Coming To Amazon This Week – The Divorce and Doom of Simon Pastor, by Pete Deakon

BookCoverPreview1Simon Pastor believed he had never been hurt before. By the time he found himself in an uncontrolled cycle of hurting his wife, he realized that was not true. He felt his wife had hurt him. Then he hurt her. And hurt her. And hurt her. Finally, he divorced her. But that didn’t stop the hurt.

The Divorce and Doom of Simon Pastor is an explicit look at innocence and hurt. It is not about innocence lost, but about innocence never had. It is about the most destructive kind of hurt. A shameful tale of his descent into madness, The Divorce and Doom of Simon Pastor offers an unencumbered look into one man’s failed marriage and failed divorce.

Talk

“Not a hatchet–an actual ax.”

“Oh. I had heard he used a hatchet. Picturing Mark swinging an ax is even more difficult.”

“Yeah, well he loved Rebecca.”

“Really? You’re saying it’s okay to do what he did because he loved her? I’m not saying the killer should be walking around, but there is a little thing called rule of law. He should’ve had his day in court.”

“Please. You know as well as I do that the system is broken, especially in this case. They gave up.”

“Fine. Either way, I can’t believe it.”

“I know. Apparently when the police told him the trail went cold, Mark just quit his job, sold a bunch of stuff, and secretly tracked down that mother fucker. Search and destroy.”

“I meant that I can’t believe he turned himself in.”

“Oh.”

“Really. Now he’s probably going to prison. He had essentially gotten away with murder. And then he turns himself in. It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. Have you talked to Rick much?”

“Not much.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Mark called me that morning to ask if I’d help him.”

“Me too.”

“I guess he learned pretty quickly who his real friend was.”

“Yeah.”

“I just have the wife and kids, you know? I can’t get involved in something like unearthing a dead body.”

“You’re right. You are right.”

“Everyone’s saying Rick is something special for risking everything to help Mark though.”

“I’ve heard the same talk.”

“Well, what can you do?”

“Not much anyone can do at this point.”

“Not at this point.”

Buried Within

“Are you sure you want to do this,” Rick began, anxiously. “No one even knows he’s gone.”

Mark just stood there, his hand outstretched and holding a shovel.

“Okay,” Rick said, taking the shovel. “Okay. I said I’d help. So I’m helping,” he said, still talking himself into his decision.

Mark reached into the trunk for a second shovel. He slammed the trunk shut and the men began to walk into the woods.

“How far is it?” asked Rick, turning back to see the car fade from view.

“A ways.”

“At least I have my comfortable boots on,” Rick said, trying to make the best of it. “Aw shit,” he said, stepping calf deep into an unexpected puddle.

Mark just rolled his eyes.

Shaking his leg, Rick hurriedly returned to Mark’s side, more worried about the setting sun than a wet boot. He looked around them and noticed the trees were thinning out. About to comment on this, he bumped into Mark who had stopped.

Unaffected, Mark said, “It’s here.”

“Here? Right here? How do you know?”

“I know.”

“Whelp, I guess it’s time to dig,” Rick said as his shovel slid into the earth.

“I guess it is.”

Sweating and feeling like they were making no progress, Rick said, “Jesus, Mark. How deep did you bury him? Are you sure we’re in the right spot?”

Just then Mark struck an object.

“Finally,” said Rick. Without Mark’s cool exterior, Rick would have been terrified to be this deep into the woods at night. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” he asked.

“I’m sure.”

It took everything the two men had to lift the box from the hole, but they did.

As Mark pulled up on his handle, Rick asked, “Aren’t we going to fill in the hole?”

“Nope. They’re going to want to see where he was for themselves.”

“Oh, right.”

Mark began, “Rick-”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Thanks again for doing this. All the others refused. You’re the only one who understood.”

“You’re welcome. But really, it’s nothing. Everyone can see that you’re a different man since Rebecca was-” Rick stopped himself.

“Please don’t.”

“Sorry. I won’t. But yes, you’re welcome.”

Rick struggled to square the box alongside the car as Mark called the police.

Growth

Some of you know I started a side-project blog with a singular goal. It didn’t pan out. I’m shutting it down today. I wasn’t going to mention it here again, but the experience really helped me in a specific way. The life lesson was kind of a nice end-cap to the year while the bigger paradigm shift is less than a month away.  And, as usual, I think by sharing my experience others might be able to learn from it too. Backstory in a nutshell is I hear about a female blogger here in Denver that dates a lot and never pays for the dinners. I tell her I’d like to date her, but we have to split the tabs. She balks. I create a blog to woo her. She still balks. I contemplate everything for quite a while until it happens–growth.

