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Preface-
Gregory Pike’s great grandfather built the Pine Ridge homestead before the Civil War. The neighboring folk always rumored it was over a shady deal with crooked French fur traders from the South. The home was near the small town of Valley Village with about two hundred inhabitants in southeastern Iowa not far from the Mississippi. Gregory’s parents moved from San Francisco to Iowa in the forties in an old Model-T, known as the “Tin Lizzie: (see picture of 1926 Ford). The story tells of Gregory’s childhood experiences with life and death-with joy and sorrow. His parents were divorced when he was only sixteen. The dad moved back to San Francisco and his mom raised Gregory and his siblings; three other boys and a girl.
During Gregory’s high school years and through his army life Valley Village grew to over twenty thousand God-fearing souls because of a super highway which ran through the area and connected many river towns to barge traffic on the Mississippi River. The city fathers soon renamed the town Pine Ridge, after grandfather’s estate high upon the hill overlooking the city; I guess because he had donated so much to the city’s new and fast expansion. This is where the story “So Help me God” really begins in Pine Ridge, Iowa. The story ends in San Francisco. The novel’s story, in two parts, and characters are wholly and entirely fictional. Certain institutions, agencies and public offices, plus familiar names are mentioned, but the people and places involved are quite imaginary and any similarities are purely coincidental.
…Gregory Pike learned how to live and survive from his boyhood activities and relationships with friends and relatives. He learned how to laugh and to cry…and to survive amidst many odds. From a war to a family Gregory was formed by God into what he was and what he would become.
Follow him through his early years till he became a man and found out that life was not a bed of roses but a bed of thorns…it’s then you make lemonade from lemons. He suffered what millions of Americans have suffered in their fight through our legal system to gain what is rightfully theirs with a bitter divorce. It’s a love story felt by many…and a battle with our legal system also felt and suffered by many. Here is his story in the hearts of many like you. One must go on…in spite of all odds. You must win…so help you God. Remember, the only justice is in the next world where God is the judge.
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| When Gregory needed help he always looked to the sky and prayed to God |
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| Gregory Pike is just an ordinary Iowa boy, feeling the joys and tribulations growing up in the deep Iowa snows, and feeling the pain and sorrow in the loss of loved ones in a closely knit family. Gregory marries his high school sweetheart and goes off to a faraway war in Vietnam. When he returns, Gregory is not only plummeted into a fiery and costly divorce, but he accidentally stumbles into a lion’s den of drug dealers and evildoers-most of whom are lawyers, judges and police officers. Through Gregory’s divorce quagmire, he gets involved with a beautiful redhead at the supermarket. The nightmare really begins with Gregory’s divorce and the legal despots who try to kill him. Beware… it could happen to you. |
Sometimes life is like a play full of actors. Some people are better at pretending and playing parts than others. Sometimes things happen in life that seem as they are not really real and could not possibly happen to you. It may have been only a bad dream... or a nightmare. Pine Ridge was my home. The little town sits high on a hill over the Red River Valley in the southeastern part of Iowa near Westchester. The white majestic mansion with its massive stone Corinthian pillars belonged to my great grandfather. Grandfather said it was a hiding place for slaves trying to get to the North during the Civil War. He often took me through the dark hidden chambers beneath the dark Iowa loam and showed me where slaves hid and waited for the moment they could be free men in this huge, but torn apart country in the nineteenth century. My brothers and sister and young friends often acted out the playful skullduggeries of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in these dark caverns, which meandered through the darkness under Pine Ridge.
You perhaps know the story of Tom and Aunt Polly, who was played by my sister Dora. We pretended we had the six thousand dollars that the robbers had hidden in the cave. Dora would read the story of these young urchins and we would act the deeds out accordingly. We played our secret games in these hideouts under Pine Ridge all through our childhood years.
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Summer vacation went by quickly and school was to begin again. It would be a new and fun school year. Mom told us also that she was going to have a baby. I hoped it would be a brother. I hated sisters. It was the week before school started that we experienced our first tragedy at home. I could still see myself sitting on the back porch listening to Dora’s crying from inside our home. I could still see vividly the red bloodstained screen door and the lifeless body lying beside it. We had gone fishing again for the weekend, and this was the first time we had left our dog home alone. With no leash. A speeding car and an unseeing eye meant sudden death for our long time companion and faithful friend. Across the street a light flickered on the light pole and slowly died too.
Joan, a girl from the neighborhood, was the first to see our dog trying to get into the house after the accident. “I tried to help,” she exclaimed as a tear fell from her eye. “He tried to get into the house. You can see the blood all over the screen. There was nothing I could do. The screen door was hooked.” She cried more as she repeated her sad story. The screen door “was” hooked. I had hooked it as I was told to do. I had made sure that before we left in our ‘36 Desoto that the back door was secured. I just did what I was told to do. If only I had stayed home that week end. Or if only we had taken our dog along as we usually did. I wiped the tears that now came also to my eyes. I could still hear Dora crying somewhere inside the house. “Why did he have to die?” My best friend? I asked myself.
