The Dunning Of Harley Nesbit
Genre: Novel, general, psychological suspense.
Dedication: Helen Abraham
Ille dolet vere, qui sine teste dolet – “He mourns honestly who mourns without witnesses.” (Martialis)
What would it be like to wake up one morning under a bridge and not be able to remember who you are, how you got there, and only snippets of your past? This is Harley’s predicament and it’s a mystery he seems incapable of solving on his own…This is where an impish street maven comes in. His name is Dusty, and he’s all too familiar with the besotted Harley, who’s as put off and perplexed as he is intrigued by this queer little man…Things soon change, however, and somehow between the two of them they manage to unravel Harley’s past in a most unorthodox way…Brace yourself, because this is going to be one lurid journey that will shock your socks off! And it all comes to a completely unexpected end!...Be warned: THIS IS MATURE READING, but if you enjoy a compelling mystery and you have a strong stomach, then proceed at your own risk!
Excerpts
CHAPTER ONE
Presently he attempts to crash the main gate of another hotel where his egress, though more courteous, is just as swift and fixed. Once again– access denied. This seems to be his general case, which begs the question: How came he whence? What shot the constellation of his once felicitous circumstance out of the sky? What subversion befell him that he now trudges through the streets, wretched and besotted, in the riggings of a former life which, still faintly visible in his comportment he could, nevertheless, be presumed to have savored some measure of prosperity and social standing? What makes despair and tetchiness his most redeeming qualities at best? Though most assuredly no member of the Chapel Royal or the grand monde, this was his circumstance. It appears non sequitur. Alas, he cannot tell; he doesn’t know himself. He has drunk deep from the River Lethe; deeper still from the bottle, and there are wide gulfs in his long memory, wide rifts of nothingness, which are only now beginning to repair themselves through desultory recollections and foggy, disjointed dreams.
CHAPTER TWO
The man gives Harley an approving smile.
“Yeah. Now that’s more like it. Real street shoes. And that’s what I meant, when I asked how long you’ve been out...I wasn’t talking about jail or a junket...What I meant was how long have you been out on the streets. Don’t answer because I already know that, too. No more than a month or two I’d say. Am I right?”
Harley turns away and looks at the water ponderously.
“Well, don’t you know?”
“...I lost my job and couldn’t find another one,” Harley replies, his memory suddenly jogged. His words are slow and his voice is hushed as he continues like a man who has just recovered a long-lost checkbook register.
“...Eventually I had to sell the house. And then my savings ran out...My wife took the kids and went somewhere, I don’t know where. And then, all of a sudden, there was nowhere to go, and I was out on the streets...Yeah, that’s what happened.”
“What’d you do for a living?”
Harley shakes his head, his eyes blank.
“...I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
The man eyes him queerly.
“...You tetched or something? What can’t you remember?”
“I don’t know, I said...I just don’t. I want to sometimes...I see things sometimes, but I’m not sure if they’re real or not...Do you know what I mean?”
The man’s expression grows queerer still.
“...You must have some sort of amnesia, I’d say. Every once in a while I run into someone like that.”
“...I don’t know. Maybe you’re right...It doesn’t matter, though.”
“What about your family? Didn’t you try to find out where they went?”
Harley’s face wizens angrily. The stranger goes too far, is becoming too inquisitive. In truth, he doesn’t have an answer.
“...Look. I don’t want to talk about it, all right? It’s none of your business, anyway!”
Grim–faced, the man accedes with a nod.
“...Yeah. Hard times. That’s our anthem, us street people,” he muses sympathetically, then pauses a moment.
“...They call me Dusty.”
THE DUNNING OF HARLEY NESBIT
(Copyright © 1998, 2008 by Richard D. Kennedy- all rights reserved.)