Code Name Excalibur

By Jonathan Wright

“Code Name Excalibur”, the first of three books in the Excalibur Series, is an exciting triumphant account of how a young boy transforms into one of the world’s great “spy masters”. His “outside of the box” thinking, compassionate fearlessness, and sheer audacity allows him to prevail against all odds as he challenges fate and charges through a life, filled with fantastic characters, dangerous adversaries and exciting adventures until he is finally forced to make a choice that will define his life and the lives of countless others.

But in spite of his heroics, his outrageous antics finally force his admiring Commanding General and mentoring United States Congressman to rein him in for the sake of all concerned. And so, they ship him off to Washington, D.C. for some reining in, and training in, what every spy should know. And, so it was there, behind the hallowed, Kevlar covered walls of the Pentagon, the final transformation took place as the boy was forged into the man they call “Excalibur”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664126176

Jonathan Wright

Jonathan Wright is an award-winning translator of contemporary fiction by Arab authors, including Basma Abdel Aziz, Ahmed Taibaoui, Mazen Maarouf, Amjad Nasser, Ahmed Saadawi, Hassan Blasim, Saud Alsanousi, Sinan Antoon, Youssef Ziedan, Hamour Ziada, Ezzedine C. Fishere and Khaled el-Khamissi, Bahaa Abdelmegid, Rasha al-Ameer, and others. His first literary translation was the best-selling Taxi (2008) by Khaled el-Khamissi and his most recent is The Disappearance of Mr Nobody by Ahmed Taibaoui. He has won the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation twice: in 2013 for Youssef Ziedan’s Azazeel, whose Arabic original won the 2009 IPAF, and in 2016 for Saud Alsanousi’s The Bamboo Stalk, whose Arabic original won the 2013 IPAF. In 2014 he won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for his translation of Hassan Blasim’s The Iraqi Christ. He translated Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (IPAF winner, 2014). His translation of the short story collection Jokes for the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. In 2020 he won second prize in the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding for his translation of Sinan Antoon’s Book of Collateral Damage. Other specific translations include The Longing of the Dervish by Hamour Ziada, The Televangelist by Ibrahim Essa and Land of No Rain by Amjad Nasser (commended for the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize).

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Copyright © 2020 by Jonathan Wright.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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.

Rev. date: 10/28/2020

Xlibris

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THANKS

I

would like to thank Mr. Clayton Pitts for his input to the project

and his initial Spelling and Grammar editing of the manuscript.

DEDICATED TO MY SIX KIDS

IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER AND FATHER

George and Virginia Wright

CONTENTS

Preface

First Memories

Grandmothers

Sexual Awakening

Shady Side

Triadelphia

Schoolboy

Sunset Heights

Charlie Brown

My Friend Jeffry

Little Brother

Grade School Days

High School Days

Big Sister Connie

Algebraic Disaster

Guidance: Good Grief

The Bullies Incident

Jeffry and the Terrors

Saving the School

Newspaper Job

Congressman Hayes

My Friend Merritt

Beginning College

McDougal Street Triumph

McDougal Street Goes to New York

The Witches

The Chase

The Trap

Drafted into a Crime Zone

New Friendship

Drill Sergeant Challenge

The Condom Head Incident

Sergeant Dilly

Friendships Confirmed

The Attack

Consequences

The Drill Sergeant’s Revenge

The Escape and Evasion Incident

The Alcohol Incident

Sneaky Pete

Tactical Maneuvers

My Fate

Basic Ends

Danny’s Death

The Prophetic Poem

Johnny Drill

The Pram Boating Incident

Hot Lips Is Born

Hot Lips Saves the Day

Congressional Liaison

Duties as Assigned

Off to Washington

Discovering Dyslexia

Assignment PCF

The Liberation Raid

Ted Arrives

The Shannon Incident

Oops, I Did It Again

Time Marches On

Back to College

Assignment David

Saving Frankie

New Directions

Assignment Berlin

Double Trouble

PREFACE

N ow I have been known to tell a juicy tale or two in my time—and, if I might add, I have always taken the greatest of pleasure in their telling. While those who have been with me on many of the occasions when these events have occurred find me to be somewhat understated in my relaying of the facts related to these events, I am aware that there are those less imaginative souls who might question the validity of my tales.

