Saving Goodmorning Sunshine

By Toby Lewis

Goodmorning Sunshine, a woman with the most unique of names leaves the home of her overly controlling wealthy parents the day after her eighteenth birthday. By the grace of God and the cosmic fates Goodmorning meets and is befriended by a small tribe of close-knit friends just hours after she embarks on her journey.
Though her group of new friends are what society in general refer to as outcast, their introduction to Goodmorning Sunshine injects a renewed vitality and zest for life into them all. Her enthusiasm on the group is infectious as one by one each of them begin to see themselves as something more to the world than being throwaway souls. When outside evil influences disrupt the joy and solemnity of their small collective the tribe bolsters themselves up to combat and overcome that evil. It has been said by wise people that your family are the people you spend your life with; this is a story of one such family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664124271

Toby Lewis

Toby Lewis, a born and bred true Texan is a former journalism student who loves the telling of a good story, be it written or spoken. A lifelong weight-lifter who spent the majority of his adult life working in the night club industry working as a bouncer, bartender, and manager. That career has fortunately allowed him the privilege to live and work all over the country as well as to spend a couple of summers as a roadie for a not so famous rock and roll band. I don’t fancy myself as the most polished of writers, but I think I’m a damn good storyteller, I’ve been told that I write like I talk. I’ll take that.

Book preview

SAVING

GOODMORNING

SUNSHINE

Toby Lewis

Copyright © 2020 by Toby Lewis.

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. 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.

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: 09/09/2020

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

817678

A loving

thank you to Hulk and Lynette

for saving me from the darkness

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER ONE

This story takes place in the midst of the sexually orientated establishments and atmosphere of the cities and towns of our great country, in the segments of those cities that the good Christians in all their pious beliefs want to deny the existence of. The people who live by the age old adage, if you don’t see it, there’s no way such evil exist in any place but somewhere else, far from the protective cocoon of which they feel shields them from the dark evils of the world.

Money, power, influence, neither of these makes any of us impervious to the long reach of the demon that lurks beneath the surface of what we call decent society.

I didn’t purposely choose to be a participant in the world that exist only in the dark of night. The first time I stepped through the doors of a cathouse, I was seventeen years old and was in the company of my childhood best friend Mike Evans.

Mike graduated from high school two years ahead of me and he immediately signed up for a hitch in the United States Marine Corp.

Two years after he left town, Mike showed up the summer after I got out of high school, and the changes in him were very obvious, in his physical status as well as his mentality. My pal Mike looked like a Marine, talked like one, and certainly behaved like one, in his very macho demeaner.

I knew him and then again I didn’t know him. One thing I was certain of though, my friend Mike was a changed man, from the country boy who’d left our Norman Rockwell image of a town two years back. His jawline seemed harder and his vocal delivery of the spoken word carried a tone of mature confidence that was new and unfamiliar to me, and I’d known the guy since grade school.

Jimmy Dale Morris, Mike bellowed as he climbed from his treasured nineteen-seventy Chevy El Camino, of which he left stored in his parents garage when he left home.

How the hell you been Jimmy Dale? Since I been away I thought about all the good times we used to have together all the time my brother. You come across my mind a lot of times homeboy.

I’m doing okay Mike, still trying to decide what I’m gonna` do since I graduated, you look like the Marine Corp has been good for you man.

It has been Jimmy, maybe you should think about joining up yourself dude, give you a chance to see some of the world. Your folks home, I don’t want to be disrespectful and not speak to them before I take their son out to get pissy drunk?

They ain’t here Mike, I said as we shook hands and smacked each other on the shoulder, they gonna` be glad to see you bro, they ask about you every so often. How long you home for?

I’ll be home long enough to pay my regards, got me a thirty day furlough, so we got plenty time to hang out.

What you got in mind Mike?

First off, I stopped in Houston on my way home and grabbed two tickets to the ZZ Top concert in Austin this weekend, so get your stuff together for a three day road trip and let’s move soldier.