As the sun set the following day the neighborhood gang gathered somberly at the garden’s edge near our huge silver maple tree. My sister, Dora and her friend, Joan, and several others held the black draped orange crate as my best friend Dick dug the shallow holy grave. So many times we had used orange crates for our pious endeavors in the neighborhood to bury dead cats and birds. Twice I had won the local derby contest with orange crates dad and I had made into not-so-sleek racers. Dora and I had also made furniture for her dollhouse and our clubhouse up the hill. Now we would use one of the sliver-filled crates one last time… for a true and best friend. Kathy’s eyes were the only ones not filled with tears and she had no remorse and no sorrow for our communal loss, for fear and hatred filled her heart. Blackie’s previous delight of ankle chewing had cured Kathy of any tear letting she may possibly have had. We covered Blackie’s grave with dirt and rocks. “Good-bye dear friend,” I cried. I placed our club’s flag that Kathy had finally returned over the covered grave. For some time I had sensed we were going to move again. Dad had been cleaning out the garage for several days. Many things were tossed away or given to his friends…even some of my toys. He told me I would get some new toys after the baby was born. As a seven year old that didn’t even make sense to me, that I would get more toys with more “boys” in my house, if the newcomer were indeed a boy. No one knew for sure. Mother had even been packing some of her dishes from grandmother. I went back to Blackie’s grave and placed his chewed up collar on the leafy tomb as a temporary marker. Later in the day I would saw off my baseball bat and turn it into a fitting memorial. It was now my turn to say good-bye to my neighborhood friends. I knew we wouldn’t be moving too far away, as gramps always said he had a need for me and my family close by…especially me.
Jeanette was the first to speak in the back yard. “We’re going to miss you, Dora. We’re even going to miss your bratty brother. We have had so much fun together.” Slowly and reverently she placed some flowers on Blackie’s grave. This gesture signaled the end of another day and also an end to an important segment of our lives.
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| These two siblings published a poetry antholgy-see how to order below. |
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| These two closely-knit siblings,Gregory and Dora,spent 50 years compiling this book. |
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This novel of a man's struggle to get the justice in life and in the courts which was rightfully his will leave you to ponder our courts systems. You'll laugh and cry through this story of some fiction and some facts. You'll pray for Gregory's life, even as guardian angels try to protect him from cetain death. Poetry is interwoven through this prose of a man's deep love for what should not have been...but was. It's a story of a man's innermost struggle to never give up, no matter what the costs.
The title of the book came from inside our courtrooms. After everyone has sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God...the lying begins.
Buy this novel at Barns & Noble for $26.95 or from the author. Contact the author at kingfish63042@yahoo.com.
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Twenty years later...
Inside an insane asylum-
The police car sped silently northward through the small towns and villages of the Midwest. I glanced at my watch. It said seven thirty p.m. My mouth was dry and parched and my heart seemed to be racing and missing beats at the same time. I had felt the same sensations at weddings and funerals. I also felt a bit dumbfounded and full of hatred toward some persons and this whole bizarre mess. I sat alone in the back seat. The two officers in the front listened to their police radio and both smoked heavily. My lungs felt as if I were in a burning building. Through the wire mesh I could vaguely see the men talking to each other, but I could not understand their muffled voices. I had no urge nor desire to get away, as I was tired and hungry... plus it was impossible. I noticed that there were no door handles in the back seat. What a clever idea, I thought. Would be a good idea if one had kids in the back seat. I was being treated as a common criminal. A common thief. A murderer. Then my mind raced back to Marcia and Jerrod-my friends. Some friends they turned out to be, I said to myself. Marcia had to be in this plot to keep me from talking to the authorities about Jerrod. I tried not to become paranoid. That is just what they would want me to think, that everyone was out to get me. I would keep those thoughts to myself. Even if it were true, that would be the perfect opportunity for someone to use that premise against me. That would be a good reason to whisk me away… for good.
It was almost ten p.m. when the police car pulled off the main road. It had turned foggy and I felt I was in a horror movie- soon to be murdered by the police. The police car meandered up and down a narrow and curvy road till I saw massive wrought iron gates loom dead ahead. Large spotlights illuminated a large sign at the gate as the full moon shone through a hole in the fog. There is was-the large sign with black letters-
MENTAL-HEALTH-INSTITUTION-OF-IOWA.
It reminded me of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and I was the star player. These are the places where victims go in and never come out. They either lead continuous lives as vegetables or are found dead for no apparent reason. It’s a scary scenario. We drove through the gates towards the main entrance. I could now see iron bars over dimly lit windows. As I got closer to the building I started to sweat. I gulped for each breath of air. I would beat this. So help me God, I would beat this false arrest.
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| This trilogy of adventure, slumlords and poems by two siblings will fire your quest for reading |
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COMES THE DAWN
writer-anon. ‘After awhile you learn the subtle differences between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security, and you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises, and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child, and learn to build all your roads because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans, and futures have a way of falling down in mid flight. After awhile you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn you really can endure...that you really are strong and you really do have worth. And you learn...with every good-bye you learn.’”
…Gregory was human and had human feelings and desires-he made a bad choice and suffered the consequences. God saw his good side and placed angels to protect him from his adversaries in the courts.
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