Turn It Down

By Jerry Sedgewick

Fent has several loves: science, invention, God, and then this girl named Sarah who has ravished his heart. But Fent has a bad habit of getting in trouble, even though he’s an honor's student and a guy who wants to be a good Christian. And then he has a friend named Boink who gets him in trouble, but always evades getting caught. Always trying to put his best foot forward with Sarah, he seems to slip up every time.

But when he starts a science experiment with a new friend named Dante, life begins to change. Not always for the better: It doesn’t help that the experiment requires ear-bleeding music. Whatever way it goes, the story takes you through ups and downs, and you’ll howl at the antics.

Find out what happens with Fent’s infatuation with Sarah, his new friendship, his botched interview with a TV reporter named “Square Jaw,” his mouse named Megadeath, and his memory of a dead guppy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jerry Sedgewick
• Release date: Oct 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311451095

Jerry Sedgewick

Here's the author info: 8th grade. After having a guy twist my hat around my neck to knock me out, I came to thinking I was going to be a great writer. College. Acceptance into the noted Iowa Writer's Workshop confirmed my grand entrance into the hall of famed writers and by the time I was 30 I would be hailed by the press. Middle years. I published here and there--mostly nowhere--until I ended up in science by some cosmic accident, published two books, numerous articles and too many book chapters. Old guy. Now that I'm finally mature enough to write something of inestimable value, I am self-publishing. After all, in my experience with publishing companies, you end up doing the marketing yourself. So I guess I'll have to make lots of friends. You included.Here's the real deal: How to live. We may live long or short lives, but did we really live? How much do we give away? Time is our most valuable gift and we treat it like it goes on forever. It doesn't. So let's live it as participants and not as spectators. Let's be the ones who tell stories instead of spending our lives being entertained by questionable people.

Book preview

Turn It Down

Copyright 2015 Gerald (Jerry) Sedgewick

Published by Gerald Sedgewick at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Chapter 1: Dan's Hell

A maze... why did he send me a maze?

Fent looked at the letter. He hardly ever got mail, much less mail from a classmate. This is kind of weird, he thought. We just met each other.

At the top the letter read, Dan's Hell, drawn carefully with a fine point marker. Fent laughed to himself. When Fent first met his classmate while waiting at the principal's office because each had gotten in trouble in separate incidences, Fent spied the book Dante’s Inferno on top of his classmate’s spiral binders. Fent said, Heavy reading, man. You like the classics?

His classmate looked at Fent evenly with his dark brown eyes framed by lighter brown skin. Like two notes played on a piano he said, It pays. Then he didn’t even crack a smile.

The thought of that comment made Fent laugh to himself again. 'It pays', he thought. Pays to read about all the circles of hell and who goes there. That’s what Dante's Inferno was all about.

Fent discovered that his classmate’s name was also Dante. Dante Taylor. He made a play on words with the word Dante in English—Dan—and the title Dan’s Hell instead of Dante’s Inferno.

Dan’s Hell was a series of circles arranged like a target. In each ring Dante wrote something. What Fent first noticed were the words in the center.

Confusion of everyday life.

On the outermost ring Dante wrote Fun at Other People’s Expense, on the next Infatuation, on the next Loneliness & Rejection, then Depression, Worry and Fear, Lies, Friends.

Fent read again, Confusion of everyday life.

That's what he said a modern Dante would write. About living in the world today, thinking back to when they sat waiting for the principal. Only he said it funny: Because you do things that lead to high school hell.

What things?

Mostly its feeling half-this, half-that about the right things. But you get pumped about stupid things, Dante said.

So what's stupid?

Pep rallies, pizza, parties, irritating songs... Dante broke into a smile. Then Mr. Buckets opened the door and some sorry looking kid came out. Principal Buckets looked to see who was next. First he focused on Dante, looking at him with narrowed eyes. Then at Fent.

Here again? Buckets asked Fent with an expression which changed to mild amusement. He and Fent actually got along quite well.

Fent couldn't resist. He whispered to Dante, I've been pailed by Buckets!

What'd you say? the principal asked, still humored.

Uh, you know, kid stuff, Fent answered. We laugh differently...about different stuff. Fent rose from his chair figuring he was next.

Buckets looked at Dante. I want to see you first. And then with a curious look, You a friend of his?

Don't know, Dante said, looking at Fent. Fent knew at once that they would be.

Fent thought about that look, about the intensity of Dante's eyes. It was a look that came from deep within, more like from his soul. This black kid was one of a kind, surely a brother who believed in God as deeply as Fent did. Anyway, he must be, he was reading Dante's Inferno.