Now in the past, this doubting, with regard to the tapestry of my life, has left me saddened indeed. However, I have discovered that I can combat this despair simply by engaging in some new adventure. The problem with this kind of compensatory response is that while helping lift me from the depths of dismay, it only serves to create new stories to tell, thus providing targets anew for disbelieving.

Nonetheless, silver linings being what they are, I have come to understand that these disbelievers actually motivate and empower my life. So now I find it helpful to maintain associations with enough of these unimaginative souls to fuel my passions and spur my adventurous nature.

Now as you progress with your reading of this, the story of my life, I do believe, as I believe you will come to agree, that the experiences of my earlier years, while less exciting than my later exploits, have, in fact, set the stage for the most adventurous life that I have lived and enjoyed . . . and as such deserve a telling.

FIRST MEMORIES

I ’m told my first earthly breath was had in a hospital in the little town of Bellaire, Ohio, but in my memory, life began on the upper floor of a nineteenth-century apartment building, located next door to a Wonder Bread bakery, in Wheeling, by God, West Virginia. As such, my first memories, at every flash, are marinated with mouthwatering aromas of freshly baked bread, a fact that may well account for the carbohydrate addiction that I have been afflicted with these many years post my infancy.

Now in spite of my youth at the time, I do clearly recall first exercising my natural albeit rudimentary skills of persuasion during our regular impromptu visits to the local Wonder Bread bakery conveniently located right next door to our home. During these visits, my charming manipulations both lured the bakers into providing us with generous portions of freshly baked loaves, delivered into my tiny outstretched hands, and ensured us invitations anew for future visits to the bakery, thus ensuring a continuously well-stocked breadbox.

Then upon returning home, my mother would transform these aromatic masterpieces into various breakfast delights to accompany our morning tea, which we enjoyed while listening to my father, a local radio personality, performing on the morning radio show that he hosted. It was right around this time, as memory serves, that my grandmothers entered the picture.

GRANDMOTHERS

P er usual, there were two grandmothers. They were Little Grandma and Big Grandma, hereafter to be referred to as LG and BG so as to save a bit on the typing. These two wonderfully doting grandmothers assisted my parents by providing me with princely care during those early years of my life so that my parents might pursue their oh-so-necessary income-generating employments.

Now as is well-known, a child’s grandparents often have a great deal of influence in that child’s life, and so it was with me, especially given the amount of time they spent with me. My recollections of LG come from my impressions of her up until my third or fourth birthday, when she passed. Her death provided the first great sense of loss in my life and my most terrifying childhood recollections. Her funeral was my earliest memorable trauma since the touted birth trauma is one that I do not seem to recall.

Anyway, I decided right then and there that no child should be expected to go through such a horrible experience and that, at least, all consoling relatives should be kept away from children during funerals. I do not remember which one of my relations saw fit to comfort me by explaining that my beloved LG would be sleeping peacefully for all time in that damned little box she was stuffed into. That bungled attempt at consolation has left me scarred emotionally for life as I am plagued to this day with night terrors of being trapped in a coffin, unable to breath or move. So as an aside to that relative, whoever you may have been, who provided such comfort to me, I thank you for shoving Poe’s raven up my infant ass and forever transforming the safety of my nursery into the parlor of Roderick Usher’s household—but let’s get past this bit of ranting and go on.

Now LG was quite a woman prior to her demise. She was of well-bred English decent, formally educated, a college professor, and a radio host, all of which were unique for women of her time. She was a songwriter who wrote the original air force theme song, and she was a prolific poet who wrote volumes, which my father still has secured away with thoughts of publishing one day.

LG introduced me to the arts and literature and music. In fact, she provided me my first opportunity to play the piano that she had in her living room. She, when my grandfather was not present, would allow me to venture into the realms of dissonant sound so adventuresome that it would make Bartók shudder. My style in its development provided the listener’s ear an experience somewhat akin to the scratching of fingernails on a blackboard.

