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Introduction to Parts 1 and 2
In 1978, while incarcerated at Missouri’s Stringworth State Penitentiary, a member of my family wrote a novel-length piece of autobiographical fiction. He showed a detailed outline to his attorney and received this blunt advice: destroy the manuscript with all possible haste; the shield of fiction might not protect you from an event dating back to the 1960s. Fortunately, our author chose concealment over destruction. The manuscript remained under lock and key until 1998 when he revisited the yellowing stack of paper and wrote a brief set of reflections on the original work. As keeper of both documents, I consider it an honor to release them at this time.
L. E. May 19, 2004 _________________________ Part 1The Stringworth Manuscript
[Copyright declaration 2003. Untitled manuscript completed February 1978.] ____________________________
Prologue
Clocks tick slowly in this place. Walls are cold. Cruelty lurks and fury seethes. Intellectually, I understand why I’m here: A person who dares to love completely must be willing to walk a treacherous path. It works in my head. Poets and philosophers have delivered the warning for centuries. But in my heart and in my gut, I battle depression like an enemy soldier trying to kill me. I’m writing these words at a wobbly wooden table in the saddest excuse for a library you can imagine: tiny, dusty, and dim. The shelves are disheveled and thinly stocked, but the room has a window, and they let me come here to write three times a week. The chance to work on this manuscript has been a Godsend. Even this grimy window has been a Godsend. To the left, I see a stone watchtower manned by two armed and surly uniforms. But to the right, I can see over the wall to the rolling fields and forests of central Missouri. There’s a farm over there, distant, just this side of the tree line that forms a jagged horizon. I sometimes spot its family working the fields and playing in a nearby meadow. It might be hard to imagine cherishing strangers. But I do. The library is tucked into the second floor of Stringworth’s administrative building just down the hall from the Parole Board’s hearing room. I’ll be in that room six weeks and three days from today. My lawyer says the odds of a Glenn Sorensen parole are fifty-fifty, maybe worse, and on bad days, physical pain knifes through me when I think about the meaning of that vote. I left precious lives in turmoil outside these walls. There are hands I need to hold, and hurts I need to heal. To survive, I try to focus forward, toward the life I’m longing to live. But a guy wearing state-issue orange cotton can’t avoid looking back, and he can’t avoid asking that enduring question: What would I have done then if I had known what I know now? It’s a question that hangs heavy over a summer day in 1963, the day that Amy Rivera tapped me on the shoulder. Here’s the part that haunts me: I did know then what I know now, or at least a major slice of it. I just didn’t believe it. The warnings were everywhere. But I grew up in a small town that we’ll call Taylorsburg. My little town—like most of its size, I imagine—had a rumor mill that was consistently colorful. But it was downright laughable as a source of reliable information. So I ignored the whispers. I started down a twisting path. And now I’m here. Still, I know I would do it all again, although with a tweak or two. So let’s turn back the calendar by fifteen years. Meet Amy Rivera with me. Peel the layers of her secrets with me. And decide what you would have done if you had walked this trail in my moccasins.
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Excerpt: Silent Hero |
