The 2012 year is half over and I'm still looking for a decent book publisher. I could go still with my previous publisher, however, I will not. They don't seem to care about proper formating, editing or a helping hand in marketing, all they want is to bilk the author for every penny he or she has and they still call themselves a traditional publisher. I write good stuff, it is the people who I trust to do the right thing by the book is disappointing. I want a publisher who cares about the product that they put out there on the market. That is my one of New Years resolution that I'm still trying conquer.

www.shelferi.com/gwilder.shelf

Excerpt from the book, Derrick Sweat 3... 2012

          “Let me introduce myself, my name Jack Brown, I broke out of jail

and I will kill every last one of you. Want to see God, fuck with me and you will.” The stunned congregation murmured.

            “A couple of my boys are going to be coming around with the collection plate, excuse me; I mean they are going to coming around with collections bins.” Frank and Parker were trying figure out what Jack was talking about. Then it came to them. Each of them found two large garbage cans inside the custodial room and dump them of waste completely. They rushed back to take their positions with the bins.

            “My boys are going to come around with these big containers and I want you god fearing assholes to put all your money in the bins. I’m talking about all cash, jewelry, credit and debits cards with the correct pin and account numbers, Ipads, smartphones, laptops, personal checks with dollar amounts filled in and your signatures. I want all valuables. I want blackberries, laptops computers, tablets, kindles, nooks, I pods, I phones, cell phones.  I even want access your child’s college funds,” Jack demanded the massive captive congregation. The group was appalled at the demands of these common thieves but some had no other way but to comply. However some became defiant only to spawn little benefit.  

            “Fuck you, creep,” one old man said, as he stood facing Jack Brown up from the audience on the main floor of the church. Jack withdrew the elongated gun barrel from the inside jaws of the muted preacher, and put two bullets right between the eyes of the elderly

gentleman. He fell back dead. The place bellowed with screams of hard fear. They all knew that this was really serious and they stayed where they were because of the guns of the other two on the side of them. With their asses plastered to their seats, the cries that erupted were thunderous.

            “Shut up, shut up, and shut before I shoot the asshole next him and start firing at randomly killing a lot you fucks!!” Jack shouted through the microphone. He soon put the gun back down the wig wearing preacher’s throat.

            “Now put all your shit into the bins, if you hold out on my money, I will know you and I shoot the shit out you. If you want to see your families tonight, put all the money and other stuff into the bins now,” Jack growled again into the microphone. “So everyone here believes in God. He will not save you from me if you don't do what I say”

6

            FRANK AND PARKER WERE GOING from row to row and isle to isle as everyone in the congregation was frantically rushed to drop their belongings into the bins. Jack wanted the bins filled to capacity with all valuables. There were way enough people for each of them to get rich on that single night. While Frank and Parker were doing their

jobs, Jack decided to chat with his audience some more. “I bet some you fucks, don’t believe in God no more than the ass crack sittin next to you do. And this piece of shit eating up on my gun barrel is only thinking about how many of your wives and young daughters he’s going to fuck next. Ain't that right, you big fat asshole. Jack yelled at the preacher. “I use to be a church person. My mother made me go. But I wanted to hang out with the rest of pricks on street and just shoot people.” A sigh reined over the audience.  “Hurry up and get that shit into the bins before I lose control and start killing people who have been hoodwinked into believing in God,” Jack herald at Frank and Parker. “I like killing, its fun. It is what I do.” The captive preacher was starting to squirm more.

            “You good people up on those snaking and circular balconies that are wrapped around the large church, why don’t y’all drop all of your valuables down to the main floor so that my boys can scoop them right up. DO IT NOW!!” Jack shouted.  Wallets, purses,

handbags, cash, jewelry, and others things were all being tossed over the marble brown railings onto the crowd below, forming a confetti like swarm from the upper atmosphere to down below. Screams ignited. 

            “Shut the fuck up.”

            Soon everything was obtained by the criminals that was passed down by each person and put into the bins that Frank and Parker were in charge of, they had raced around from row to row, on each floor and from one isle to the next, and then person to person.  It was tiring ordeal but they prevailed, all the while more cops had gathered outside. Sharp shooters were nestled all around the building.

            “I like all of that. Alright, shut up or I will start sending you cracks to Heaven. And if anyone tries to break for the doors, my men outside will blow another hole in your asses,” Jack had yelled, through the cordless microphone. The preacher was starting to choke and gag on the gun barrel. Jack released it for a bit so that the messiah could catch his breath but soon placed it back into his mouth. The congregation of men, women, and children quickly quieted down but still massive fear engulfed them all. It was like having their necks  in a vice grip. This was a real live nightmare. Frank and Parker gestured and beckoned at Jack Brown that the five-foot bins were full and that they needed to get out of there fast. And Jack got the message.