Nonetheless, she promoted my musical adventuring and showed me how to convert soul into song as I tapped fervently, if not so expertly, on those pearly whites. She was a poet and philosopher who opened many doors of thought for me that I have since ventured through. I have learned many things about myself and the world about me as I have traveled down those philosophical byways that she introduced to me those many years ago.

Now BG, on the other hand, was a woman of hardy Irish stock with high moral standards and a solid hold on her spirituality. A model for sainthood, she opened her home to many orphaned, abandoned, or otherwise unfortunate children. This child-rearing predilection, I’m told, resulted in her raising more than twenty-three children, including five of her own, which included my own mother. As a result, years ahead in the future of this telling, I resurrected her inclination and, without any consideration, accomplished the greatest achievement of my life—so later.

Among the transient recipients of her loving compassion was a child called Pendleton. His mother, as the story goes, axe-murdered his sleeping father in a rather gory affair that was still a town topic of discussion years later when I was growing up. It was said that BG had saved Pendleton’s soul by guiding him through a difficult spiritual healing process and providing him with a loving home.

I never met Pendleton, which always struck me as odd given the circumstances. However, I did meet several of the other people she had raised. This included my aunt Laine, who made it quite clear to me (while disguising her contempt for me from my mother) that I was not of sufficient quality to associate with her children.

In retrospect, BG had the presence of a large Mother Teresa, with an obvious stand and fight for what you believe in attitude. She would don her Salvation Army helmet (which she was eventually buried in) and would jump in with both feet to help the downtrodden. She often took me with her to work at the Salvation Army center, where we would fix toys to be given to needy children for their special days or prepare food baskets for unfortunate families. I’ll never forget the sparkle in her eyes whenever she was helping somebody. Most of all, what she would say to me at those times has stuck with me and influenced how I have lived my life ever since.

You only have two choices in life, she would say. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. There is no middle ground. You have to make your choice.

When she died, she did it right. She had been ill for some time. Her illness had limited my staying over at her house. This was a big disappointment to me since I loved staying with her. Anyway, one day she called my mother and insisted that I be allowed to stay over. I was delighted, but while my mother agreed, she expressed concerns about BG’s being able to take care of me. Mom lectured me that I shouldn’t cause BG any effort because she needed to be resting, and so it was agreed.

However, when we got to BG’s house, much to mother’s dismay, BG was dressed and ready to go. Against Mother’s counsel, we took the public bus, which stopped just in front of BG’s front door, into town to shop and get ice cream like we had always done before she became ill. I saw that old sparkle in her eyes, and I remember that we had a great time.

As we sat in the park in the center of town that day, enjoying our favorite ice cream treat as usual, she reminded me for one last time, Remember. You only have two choices in life. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. There is no middle ground. Don’t ever forget that—and you know, I never have.

When we got back to BG’s house that afternoon, my mother was unexpectedly there. She seemed somewhat distressed as she explained that I would not be able to spend the night after all. I, of course, sorely disappointed, protested but to no avail and was forced to gather up both my things and myself for transport. BG, still looking fit as a fiddle to me and still with that sparkle in her eyes, hugged me especially tight and sent me on my way with my mother. I ascertained later that BG herself had placed the call to my mother directing that she come and gather me up.

That night or the next night—I am not quite sure which—BG died painlessly in her sleep. My mother received an early morning phone call from Grandpa informing her. As she sat by the phone, sobbing, the phone rang again. Mother answered and quickly looked startled.

From her camp counselor job in Maine, more than fifteen hundred miles away, my sister Connie O’Dare was calling out of an intuition that something was wrong, inquiring immediately as to BG’s well-being. This, in conjunction with some of her other strange yet verifiable precognitions, seemed to confirm that she did, in fact, possess psychic abilities of some sort, as she always claimed.

As for me, I thought I had done something wrong that contributed to BG’s demise, but everyone assured me that it was not the case. In retrospect, I realize that BG knew what was up and had knowingly spent that last day with me to say her best goodbye. Classy, don’t you think? I do.

