Books'nSundries

The Jade Monkey
                                                    by Emil T. Miller (Tony Miller)

                                                                                                                                                                     (Click to Enlarge)

     Here is a paperback sized book that resulted from a recent and nostalgic look back to about 1959 or 60 when I shipped out from Galveston, Texas on a rusty, decrepit old freighter and spent a few months bumming around the world. I would jump ship at whatever port I thought interesting, and catch another when I got tired of it - but I never got to spend time as a beach bum on the beaches of Tahiti, which was my original intent. Another beach sufficed for a few weeks however. I had my good job with a big company in hi-rise building construction waiting for me when I got back out of the Army, but I had this itch I felt I needed to scratch before getting back into the old grind. Those and the rough experiences aboard-ship gave me the idea for The Jade Monkey.

After writing the book I realized I had subconsciously given the main character in it some of my own rough and ready shortcomings early in life after timid early years in High School, both of which resulted from growing up under rough and hard circumstances in the early 1950's having to work everyday after school while growing up in a small town in the South. So I dedicated the book to ten of my best friends of those frequently bitter but also happy days, in the hopes that after almost 50 years and through this fictitious character, I could locate them and have them vicariously read of some of the troubles I had at home so they might have a better understanding of their friend back then.
I was a tad too young for participation in WW II, a fact I always regretted, so in writing this book I made up for it in small measure. The story timing is just before our country got into it, and it is set in and around Sao Paulo, Brazil - one of the ports I had visited many years ago. The brief Story Synopsis should be sufficient to whet the curiosity I hope:

The Story Synopsis:

     1939. Europe is a boiling caldron of an ever widening war caused by Adolf Hitler’s sadistic and maniacal dreams of world domination. Brazil, with it’s vast raw materials, grain and beef coveted by Germany for their war machine, is a country seething with intense German fifth column activity and rumored governmental coups. The government is a dictatorship but is friendly to the U. S., must remain so and be assisted against German subversion.
     The questionable activities of Steve "Moon" Mullins, the hard-bitten but patriotic Captain of an old freighter, gets he and his first mate embroiled in danger and intrigue involving German spies, American undercover agents, takeover plots, and a beautiful European Duchess. These two men as well as the ship itself have a mysterious and shady reputation for several reasons, primarily gun-running, and they were frowned upon even to our soon-to-be allies in the coming fight against Hitler's and Mussolini's Socialist greed for world power.   An expatriate from the deep South of the U.S.A., "Moon" rises to the occasion, risks his life and ship, and falls in love with the Duchess.

                                                                                       ... © Emil T. Miller - (Tony Miller)
                                                                                             (Click here for AUTHOR'S BIO)

