Straight

By Alec Parker

Alec Parker was only trying to make enough money to finish college when his all-American good looks caught the eye of an agent of one of New Yorks most prestigious modeling agencies. Quickly swept up in the glamorous world of high-fashion modeling, he emerged in a short time as one of the hottest models in their stable. However, despite his ever-growing portfolio and solid credentials, there was still something holding him back from reaching the heights both he and his agent felt he was capable of reaching. Alec was straight!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496923721

Alec Parker

Alec Parker is a native of Long Island, New York and is the father to four sons. He is currently retired

Book preview

© 2014 Alec Parker. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/27/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-2374-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-2373-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-2372-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014911780

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

My name is Alec Parker. At the time of this writing, I was thirty years old, and a lot has happened in the past ten of those years that, looking back on them, can still upset me a lot more than I thought possible. Life can roll along just like clockwork for me for days on end, and I give the past little thought. Now, suddenly, I am confronted with it all over again. Watching a television commercial, seeing an ad in the Sunday papers featuring male models, and the past is there again, gibbering in my head like an imp from hell. The anger I feel about my experiences and the awareness that those years were pretty much wasted as far as building a career—the knowledge that I will probably bear the scars from the whole period—makes me shake.

I grew up a bit sheltered and a bit unaware of the difference between gays and heterosexuals. I really never gave any thought to homosexuals. Either they were a locker-room joke or they had no contact with my outlook, my way of life. I was busy growing up Catholic, busy being a teenager, an athlete with uninspired grades and the usual cares of the young and fairly innocent—dates, girls, sex, clothes, and my close circle of friends, acquaintances, and happenings.

People as self-centered as the typical American teen or freshman or sophomore college student are too busy to know much about the world. That comes with the gritty, rasping process of living, of making a living, and of being disillusioned. Some people start earlier than others. I was a late bloomer when it came to reality, and then … let’s just say I made up a lot of lost ground real quick.

It was a strange procedure, this instant maturing. Sometimes when I look back on it, I wonder how I could have been so naive to what I heard and saw and why the procedure took so long. Maybe I just closed my eyes to it, not wanting to see the male-modeling field as it really was, because I was so good at it. The acclaim, the money, and the pats on the back felt very good, and I just did not want to recognize the dark side of it. In doing so, I realized that it wasn’t for me. I knew I had better get out of modeling and move on to something else.

But what was that something else? I was good at modeling. I enjoyed the work, the fees, and the recognition on the street or in some store when a stranger’s face lit up as though he or she was supposed to know you because he or she saw you in a magazine, on a billboard, or on television in a local commercial. Besides, my grades were a low-C average, I dropped out of college in my senior year, and I couldn’t ask my mother to fund me to return to school. The only skills I had were tied up with modeling, acting, and dead-end part-time jobs. Without a degree, I was stuck being a waiter, maybe working in management someday, because my dad had been a restaurateur, and I had grown up with the business. Then I found this option was closed to me as well, at least with certain companies, because I was not homosexual or bisexual.

I’m more than a bit paranoid when it comes to dealing with people who might turn out to be homosexual. Part of it was discovering how pervasive the gay influence in America is, especially in the modeling industry. A part of my fear comes from finding this same influence in food-and-beverage trades. A great part of it was the death threats or the warnings that made me think this book shouldn’t exist.

Sometimes, late at night, I look back over my notes and try to see a pattern to my experiences, frightening though they were. Did the homosexuals in the New York agencies blacklist me with the San Francisco agencies? Did those national modeling agencies get back to the agencies in my hometown? Is that why I didn’t get assignments? Probably.

When I tried to get newspaper coverage of my story in my hometown, why did the story get killed at the last minute? Why did the female reporter tell me that the gays on the paper hadn’t liked it? When I left town after I was warned something bad might happen to me, was that connected? When I hopped on the bus and went south to a new city, found a job as a hotel waiter, and had a shot at management, why did the guys who showed the most interest in me—always asking about the book and my private life—eventually to turn out to be gay?

I see this pattern, and it shakes me. I don’t want to see it, because it raises many disturbing questions about how pervaded American society is by a covert mutual-aid society of homosexuals who all know the fraternity handshake, who cover for each other, and who ensure gays have good press—appearing as harmless people following the beat of a different drummer. Maybe there is an old boy network, but I’m not convinced it’s harmless. If my experiences are more than just fluke coincidences, there has to be a governing, controlling body behind them, some deeply hidden national council to direct their homosexual Cosa Nostra, their thing. It makes me happy to think I’m merely paranoid about it, it could not be true, and what I believe in the depths of the night seems very far-fetched by the light of day.

