Missing

By Rick Zabel

Miles Orrick, a lonely old high school art teacher, must hurriedly hide the body of a neurotic sheriff's adulterous wife who died in his apartment during a heavy snowstorm. Scared and confused, he is taken from the beauty and wonder of art and thrust into a world of hate and disarray. Miles has never had to run before -- now he has to run for his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rick Zabel
• Release date: Oct 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370231683

Rick Zabel

I was born and raised in the farm and factory region of the Midwest, and graduated from Southern Illinois University, majoring in Film and Theater. As in Working-Class Heroes, other lost souls in books I have available at other online retailers include wannabe best-selling authors (Book Tour), screwy social misfits (Save the Wild Ass), and long-forgotten terrorists (Psycho Woman). To me, Cairo is one of the most exotic cities in the world, and Hollywood is one of the grubbiest. I live in Champaign, Illinois.

Book preview

Missing

Rick Zabel

Copyright © 2017 by Rick Zabel

Table of Contents

Beginning

Middle

End

Miles Orrick could see it coming. He knew that it would happen sooner or later -- that he would be asked to resign as an art teacher at the high school he had been teaching for over forty years.

Teaching was Miles’ life; indeed, it was his passion. He loved his students; they were his children. Although he knew he could never make a living as an artist in Paris or Greenwich Village, he could certainly educate creative young people to the naked wonder of art.

But as he sat in the principal’s office, expecting him to arrive with the bad news that he would soon be expelled, Miles couldn’t help but wonder what the future held for him out in the world of blandness and boredom which he had struggled to avoid ever since he picked up his first paintbrush and dashed it over a blank canvas. And as he glanced around the office, he felt suppressed by its overwhelming aura of rigor mortis: fake bronze frame portraits of Washington, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt with stiff looks upon their faces, staring -- judging and condemning Miles for daring to be rebellious and that he should be tied to a stake and burned like a witch for having something called an imagination.

Miles goal in life was to spread his message to primitive areas of the earth, and when a position opened up for him at a small high school located out in the sticks in the farm and factory town of Strawman, Minnesota, he thought it would be the perfect fit. However, after several fruitless years of frustration and failure, he found it to be poetic justice for him to wind up in a whistle-stop junction with such a name, for that’s what he felt like -- a man made of straw, someone who had outlived his usefulness, unable to convince young people to pick up a paintbrush instead of a six-pack.

At least he wouldn’t have to wolf down the daily high school French cosine each day at the cafeteria: macaroni and mashed potatoes; macaroni and green beans; macaroni and scrambled eggs. Those godawful noodles stared up at him like yellow maggots, reminding him of the days when, as a young student fresh out of art school, how tired he was of eating TV dinners and dreamed of strolling casually about the colorful cafes of the quaint European countryside, sampling fine wine and delicate food. And now, forty years later, as he ran his fingers worriedly through thin, black-grey hair which receded halfway up his head, he could feel the dream fading away.

Miles left his seat and went to the window, where he looked out at a heavy snowfall through his thick-framed glasses to reflect upon his years at the school. Angry at the thought of being humiliated, he began to stalk out of the office, but was stopped when the principal, Louis Stone, enter the room through a door behind his large, old oak desk. A tall, seventyish man with thin shoulders and a finely-trimmed beard which ran along the top of his jaws, the man who hired Miles years ago was now getting set to fire him -- just like that.

Where are you going, Miles?

I’m leaving. That’s what you want, isn’t it?

No one’s asking you to leave, Miles. Whatever gave you that idea?

Well then, why am I here?

Sit down, Miles.

Miles sat, and then slammed his hand down on the desk, knocking over a wire mesh pencil cup. Damnit, Lou, we’ve known each other for close to forty years. I thought we were friends. I’ve been teaching at this school longer than anyone here. I deserve better. Why am I getting the axe?

Who said you were getting the axe?

Miles slowly sat back in his chair and furrowed his brow. What’s this all about?

Miles, I asked you to come here because I wanted to give you some good news.

What good news?

I received a call from some teacher friends of mine at the University of Minnesota. There’s a position opening up in the art department, and they asked me to see if you might be interested.

Why me?

It seems as though they like your work: Impressionism; Surrealism; Dada- ism; Arabic-ism -- all those isms you’re so well known for when you put your paintings and sculptures on display each summer at the state art fair. I gave you a strong recommendation, of course. He noted notes Miles’ stunned look. You don’t seem very excited about it.

"I don’t