Fent turned over the page to see if anything was written on the other side. There he saw a poem:

Who is this that comes forth like the dawn?

I am as dark--but lovely,

O daughters of Jerusalem--

Do not stare at me because I am swarthy,

because the sun has burned me.

You are an enclosed garden, my sister,

an enclosed garden,

You are a garden fountain, a well of water

flowing fresh from Lebanon.

Arise north wind! Come, south wind!

blow upon my garden

that its perfumes may spread abroad.

You have ravished my heart...

You have ravished my heart with one glance of your eyes,

with one bead of your necklace

Who is this that comes forth like the dawn?

At first the poem struck him as something he read before. He thought this must be from the Bible because the words Jerusalem and Lebanon were in the poem. He remembered reading something like it once during devotionals in the dimmer part of his memory.

And then, with a gratifying rush of emotion, he considered how much Sarah would like to read it.

Sarah. She was far from being dark and swarthy. In fact, she was the opposite: light skinned, with every capillary at the surface. It seemed like she blushed red at almost every comment Fent made when they first met. And if anyone was likely to say something to make someone else turn red, it was Fent. Not on purpose. He just couldn't help it. Words came out of his mouth in rapid fire because he was so enthused with conversation and friends and camaraderie. Often he felt giant-like and lumbering, like a giant mouth when he leaned into people to make a point, because he was tall and big-chested. At the school he went to before this one he was called barrel. And he thought about his goofy hair, something he could never train. It was so straight it went where the follicles pointed.

How foreign he must have seemed to her when they first met. Here he was loud and boisterous, and she seemed so quiet and calm in spirit. Like she came from a family where full dinners came at six and the whole family ate in agreeable but calm chatter. Like an Amish family or something.

And here Fent ate sometimes with his mom, mostly cheese sandwiches that he made for himself. Because his father left one day to wander sidewalks with the rest of the homeless. His dad went off the deep end, a guy who had been a doctor. And his mom was left to work long hours at one of the local TV stations in sales or something at a job she hated.

He met Sarah when coming back on a bus from Chicago with other kids mostly from Fent's church. She had touched Fent's heart to the point that every cell in his body leapt when he thought of her. He was ravished by one bead of her necklace, except that she didn't wear one. But if she did, he could just kiss it because it belonged to her.

Even though Fent was a senior in high school, he had never felt this way before about anyone, and all these rushes of feeling were new: mostly gratifying, but also confusing. Why would he kiss one bead of her non-existent necklace?

He remembered how he hadn’t even noticed Sarah on that trip to Chicago where they painted houses for people who lived in projects. Not until they rode home. She was one of those people who blended into the background. But on the way back, a friend he called Dr. Bob and another friend beat him to a bus seat, and Fent was left to take the seat across the aisle next to Sarah. When they got to talking, Fent looked past her glasses and saw a really alive face. He wondered why he didn't notice her from the start. They talked a lot about their families and their struggles with being followers of God. Fent's friends looked over at him with their eyebrows raised, wagging their heads to say You're really smooth, Fent. Didn't know you had it in you.

Fent didn't: because now he really wanted to tell Sarah how much he loved her, how much she meant to him, and he was too chicken. That's why Dante sent the poem. He was sure of it.

Fent chuckled to himself and shook his head. Dante had been invisible just like Sarah. Here Fent had been in Science Honors class for the first two weeks of school and he hadn't even noticed that Dante had been in the class all along until the morning after they met at the principal's office.

You in here! Fent yelled at Dante when he saw him at the beginning of their class. Mr. Romero, their science teacher, looked at Fent silently. Romero was the main reason Fent went to the principal's office.

You think I should leave? Dante asked with a straight face.

Fent laughed. No, but you should be in our group.

The class was in the process of coming up with experiments for everyone to do. On that day, Romero had already told them they would be free to choose whatever group of people they wanted to join up with. Fent and his friends had already staked out a claim as a group but one more person could be added to a limit of six. After Fent had invited him, Dante decided to join. While Romero lectured, for some reason Fent wanted desperately to tell Dante how he felt about Sarah. It seemed like Dante was the kind of person who would really listen. So Fent whispered to Dante while Romero was talking, Dante... There's this girl that I really like.

What?

"I got a gal, her name is Sarah. I really need to tell her how I feel. You know, how I feel.' Fent felt stupid for bringing up Sarah so abruptly. He was afraid Dante would think he was weird.

Dante's eyes leveled on Fent. Write her a note. Less dangerous. You don't have to be there.

The idea seemed ridiculous at first, like a junior high thing to do, but now that he held Dante's letter and the poem which Dante had written for Fent's benefit, the idea gained steam. But the way Dante made his suggestion seemed