But if it seems silly, then why am I hiding out until the book is published? I’d like to live a normal life. I’m a normal guy. That was the root of my problem with the homosexuals I’ve met and worked with. I was disgusted at first—a normal man’s reaction to homosexuality, or so I’ve read. It’s part of the human psyche to reject a different sexual preference, for fear that you may secretly be one too, and the more insecure you are, the more vehemently you reject gays. I’ve gotten over that, because I found out a lot about myself and the fact that I was born and raised to be straight. I feel secure in my sexual choice, in my manhood, so the disgust is gone. However, the anger still exists. That is why this book is so important to me. Until I get a fair hearing about what happened to me, the only anger is still bottled up and fermenting, and my life is going nowhere.

Once I pour all the frustrations and shocks of the last ten years out of me, then I can get back to the business of making a new life for myself. Once my story gets a hearing, I won’t have to worry about my perceptions dying with me if there should be an accident of some kind. If it gains me any notoriety, I’ll welcome it, because that notoriety will be a shield against being an unknown statistic on the police blotter some morning, a short paragraph in the morning news about being a victim of a violent crime perpetrated by the usual person or persons unknown that ends up being unsolved because the victim didn’t really matter, and there are so many cases like that anyway.

Think I’m being dramatic? I don’t. You try having your life threatened, and see how dramatic that is for you. A mugging or a car wreck is dramatic, but that only happens once in a lifetime if you’re lucky. I fled two cities because of threats, one laid out fairly clearly and one separately implied, and I don’t sleep soundly anymore.

I’ll sleep a lot better when my story is known and I’m too obvious to be a victim. Then my fear will go away, and I just hope the anger goes with it.

All names and places have been changed to avoid a lawsuit. But the story is true, and those involved know it.

CHAPTER 1

I was born in 1957 in a city in the South. My parents were Catholic, so my odds of not being an only child were very good. There were four of us: my older brother, Mike, and two younger sisters. My family had lived in the same city for some years, so I had a good sprinkling of aunts and uncles and cousins close at hand, as well as my grandparents. I guess I caught the tail end of the nuclear family era, when extended families were close and spent a lot of time with each other, instead of being scattered by jobs all across the country.

Our family went back quite a long way in the city’s history, and the state’s history. In the South that’s almost as important as how much you are worth, and this longevity in one place provided an extra form of security for every member of our family. We knew who we were, where we came from, pretty much where we were going. We had ancestors we were proud of, and we spent time together often—not just on holidays—to increase and reinforce our feelings of place and worth.

My dad had a restaurant, a historical place that was over a hundred years old, and a landmark in our community. It was family-style, nothing posh or elegant, but its really good clientele made us a more-than-adequate living. We hung out there sometimes, pestering the kitchen staff before the evening rush, and we often ate there ourselves.

I had what I remember to be a happy childhood. Sure, younger brothers are lucky to live long enough to get a deep voice when they bother their older brothers, and Mike had many reasons to drop me in a well and walk away when we were young. I’m not sure I was on my younger sister’s list of favorite people neither. I was my dad’s youngest boy, and I’m pretty sure I was his favorite. Feeling myself to be his favorite, I got a little cocky. The old Bible story about Joseph and his many-colored coat comes to mind. You don’t need a new jacket in a family of four kids to convince the others you’re expendable from time to time. We could fight like cats and then forget the whole thing fifteen minutes later. Mike and I would give the girls as much hell as our folks wouldn’t notice and then get our lumps later, after they had plotted their revenge. All in all, we were a normal family. I can remember good times, lots of excitement, and lots of laughing.

We lived in a nice house in a good neighborhood, which is important to Southerners—we were from the right side of the tracks, as they used to say. We always had a good car, no clunkers. The yard was always immaculate, the bushes trimmed, and leaves raked. We ate well—couldn’t avoid it with the family business—never wanted for anything, within reason. When I was little, I thought we were rich. Later I found out we were doing okay, which means we weren’t going on an extended cruise anytime soon, but a lack of funds for clothes, toys, our first bikes, and college was not something we had to worry about.

Most of my aunts and uncles and their kids were on the same financial level too, probably what is called the upper middle class. They were lawyers, bankers, and career people, and everyone we associated with from the neighborhood or school was in the same league. Our grandparents, I was always told, were well off, which is some kind of sneaky way of saying that they didn’t have to worry about how they took their extended cruises, but when and where, although I thought since we weren’t rich, that must be. I was told they weren’t either. Maybe upper middle class—if there’s such a term. It was too confusing to me when I was young; I just let it slide and got down to the business of enjoying life and growing up.