Now I don’t think anyone realized it, but I quite skillfully maneuvered the situation at her funeral so as not to have to look at her in the box, as you may recall my earlier trauma. So I am at least spared the memory of that horror. I am sure you must have seen this coming, but the result of all this funerary drama is that I harbor an absolute commitment to cremation—but enough of this morbidity. Let us move on.

SEXUAL AWAKENING

N ow as chance would have it, I had numerous opportunities in my early childhood to experience my sexuality. The first that I recall started when I was around the age of three and occurred repeatedly over the next few years under the guidance of several daughters of a local law enforcement officer who entertained themselves regularly with the carnal pleasures. They enthusiastically included me in their lustful activities, but quite frankly, the whole affair confused me since I was unable to do the things that they did. Nonetheless, they cheered me on, even though my performances were certainly wanting. Perhaps the lack of male availability kept those lèche le femmes enamored with my shortcomings, as short as they were at the time.

Now I don’t recall what eventually became of those young ladies. I lost contact with them, which is probably a good thing in view of the fact that their father, a local law enforcement officer, as I earlier indicated, was armed, a fact that could have complicated life for me further down the line. Nonetheless, my recall of these first experiences remains undiminished with time.

Now as a memorable extension to my awakenings, right around the same time frame, I recall that my mother worked as a cashier at the local Kroger’s Grocery Store, requiring me to have a babysitter. I don’t remember much about her except for one thing. Tits! This woman had giant tits. She also had a newborn baby, whom she would allow to suckle while I was present. Now I was only four or five years old, but this affected me. It stirred the first real sexual feelings in my recall, or at least I think that’s what was going on. Anyway, I remember thinking that I wanted to swat that little creature off her breasts and snatch a hold of those things for myself. This probably explains my current fascination with big-breasted women, although in fact, my current sexual proclivities reflect a far more liberal persuasion.

SHADY SIDE

N ow, during this, my initial period of sexual awakening, my family and I lived in Shady Side, Ohio, a comfortable, sleepy little town nestled alongside the beautiful Ohio River. While I have since become more, shall we say, desirous of more opulent surroundings, I must say I did quite love that quaint little house with its big backyard, where I spent many a fun-filled afternoon, all remembered with great fondness. A little brother was added to the clan while we lived there, and my elder sister’s first attempt at killing me also occurred there. She adamantly denies the intent to this day, as elder sisters will do, so there is nothing to be gained belaboring the disputed tale since I survived with no lasting injuries save for the psychological.

So moving along, we were nested in a neighborhood with lots of children. This, of course, was a blessing as I reveled in the company of my peers, even in those early days of my life. In fact, I made my first best friend there: Billy, but everyone called him Billy-Boy (don’t ask me why). Anyway, he was several months my senior, a significant age difference in those early years, smart, and very brave. I marveled as he fearlessly fed their horse right out of his hand. I, at his coercing, was forced to demonstrate my manhood by also feeding the horse out of my hand, my stoic demeanor hiding my fearful reticence.

Then one day, as I always expected would happen, the horse accidentally—or so everyone declared—bit him while trying, in its overly aggressive eating style, to extract an apple from his outstretched palm. I was both horrified and relieved all at the same time. I was grateful that I myself had not the cuisine become but afraid that Billy-Boy had surrendered flesh in the event. By God’s grace, he was spared the loss of even a single digit. He bled and cried but just a little before regaining that fearless composure.

Then to my absolute amazement, he was right back to hand-feeding that horse, just as fearlessly as ever. As for me, my horse-feeding days were over. The image of those giant horse teeth clamping down and grinding Billy-Boy’s flesh was just too much for my sensitivities. I vowed in that instant that I would take no further chances with hand-feeding that horse. As far as I was concerned, the horse could have starved to death before I would ever again offer myself up to the possibility of being victim to one of its accidental feeding frenzies.

