Saving Moses

SAVING MOSES is a timeless story based on a summer adventure in 1961 when myself and three best friends, pre-teens all, set out to capture an alligator in a local, South Miami, Florida canal. In those early years, the town of Perrine, where we all lived, was surrounded by scrub forest and a newly constructed canal, all part of our world beyond the neighborhood. The story that became Saving Moses had been in the back of my mind for too many years to not put pen to paper. After self-publishing my first novel, a sci-fi story, I launched into fleshing out the tale of my youth, mixing fiction with actual events that include our discovery of a large alligator in the canal where we swam. From my project's start, I focused on capturing the innocence of youth in a time when the out-of-doors was our playground and friendship, loyalty and a belief anything was possible shaped our dreams and schemes. Saving Moses is a frame story that opens with the youngest of my four boys, Milton Marshal (Milty), now an elderly man, returning to his childhood community seeking redemption for a long ago tragedy. Accompanied by his daughter and her two children, his description of those long-ago years and escapades with his three best friends takes his family and the reader back to a summer of change for all four boys, more so, Milty. Frame story format maintains a connection with the main character's revelations and musings as an elderly man while highlighting his growing internal struggle with a past he finds impossible to reconcile. The story's final chapter introduces two of Milty's three childhood friends who arrive for a long overdue reunion, unaware of their friend's emotional battle. Old times of mischief and memories of the old alligator they had named Moses overwhelm Milty. In an upwelling of regret and guilt, he confesses to causing the tragedy and how it has haunted him ever since. Taken aback by Milty's lifetime of misplaced remorse, his two childhood companions reveal their own viewpoints of that day's events, undeniable confirmation to Milty of his innocence and gifting him the merciful redemption he had sought.