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Summertime provides the perfect backdrop for the five fictional short stories contained in this exciting book by Lee Silber. You'll meet a colorful cast of characters as you cruise up the California coast aboard a yacht with murder in the air. Between sets of Hawaiian music and sips of margaritas you'll find out who the "Beach Boy Rapist" really is and why he's stalking fans of the band. You'll root for a down-on-his-luck surfer as he attempts to go from zero to hero. You'll witness two teenagers come of age as they race against time to locate two kidnapped Drug Enforcement Agents. Adventure is around every corner as the search for Doc and his boat has our hero dodging sharks on a deep dive off the coast of Mexico. This book is the perfect way to enjoy summer all year long.
Trade Paperback
Tales From The Tropics Publishing Co.
128 Pages - Fiction - Cover Price $10.00 |
 To read comments from the author click
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EXCERPT FROM "SUMMER STORIES" by Lee Silber
The Splendid
Splinter
Absorbing the bone-jarring explosion from below, Doc knew he
only had minutes to live. His beloved fifty-four foot Bertram
cabin cruiser began to list to port, and he frantically struggled
to free his hands, tightly taped behind his back. The two goons
had also done a very professional job of taping his ankles together,
securing them to the base of the captain's chair, which was
bolted to the salon floor.
After being beaten and tortured for nearly four hours, it was
hard to focus on a way out of this mess. Doc wasn't sure if
his vision was blurred from having his glasses knocked off or
from the repeated blows to his head and face that had left one
eye swollen shut. His blood was splattered everywhere.
A wave of hopelessness overcame him, and his world faded to
black.
Moments later, Doc was jolted awake, pictures and mementos falling
all around him as the bow of The Splendid Splinter slipped
into the sea. Hanging his head in defeat, he noticed a picture
that had fallen into his lap as the boat angled to its grave.
It was the 1980 Padres team photo. In the back row, a much younger
Doc stood shoulder to shoulder with the other coaches. This
brought a smile to his face.
He had never married, never had kids, but he had no regrets.
Baseball was his first and only love. Scanning the photo with
his good eye, he found Taylor James, the rookie Doc had taken
under his wing and taught how to hit a curve—and how to
be a man. Yes, he would have liked to say goodbye to the kid.
The rising water quickly chilled any warm, fuzzy feelings. It
was up to his knees now, but Doc refused to panic. He closed
his eyes and visualized the surroundings he had called home
for the past twenty years. He moved through the boat in his
mind. Try as he might, he couldn't come up with any way to save
himself. He was going to die. The only question now was, how
did he want to go out.
The frigid water was up to his chest now. Fighting the lethargy
brought on by incipient hypothermia, he used his weight to move
the chair around, stopping to rest, his head pounding as though
men with jackhammers were in his skull working away. By now,
the boat was nearly at a ninety degree angle and minutes away
from plunging to the bottom. Maybe, just maybe he could get
a distress call out and at least let someone know where he went
down.
He swung the chair around until he saw his hand-held VHF radio
lodged against the instrument console. If his hands were free,
he could just reach out and make that mayday call. He had to
crane his neck just to breathe, and his body was going numb,
submerged in the icy, swirling water.
The angle of descent steepened further, and the hand-held suddenly
fell from its notch and hit him on the head. Doc reached up
to rub the bump and realized that his hand was free. The cold
water had shrunk his skin enough for him to slip his hand out
of the binding. He reached for the radio and tried to turn it
on, but his hands were so numb he could barely turn the knob,
and he had to use both of them, clumsily, like clubs.
"Hurry," he thought, knowing it was hopeless and refusing
to give up anyway.
Fortunately, his radio was preset to channel 16, the emergency
frequency. He was barely able to squeeze the "send"
button and found it hard to talk, but he managed to yell out,
"Mayday, mayday! This is The Splendid Splinter and
I'm sinking fast. . ."
Continued
. . . in the book "Summer Stories" by Lee Silber.
Comments
From The Author:
At the end of each story I included some notes on where the
idea for the story came from and how it was written. I hope
this helps you to better understand and enjoy this book. Here
are those comments along with the title of the related story.
