Supermen

By Ken Kuhlken

Supermen is book one of For America, a two-family saga of suspense and mystery. Set in the long aftermath of WW II, the novel dramatically explores the failure of traditional beliefs and political systems and the rise and fall of counter cultures and sects. Folk music, hippie and "Jesus Freak" communes, the Manson family, the People’s Temple, Biblical prophecy, and spiritualist cults all participate in the story.

In Supermen, Otis Otterbach, born the day the atom bomb destroys Hiroshima, is mentored by his grandma, a poet and painter who teaches him to believe in the implausible, and his father who coaches him in baseball so well, he becomes a big-league pitching prospect. But wicked conflicts visit in the person of Cynthia Jones, mother of Casey, Otis’s best friend and catcher. Either paranoid, prophetic, or both, Cynthia believes that Henry Tucker, adopted son of her sister, will use his prodigious scientific mind and occult knowledge to abet the downfall of western civilization.

She calls Henry Tucker the Enemy. And after she learns that Otis is related to President James A. Garfield, whom she argues would have become even greater than Lincoln had he not been assasinated, she chooses Otis to help Casey to stop the Enemy and thereby save America

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publisher Hickey & McGee
• Release date: Sep 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463057544

Ken Kuhlken

Ken Kuhlken's stories have appeared in ESQUIRE and numerous other magazines, been honorably mentioned in BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, and earned a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.His novels include MIDHEAVEN, finalist for the Ernest Hemingway Award for best first fiction book, and the Hickey family mysteries: THE BIGGEST LIAR IN LOS ANGELES; THE GOOD KNOW NOTHING; THE VENUS DEAL; THE LOUD ADIOS, Private Eye Writers of America Press Best First PI Novel; THE ANGEL GANG; THE DO-RE-MI, finalist for the Shamus Best Novel Award; THE VAGABOND VIRGINS; THE VERY LEAST; and THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING.His five-book saga FOR AMERICA, is together a long, long novel and an incantation, a work of magic created to postpone the end of the world for at least a thousand years.His work in progress is a YA mystery.His WRITING AND THE SPIRIT advises artists seeking inspiration. He guides readers on a trip to the Kingdom of Heaven in READING BROTHER LAWRENCE.Also, he reads a lot, plays golf, watches and coaches baseball and softball, teaches at Perelandra College, and hangs out with his daughter when she comes home from her excellent college back east.

Book preview

SUPERMEN

FOR AMERICA -- BOOK ONE

Ken Kuhlken

Hickey & McGee, publishers

hickeybooks.com

Praise for Ken and his novels

... brings a great new character — and a fresh voice — into the mystery field. Novelist Tony Hillerman

Kuhlken is an original, and in these days of cookie-cutter fiction, originality is something to be prized. San Diego Union Tribune

... brings the social and cultural scene of the period vividly to life. Publisher's Weekly

... a tale as sensitive and heartfelt as it is action-packed. Kirkus Reviews

... takes readers into dark experiences and deep understandings that can't help but leave them changed. Novelist Michael Collins

Kuhlken weaves a complex plot around a complex man, a weary hero who tries to maintain standards as all around him fall to temptation. Publisher's Weekly

... a stunning combination of bad guys and angels, of fast-moving action and poignant, heartbreaking encounters. Novelist Wendy Hornsby

... captures the history and atmosphere of the 1970s as well as the complex dynamics of a fascinating family. Booklist

... a tale as sensitive and heartfelt as it is action-packed ... Crime, punishment and redemption. Kirkus Reviews

... fast-moving adventure, effectively combines mainstream historical fiction with the conventions of the hard-boiled detective novel. Booklist

A wonderful, literate, and very ambitious novel that does everything a good story should do. It surprises, delights, it jolts and makes you think . Novelist T. Jefferson Parker

... a pleasure to read. Novelist Anne Tyler

Elegant, eloquent, and elegiac, Kuhlken's novels sing an old melody, at the same time haunting and beautiful. Novelist Don Winslow

Copyright 2019 by Ken Kuhlken

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

Hickey & McGee

8697-C La Mesa Boulevard

La Mesa, CA 91942

hickeybooks.com

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 9780463057544

BISAC:

FIC038000 FICTION / Sports

FIC043000 FICTION / Coming of Age

FIC019000 FICTION / Literary

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Author's note:

The collection of five books I call FOR AMERICA has been a long time coming. The story began when I rode in an old truck with Laurent Sozzani to Iowa. Back home, in what city folks called the sticks east of San Diego, I wrote some pages about the trip and called my story The Gas Crisis.

