The Auroran

By Jeffrey Ross

August Nightingale, in late middle age, has had little success with relationships-- and not much meaningful satisfaction in the world of work. Abruptly deciding to “leave it all behind,” he embarks on a snowy road trip to visit Civil War battlefields in Pennsylvania. His journey becomes one of self-realization. A mishap on the highway, the kindness of his beautiful neighbor Sarah (who helps him to convalesce), and the friendly people of Aurora change his life and his heart. This mature romance novel shows that it is never too late to find happiness, to experience meaningful love, when souls are honest and open to the truths of human experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rogue Phoenix Press
• Release date: Sep 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781624202827

Jeffrey Ross

JEFFREY ROSS is feared and revered for his appearances at celebrity roasts. In fact, making fun of people is a way of life for Jeffrey Ross. Called “an heir apparent to such old-school masters as Buddy Hackett and Rodney Dangerfield” by the New York Times, Ross has memorably and uproariously roasted many of America’s favorite stars. His first book, I Only Roast The Ones I Love: Busting Balls Without Burning Bridges will be released in September by Simon Spotlight Entertainment, a division of Simon & Schuster.           Jeff also stars in a popular Comedy Central stand-up DVD  and CD, “Jeffrey Ross: No Offense – Live From New Jersey”, as well as an award-winning documentary he directed about his experience entertaining U.S. troops in Iraq titled, “Patriot Act: A Jeffrey Ross Home Movie.” Jeff divides his time between New York City, Los Angeles, and the road.

Book preview

November 2015

Nightingale: The Road Trip Begins

August Nightingale left Hamilton City, North New Mexico, about dark. His rusted-out Corolla was packed with beers, cheese, crackers, and sausages for a two-week road trip. This old man had decided to abandon an earlier initiative to travel the sleek I-80 across the Midwest for his three-day journey to rural Pennsylvania. Instead, he would drive down the concrete and seamed Highway 34 through Colorado and Nebraska. He was simply not up to the stress of light speed and big trucks on the superhighway.

Nighty, as his friends had called him back in the old days, had checked out the Toyota a day or two earlier. The fluid levels for the motor and brakes and transmission were good. With compressed air, he blew out dust and fur from the air cleaner and deftly inflated the tires to specs.

Though beat-up and badly faded, the car was capable and ready. Strangely, yet matter-of-factly, Nighty was usually more concerned about the working condition of his motor car than his career. Perhaps the car represented something he could nurture or maintain without pain.

Nightingale was attached to the car in a funny way. He really couldn't let go of the relationship with the Toyota, like several of the connections in his vanilla life that kept going on, because they had some sort of abject functional value. He had nursed the car back to life so many times. The old beast looked pretty rough, but still ran. And the heater worked.

He had this old-fashioned notion about long drives on the mottled and frost-heaved highway. He looked forward to late-night AM radio, and steaming coffee from a truck stop, and Burma Shave signage, and a piece of cherry pie from a place which should've closed long ago.

Not much of an artist himself, Nightingale had a child-like fascination with statues. He had recently finished reading a book on Pennsylvania Civil War battlefields, and on a whim, thought he might enjoy seeing the statuary gracing the famous locations. Nightingale had never been to Pennsylvania, and he was about worn out as a working man, so this late autumn outing seemed to be the thing to do.

Nightingale often examined his interest in statues. He clearly maintained an obsession with stern, chipped, granite soldier faces and poetic Winged Victories.

The tired man had a hazy memory of feeling frightened by such statues in a Midwest cemetery when he was a kid. He wondered if he heard talk from an adult which scared him. Or did his fear come from within, from instinct?

He would periodically wake up late at night, thrashing and crashing, after dreaming about the tear-streaming, rusty faces of once-white cherubs.

The soul-less stone figures had a form of perfection, of holiness, which he found redemptive and calming, despite an occasional bad dream or case of night sweats.

Oh, Nightingale was a man of the arts, an aficionado of the humanities. He had been a musician of sorts, back in the seventies. He loved great literature, especially poetry. August had sensitivity for the symphony and landscape paintings. However, something about statuary proved ultimately fetching to him. Nighty often wondered why, and found only a possible answer when he learned about Johann Herder's argument that sculpture is a distinctive art form because it is directed toward the sense of touch, rather than vision or sound.

Nightingale was perplexed. Both people and aesthetic theory were so difficult, so complex.

Nightingale was not taking a vacation. He had quit his job earlier this morning. Now, at seven PM, he couldn't be sure if his boss was yet aware he had quit.

He had simply typed a note: Is this all you got? I quit. Nightingale. He left it on Dean René's desk, and vacated the building catacombs. He had smiled broadly as he pushed open the automatic door and exited the Copperfield Community College Dorine Staten Administration Building for the last time. He didn't look back. Chinchillas, he muttered hoarsely, as he found his Corolla and motored away. Resigned and empowered.

Nighty hadn't bothered to take any of his personal possessions. The mournful pile of debris accumulated during his sad, bill-paying working life was flippantly left behind.

Mocked. Neglected. Desecrated. The switch had flipped. The daily college meetings and career struggles meant nothing to him now. He realized, in his heart, none of it mattered to him anymore. Yes, he had reached an omega.

Significantly, perhaps, Nightingale conveniently abandoned his e-cigarette charger and faux smokes. He left them still emitting cool, artificial vapor in the office. He would buy a pack of non-filtered cigarettes again. Probably later tonight or tomorrow. The tired, red-faced guy anticipated the hopeful and endearing buzz of nicotine, and the whitish aroma of fragrant tobacco. Was smoking going to kill him at his age? Nightingale wondered what was better: quitting his job or not having to carry anything out of the office. He assumed the boss would be angry, his coworkers perplexed. Later, each swore they were glad to see him go. Finally. Thank goodness.

Leaving town was easy for Nighty. He had no family. There were no special women in his life. Truthfully, he had no one to say goodbye to, or even to avoid. He had, of course, been married—but that was years ago. No, nowadays Nighty couldn't claim a girl friend or special someone.

One woman he admired from afar was intellectual, beautiful, and courteous, but seldom smiled. Probably best he stayed afar. He was certain she enjoyed visiting with him. On the other hand, he might be wrong.

Nothing more can be said about any women in Nighty's life. They simply existed around him, having form but lacking meaning. Relationships were like ghost ships to him—all drifting further away into a full-moon evening. Oh, he thought about women in a speculative, analytical way. They seemed to want so much. They appeared so strong but were also amazingly fragile. He couldn't figure them out. He knew, at his time in life, his chances for a meaningful love connection were rapidly diminishing. Finding someone to care for me would take a big miracle, he said to his freshly-shaven face in the mirror one morning.

The open road beckoned him. He heard, briefly and sans interest, on the radio weather report, a storm front was gathering behind him, bubbling out of Utah and cruising through the Rockies. Not his concern. He would be heading east, away from the blizzard, away from work. Away.

Nighty enjoyed driving in darkness. He liked the swirling play of snowflakes in the high beams, skirmishes with the bold moon drifting through arrow-topped pines, and the steady, throbbing blast of warm, moldy air from the Corolla's rattling heater.

What does a man think about, driving alone in the darkness, tired after a long life's work, void of any sense of yesterday or tomorrow? He thinks of the motorcycles he has owned and the pheasants he has hunted.

Nightingale was typically self-critical. He constantly replayed, in his active-yet-porous mind, his bad decisions and embarrassing moments. Such mental images were all like video clips on the evening news, videos somehow revealing his lower-class status and his inability to behave correctly

For a while, this night, he thought about his first serious girlfriend. She was a pleasant and lovely redhead. Looking back, he