Now even though I questioned his sanity given his return to feeding the beast so soon after the chomping incident, I must admit that Billy-Boy did know a few things. For one thing, he knew that sliding up and down the swing set poles resulted in a phenomenon he called tickling. He graciously shared this knowledge with me, and we spent many an afternoon maneuvering around those swing set poles like exotic dancers, an artistic profession that I, in later years, came to know and appreciate so very much. In truth, this activity was far more pleasurable and far less stressful than my previous tickling activity with the sheriff’s daughters had been. Generalizing the learning experience over the next several years, I experimented extensively with various other avenues of tickling, but let’s just leave it at that.

I often ate meals or snacks at Billy-Boy’s house and ventured into eating foods there that my mother couldn’t have forced down my throat at home under threat of maiming. For example, I developed a taste for the disgusting brussels sprout, which his mother served regularly, each time touting its nutritional virtues. I survived eating them by using a good dousing of salt to hide the repugnant flavor and make it palatable so as not to anger her and thereby dissuade her from extending future dinner invitations. After a while, I looked forward to having those salty little balls. The saltier, the better . . . Let’s not go there.

Anyway, I believe this brussels sprout dilemma initiated my addiction to salt as we soon took to secretly licking the horses’ salt blocks, kept stored in their basement for the intended eventual use by the horse. When our salt habit was discovered, I was warned that such a habit would cause my blood to thicken with dire consequences, including the possibility of death. I was terrified, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I had become a five-year-old addict by then and continue, to this day, to struggle as a saltaholic.

Anyway, I spent every allowed minute with my friend. Nearly every weekday afternoon, following a fulfilling spin around the swing set, we would gather in front of their television to enjoy each new installment of the Mickey Mouse Club. It was the era of Cubby and Annette, but you know, she never gave even the slightest hint back then that she would grow up to become such a drunken madwoman.

Anyway, that aside, Billy-Boy’s little brother, Tim, who adored his elder brother as much as I did, would join us for each afternoon’s viewing. He reveled in being able to hang out with us older guys, particularly since we ditched him most of the time, with the exception of when his mother intervened, requiring us to allow his participation. I sometime later became aware of just how hurtful our ditching him must have been when, because of circumstances, I later found myself in a remotely similar circumstance of being excluded.

Anyway, all things considered, life was good. So you might imagine my distress when I was informed that we would be moving away. I would be losing my little house, my first best friend, and my entire six-year-old social life. It was a disaster for me, but progress is progress, and so it goes. Anyway, in our parting moments, Billy-Boy and I promised to make our parents bring us to visit each other, but they never did, and so our friendship faded into a memory.

Sadly, years later, while I was overseas in the military, I received word that I did indeed lose my first best friend. Billy-Boy, who had become one of his HS’s most handsome and accomplished athletes and scholars, in a fit of depression over not having been accepted into the same medical school as his girlfriend and intended wife-to-be, was rumored to have taken his own life. He was found deceased in his car, in the garage, with the motor still running.

To add to the family’s tragedy, a time after Billy-Boy’s sad end, his younger brother, Tim, who had taken his brother’s death very hard, was arrested for painting a naked girl, in vibrant colors, in the basement of the local hardware store where he worked, or so the story goes—but so much for futuristic glimpses. Let’s get back to my traumatic departure from Shady Side many years earlier.

TRIADELPHIA

S o with the inevitable in motion, we moved, leaving all that was my life in Shady Side behind. Our new domicile was a third-floor walk-up apartment in a huge Victorian house that had been converted into several residence flats. To my horror, it was bordered in the front by a four-lane National Highway, and I was oft reminded that one step onto it would mean my certain death. To compound the problem, one side of the yard was bordered by a huge graveyard and the other side by a swift running creek, and I was reminded daily that I would certainly drown in it if I went too near. Now how’s that for trapped? The torrent of terror, the box yard of death, and the impassable lanes of doom were one at every turn.

To further complicate my circumstance, there were several houses across the creek whose backyards bordered the raging torrent. Loads of kids lived in those houses, playing in those backyards, completely out of my reach. That fifteen-foot-wide waterway may as well have been an ocean. It isolated me from them, with no chance of getting to them, lest I surrender my life in the attempt. I was a coward, afraid to take the chance. Instead, they ran and played and had more fun than you can imagine, while I sat watching longingly from across the deadly, watery divide.

