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The Chessmen
By
Michael Wright
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Set in Dundalk and Baltimore City, Maryland, The Chessmen is Michael Wright’s second novel , available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback Sonny Wakefield is riding a rocket in the summer of '62, before his senior year of high school. Playing trumpet for The Chessmen brings him face to face with the adult world of bars, violence, and his first chaotic excursions into sex. Is he a pawn among the broken lives he encounters, or the knight he hopes to be? Set in Dundalk and Baltimore City, Maryland, The Chessmen is Michael Wright’s second novel after Down the Ocean: Summer of ’64, also on Amazon. Chapter One “Damn it all to hell and back!” Sonny threw his racket against the chain fence and dropped to sit cross-legged on the green court surface. How could he have lost to this jerk? He yanked his laces loose and threw his shoes off. He was miserably sweaty, his feet wrapped in fire. He grabbed the racket and held it above his head, about to smash it down, looking for the satisfactio...
Portion of a new short story
By
Michael Wright
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Excerpt of the first story in the collection, Purely Gone and Other Departures : PURELY GONE CooCoo tilts down Harvard Avenue like a carny ride in slow motion. With the blare of the Buckaneer Bar behind him and only the gas station on the corner as his next marker, he is moving carefully through the haze of two a.m. in late September. It is cool enough to see his breath, though he wonders if the clouds from his mouth aren't just pure alcohol exhaust. "5 Dom $7" is what the Buckaneer sign reads, and that's CooCoo's kind of place, in spite of the cutesy spelling of the name. No complicated list of beers from around the world, just your five basic cold bottles of nearly tasteless amber liquid, guaranteed, in sufficient quantity--and chased with enough whiskey--to set the nightat its proper angle. He sings to himself as he lurches along, not caring what song it is, just extricating words from his weary brain in clumps, like the clots of green bile he hocks ...