I took a few minutes to leave the folks a note, threw a couple pairs of Levi’s and a few t-shirts in a small duffle bag and hopped in Mike’s Chevy, for a ride to the state capitol.

ZZ Top over the past few months had become the hottest band in all the land, even beyond the borders of the state of Texas and their legion of fans was building like an out of control wildfire.

The big time radio DJ’s, across the state had anointed `The Top`, the national band of Texas and the city of Austin was ground zero. The concert held in the football stadium on the University of Texas campus was ordained the ZZ Top fourth of July Barn Dance and Barbeque. The first of many more fourth of July jams to come, the dye for the Texas outdoor music festivals was cast.

Mike and I both had friends from our hometown, Angleton, who attended U.T. or Southwest Texas State in San Marcos a neighboring town just south of our state capitol. I called Gina Dunn, a friend who attended U.T. to let her know me and Mike was on the way, so the party was on by the time we hit town. Folks were glad to see Mike who hadn’t been home since the summer he took off to San Diego for basic training.

Gina offered us her sofa and her roommate’s bed to crash for the weekend, she said her roomy spent most nights at her boyfriend’s place, so we weren’t putting anybody out.

By the time we hit town, Gina Dunn had contacted most of the people we knew from high school who attended U.T. or Southwest Texas State, the welcome party was at full blast by the time we pulled into Gina’s apartment complex. My chums from Angleton were all a bit disappointed to hear that I wouldn’t be joining them at either school at the start of the next semester. Going to school at one of the most popular university’s in the state was like a rite of passage for most kids from our hometown, as for me, I’d never once entertained the thought. I loved partying in Austin and San Marcos, but even before my parents broached the subject my junior year, I was sure college was not the thing for me. My folks never relented though, if not going away for further education after high school, their plan-B was for me to attend the local community college down the highway a piece in Clute, Texas. I wasn’t confused or anything mental, I’d just not decided what my next move would be, I still had the weekend and the rest of the summer to make up my mind.

42485.png

The concert was like a big music festival with the performance of other Austin based groups before the headliner, ZZ Top hit the stage just before dark. We had the greatest time in Austin for a weekend I’d never forget as long as I lived. The icing on the cake that weekend was the announcement by Reverend Willie G. (aka) Billy Gibbons himself that the night’s performance was being recorded to be released as a live album, due to be debuted later that year.

The crowd went wild, hearing this day would be immortalized in the annals of Texas Jams, ergo ordaining a group of potheads from Angleton Texas as attendee’s at the first annual ZZ Top` fourth of July Barn dance and Barbecue.

Mike and I said our farewells to everyone Monday afternoon and pulled out for the return trip to Angleton. We were on highway two-ninety going east towards Houston when Mike suddenly took the seventy-seven off ramp at Giddings, I thought maybe he was pulling over to take a leak, but ten minutes after we got on seventy-seven, I asked him, where we headed to Mike?

I got a surprise for you Jimmy Dale, just be patient, you gonna` love this surprise, he smirked, with the grin of the `Cheshire Cat` on his darkly tanned hard looking face. Mike had become this other human being within the redneck white boy I’d known my whole life. He still acted and treated me with the same affection as the friends we’d been since elementary school, but there was somebody else in there with my homeboy.

When we hit the town of LaGrange, Mike turned off on a little side road just as we crossed the LaGrange city limits sign. A few minutes after the turn off, we pulled into what I thought was a restaurant and parked.

Come on Jimmy my brother, said Mike in a jovial tone, we gone finish off the weekend here.

Where the hell we at Mike? I curiously questioned.

This here is the `Chicken Ranch` son, don’t tell me you ain’t never heard of this place?

I heard plenty about the `Chicken Ranch`, but I ain’t never thought I’d be coming here.

Well this is your lucky day big boy, you ever done it with a hooker?

I hated to tell Mike, that I ain’t done it with nobody, so I lied, I done screwed a couple of girls round the county Mike, but I ain’t never been with no hooker before.

Count your blessings Jimmy Dale my man, you bout` to take the ride of your life.

