Crossing Boarders Part 1

By Jay Alan Dietterich

Six friends set out for a fun day of skating in the city of Philadelphia when they stumble upon a mob hit and get caught witnessing the shooting. They get chased through the city on their boards by three black sedans carying gun wielding mobsters. The busy city streets abd sidewalks have no pity for this kind ov action and death lurks at every t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jay Alan Dietterich
• Release date: Jul 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9780578551784

Jay Alan Dietterich

My mother got a divorce and my oldest brother moved out. Soon after, when I was 19 we moved. I had gone through several bands, several jobs and two cars. At 22 years now without a car due to a wreck, I had found a Job nearby and found a ride and saved enough money to buy a house and Lived there for a year and bought a piano and wrote scores of music. I could not sustain the mortgage payment on my own so I decided to rent it out with a positive cash flow of $100 a month. I went to computer school after a long internal battle between arts school or this, looking back I see now it was a mistake. But I got my degree. Shortly thereafter I met my future wife, she moved in with me to my small apartment of two rooms, 1 bath and a small old style 50's kitchen in the north east of Philadelphia in a town known as Willowgrove. I soon had tenant problems and was forced to evict them and move in to fix a broken bedroom floor in my rental. Geri my girl friend moved to my house with me and lived through the reconstruction of the bed room. Money became tight and I could not find a job that paid well enough to cover my expenses. Then was the best news of my life. Geri my soon to be wife was Pregnant. I was floored, I could not believe it. I wasn't ready. I wasn't scared but I knew it would be a task to prepare a house for a baby. We worked and planned and did all the things wrong that we wanted to do Right. And through the years that followed We were now a family of three. I had become a father overnight as it seemed it went so fast. I went into the maintenance field working on machines and developing a taste for programmable logic controllers and began a new fascination for technology. More babies came. I am now a father of two boys, Corey and Brian and Going from job to job in a harsh economy I found myself lost, searching and longing for the person I was. I am now 46, a Father of 5 boys, Corey, Brian, Tyler, Aaron and Dylan. I had sold my small house and bought a bigger colonial with a two car Garage, four bedrooms, three baths and I had good jobs for 10 years and a beautiful house in the suburbs with my beautiful wife Geri and a dog and a cat. And money problems you would not believe. I have not painted for 20 years and I wonder If I will ever get the chance again. I had always thought, what if I had chose art school over computer school would my life be better? But that was a waste of time. Knowing that I am an artist took a long time to realize what that means for me. Owning up to the responsibility for myself to continue learning to improve my skill In the different arts I am capable of so I can grow from sharing my art with others. Accepting of who I am is easy for me because I have always known I would go back to art. I had hoped I would have a steady income to feel more relaxed about the creative process. But without the drive to create an income from it I might not have the drive to create. Like those around me like my wife and my adult family, they are concerned of the facts that there might not be a sufficient income for my family, as well as I. Somehow I am on this path now and I can only thank God for this opportunity. All I can do is try my hardest to succeed. As far as my adult family they can have their reservations about it, but even after death it's still my life. I am an artist.

Book preview

CROSSING BOARDERS 

By Jay Dietterich 

1

It was a hot summer day in the small town of Colmar, in the noisy Davis house.

10:00 in the morning, gunshots blare out from the back room as the roaring of machines thunder through the sunlit hallway. A hand on the worn door knob opens the door to the organized but messy bedroom with posters on the walls of Tony Hawk and clothes on the floor in a pile near the unmade bed. Fifteen year old Tyler comes through the doorway scratching his head of sun bleached blond hair. He’s carrying his skate board in one hand and a backpack on his sweat covered boney scarred up shoulder getting ready to fill it with water bottles for the day of skating in the city. He’s been skating for six years and he seems to all his friends to be pretty talented and is widely known in town for his skateboard acrobatics. He turns his head to see through the adjacent open doorway to Dylan sitting in front of the TV with the game controller in his hands. The skinny ten year old is on the cookie crumb covered but comfortable leather chair with his bare feet in a scattering of bubble gum wrappers staring intensely at the screen with the Black Ops. Game blasting out of the speakers. 

Dylan! Tyler screams.  Turn it down Mom wants to talk to you, now! 

What? Dylan says as he gets up. 

Turn it down! Tyler screams as the sound disappears. 

Mom wants to talk to you. He continues.

2

Dylan walks through the hallway catching a wiff of Tyler and the day old cat-food sitting in the dish on the hallway floor. He covers his nose and goes into her bedroom. She lies halfway sitting feet dangling over the side in her queen bed , groggy, wiping the sleep from her eyes, she sits up in bed. 

Do you want to go to Wal-Mart with Mom-mom, Sonnie and me? She yawns. 

I guess. He says sadly looking at the ground as he sits on the side of the bed. 

Tyler bursts into the room too excited to notice the conversation already going on. 

Can I get some bucks from you for lunch and gas? 

Tyler, I‘m in the middle of this! Sherry says holding an index finger up to her lips, he cocks his head back, eyes rolling back as he backs out the door realizing he just spoke

out of turn in the plans for the day. 

Where’s he going? Dylan asks, his eyes searching her bedraggled face for the truth. Just skating Dylan. She says getting out of bed,  grabbing a robe off the bedpost.

Can I go? He says, with hope in his eyes. 

Just wait here, Ok. 

She leaves the room and goes up stairs. An argument breaks out in the upstairs bedroom with Mom yelling about the mess in the room that better get cleaned or they are not

3

going anywhere. She faces off with Tyler about the money and how he’s planning on paying her back. Dylan sits at the bottom of the stairs thinking about the conversation he overhears that has happened over and over for as far back as he can remember. The laundry, sweeping,  cleaning the bathroom and kitchen floor or whatever it takes is usually what he does to  get what he wants. That’s what happens most of the time. What Tyler wants he gets, and pays later. Dylan stands at the bottom of the paper scrap and juice bottle covered stairs. Then starts to move away as Sherry comes out of the bedroom with a shocked look on her face. She sees Dylan at the bottom of the stairs and quickly covers the slightly surprised and embarrassed look on her face and walks down past him. 

Where are they going Mom? Dylan demands. 

I told you they’re skating. She says, stolidly walking by him and quickly toward her

room. 

Can I go with?  He asks hopeful.

                                                                                                                                      No.  She rules.                                                                                                                                                                                       Why not, what did I do, How come I never get to go. He pleads.                                                           "Dylan, you’re a