Life was pretty secure, too, not just in terms of money or the relative amounts of it. With my mom and dad, I don’t think it would have made much difference. They spent a lot of time with us kids—not just the quality time that two-wage-earner families here say much about. Dad coached Little League, was active in community activities, and was right there every time I played. Mom was always involved with us, our extracurricular activities, the church, and we just knew who we could count on when the chips were down. Whether they were rich or not, they made us all feel well off. They made us all feel special, snug, and loved.

I knew that what they said was true, that life would be great. I was my dad’s favorite son and would grow up to be a fine young man, just like he hoped, instead of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little terror who was barely civilized.

I would go to college at the city university, where my family had gone for years, graduate and get a good job with a great future, marry a really sweet girl, and have a family of my own that would be feisty, Catholic, and proud of their family and their place—just like we were. It all seemed so pat, so laid out, like a flight of stairs and the only direction was up, which is the only direction when you’re young and more than a touch sheltered from the gritty side of life, like I was.

I attended parochial school, where things were pretty much laid out on track and on time schedules. Although I don’t remember any of the priests and nuns being the hard brutes that so many veterans of Catholic education insist existed. I do remember that they weren’t about to put up with some BS from a feisty brat named Alec Parker. By the third grade, I think I was plotting guerrilla warfare, like all kids do against their teachers. Not that I was the rebellious sort. I think it was more a case of not wanting to sacrifice one iota of my uniqueness to a regimented system. I was special, not just another face in the fifth row who hadn’t done his homework either.

Social anarchy and civil disobedience by students hadn’t filtered down to the parochial school in the new South when I was in school. I was raised as an obedient son, who listened politely, sat up straight, dressed neatly, avoided evil companions, and combed his hair on the right. Most of the time, school was very dull. I would much rather have been out playing football, basketball, running and jumping, or swimming laps in the pool. Then I found organized sports at school, which was where I could shine and be recognized as unique. I’m not sure gaining recognition from straight A’s ever occurred to me. In elementary grades, I set a pattern of Cs—never failing, but never making head of the class either. Instead, I was the ballplayer, the runner, or the fastest swimmer, and I guess the priests and nuns gave a sigh of relief that I would pass my courses, after all, and the team needed me. We made our peace, I found my niche and settled down to the strict routine of study and obedience, as long as I could fall back on sports.

I may have been a little feisty, a little cocky for a kid, but I was never rowdy. My family, the discipline of school, the sense of surety in my life, everything militated against it. I was sheltered; perhaps in looking back, too much so. That’s one of the complaints so many people have about Catholic education. You go into the system, are programmed a certain way, and then one day, some six-days-in-the-trash-dumpster wino sits down next to you and gives you a wink and says that everything you believed in, Kids, it just ain’t so. Then you watch everything you believed to be true turn to pixie dust, and you have nothing left to hold on to after a walking tour of The Real Life.

Was I denser than normal? I don’t know. Most kids get things straight after they have Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy myths blow up on them. By the time they become aware of politics, life insurance, used-car salesmen, and the job market, most kids have a little of the shine buffed off and are ready to take to the street or vote Republican. They look at things around them with a certain natural, healthy suspicion.

But there I was, well-fed, well-trained, wearing a coat and tie to Catholic high school every day, my hair short and parted neatly, living what I thought was the best of all possible lives in the best of all possible countries in the best of all possible worlds. I had never even heard of Dr. Pangloss and Voltaire. I was a well-behaved kid, who thought that if you played by the rules, as soon as you found out what they were, things couldn’t go very wrong. I wasn’t an indifferent scholar but a budding jock; I was blonde and blue-eyed, and the girls liked me. I dated a little, mostly going with one girl at a time instead of rutting and bugling like a bull elk, because that’s the way I thought things should be, and nobody had said differently. This was right in the middle of the sexual revolution! I didn’t drink much, didn’t smoke, and was way too innocent for my own good. I was civilized and set in motion like a model train, and it never occurred to me that I might be able to throw my own switches and pick a different track. I was such a straight citizen back then.

One thing—or set of things, because they were all interrelated—did intrude on all of this. My dad had decided to get further involved in the community. About the time I started high school, he had gone into politics. First he talked to a lot of the professional people who came to the restaurant and then with the lawyers and politicians in the city who came in to have lunch. He decided to run for state senate in 1972. His entering the political arena was one more instance of our family’s heritage. We had judges and state lawmakers and a few elected officials working in the family history, so it was only natural that a Parker would run it eventually.