Dude, I can’t afford to buy no poontang in no place like this, I ain’t got but maybe eight bucks in my pocket, I frightfully said.

Keep your money homeboy, this ones on me, just pick one of these good-looking bitches you want to do it with, and I’ll take it from there. That’s one good `thang` about being in the military bro, living on a military base means you got no room and board to pay. I got plenty money saved up cause` I mostly ate every meal on the base, so I got a bunch of money to spend on just having a good time. It’s tough trying to keep a girlfriend when you moving around from base to base, so I only had to spend money in the cathouses to get my rocks off when we was on leave. You look old enough, they ain’t gone ID` you, so get your drink on and see which girl you want to bang brother and don’t worry bout` what it cost.

I was scared shitless as we walked through the front door of the only statewide and nationally known cathouse in Texas. I’d had some girlfriends growing up, but none that took sex no further than an occasional hand job. And now here I stand at the precipice of going all the way with not just a grown woman, but a beautiful hooker of my choosing.

I’m sure I had the look of a timid little lost boy when I walked nervously into the smokey room behind my confidently arrogant Marine homeboy. The smell of the room was something foreign to me, that was the first aware thought I had as I followed Mike across the room to a huge shiny woodgrain bar. On the far side of the low lit room was a lot of beautiful women of all races lounging on big comfortable looking red sofa’s, all displaying smiles as if to welcome us to the party.

The smell I guess was what sex smelled like, had to be I inwardly surmised. After all, there was nothing but women in the room, even the bartender was a good looking chick, and this is a place where men came to buy pussy.

My buddy, Mike didn’t waste no time, we did a couple shots of tequila and chased them down with a cold Lone Star beer. Right after he waved a pretty senorita with long auburn colored hair over and disappeared down a curtained hallway. The tequila steadied my nerves some, so I emulated my pal’s action and gave the nod to a cute blonde sitting near me at the bar. She stood on her tip toes to give me a peck on the cheek before taking me by the hand to lead me down the same hallway Mike had gone down.

It didn’t take the beautiful girl long to ascertain that this was my first time, like the pro she was the girl whispered reassuring words in my ear as she slowly undressed me before taking her own clothes off and stood naked before me. She’d obviously been with a first timer before, after a few minutes of me watching her rub her hands over her titty’s and massaging the spot between her thighs, I was good to go.

In my youthful haste, two minutes later I let out a deep guttural moan and rolled over off the top of her and started to dress myself, thinking my first time was too damn fast for me to get all I could out of my first go round with a woman.

Why you getting dressed? purred the beautiful girl, that friend you come in with told the house mama you can have all the time you want, so git` out them Levi’s and git` your ass back in this bed.

She didn’t have to tell me twice, and for the rest of that night I was caringly educated by a woman who had sex for a living on the art of how to satisfy a woman in bed, man can’t ask for a better teacher.

A memorable day in the life of Jimmy Dale Morris of Angleton, Texas for damn sure, a gorgeous blonde with perfect breast popped my cherry at the Chicken Ranch in LaGrange, Texas.

I looked back on that night fondly for the rest of my life, Mike and I luckily were very fortunate to have chosen that Monday night to pay a visit to the `Chicken Ranch`. The following Friday night, a popular news personality from Houston stormed the `Chicken Ranch` aided by a platoon of Texas Rangers, and with the cameras rolling, shut down the `Chicken Ranch` forever.

For the life of me, I could never make any since of why a news man from Houston, a hundred miles from LaGrange, gave a shit about a sexually oriented establishment in tiny LaGrange, Texas.

The `Chicken Ranch` may be gone, but it’s legend lives on, I wasn’t the only guy to get his first taste of real sex at the `Chicken Ranch`. Fathers and big brothers had been taking sons and little brothers to the place to open their eyes to the carnal desires supplied by the women who worked at the ranch for eons of time. Visits to the `Chicken Ranch` were like a rite of passage to every guy in Texas once he reached the age of fifteen. My old man was a fire and brimstone true to the life Bible thumper, so my chances of he and I paying a visit to the `Chicken Ranch` were nonexistent. I guess my friend Mike knew that to be, so him walking me through the front door of the establishment was just like a big brother doing so.