Dear C-,

A couple of things. First, I took a personality test once that revealed my personality falls under the larger category of “Guardian”. Ooo. Makes sense, what with serving in the Air Force and all. Second, I love The Matrix trilogy. Do you remember the second one? The scene with the architect and the word ergo? Neo has to choose between saving his one true love, Trinity, or the whole of Zion. It’s a bigger philosophical point, of course. Most of the time, in my life, I choose to defend Zion, the group. But defend is what I do in any case. Ergo, while I found your voice and personality on the radio that morning many weeks ago very appealing and believed this may mean you would like to play, I have since concluded that my intentions with creating this blog and writing you have not been pure.

You sound sharp. You write well. But I’ve realized that this whole thing (split tab condition/blog) was about defending men. It took many of my closest friends and family members telling me that I’m wasting my time to finally come to this conclusion. However, I should’ve known this just from the fact that I told many people that I thought what you were doing–getting so many free dinners–was criminal. And if in my little brain you’re the criminal, then it naturally follows that I think the men are the ones under attack and in need of protection. Rather than just say this outright (defend), I created a blog and attempted to stir your emotions (offend). That was wrong.

C-, I do think what you’re doing is hurtful. Date away, I say. Find your white knight. But don’t hurt the guys. You’re better than that. In any case, it seems an apology is in order. Here goes:

C-, on behalf of all men, I’d like to apologize for my actions. Your dating life is your dating life. I shouldn’t have treated it like a game. You’re a real woman, not a voice, not a picture. “Life is immense” (Legend of 1900). I hope you achieve the happiness that your writing indicates you desire.

Pete

PS – I’m not ducking you. You know where to find me.

Review of My Church

Well, that’s a lie. It’s not my church. I’ve only been there once. But it was wonderful. And I will be returning every chance I get. The search is over. Finally.

For the record, I am a human. This is worth articulating because, especially when it comes to churches, I want to be treated like a human and not a farm animal. I don’t need to be herded, nor do I want to follow the herd. That said, as I walked into the building I was greeted and I watched as a woman took my name down on some sort of ledger with a pencil. Remember pencils? While there were no children-specific activities that day, I’m certain H- won’t have to be processed and tagged to take part in them next time.

Quickly finding George, I suggested we move closer to the front than where he had chosen and we did. Next thing you know, he and I are standing wide-eyed amidst the seated congregation at the behest of a young women who read off the names of all the guests. Little H- remained seated until our kind neighbors in the pew in front of us urged her to stand when the young woman asked for any guests whom she may have missed to also stand. H- stood proud.

This next part is probably a little too personal, but this is my blog so I’m writing it. It’s been a while since I’ve had much physical contact with anyone but H-. And she’s in that tight spot where I think she does it because she recognizes this. Anyhow, I’ve been thinking this probably needs to change. Touch is important, they say. Well, during an amazing baby dedication that lasted about ten minutes and crowded seemingly an entire extended family at the front, like thirty people, we were asked to stand and next thing I knew my hand was being touched by the lady next to me. I looked down before moving my hand out of her way and noticed that she was simply reaching out to hold my hand during the dedication thing. It was then that I looked around and quickly noticed that everyone was holding their neighbor’s hand. I joined suit and grabbed H-‘s little hand. Next thing I noticed (George too), H- was placing her limp hand in George’s. At the end, my kind neighbor gave my hand a squeeze before she released it.

Did I mention that the three of us were the most under-dressed folks in the entire building. I measured by layers. I had two. All the other men were at least at two, most at three. Probably half the women had hats on. These people dressed with a purpose. And yet they were naked. Can you understand that?

I thought the roof was going to come off at one point during the worship. Talk about Holy Ghost power. A real piano, an un-amplified small drum set, and an organ accompanied a real, though small and old, choir. Though I’m sure no one could hear us, George and I both sang.

Finally, we came to the Word. And here’s where I discovered what I have been looking for all along in a sermon. A sermon shouldn’t be smug. A sermon shouldn’t cause my mind to distractedly go academic on it. A sermon shouldn’t teach beyond its speaker’s–nor audience’s–intelligence, nor should it dumb down that which cannot be in order to meet the audience. We’re talking about a sermon. A sermon shouldn’t be chocked full of witticisms, nor jokes. The preacher needn’t prove “even though I’m a preacher, I can be funny, see?”, nor should he tell some inside joke that requires his giving a politician’s knowing nod to some poor soul who will undoubtedly feel a little too special for the rest of the afternoon and at the same time causes me to wish it had been me. Most important, I realized that I want a sermon which is a sermon. Not a presentation. Not death by powerpoint. Not a motivational speech. And the sermon that day was none of those things. It was more than those things.

