The Concrete Abyss

By Thomas Adams

The year is 1964 when a single mother and her two teenage sons move from New York to a small town next to a lake in the Catskill Mountains. Baseball plays a big role in this story, but is only mentioned in a small portion of this book. This book shares the adventures of these two teenagers and the emotions of a sixteen-year old that all of us have felt at one time or another. The youngest of the two boys falls in love when suddenly tragedy strikes his family. After years go bye he finds himself in a desperate fight for his life and the drive to stay alive. This book has Adventure , Romance, humor, mystery, and Suspense.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Feb 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781483495026

Book preview

THE

CONCRETE

ABYSS

THOMAS ADAMS

Copyright © 2019 Thomas Adams.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9503-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9502-6 (e)

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 12/13/2018

INTRODUCTION

This Book is the story of two teenaged boys, 16 and 17 years old, who suddenly find themselves moving from the big city of New York to a small town next to a lake in the Catskill mountains.

Schultz, or Sam is the name he liked to be called, is the youngest of the brothers. The year is 1964 when the family of a mother and her two teenage sons find that they must move from a City that was prejudice against them for being of German descent, to a small town on a lake that is inhabited by American Indians. The town is named Indian Wells and the large town that is only 10 miles away is owned by a man named Larry Hanks. Mr. Hanks is prejudice against American Indians and hates anybody who lives in the town of Indian Wells.

Schultz, or Sam, is befriended by a man named Paul who owns the Hotel and country store located in Indian Wells. He teaches Sam to work with his hands and how to repair small appliances.

Baseball plays a big part of this story but is only mentioned in a small portion of this book. Sam meets a girl and falls in love when suddenly tragedy strikes the family. After years go by Sam finds himself in a desperate fight for his life and the drive to stay alive. This book shares the adventures of Sam and his brother Erik and the excitement and emotions of a sixteen-year-old that all of us have felt at one time or another. This story has romance, humor, adventure, and suspense.

I hope you enjoy The Concrete Abyss.

Fun facts from 1964:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank Gerry Easley and Jim Robertson for helping me to write this book. I couldn’t have done this without them. I want to thank my wife, Floriemae Adams, my daughters Michelle and Kristen Adams, and all my friends for all their support and encouragement to write this book. Special thanks to Manuel Adams, Bob Beach and Rick Jennings for their input and help.

Thanks everybody.

CHAPTER 1

THE STORY BEGINS

I t is a mild winter day. The beginning of February and the rains came late this year. Normally the rains start at the end of October or the beginning of November and stop sometime around April. This year the rains started in December and probably will continue thru April into May. That is what all the meteorologists are predicting for the year of 1978. Rainfall is important because we depend on it to wash the chemicals into the soil to be effective in weed control.

Right now, everything is green, and a big rain storm is headed this direction and expected to hit here in just a couple of days.

It was 7:00 A.M. on a Friday morning, February the 2nd, and Sam was just on his way to work. He was thinking how lucky he was to have settled in this small town and to have such a good job. He had been here just six months, but he had already made a couple of good friends, bought a nice small car, and he had fixed himself a nice little apartment in the town of Crockettville. It is on the border of Kentucky and Georgia and some 40 miles south of Knoxville. It was an old town that was burned down during the Civil War. After the war the downtown was rebuilt around the railroad tracks. It was a farming community in those days with farmers growing mostly peaches and a few growing apples and corn. There was a trading post where furs, material to make clothes, and miscellaneous household items could be purchased. The town grew fast and the trappers who came down from the mountains would sell their furs to the townspeople. The money that the trappers got for their furs would be spent on booze and gambling, so saloons were built. With the saloons came the trouble that followed the drinking and gambling. Many of the trappers would go into the mountains and onto Indian land and trade alcohol with the Indians for the right to trap or travel on their land. This caused a lot of trouble for the Indians because they became very mean when they had too much alcohol to drink, so to keep peace the government had taken over a big piece of land and built a Military post near town. After WWI a terrible drought struck the state and most of the fruit trees dried up and died or burned in the Big Fire of the 1920’s. Some of the small farms were replanted years later, but as the land value increased the farmers sold their property and homes and businesses were built.

As time went by the town grew, especially after World War II when all the of men who had been off fighting in the war were now returning home. By the 50’s and 60’s the town continued to grow, and the farms were sold and some of the orchards were turned into residential neighborhoods because the land was worth more if sold to build homes than if it was to be sold for farming. Other farms were just left to grow wild and undeveloped. In the early 70’s the town continued to build more homes because the Vietnam War was going strong and McDonald Army Base was very active bringing many more people into our town. By now the town depended on the Army base. The population reads 31,231 and that does not include the military base, even though not many people live on the base. Yes, Sam really likes this town!