The tales of the place however, live on in the stories of Texas lore, I’ll never forget my night of sensual decadence at the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

CHAPTER TWO

Mike’s furlough was over faster than I personally wanted it to be, my homeboy passed on all the wisdom of the world he’d gained over the past two years on to me and it was exhilarating. Especially his tips on how to pick up on women open to sex and how to kick start conversation with them. I was all ears every time Mike broached the subject of women and sex. Still I couldn’t bring myself to fess up about our night at the Chicken Ranch` being my first time to go the full nine yards with a female.

I knew the military wasn’t for me, too much discipline and adherence to taking orders from anyone but my parents didn’t set well with me.

By the end of the summer, my mind was made up as far as what to do with my life, going to college was my parents plan, not mine. I knew I had to get out of the house to get them off my back about this whole college thing, they offered to pay for me to attend the local Jr. College down the highway in Clute, but I wasn’t having it. I had six hundred bucks in my sock drawer I’d saved up from my job at a tire shop and service station in town.

The seventy-two Buick my folks bought for me once I got my driver’s license was still in decent running shape, so I threw my stuff in the trunk one day, kissed my mom goodbye, gave the old man a hug and hit the road.

Highway thirty-five began on the Gulfcoast out past Port Lavaca, Texas in Matagorda County, passing through Brazoria County and on into Harris County, where its name became Telephone Road. I passed under the six-ten overpass and bam, I run into a mass of women on the stroll, many of them so scantily clad, there should have been some law restricting them being so in public.

The only thing I knew about the city of Houston was how to get to its various concert venues, the one constant the kids growing up in my hometown adopted was driving into the city to hit whatever rock concert that happened to be coming through Houston.

I took a turn at the next block to see what the neighborhood was like a few blocks off Telephone Road. Away from the strip of bars and convenience stores where I spotted the gaggle of hookers, the area seemed to be normal enough. I pulled into an apartment complex called Winkler Villa, with a sign out front reading, one bedroom apartments, three fifty per month.

It would take more than half the money I had in my pocket, but at least I’d have a roof over my head for the next thirty days. I signed my lease, got directions from the manager to the nearest Goodwill store and went there to buy myself a bed. I grabbed some sheets from the same store and was now a resident of Houston. My plan was to get a good night’s sleep, then get up to find my first job in the city, I was open to anything as long as it paid money.

The following morning I asked a guy I saw in the parking lot where there was a good place in the area for breakfast? He directed me to a place a couple blocks over on Telephone Road about a quarter mile from where I’d seen the hookers, called The Tele- Wink Grill.

I picked up a newspaper at the entrance of the very busy restaurant and flipped through the want ads while I waited for a table. After a twenty minute wait I was shown to a little two seater booth by the hostess and handed a menu.

I took a glance around the room after I placed my order and was surprised to notice, the café was full with the scantily dressed women I’d seen the evening before. I guess after strolling up and down the street all night selling what they did best, they would be hungry after the nights end.

I would discover later on that a lot of these women also lived in the neighborhood, most in a couple of seedy motels along the half mile strip, but a great deal of them lived in the same apartment complex where I was now a tenant. Mostly the ones with children, I finished my breakfast, which was exceptional, so I was sure I’d be a regular, seeing as breakfast was my favorite meal of the day.

I luckily found a job as a produce delivery driver for a company only a couple of miles from my apartment. The place was one of several fruit and vegetable suppliers all cloistered in the same quarter mile long business park. I stopped at a truck stop on my first work day to purchase a city key map because, like I said, I only knew where the concert venues were. After a month or so of living and driving in the city, I developed a rudimentary knowledge of the highway network and how to use it to get to the different areas of Houston.

I would start out at six in the morning on my delivery route, having grown up in a coastal town, I felt fortunate to be assigned the restaurants in the Clear Lake, Kemah area of the county, towns of which were right on Galveston Bay. I’d grown up eating in the seafood places out there, so it was like going home for a few hours every work day.

