James Gregory Kingston

I like to drop characters into uncomfortable situations just to see what happens. Sometimes I amaze myself and ask, "Where did THAT come from?" The answer has to grow out of a background peppered with Hobey cats, Corvettes and kayaks. Backpacking on the Appalachian Trail. Marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Lincoln Memorial. Taking a grueling black belt karate exam in a closed dojo on a sweltering summer's day. Hitching a ride with a young Ben Kingsley from London to Stratford-upon-Avon, or picking up an old Salvador Dali on New York's Lower East Side when taxi drivers shunned his top hat, cape and foot-wide mustache. The answer is drinking beer at a beat up local bar with weathered baymen after they harvest three bushels of little necks or a legendary eel-ball. Being the only White boy weeding cabbage fields on a Long Island truck farm, or working as a landscaper on some unseen Italian shoe mogul's Southampton estate. Collecting unemployment and riding up the stock market. Leading a union walk-out in midtown Manhattan when your only pair of shoes shares one good sole between them. Cross country night rides on a Greyhound bus that stops in every segregated terminal it can find. Falling asleep in limousines after 20-hour Hollywood work days. Pulling caffeine driven all-nighters in college dorms that evolve into brilliantly meaningless philosophical discussions. Being a South Bronx hospital administrator fighting hopelessly to keep a doomed institution open. Huddling in a damp basement with a few super's-helpers and a worn out furnace on a snowy Harlem morning. Learning to be a parent until you finally get it right. Watching your wife drag herself into bed after a thankless night of saving lives in the ER, as she stares at the ceiling, too keyed up to fall asleep. That's where stories come from...Thanks for reading my work. If you liked them, please rate them on Amazon. If not, rate them anyway, or let me know why at kingston182@optonline.net.