Nobody said he would win, which he didn’t. The campaign costs money, and he had to take time off from the restaurant business to campaign. So when it was all over and the votes had been counted, he was out a fairly good amount of money, and the restaurant had suffered in his absence. He also owed money that had been borrowed for the race, and we felt the pinch, my mother most of all. She probably wasn’t too keen on the idea of going after a senate seat in the first place. They began to have arguments, first about little things, and then about money. Maybe the restaurant was a landmark, but by then, the fast-food places were popping up everywhere, and larger and newer restaurants were opening, taking trade away. We got on a downward spiral, with smaller profits and

Reviews for Straight

[tripleblessings_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jockey Derek Franklin suddenly inherits his brother's business as a dealer in semi-precious stones, and discovers dangerous secrets. Fascinating background, strong emotional impact, likeable hero. One of my favourites.

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This one is diamonds - I like it. I like both Derek and Grenville - neat how we find out about him without ever really meeting him. It's also interesting how the attacks come from different enemies with different motivations - Derek keeps trying to make sense of them as one thing and it ain't. No father thing - well, sort of between Derek and Grenville, almost a generation between them - and Derek doesn't end up with the girl (extraordinary for a Francis!). Not one of my favorites, but I like it.

[ambermcwilliams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As thoroughly readable as Francis always is. You get sucked into the story and devour it in a sitting if thrillers are your thing - as they are mine. This one deals in death, despair and diamonds, and is a cracking read.

[golfjr_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the best Francis books

[auntieknickers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jockey Derek Franklin inherits a business when his elder brother dies in a suspicious accident. Then he discovers missing jewels, a lover he didn't know his brother had, and many other things. Fascinating look into the world of gemstone dealers combined with Francis's usual excellent plotting.

[la12hernandez · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love Gem stones and was impressed with myself on how much I knew about them. Once again a book that draws you in and lets you live there for a while.

[monado_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Straight, the hero's much older brother dies unexpectedly, leaving everything to the younger brother and making him the executor of the will. The younger, a steeplechase jockey, suddenly finds himself with a gemstone wholesale business, a mistress, a mystery, and assorted enemies. The young man tries to keep the business going as he learns it, to foil the enemies, to keep his cool with the mistress, and to find the missing diamonds.

[stephanie_m-868484 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another jockey. A dead brother. A broken ankle. Precious stones. Semiprecious as well. Missing diamonds. Repeated attacks. A great plot twist. A Stellar ending.

[jean_sexton-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I always enjoy the stand-alone mysteries of Dick Francis. They always have a tie to the world of horse racing, the hero is a decent person, and the author plays fair with the reader. Straight was no exception.In this novel, the jockey is unexpectedly tossed into the deep end of the pool of the world of gemology when his brother dies unexpectedly. There are so many questions to be answered: did the brother really buy diamonds (not something he usually bought), is there something going on with the race horse the brother owned, is there something going on related to his brother's job as a magistrate, and just who is making the hero's life so difficult? The author plays absolutely fair in solving all of those questions. This quotation sums up the book nicely: "I inherited my brother’s life. Inherited his desk, his business, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses and his mistress. I inherited my brother’s life, and it nearly killed me."If you enjoy mysteries, this should be on your list to read if you haven't already.

[kmartin802_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Champion steeplechase jockey Derek Franklin is nursing a broken ankle caused by a fall and an encounter with a horse's hoof when he receives a call that his much older brother Greville was in hospital after some scaffolding fell on him in Ipswich.Derek and Greville had reconnected only a few years earlier. The nineteen year age gap was difficult for them to overcome until Derek became an adult himself. Recently, though, they had been meeting for occasional dinners and exchanging occasional phone calls. Derek rushes to Ipswich to be present when Greville passes away. Then he has to try to settle the affairs of a man who was known for keeping secrets.Greville was a gem merchant with his own firm. Derek has inherited it and all of his other property including his two race horses. When he learns that his brother had purchased a number of diamonds for a famed jeweler, all of the employees at the firm are surprised. The firm didn't deal in diamonds. Worse yet, the diamonds are missing and the loan payment for them is coming due. The racehorses are also a problem. They are kept with noted trainer Nicholas Loder. But Derek as a jockey can't own racehorses. Derek gets bad vibes from Loder when he phones him to discuss the horses. Loder is angry and also frightened. This gives Derek two different mysteries to solve and someone doesn't want him to solve either of them. Besides an attack when he is leaving the hospital after his brother's death, he also has to deal with break-ins at the business and at Greville's home. Then there is the car accident when the man chauffeuring Derek and a couple of horse owners from a race. The driver is killed and it as a near thing for Derek who is trapped in the car.The story was fast-paced and entertaining. Derek was a wonderful character who is bright and observant and out of his depth trying to run his brother's business. Like many of Dick Francis's characters, he is an honorable and bright man dropped into a difficult situation.