As Sam pulls into his parking space he couldn’t help but think about tomorrow. Not just because it was Saturday but also because it was his 30th birthday. On these special days Sam realized how much he missed his mother and brother, Erik. Tears started streaming down from his eyes and he knew he had to shift his thoughts from his family and focus on the work at hand.

Sam works for Blake’s Weed and Pest Control. Mr. Blake has been in business for the past fifteen years. He was a one-man business until he hired a man named Johnny Lind about 10 years ago. With all the new homes and businesses along with the government contract for the Army Base and the railroad, the Weed and Pest Control business has grown so much that now there are 4 more servicemen out there spraying. That does not include Mr. Blake, the owner and manager, who works in the office now, and Johnny, the Supervisor.

With a storm coming in Sam is going to spray weed killer along the railroad tracks. There could not be any weeds coming up around the tracks because of the danger of fire. Trees and shrubs are not grown around the railroad tracks, he will use a stronger sterilizer on the soil. They only need to spray the sterilizer one time a year, but it needs to rain within a week of the application for the best results. Sam likes this because no one will be around the job site and he just had to watch out for trains. He will drive to the frontage road and pull out a couple of hundred feet of hose, spray the track and 10 feet on each side and move on down. Spraying at that rate, he should be able to spray at least 2 miles today, from Turner Street to Cooper Road. This would be a good day’s work.

Rumor is that Johnny got all the Government and Railroad contracts thru his uncle, Vincent Courelli, who was the Captain of the Army base. According to that same rumor, Johnny gets an extra 5% service commission on his pay check from any work done on the base or the railroad tracks and yard, and that amounts to a lot of money.

Blake Weed and Pest Control also does a lot of residential and commercial spraying. This involves spraying outside and inside of people’s homes and businesses for ants, spiders, roaches, and other crawling pests. Rodent control is also performed by putting out poison in bait stations and traps that are set if there is an active infestation. This is done to prevent any contamination of food products or damage that can be caused by rodents. These services are performed at many office buildings and industrial sites in town.

Blakes Pest Control also has hundreds of homes and businesses on Monthly service, but the biggest account was at the Army base because they have a food processing and packing plant on the premises. They would process the fruit and other food items, pack them, and then ship them to military bases all over the world.

Another big part of Blakes service was weed control. The busy time to do this is in the wintertime, November thru February, depending on the rainfall during the season. If someone had weeds growing around their home, barn, or outbuildings, they either had to spray them in the Winter or Spring time. If they did not spray them then they would need to cut them down. If the weeds were not controlled, they would create a dangerous fire hazard. With all the previous loss from the bad fires, everyone was cautious because nobody wanted another fire! As a result, they would call Blakes Weed Control who would go out and spray a product that would kill the existing weeds and a sterilizer that would sterilize the soil. The sterilizer would need to be watered into the soil by irrigation or let Mother Nature take care of that by rain pushing the chemical down into the soil so that the sterilizer would not let the seeds germinate. There were some stronger sterilizing agents that couldn’t be used around landscaped areas where trees that have short roots and shrubs were planted. All the servicemen were trained on what and where to spray. If a storm was rolling in all the men were out working on their weed control accounts, or they were putting on new clients for weed control.

Sam was ready to take advantage of the predicted rain and, after wiping the tears from his eyes, he was ready for the work at hand. The first thing for him to do is to fill his 200-gallon tank with water and then add the chemicals he will be using. Estimating the amount of ground that he will be spraying Sam calculates that the first tank of mixture will last him until lunch time when he would return to the office for a refill. After checking to be sure everything is in working order and that he has everything that he needs, Sam drives his truck out of the loading dock area and into the street. As he gets down the street to the first stop sign he sees Johnny, his supervisor, running to greet him. Hey Sam, wait I am working with you today. Open your passenger door. he says. OK, Sam answers You are the boss. Where are you headed Sam? Johnny asks. Sam responds

With the storm coming in I was headed to the railroad tracks to spray. Sam adds I thought that you had the day off today Johnny. Johnny replies I was going to see my mother today, but she was sick, so I came to work instead, I don’t want to get whatever it is that is making her sick. My equipment in my truck broke down on me yesterday. I had a real important weed control job to do at the Army Base, but I didn’t have time to get it done. It needs to get done today before this storm comes in. Let’s go do that now and once we are done we will comeback after lunch and spray along the railroad tracks. OK, Sam says. You are the boss. Johnny continues to ramble on, The Army is building a new Resources Center in the middle of the base in a remote area and they want us to kill off all of the weeds because this spring they want to build their new building and not have to worry about a fire hazard in the Summertime. OK Sam says as he thinks about what Johnny had just said about a remote area. Oh boy that base is huge!