My deliveries were finished around two in the afternoon, giving me lots of off time to learn more about the city I now called home. I began my exploration in the bars over on Telephone Road on the strip where I saw all the hookers on the stroll the first day I hit town. They were mostly smelly dive bars, with not much to offer cosmetically, but the beer was cold and the places were full with the women who worked the street. Can’t much blame them for being in doors during the day, the Texas heat is an unforgiving beast when the sun is high.

The bars were also hang outs for some of the dregs of society, the drunks, drug addicts and worst of all, the pimps, who I immediately felt disgusted by. I learned after hanging out for a few weeks that these men controlled the mostly younger girls who lived in the seedy motels along the strip. What I learned about these men, who I saw as stains on humanity, was from the older street walkers who’d learned in their time in the game, to avoid being saddled by the parasitic pimps.

Sure, they were mostly strapped with an addiction of some sort, but the money they made was all theirs and not handed over to some leech who doled out to them meager crumbs of the money they earned with their bodies. The pimps controlled the girls with a dependence on whatever drug they were hooked on and brutal violence, the first time I witnessed that violence, it sickened me.

I’d heard stories about people like them and seen portrayals of their kind in the movies, in reality, they were much worse.

I befriended a couple of the older women who lived in my apartment complex and the money I spent for sex, I paid to them, just to avoid that uncomfortable feeling of having sex with a stranger.

On the weekends when I was off work, I’d meet Gina and Trudi for breakfast at the Tele- Wink Grill. They never gave me free sex, but they would always insist on paying for my breakfast, they explained to me the benefit in being seen having a meal with me.

Evidently, the pimps would put pressure on the more attractive women to come under their so called umbrella of protection. Gina and Trudi had gone down that road in their youth and knew nothing good ever came from having a pimp.

The pimps see us with you Jimmy Dale, said Trudi, they don’t know you just our neighbor, they won’t mess with us cause to them, we got a man looking out for us.

Yeah, said Gina, I rather give you money for looking out for me, than give it all to one of them rotten son of a bitches.

Some of the other girls already be asking, if you our daddy, we don’t tell ’em yeah, but we don’t tell ‘em no neither, added Trudi with a deceptive chuckle.

Least now, I understand why y’all so happy to feed me when we come in here, I said, making Gina and Trudi laugh.

You good people Jimmy Dale, said Trudi, you don’t look down your nose at us `cause` we working girls and you nice to our kids. I don’t never bring no customers round` my kid, my little girl was shocked that night you invite us to your apartment for pizza. She ask me the next day if you was my boyfriend?

Jimmy Dale, what kinda` name is that? questioned Gina in a curious tone.

I’m just a fella` from a little town down south, it don’t mean nothing, just the name my mama give me when I was born. The name on my birth certificate reads James Dale Morris, Mama and Daddy always called me Jimmy Dale, they say it don’t sound as formal as using my full name.

The other women in our complex be asking bout` you, they see you out there by the swimming pool playing football with the kids. Ain’t no other man in them apartments take the time to play with no children.

Yeah, said Trudi, they see you bringing them fruits home from your work for the kids and wonder if you up to something."

I bring y’all bags of fruit and vegetables, and I ain’t never ask for nothing in return, I still pay y’all when we fuck, so I hope y’all tell them women I ain’t up to no evil intent. Where I come from, men look out for the little kids and the women, that’s the way the world is supposed to work. Things just get all twisted in the big city, them dudes who is pimps, couldn’t last a day where I come from. Some of the men would take they ass out in the woods at night and put a bullet in they head.

You joking bout` that shit, right Jimmy Dale? questioned Gina.

No, I ain’t joking, we got plenty women selling pussy in the country, but ain’t no pimps beating them up and taking the money they make. In a small town, like where I grew up, everybody in the community take a hand in seeing to it the small children, especially the ones with no daddy, get a fair shake in life. Even if it mean you might have to feed somebody else’s kids every day.

The off the cuff conversations I occasionally had with these women