            Jack took his gun out the month of the preacher. And then he sent a silent message to Frank and Parker to get back to the SUV with all the money. The entire congregation, still stunned with fear, was motionless as all eyes were on the stage where Jack Brown was

about to exit. “Get your ass down on you knees,” Jack told the preacher.

            “Now lay flat on your big fat back. I don’t want you to breathe. Do you understand me, prick? The preacher just shook his head that he did understand. “I don’t want you to

move.” He out peered out at his audience who were still glued to their seats as guns rein down on most of them.

            “I don’t want anyone to move or me and my boys are going to set off the bombs that we have planted all around here and have placed under your seats, earlier.” More muted

screams ensued. “All I have to do is enter a few numbers into my cell phone and then each and every one of you will be walking the desert sands of the Middle East with Jesus.”

            Jack put away his gun and walked away from the preacher and walked off the stage as calmly as he had walked on. Once outside he cautiously peered outside toward the large SUV regardless of the police and felt it was safe, Jack walked outof  the church and then he and his boys, with valuables, quickly entered the vehicle. Again, Frank and Parker had filled the bins to the rims and the shit was heavy. And Jack liked that. “Kick the warden out on his stupid ass. Then kick the stupid guard out on his dumb ass,” Jack ordered. Malcolm and Ryan, and respectfully opened the side doors and literally kicked them both out onto the pavement like rodents in front of the church.

            “Have anybody seen any cops, helicopters, planes, or anything?” Jack asked of all

four of his thugs. 

            “Yes Jack.”

            “They are everywhere, Jack.”

            “Yes Jack.”

            “They are here, Jack”

            “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Jack bellowed. He knew the cops were standing firm. Once again, Jack Brown was back in the driver’s seat of the Hummer, to some, it resembled a small school bus.

            ♫ A slow blues instrumental played in the mist with accent on a crying bass sound. The groove was panting rhythmically; the whining lyrics faded as soon as the sound was fully realized. The sultry blues music subsided slowly I felt every beat; however, once again, I actually never really heard a sound. I was just feeling it. 

            This was early Saturday evening. The Chicago downtown weather was picture perfect. And I loved it. It was sixty-five degrees; there was no rain in the forecast. Our friends and family were piling into the posh hotel for the wedding and later that same night would be the reception. Only hours away and I will be a married man once again. I couldn’t wait. Again, the name of the hotel was called The Shumac Suites of Chicago. As I described it earlier; it is awesome. It was one of Barbara's favorite places whenever she was in Chicago.

            My future wife was somewhere with her two sisters getting fitted for a wedding

gown and would arrive momentarily. I did not buy into any of that crap about seeing the

bride before the wedding, but my future wife thought it was something to that. I knew that she was going to be even more beautiful than all the days before. However, I waited patiently for her pending arrival.

            Our kids were just impeccable. They were well behaved amid the steadily flow of people traffic in and out of the hotel some trying to find the location of the wedding. They were in the lobby of the establishment greeting and meeting wedding guests we were looking like a king with his two queens. The lobby of the hotel was a spectacular scene. The four hundred and fifty room and suite structure was one of unique venues in the City of Chicago. Other events held at the hotel at various times were splendid in all its grandeur of varied detail. 

            The Shumac Suites provided special wedding packages that included a

complimentary mini bar and chill bottle of champagne for us, the bride and groom and there was a playroom for the children. Suddenly more guests walked through the doors and my kids directed them up to the garden-like setting with its waterfall accenting the hotel's decor that appeared like a giant institution with suites all around starting on the third level of the very popular architectural structure. 

            I stood at the top of the in-door garden laden atrium area as the rainbow waterfall raced down beautifully behind me. Leaning over the second floor railing with a glass of red wine in my hand, not yet toasted.  I observed so many friends, colleagues, and family wondering through the revolving class doors onto the marble and granite floors, some wondering if they were in the right place. No sweat, my kids were there to help. I spied Director George Smith and his assistant, Ron Berlin. My only sister Rosemary Gunn, with her male friend entered the hotel. Many of my friends were on their way up to my wedding. Some were in invited. Some were not. As far as I was concern, we all were going to have some big fun.  

            I saw friends from my tenure as an energetic city patrolman and then Chicago detective and most of them had their own guests with them. Tuxedos and evening

gowns were galore. I assumed all rented. However, still, everyone looked great. There was a six hour premium bar that just had opened up. Red wine will accompany dinner and there will be our own custom designed wedding cake. None of that Miley Cyrus crap. I released myself up off the oak wood glossy fencing of railing and greeted more guests as they came up to and emerged from the second floor elevator and onto the immaculate atrium of the Shumac hotel. A live five piece band was setting up on the north side of the atrium. Restrooms and dressing rooms were located on the east side of two ballrooms for use. There were plenty of tables and chairs plus standing room on the atrium and in the ballrooms for more than two to three hundred people.      