Eventually, having observed me so often spying on them from my hidden tree seat, which incidentally was sufficiently low to the ground so as not to cause my death if I fell, they decided I was some sort of weirdo. This, my new identity, the weirdo in the tree, resulted in my becoming the target for streams of abusive insults expertly delivered across the stream de la divide, in a chorus of vindictive voice, at their every sighting of me.

Eventually, I abandoned my tree seat and that side of the yard for the better part of the summer. I selected a new tree as my new hideaway, out of their line of sight, located in the front yard of the house dangerously near the dooms-way. It was a weeping willow, appropriately selected albeit subconsciously given my emotional state. I sat hidden beneath its drooping branches, tending my loneliness as the summer passed, sharing a bit of my own weeping with that of the willow. I developed a strangely morbid comradery with that tree . . . for as you know, misery loves company.

Then unexpectedly, Wendy, a rather buxom woman whom I had previously known to be living somewhere in our building, befriended me. The specific details of how that first coupling occurred escape me at this moment, but she was my salvation in that she was as understanding about my loneliness as the tree. My parents, however, were not happy with my newfound friendship. According to their evaluation, Wendy and her man, who lived in the basement of our apartment building, were very odd people of questionable character. My parents warned me to stay away from them. In retrospect, I think they feared that these basement dwellers might do some vile things to my person or some such evil.

Still, I was so lonely for company that at every opportunity, in defiance of my mother’s mandate, I made a beeline for Wendy’s subterranean lair. I needed her. She always had the best cookies and cold milk, and we talked about everything. She answered my every question, and they were a plenty. She always made me feel good, just like my grandmothers had done. Now I don’t remember her man’s name. I’m not sure that I ever knew it or even cared what it was. It was all about Wendy.

At some point, my parents became aware of my lonely plight. I think Wendy told them because I saw her talking to them, and my mother kept looking over to where I was sitting under the willow with that sad, loving smile that mothers always have on their faces when they are worried about you. I learned that last little tidbit sometime later and am applying that knowledge here, in retrospect, for the sake of explaining the moment.

Anyway, following their conversation, in a spurt of parental concern, they bought me a train kind of thing that I could actually ride, complete with a large round expanse of track. It was a mini version of one those rail repair sleds that one occasionally sees sailing down the tracks of a real railway. I propelled it by pumping away with two handles that worked like upside-down bicycle pedals, except that I used my arms instead of my legs.

My father set the thing up in the side yard, right across the forbidden waters from where those kids played, and it became their turn to watch. As they watched, I transformed right before their eyes from the weirdo in the tree into the whirling dervish master of the train. I could really make that thing fly. I relished that they obviously now envied me, and I pretended to ignore them, in true passive-aggressive style. Between stints at the wheel of my new status symbol, I took to relaxing in the old tree seat again, transformed now into a seat of power.

Finally, they couldn’t stand it anymore. They surrendered! Much to my pleasure, they began a friendly discourse with me across the watery divide, just chock-full of openings and pregnant pauses, all designed to make room for me to insert an invitation for them to come visiting. Now this turn of events, while pleasing me immensely, also caused me considerable consternation as it pitted my desire to have friends against the sense of power that being the exclusive rider of the train gave me. So I resisted their advances for a day or two before I succumbed and extended the inevitable invitation. Having done so, I wondered how in the world they would get to me. Then to my amazement, four or five of them, without the least hesitation, waded across the creek. Voilà! They were in my yard. I was shocked at how effortlessly they had traversed the deadly waters.

As they stood before me, a light went on, and as happy as I was at having these visitors, I began feeling a burning anger at my parents welling up inside of me for their having made me believe that the creek was such a forbidden barrier. Their lie had caused me so much emotional pain and despair, but with all this going on inside of me, I composed myself to become the most gracious trainmaster host.

My generosity that first afternoon at my surrendering of my turns to ride the train so that my new friends could have more turns somehow dispelled the weirdo in the tree label. Instead, they extolled my virtue of generosity and kindness, and my new identity as the the nice kid over there was