one of us would go peep causing huge rolling laughter from the other four of us. Our bedroom window faced south so often at night we would see the huge silver moon glowing down on the yard and country side. It was always a topic of wonder for us. What was it , where did it come from, was it really a face on it :?? was it really made of cheese? How come it didn't fall out of the sky? Why did it move? It did put freaky shadows by the trees and combined with the rumor of a wild lion escaping from the zoo in Herman , night was not a good time to be out side by yourself. We used the out house behind the house nestled in the first layer of trees in the grove till the following year so that last shot to the potty at night was very fast and always accompanied with at least one other person. Naturally, If a lion is loose, one of us would have to sneak up on the outhouse and scream like we thought a real lion would sound. Always within seconds, the door would fly open and two sets of little feet would fly the 100 feet to the back door. I did laugh a lot at my poor little brothers!

The picnic was Friday night, Saturday we were up early to work in the fields. It was time to harvest. My job was to drive the tractor and pull the grain to the yard . Here Id back it up to the elevator and open the end gate to allow the oats to go into the elevator and up into the granary. This all went well as I had been driving the little Ford tractor for 2 summers by than. The grain always smelled like sun shine and often Id hang over the side of the trailer and enjoy the smells of wheat, oats or beans. Nothing quite like a handful of wheat or beans right out of the field. Chew em up and wheat makes a strange gum with little brow specks and beans taste like—beans! Oats and corn you really couldn't do much with except throw at each other . A few times of getting caught at that and we didn't do it too much. Around 6, the chores were done, and the sky south a few miles was getting very black. We , by this time knew what a tornado was. We had them roar past our place every summer and fall. So far we had been spared.. Within the hour, the wind came up. Soon the rain started with huge fat drops and progressively got worse. It was pouring so hard you could not see out the windows when the wind got even higher and the hail started. We had so many windows around the house but Dad decided to give each person a pillow, or a couch cushion to hold up against the glass. Hail stones were getting larger by the minute and soon were maybe 2 inches around . They were beating the house relentlessly and we expected all the glass to be destroyed. Strangely, the pillow trick worked and we saved all the glass. As soon as the hail stopped, the rain continued to pour for several hours more. Finally very late the rain stopped and we opened the doors to look at a literal flood in the yard. Our little home on the prairie kept us dry and safe.

The next morning, as usual, we got up and hurried with breakfast and chores so we could make it to the 11 o'clock service at the Lutheran church in Lake Vern. On the way out the driveway, we looked off to the south and found a lake. More than half our corn field was flooded. Not knowing the seriousness of the flood and losing that much corn, we kids thought we had won a huge prize . After church, we had our traditional sunday dinner and Dad decided to try draining the corn field. Hefting his trusty old spade and dawning his big rubber boots, he headed out to the field. Gary and I stripped down to only overalls and went along for the adventure . We spent the whole afternoon playing in chest deep , very warm water. Even tho we sunk up to 8 inches in mud it was still a great day. After all we had only seen a lake once before. This wasn't the only field to flood and it was the beginning of the end of farming. Too many losses, over too many years.

Summer was surly here, with big black flies, millions of mosquitos and the constant sound of crickets chirping in the grass. Everything smelled of warm , rich earth, and the deep strong , wonderful sunshine. Some times we would run thru the clothes line just to sniff the stiff sun dried overalls. Mostly we wore only overalls , no shoes and no shirts. Less to get dirty I guess. Most days were spent outside as with all farm kids. We had to explore! We knew where the nest of the Red Winged blackbirds were. We knew where the rabbits lived. And of course we were always on the look out for tigers or lions! We knew how to get up on top of the barn, how to crawl into the hay mow and swing from the ropes screaming all the way down as we plunged all of ten or fifteen feet into the warm golden straw. Allergies? Who cares, we would sneeze, sniffle and play hard. The days flew by and one fine sunny afternoon we decided to parachute off the barn. What a splendid idea. Sister was pretty strong for a girl so she pulled the big bright yellow umbrella off the little ford tractor and together we hauled it up to the top of the barn roof. Now since the winter, the cow dung was thrown into a big stack out side of the barn door. This grew over the cold winter months to be fifteen feet high or so. It proceeded to freeze solid as each new accumulation piled up on the top. Needless to say this took till late July to thaw. Well here it was, Late July with a fifteen foot pile of POOP! Soft, squishy and a great landing spot.

You get the picture right? Sister grabbed the umbrella, opened it up to all its huge yellow glory and grabbed it by the long pole. Now the goal here was to float gently down to the pile of poop, land with tentative care and run down the pile , giving the parachute to the next paratrooper. ME! Good plan, we thought. She edged her way to the edge of the barn roof, grabbed tight and stepped off into empty air. With a scream of pleasure and excitement, she started her trip down. This lasted about one half a second before the umbrella turned inside out. Seeing this she quickly dropped the tangled mess of wires and cloth and plunged head first into the poop. The other 3 of us watching were laughing so hard we nearly wet our pants. Her face was brown with big white eyes. She did not think that was one bit funny and took off after us all screaming at the top of her lungs!

Im gonna kill you , Damn you

Sorry buddy , cant kill us all and we ran and ran till she gave up.

Well we didn't really do much good for the tractor umbrella and of course amongst our other adventures, we spent a great amount of time sitting on chairs, not talking , not doing anything but sitting. Must have worked! I still like sitting on chairs and not moving or doing anything!!!

Most summer days after lunch, we had to all spend time in the huge garden if we did not go to the field. Crawling down the row, pulling out weeds and often we would have a bite of new red tomatoes, new baby peas or some other delicious delight. Funny isn't it how today we seek out the very same at farmers markets. Our food was all organic however back than , the didnt call it anything except good food. Later in the fall as the pototoes and tomatoes were ripened, we would have huge slices of tomatos ,