            “Do you really want to do this?” said a handsome Ron Berlin.

            “What are you talking about, my “friend? I answered with another question.

            “To get married, Derrick.”

            I really didn’t know Ron much at all. He was just one of my bosses at the Justice

Department, second in command. I wondered why he would be concern about me marrying. However, I'm very sure that he didn't mean anything wrong. It is just that I did not see him as a real friend, maybe sometime in the future, but I still liked having him being a part of my wedding.

            Back in Washington, I had read reports and heard conflicting gossip of Ron’s rocky relationships.  Documents said that he had been married three times. And they all ended in divorces. And now he wanted to give advice, maybe I should lend him an ear but cautiously.

            I had learned that Ron Berlin’s first wife, Sue Gordon, according to reports filed, gave him a beating that nearly ended his life after catching him cheating on her with her mother. Sue went into the basement of their Hazel Crest home, right outside of Minnesota and retrieved a baseball and beat the man almost half silly after coming home from another night out. It seemed the beatings did nothing to dissolve the relationship. Soon after that, Sue followed him one day after Ron told her that he was going to work late on a day she clearly knew was a day off for him.

            She followed him late that night and he led her to the Mason Garbage Dump right on the outskirts of Westwood County. This was a wide open space with mounds and mounds of pure unfettered waste and hordes of the city’s fresh garbage sprawled and blanketed all across the soggy and wet grounds. Workers of the Mason Garbage Dump could be seen sorting and rumbling through the many mountains of rotting garbage searching for lost valuables. Garbage waste had been literally dumped here by some of the city and private own waste

www.shelfari.com/gwilder/shelf

Robbing The Poor

Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month’s rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene. But as Business Week helpfully pointed out in 2007, the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them.

The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators. Employers, for example, can simply program their computers to shave a few dollars off each paycheck, or they can require workers to show up 30 minutes or more before the time clock starts ticking.
Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. When supplemented with late fees (themselves subject to interest), the resulting effective interest rate can be as high as 600% a year, which is perfectly legal in many states.

It’s not just the private sector that’s preying on the poor. Local governments are discovering that they can partially make up for declining tax revenues through fines, fees, and other costs imposed on indigent defendants, often for crimes no more dastardly than driving with a suspended license. And if that seems like an inefficient way to make money, given the high cost of locking people up, a growing number of jurisdictions have taken to charging defendants for their court costs and even the price of occupying a jail cell.

The poster case for government persecution of the down-and-out would have to be Edwina Nowlin, a homeless Michigan woman who was jailed in 2009 for failing to pay $104 a month to cover the room-and-board charges for her 16-year-old son’s incarceration. When she received a back paycheck, she thought it would allow her to pay for her son’s jail stay. Instead, it was confiscated and applied to the cost of her own incarceration.

Government Joins the Looters of the Poor

You might think that policymakers would take a keen interest in the amounts that are stolen, coerced, or extorted from the poor, but there are no official efforts to track such figures. Instead, we have to turn to independent investigators, like Kim Bobo, author of Wage Theft in America, who estimates that wage theft nets employers at least $100 billion a year and possibly twice that. As for the profits extracted by the lending industry, Gary Rivlin, who wrote Broke USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. -- How the Working Poor Became Big Business, says the poor pay an effective surcharge of about $30 billion a year for the financial products they consume and more than twice that if you include subprime credit cards, subprime auto loans, and subprime mortgages.

These are not, of course, trivial amounts. They are on the same order of magnitude as major public programs for the poor. The government distributes about $55 billion a year, for example, through the largest single cash-transfer program for the poor, the Earned Income Tax Credit; at the same time, employers are siphoning off twice that amount, if not more, through wage theft.

And while government generally turns a blind eye to the tens of billions of dollars in exorbitant interest that businesses charge the poor, it is notably chary with public benefits for the poor. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, for example, our sole remaining nationwide welfare program, gets only $26 billion a year in state and federal funds. The impression is left of a public sector that’s gone totally schizoid: on the one hand, offering safety-net programs for the poor; on the other, enabling large-scale private sector theft from the very people it is supposedly trying to help. 

At the local level though, government is increasingly opting to join in the looting. In 2009, a year into the Great Recession, I first started hearing complaints from community organizers about ever more aggressive levels of law enforcement in low-income areas. Flick a cigarette butt and get arrested for littering; empty your pockets for an officer conducting a stop-and-frisk operation and get cuffed for a few flakes of marijuana. Each of these offenses can result, at a minimum, in a three-figure fine.

And the number of possible criminal offenses leading to jail and/or fines has been multiplying recklessly. All