Afterward, we lingered. People lingered. We met the pastor. Oh. And did I mention the service’s total duration was over two and half hours? 10:30 start, when it was over I pulled my phone out and it displayed 1:15. And it did this without filler like Broncos mentions, professional videos with floating words, or hollywood movie clips.

Walking to our cars, George said it best, “Pete. This was by far and away the best church yet.”

Letter to My Friend About Publishing The Divorce and Doom of Simon Pastor

Hey Friend,

I’ve been thinking about your phone call last week, about the unnamed feeling you felt. Now, I can’t possibly know what you’re thinking about your book, but here’s what I’m thinking about my book. I’m terrified to put it on sale and have people read it. Terrified. Why? Because on that day the dream ends. I think I told you about my next book, Eight Acres, and that I have always had a problem of fantasizing about the future rather than living in the now. After talking with you the other morning at the Egg and I (and even before then) I’ve been sustained by the dream that The Divorce and Doom of Simon Pastor will really take root. That it will go viral. That men (and their women) will write me to thank me for being the vulnerable one and sharing my experiences with such daring. And oh yes, radio shows. Probably even television will be in the mix, to be honest. And more than that, the dream has included that I won’t have to get a real job again. Because I can’t stand working.

But the day I list the book on Amazon, the dream ends. In its place will be only one simple reality–it won’t sell. Unlike the book version of this blog, Simon Pastor may sell 50 copies or so to family and friends and random blog followers because it is new material. But it won’t go viral. It won’t “put me on the scene”. It won’t prevent me from having to endure a real job again. It might, of course, but it won’t. No, it actually doesn’t even have a might. It just won’t. Make no mistake, I needed to write this book. I needed to write it like I need my next breath. And I need to write my blogs. But that’s a far cry from it selling. I’m beginning Eight Acres this weekend and will likely have it complete before February. But then the money starts running out. The dream will end. And I’ll be putting to test my resolve at being kind to my ex-wife as my new job’s schedule will likely act as a catalyst to backsliding into anger and hurt.

I am happy though. Really happy. I don’t regret anything and I wouldn’t change a thing about how I lived my life since taking the oil rig job. 33 is a big year for me. Laughing, I told George the other day that only after having finished this book did I remember that I predicted back in church camp years ago that 33 was when I’d start my calling. Ha. Everyone else always acted like it was in/around college that they would begin their calling. Well, at 18 I said that I felt mine would begin at 33 because that’s how old Jesus was (give or take) when they killed him. Immature, misguided, morbid, delusional, but true nonetheless. And you can bet I never imagined my calling would be a book centered on divorce. Suffice it to say, I can’t wait to hit 34 and laugh at my prophetic abilities. Either way, I’m certain that no matter what it is going to be a helluva lot of fun.

Okay. Sell your book. Give it away. Get people reading it. And on to the next one.

Pete

PS – James Hetfield of Metallica said, “Music is my therapy. I need to do it.” I’m not sure that’s exactly where you’re at with writing, but I think you can see the value in his honest admission. With this book, I am certain now that money has nothing to do with the fact that I need to write.

Review of the Mega Church

I’m at a loss. I thought I knew what to expect before going, but there are just some situations in life that can’t be prepared for apparently. Most recently, the situation I’m referring to is attending a mega church. Now you know as well as I do that I’m not talking about anything that has to do with a church’s size. As an example, recently while I was visiting family in Kansas City I attended the largest United Methodist church in the USA. It is not a mega church.

Back in Denver, I visited a mega church last Sunday. What a joke. Seriously. There is no possible way someone can read a single verse from the Old or New Testament and conclude that a mega church is what any of those folks envisioned. The only people I can think of who envision a mega church as having something to do with the gospel or first or second century churches are tenth-graders who just got back from a week-long church camp. Oh, and people who were never taught that it’s okay to have a lot of money. (If you happen to be one of these wealthy heathens, check out Peter Drucker’s idea about profit in his book Management. It explains your dilemma most succinctly, I think. Profit equals responsibility–nothing more. And, yes, we’re all watching you and evaluating your decisions. So please lead by example).

Most church services have a specific routine. They begin with worship, pass the offering plate, preach, sing one final song, and release people in time for football/nascar. Conversely, the mega church begins with preaching. The preaching seems genuine, is crazy professional, and refers to bible verses a few times to help us remember the reason we showed up in the first place. Then, after the preaching comes the worship. It’s a rock concert. Super professional. It’s also difficult to imagine it is at all authentic. I couldn’t help but picture the musicians practicing putting their hands in the air at specific moments in the songs much like Kirk Hammett of Metallica does in the tuning room before he takes the stage. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess. Next, only after the crowd is softened up for an hour does the offering plate get passed around. Finally, as if seventh-graders embarrassed to be seen at Kmart with their mom, the auditorium crowd disperses quickly. Now, you might be inclined to think this is because they’re busy people, what with having to painstakingly decide how to spend all that money, but I think it’s because they know what you and I know. That it’s a lie. The whole thing. One. Big. Lie.