Author Notes: "No Ka Oi"
The term "No Ka Oi" means "The Best" in
Hawaiian. I have always felt that Maui was the best island by
far. When I lived there, I hung out at the El Crab Catcher bar
quite a bit. Two guitarists who played there regularly, were
so good I wondered why they hadn't made it bigger. It turns
out that they were just warming up. They went on to become extremely
successful and have released several CDs. Today, the El Crab
Catcher is gone (replaced by the Hula Grill) and Maui is getting
to be just as congested and crowded as where I live now. But
a bar on the beach called Leilani's still holds that old magic.
In the afternoons, there is live music, cheap drinks (by Hawaii
standards) and delicious local plates. This story came to me
as I watched the setting sun from Leilani's patio listening
to beautiful Hawaiian music, watching the tourists (girls) pass
by, and drinking several beers. I could barely read my notes
when I looked at them later, but I was able to decipher them
and turn it into this story when I got back home, with the help
of a Hapa CD playing in the background. Aloha.
Author Notes: "Smitty"
The character of "Smitty" is a combination of many
people I got to know hanging around Pacific Beach as a kid in
the late '70s. Unfortunately, many of their lives didn't have
happy endings. Some did, however, go from beach bums to businessmen
and became mini-moguls in the surf industry. While writing this
story, I went back to Pacific Beach and walked around. Many
of the places in this story are gone, Bernie's Hot Dogs and
San Diego Surf Shop, to name two. Amazingly, however, Pacific
Beach hasn't changed all much (if anything, it's improved).
Crystal Pier is still there (minus a few feet that were lost
during the El Nino storm of 1982), and the lifeguard station
and boardwalk are still the same as I remember them. Pacific
Beach still feels like old San Diego to me, and that's a good
thing.
Author Notes: "Chumming The Water"
Even though I am the author of eight (non-fiction) books, this
was only the second short story I ever wrote. (The first one
I threw in the trash.) I still had no idea what I was doing,
but I had a lot of fun writing this one. Of the five stories
in this book, this one is the most autobiographical. My friend
Bruce and I actually did take a guy from New York I had just
met out on my boat and he did, in fact, get seasick. That's
where the similarities end, however. The rest of this story
is pure fiction.
Author Notes; "Underground"
When I was growing up in San Diego, one of my favorite things
to do was build forts in our neighborhood with the other kids.
Some were hollowed out bushes, others were in trees and one
was partially underground. This was quite an undertaking for
a couple of pre-teens. The building of the forts, and what went
on in them, was a big part of our learning about "life." (Needless to say, some of these lessons involved girls.) So
I started this story with the premise of a young boy building
an elaborate underground fort where he would learn about the
facts of life. Before I knew it, the story evolved to include
drug smuggling, a rescue attempt and some characters I didn't
even know existed. I had no idea how this story would end, and
that made it fun for me to write and hopefully for you to read.
Author Notes: "The Splendid Splinter"
This story began to take shape when someone asked me if I knew
who the Padres right fielder was before Tony Gwynn. Not an easy
question, since Gwynn had been a fixture in right field for
twenty years. Being the baseball fan I am, I took a couple of
guesses before coming to the realization that I had no idea.
It was Sixto Lezcano, but for the purposes of this story, it's
Taylor James. As for the other cast of characters, most are
based on people who hang around the marina where I keep my boat.
For the specific details of this story, one day I paddled a
kayak over to the Harbor Patrol docks. I asked some of the officers
there how to go about sinking a boat in Mexico. I could tell
by their looks that they were wondering whether I was really
writing a story or had more sinister intentions. I learned more
than how to sink a boat while writing this story. I discovered
that I particularly enjoyed writing the parts of Ann-Marie and
Christie. If they were real people, I think we would get along
great. As for Taylor and Doc, I think if they weren't figments
of my imagination we would sit on the flying bridge of a boat
somewhere, share a beer and talk about baseball and Padres right-fielders
before Taylor James.
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