A few years later, my five-year-old Darcy noticed me standing in the kitchen staring at nothing, and she remarked, Oh no, crazy ol' daddy's working on the grass crisis again.

I am especially indebted to the people who inspired the characters you will find in one and/or another of these stories. In addition to the aforementioned Laurent, they include, my grandparents, Wade and Mary Garfield; my dad Wayne Kuhlken and mom Ada Garfield Kuhlken; Laura Munger; all the Torrey family, especially Cliff, Bill, and Barbara; Bill, Steve and Pam Zarp; Ron Martina and Pat; Halima who used to be Yvonne; all my cousins, Steve, Kris, Jill, Ed, Wade, Virgie, Wendy, Susie, Patti, Tim, and Gayle; my aunts Harriet and Mary and uncles Charlie, Jimmy, Fenton, Eddy, and Virgil; as well as friends including Denny Williamson, Gene Seaman, Pam Fox, and Lucas and Carol Field, Bob Williams, Karl Hartman, Stephanie Schram, Fred and Cliff Niman, Margaret Beasley, Charles Schuetz, Tony Tarantino, Ron Maxted, and David Knop; and all the fine musicians who blessed the Candy Company and other coffee houses, among them Jackson Browne, Hoyt Axton, Big Mama Thornton, Steve Martin, Lightnin' Hopkins, Steve Gillette, Ray Phoenix, Hedge and Donna, Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys, Barry McGuire, Glen Frey and J.D. Souther. And the story would never have begun without the inspiration of my dear friends and mentors Eric and Sylvia Curtis.

I fervently wish they all were here to celebrate with me.

But I wrote this whole story mostly for my beloved children, Darcy, Cody, Zoë, and Nicholas, so they could vicariously experience life in some turbulent, exciting and perhaps ominous times and meet some remarkable people Thousands of thanks to their mothers for collaborating in the creation and nurturing of such marvels as they have grown to be even while crazy ol' daddy spent thousands of hours working on and otherwise living what Darcy still calls the grass crisis.

And special thanks to Jennifer Silva Redmond for volunteering her clear and patient eye.

Contents

Praise for Ken and his novels

Also by Ken K

Author's note

FOR AMERICA, book one

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,

11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

A request

A preview of book two

About the author

FOR AMERICA

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. John F. Kennedy

SUPERMEN




1

From Clifford Hickey: 


When Otis Otterbach finished writing his story, he came to me, an old friend and teammate, also a journalist. I suspect he chose me as his editor because he doubted most people would believe him, but he thought I would, since I knew plenty about the dreadfully mad world of Cynthia Jones.

From Otis:

Earl Otterbach pitched two minor league seasons: 1940 for the Texas League Tyler Trojans, 1941 for Wilkes-Barre of the Eastern League, both Cleveland Indians affiliates. Then came Pearl Harbor. Like most ballplayers his age, Earl enlisted. In July 1943, he was a corporal in Patton's 7th Army on the outskirts of Messina, Italy when a German slug ended his pitching career.

While home on leave, he married Chloe Garfield, a teacher in Piedras, a congregation of high hills on a mesa from which we could see the haze over Tijuana and the foggy Pacific.

Chloe began labor the same day an atomic bomb nicknamed Little Boy obliterated Hiroshima, Japan. Earl was home on leave. He chose my name, Otis, after his grandfather, a third baseman.