CLOSE BRUSH WITH ETERNITY

     What was it? Something had wakened me. The delicate aroma of a certain variety of Jasmine permeated my cheap hotel room as it usually did when the tropical breeze was right. It came from the little flower garden the proprietors’ wife kept in their little courtyard in the back. The small electric fan oscillating across my body, sweaty and naked except for my shorts, did little against the stifling, humid heat of the late evening as I lay atop the sheets in that small, air-locked hotel room in a seamy part of São Paulo, Brazil. The cold sweat that popped out on my forehead in the heat of that sultry night was proof that the thing which had made the faint noise was intent on ending my life. The barest of a sound, it had been made by a human being making the utmost effort not to be heard. But what was it? As my now sharply awakened mind mulled it over, it suddenly came to me. It was the sound of one of my shoes being moved ever so slightly. I had kicked them off to the middle of the room as I undressed and flopped down almost exhausted, an hour earlier.
     No doubt it had been friends of that swarthy fellow in the white linen suit, black shirt and white tie who had covertly watched me as I sat nursing a drink and killing time in the hotel bar after supper earlier that evening. It had to have been he who had arranged for the two man-mountains which had later jumped out of an alley at me across town, intent on doing who knows what to me. I got an edge on them by not stopping as they anticipated. Rather, I took another step forward and decked the nearest one. But to my amazement he sprang back up immediately as his buddy swung an iron bar at me which barely missed my head, my sore shoulder bearing witness. The first fellow came up with knife in hand and right then I decided that retreat was a virtue and ran for my life, which had taken a whole lot of running and over half that big city as well, so it seemed to me.
     Immediately then as I lay there and the knowledge came to me as to what that faint sound was, I lunged away from it! I sprang up and over towards the window and felt the rush of air as the arm came down with vicious force and the knife buried itself in the mattress! Stealthily the shadow drew back in a cat-like crouch and began easing around the bed towards me. The dim light, such as there was from the blinking neon sign outside, glinted on the long slender blade. I thought about the open window next to me and so did that shadow. It crouched to pounce, but when I threw the still spinning fan at him it surprised him, stopped his lunge and he stumbled to the floor as he stepped back and tripped against an arm of the old stuffed chair.
     I was on him in an instant. Grabbing his knife wrist tight with both hands I pulled him up to his feet and swung under his arm in the manner of a jitter-bug dancer. When a bone in his arm snapped his grip loosened on the knife and I grabbed it out of his hand before it could drop to the floor. I saw his other dark hand fumbling inside the jacket of his white linen suit, but he was too late. Blade up, I plunged the knife upwards into his chest with such desperate force it threw him against the wall. In less time than it takes to tell it he was the recipient of three or four more such fear-driven thrusts and he slowly slid down the wall to the floor with a choked-off grunt and the gurgle of blood in his throat. I was shaking like a leaf in a hailstorm.
     The rumpus had awakened a roomer in the next room who shouted in Spanish, "Callanse alla". I yelled back, "Callanse tu!" (Shut up yourself). It was quiet again, and with no indication of anyone coming I eased the door open and looked down the hall. Nothing. I struggled to get hold of myself. There was a key in the lock on the outside of my door, and I removed it. Shutting the door again, I noticed how silently it closed. The hinges were well oiled and the door even had rubber bumpers to quite the closing of it. Such was unheard of in such a place as this, and when I put the "do not disturb" sign out and locked the door from the inside again, the lock as well made no sound. The other doors all squeaked and clumped when they closed. It had been hard not to notice when trying to sleep.
     Now I knew why the next night clerk had changed me to this room. I had been given this room at the end of the hall purposely. But how had they known who I was? Or what I was about? Hell, I didn’t even know for sure myself! Killing is a drastic measure, but why me? And if so why had they waited this long to make the attempt? There were too many questions and no answers. I had stepped into a mess of it this time. Would I ever learn?
     As usual, there was a woman involved. A woman wearing a white orchid and Confederate Jasmine perfume. There always seemed to be a woman when trouble visited me. This time was different though. I had instinctively known the difference almost immediately. She was like no other woman I had ever known, and try to deny it all I wanted, I could not get her out of my mind. 'Use 'em and loose 'em'. That had been my modus operandi with the women who seemed always available at that point in my life and who shared my few leisure hours in whatever port in the world I happened to be. But this one, well, she was more than just a peg above the usual to say the least. She was a peg I would have to reach for. No. Assuming she was even interested, she was one I would have to qualify for and measure up to. More to the point, it was obvious that she would be the impartial, discriminating, demanding judge. But aw hell! Why should I care?
     But I knew why. When the right one comes along a man knows it, and that is always the why of it. And too, regardless of anything else, one never forgets his first love - that he has truly loved before, and that it just might be possible again with another. Weird how such strange things charge across one’s mind in a split second at such moments! The sweat had turned cold as I realized just how close I had come to death. I was lucky to be alive. I forced myself into a calmer state so I could think. I knew I must vacate these premises post haste. Pulling down the shade I pulled the chain to turn on the bare bulb hanging from the center of the room and bent to examine my assailant. He was not Spanish or Portugese as I had thought, but dark-skinned even so. Notwithstanding the Negroes and Mestizos, over half the population of this city were lighter skinned than him and of European descent. He had a thin pencil-line moustache and could have been Egyptian, Armenian, Turkish, or some such.
     His Passport told the tale. Armando Siekely. It was a half-latinized Palestinian name and the passport said he was from Haifa, but he had to be more Egyptian than Palestinian, since most Palestinians are usually as light-skinned as myself. But he wasn't a heinie so how did this man fit in? His wallet was stuffed with bills of the local currency. I took them. Hell, I was nearly broke at the moment and this fellow would not be needing them. I didn’t bother to close the window behind me but I did take the time to carefully clean the knife and wipe down everything else in the room that I could possibly have touched. I washed the blood off me in the little lavatory on one wall, changed my shorts, dressed and carefully put them and my few belongings in my kit bag before I pulled the light off.
     I had no idea how thorough their police work in this city was. I just knew I wanted no part of their Napoleonic system of justice. As I climbed out the window onto the roof of the adjacent building the man’s Walther P-38 pistol rested easy and comforting in the shoulder holster I had taken off him and adjusted to myself. Scampering down the fire escape as quietly as possible, I made for my old Mercedes parked down the street.
     The road was overlain with a layer of fog in the low places as I sped the 50 miles back to the Port of Santos where our freighter was anchored. I was halfway there before my stomach quit quivering like a piece of jelly. What the HELL had I gotten myself into this time? I knew, but not the full extent of it and that did not feel any too good right then. Undercover agents of my home country had "drafted" us for who knows what all after Rick and I had unknowingly barged smack into the middle of their doings at the German Ambassadors' party we crashed the other night in the process of chasing after the fairer sex. That was where I met the Duchess. She spoke French as we danced, but so did I - and well enough to recognize it spoken with a South Alabama accent.   She was no more French nor a Duchess than I was! What was her name and what was her game? I had to know. I had to know because this mess of intrigue had almost gotten me killed, because she was somehow deeply involved, and because she had gotten under my skin big time. I parked the big Mercedes in our spot, and shivered in the early morning dampness as I walked to the steps down to our dinghy and rowed out to the ship.
     Rick was laying in his bunk nursing a bottle of Madeira he had gotten at Shanghai, and reading a copy of Homer's Iliad of all things. "You look like you been shot at and missed, and s___ at and hit, ole stick," he grinned as he looked up....
                                                                                              © Emil T. Miller (Tony Miller)
                                                                                                     (Click here for the AUTHOR'S BIO)

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Miriam Davis-SMHS Robert Bonner-CHS John Attaway-SMHS David Hay-CHS Larry Ashe-SMHS

Kenneth McWorter-CHS Dan Hall-SMHS Bradley Young-CHS Ann Thomas-CHS Larry Austin-CHS (Me-11thGr-SMHS)

Here are ten of my very best friends from my school days in Carrollton and Stone Mountain, Georgia. Two sweetie-pies and 8 fine pals who were rock-solid for me during some very trying times due to the bad health of my parents and me having to work summers and every day after school to help with family expenses. It was not always easy to be my friend in those days, but these 10 never let me down.
...Tony

(L) LARRY AUSTIN, Africa, 1957 Larry had been in the Navy about 2 years at the time. He had a total of 15 promotions and got to be the highest ranking officer an enlisted man could be, a Navy Lieutenant 0-3, which is a Captain in the Army.

(R) "SOME PALS" L-R: Donald Heath, Robert Bonner, Kenneth McWhorter, and me, Tony Miller. This picture was taken in 1953 I believe, when we were in the 10th grade at Carrollton High School, Carrollton, Georgia. It was taken by Robert's mother, at their house one afternoon after school.

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