The Civil War was fought on the land that has since become Camp McDonald. It was one of the largest military bases in the United States. It is some 8000 square miles, 80 X 100 miles, and dates to the end of the Civil War. When the town was rebuilt in 1876, the Army put in a small Post with just 12 men. This helped keep the Indians and trappers from causing too much trouble. By the early 1880’s a farmer who owned a big part of the land that bordered the base borrowed money from the government to finance the cost of planting trees, mainly peaches, apples and corn. The farmer ran into some bad luck and could not repay the government loan, so the government took over ownership of his property but allowed the farmer to continue to stay on the land and continue to farm his fruit. But it seemed like this farmer could not outrun bad luck, and shortly after signing papers with the government to relinquish ownership of the property he became ill and died. He had a son who was willing to step up and continue his father’s dreams of becoming a fruit farmer.

In 1922 after 2 years of terrible drought, the dried fruit trees caught on fire. It was a devastating fire that not only claimed all the trees, but it also burned the home where the son lived and the storage warehouse. But the costliest thing it burned was the son. He died trying to save everything that he and his father had worked so hard for. To this day the only thing that is left is a small little piece of foundation with weeds growing over it, at least this is the story that Johnny has told Sam and Johnny could really tell some good ones, if you know what I mean. The Army would buy the peaches, apples, and corn from the farmers then process, pack, and send them to the military men all over the world. During World War I, Camp McDonald would supply almost all the military with the fruits they needed.

After the war and the fire, things on the Base slowed down. By the late 30’s the Captain tried growing cotton, but it was easier to buy it from the farmers in the South. With that, new equipment was purchased and set up at Camp McDonald to sew and make uniforms, duffel bags, some socks, and parachutes. While they were installing this equipment they also updated the canning equipment.

By the 1950’s things had slowed down again and the military made cut backs. The Base was barely occupied, but then the Korean War started, and Camp McDonald was in full swing again – canning fruit, making socks and uniforms. Then in the 60’s and early 70’s our military were involved the war in Vietnam. But now in the late 70’s things were slowed down again and the rumors around the Base were that it might be shut down and the land would be sold. These rumors made Mr. Blake and Johnny very nervous. If the Base was to shut down there would not be any more government contracts, plus the railroad would not need any more spraying either. Losing those two contracts would really be devastating, not counting all the other side effects. All the money that is spent in town by the military men would stop and the local people who worked at the Base would be without jobs, therefore making many cuts in their budgets. Pest Control would be one of the first things they would cancel. As old as the Base was, there had only been two previous controlling Captains: Golden Longwell 1880-1914, Stuart Mince 1914-1962. And now from 1962 to present (1978), Johnny’s uncle: Vincent Courelli.

Sam stands 6’1 tall with an athletic build, his hair is brown, and he has brown eyes. His skin is light and pale. His face is long with a few freckles. His nose is long like his face but does not protrude out far, it looks almost like it was broken just under the bridge of his nose. His father has the same facial features and his heritage is German. Sam’s mother is Norwegian. She has sandy brown hair and blue eyes, When Sam was young how he wished he looked more like his mother. Johnny stands 5’10 tall with a stocky build, dark complexion, with black hair and dark brown eyes. He has strong Italian looks. He always brags about the scar he has on the corner of his chin. He claims that the other man got more cuts and scars than he did. The other man accused Johnny of cheating at cards which was probably true but who knows! Johnny is quite a bragger, or should we say story teller! Today’s conversation is the same: The Army Base and how important it is for our town and country. Since Johnny’s uncle is the Captain of the Base, he hangs around the Base with all the top brass and gets all the news and gossip.

As they get close to the Base Johnny instructs Sam to drive thru a side gate into the residential neighborhood. This was a service entrance and where the families and officers who live on the Base used to get in and out of the facility. The main entrance sometimes had a small line of cars and could take an extra couple of minutes to get into the Base. At the side gate there was no waiting, the guard knew everybody and the service companies who came in regularly. They would just be waved thru with very little waiting.

As Sam drove Johnny rumbled on like he always did The Russians have nuclear bombs as close as Cuba and they were working on a submarine that could launch a nuclear bomb. One was spotted off our coast and the Base was now on red alert!! The Russians are taking over Afghanistan and soon they would try to take over the United States. The latest gossip was that the United States would not participate in anymore world competitions in track and field or sporting events. It is possible the United States might not attend the 1980 World Olympics. We won’t allow exports from the United States to any Commie bastards in the world. Johnny rumbled on and on while Sam continues driving for quite a long time and covering quite a few miles, just going North. After about