Upon his discharge, my dad agreed to move in with us at Grandma's house. My grandpa, Wade Garfield, an attorney with a missionary fervor, took on more pro bono cases than billable ones, yet he paid off the mortgage to our gracious old house before he died of overwork at age eighty-two. Freedom from rent and Grandma’s help taking care of me allowed my mom to go on teaching and my dad to open a small cabinet shop. Besides family and baseball, woodworking was his passion.

Grandma's house was an American Foursquare built in 1905, a design both simple and elegant, with twelve rooms in two stories, an upstairs deck on each side, and a half-basement. The yard was shady with eucalyptus, pine, olive, mulberry and pepper trees, on a hillside acre overlooking the main boulevard of Piedras. From the upstairs decks and back yard, on clear days we could see miles into Mexico and ships passing beyond the Coronado Islands. Even the Dukes of Durham in England, from whom Grandma assured us we were descended on her side, or our ancestors on Grandpa’s side who resided for a short, tragic time in the White House, might have envied our home.

I had a battalion of cats to chase and pamper, big dogs with whom to wrestle, and Grandma, who kept me from breaking bones by climbing too high in the trees, blessed me with hugs and kisses and, most of all, with her stories.

From Grandma, I learned about the historical Hiawatha, disciple of the prophet called the Peacemaker and unifier of the Iroquois, and about the poet Longfellow’s warrior Hiawatha and Minnehaha for the love of whom the warrior slayed the evil magician. I befriended the Hunchback of Notre Dame, admired the repentant thief Jean Valjean and despised his nemesis Inspector Javert. Grandma provided my dreams and daydreams with Robin Hood, Maid Marion, and King Richard of the Crusades, and with Merlin, sorcerer and advisor to King Arthur and his rowdy, chivalrous knights obsessed by the call to adventure. And I came to adore Grandma’s most revered hero, Joan of Arc, who may have been crazy but who lived and died true to her calling. From Grandma, I learned that stories aren’t make believe so much as pathways into another world.

Most every day, in her studio out back above the garage, Grandma told stories and recited poems while she layered colors and textures on the landscapes she painted. I watched, listened, and lived the noble adventures. With such a life, I rarely lamented that my dad worked long hours and came home sleepy and my mom took few breaks from correcting the countless essays she assigned her eighth-grade English classes. Wherever we went, she brought along and corrected papers, even at ball games.

My dad cared little about money. If he could have collected on the IOUs and promises customers gave him, we might have prospered. He loved making dressers, tables, chairs, kitchen and bathroom cabinetry. But to quibble over money simply felt wrong to him, except when my mom disputed what he spent on baseball.

The AAA San Diego Padres played at Lane Field, a wonderland on the waterfront. A foul ball might carry over the right field bleachers and land in a passing convertible on Broadway. A long foul just south of third base had a chance of bouncing onto a tuna clipper or Navy ship and going to a sandlot team in Singapore. Beyond the right field fence and across Harbor Drive, the Southern Pacific passenger and freight trains clattered in and out of the Santa Fe depot. To me, Lane Field was holy land.

Every season, my dad treated us to at least a dozen Padre outings, most of them Sunday doubleheaders. When my cousin Ward joined us, between innings we squeezed under the seats of the rickety bleachers and climbed through the splintery labyrinthine structure. After a batter got announced and we emerged, my mom set aside her grading long enough to brush us free of spider webs.

Between outings to Lane Field, I spent most waking hours either living in Grandma's stories or in daydreams of the Padres, who usually thrashed the Hollywood Stars and the Seals from San Francisco, often behind the pitching of Memo Luna. And on one of those Sundays, three days before my seventh birthday, I climbed the rail above the right field bleachers, faced the crowd, and announced, I'm going to be a pitcher.

For a quiet, shy boy, that was a brazen act as well as an ominous prophecy.

2


Down the hill from Grandma's house, at the junction of Piedras Boulevard and 92nd Street, which my dad calculated as 100 city blocks from Lane Field, I discovered another holy place, a sandlot