But if it makes you feel good and no one gets hurt, what’s the harm in doing it, right?

Just Humming Along

He whistled loudly as they approached the grocery store.

“What song are you whistling, Daddy?” H- begged.

“My Favorite Things,” he answered.

“Oh,” she said, not familiar with the tune.

“All aboard!” he called, signaling it was time for her to hop on the front of the cart if she was going to.

He watched and heard her begin an open mouth hum as she attempted to demonstrate her own Christmas spirit notwithstanding a deficit in whistling ability. Chuckling, he pushed the cart into the store and began searching for beautiful women whom he could make smile with the assistance of his little helper.

“I said humming to town,” H- said, laughing innocently as congestion in the baking aisle halted their progress.

“What’s that?” he asked.

H- then proceeded to hum the chorus of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Afterward she again giggled and said, “I said humming!”

Squinting and with a cocked head, he looked at her in disbelief and thought, “Surely she knows when she hums no one hears the words?”

“Oh yeah?” he quickly said before the moment passed.

Progressing now to the cereal aisle, another repeat of the chorus was followed by, “That time I said coming.” More humming and another laughing explanation. “I said humming again!”

“Man, I can’t believe they don’t have any corn flakes.”

“Santa is probably humming to the reindeer as they pull his sleigh,” she said thoughtfully, unconcerned with the moment’s dilemma.

“What?” he asked, rising from the crouched position where he had just verified the awful truth that he’d have to get creative to make the cookies.

“I said,” she labored, “Santa is probably humming to the reindeer.”

“A wordsmith is born,” he thought smiling, unable to hide his pride.

Candid Conversations With George, Did You Smell That?

So every once in a while I post a scene from a day in the life with George. For organizational purposes these post’s title will now be prefaced with CCWG. I also added a CCWG category at the bottom of the page for easy reference to past conversations. On with it!

The driver and passenger doors shut near simultaneously as the two men got in the car.

“I didn’t want to say anything during the service, but did you smell that?” Pete asked, starting the car.

“Hmm, no,” George answered without confidence. “Smell what? What are you talking about?”

“Back in the church. I kept smelling something pretty rank. I even kept my mouth closed in an effort to eliminate the possibility it was just my own breath,” Pete explained.

“Ha. No, I can’t say that I did smell anything.”

“Weird. I felt bad because A- was right there too and he had invited us and all. A lot of people were lifting their hands in the air, so I guess it could’ve been just the B.O. from that,” Pete said.

“Yeah, it’s always possible. That was a lot of people in there,” George said.

“But it was pretty awful. As predicted, there were a lot of women there too. And you know how bad their farts smell,” Pete suggested.

“Oh yeah. Women’s farts are the worst!” George said. Pete couldn’t help but notice George’s energy go from zero to a hundred in an instant. “It’s all because they hold them in for sooooo long!”

“What? This is great,” said Pete, laughing.

“Yeah. They hold it and hold it and hold it. And then you let them into a large auditorium like that and they let them rip. They figure nobody will suspect them,” George articulated. Continuing the flawless rationale, he explained, “My older sister used to never fart. Never. She actually had me convinced that women don’t fart.”

“Come on,” Pete questioned.

“Dude, I was like seven,” George clarified. “Anyhow, one Christmas I heard her just rip one. She couldn’t deny it, so then she convinced me women only fart one day a year–Christmas.”

Enough About Change, Enough!

Daily, so-called experts advise us to change our perspective, change our job, change our life. They believe we should change our world. It’s sickening. Like you, I’ve followed that message too many times to count and for what? It is a false hope. Change? No thank you.

As the year wraps up I’m happy to report I like life the way it is. And I know you do too. Here’s how I know.

Forgiveness – You forgive me daily. I struggle with why, but am sure you’re the better person for it. It is at once free and invaluable.

Friendship – Again, you give it freely. I cannot imagine a world without the ability to make friends. I don’t want to either.

Peace – The world is close. Real close. Some want to keep the focus on the unrest. The rest of us know to keep peace the focus, and rightly so. Focus on the peace and see what unfolds, I say.

Compassion – Everyone I have ever met understands compassion. While not always possible to act on, their feelings of compassion are always real. I cannot imagine this world before it was filled with compassion. Like most good things, once conceived, the concept of compassion cannot be forgotten. And it never will be.

Love – There is no greater source of strength than the fact that the lowest of the low, the meanest of the mean, I’m talking about the most wretched wretch, this man or woman is still loved by at least one person if they’ll only let themselves feel it.

Change that? Never.