The Mountain News – WA

By Bruce A. Smith

The Men of Honor if Unity House is a novel based upon my experiences as a therapist at a foster care facility for young men coping with sexual assault charges. In 2001, during the Anthrax scare that followed 9-11, my agency’s director and I mapped out a plan for how we would deal with our men, aged 12-18, if we had to go into lockdown in the event of a local terrorist attack. The following pages are based upon those discussions.

The plot so far: A 1-kiloton suitcase nuke has exploded in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the staff of Unity House form the Men of Honor Society for two purposes: One, to keep the twelve teen-aged boys of Unity House busy and not fighting each other, and two, to act as a rescue group to the local neighborhood. Due to the destruction and radiation, the police and army can not get into this section of Worcester. The people living on Marion and Plantation Avenues only have the Men of Honor aiding them.

Chapter 17

Day Four, Noon – Help arrives, but first the Brownies and apple pie

I was in the middle of eating an instant chocolate pudding when I heard the dining room go silent.  Slowly I looked up, not sure what kind of shock wave had just rocked us into silence.

At the entrance to our dining room stood the only thing that can render young men mute, girls.  Continue reading →

A novel.

Day Four, 8:30 am

We expand our rescue efforts

By the time I got to the dining room, Deon had already spilled a pitcher of juice and tracked it all over the kitchen floor looking for paper towels to mop it up.  We called it juice, but it was a kool aid-like powder mix.  Cherry was best and the lemonade sucked.  Deon had spilled the cherry.  I headed for coffee. Continue reading →

 A novel. 

Day Four

Our first man falls

I was told that 7:00 a.m. treated Sgt. Jackson to two surprises.  First, alarm clocks went off in every one of the guy’s room.  No one wanted to be late for their workout with the sergeant. Continue reading →

A novel.  To see all previous chapters, click on categories, scroll down. 

Day Three

The Men of Honor go to work

I went back to bed, and slept deeply until the smell of bacon awoke me. 

 By then, Karen had launched her workout in the Commons room right on schedule to unanimous acclaim from all the young men of Unity House who eventually joined her.  Even Naleef was pumping it for twenty minutes, I heard later.  Blissfully for me the guys were pooped when Sgt. Jackson finished, so when I joined the festivities their edginess was sapped, or wrapped in endorphins. Continue reading →