1 00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:15,880 Speaker 1: Lay Your Armor Down, a novel by Michael Ferris Smith, 2 00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:21,760 Chapter one. She moved in the solemn lamplight of the 3 00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:24,960 cluttered house, like a vague figure of a troubled dream. 4 00:00:25,920 --> 00:00:29,960 She shuffled from room to room, opening drawers and closet doors, 5 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:33,039 and picking up things and putting them into the grocery sack, 6 00:00:33,759 --> 00:00:37,759 no sense or order to the gathering. A random ring 7 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:42,039 and a broken bracelet from a spilled jewelry box, one shoe, 8 00:00:42,479 --> 00:00:45,000 a ragged notebook from the bottom of a stack of 9 00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:49,920 other ragged notebooks, two postcards from a long dead sister, 10 00:00:50,719 --> 00:00:54,280 a handful of hair clips, a small wooden picture frame 11 00:00:54,399 --> 00:00:58,039 that held the rudimentary drawing of an angel that had 12 00:00:58,079 --> 00:01:03,280 been created by her child decades before. She wore a 13 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:07,159 thin housecoat that hung on her aged and slender figure, 14 00:01:07,519 --> 00:01:11,120 her gray hair, and a matted mess. She talked to 15 00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:14,640 herself as she moved throughout the house, reminding herself of 16 00:01:14,879 --> 00:01:19,319 errands that had been years ago completed, and gossiping about 17 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:23,280 people she no longer knew, and singing fragments of songs 18 00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:25,920 that had once played on the radio during the summer 19 00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:30,599 days of her small down ut. In doorways, she would 20 00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:33,280 stop and look into the shadows and touch the tip 21 00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:36,280 of her index finger to her chin and hold it 22 00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:39,680 there in trouble fault, and then she would begin again 23 00:01:39,719 --> 00:01:43,319 to fill the sack with random fragments of time gone by. 24 00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:47,760 At the end of the hallway, the closet door was open, 25 00:01:47,959 --> 00:01:51,599 and the contents overflowed and spilled out onto the floor, 26 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:56,200 as if the house were regurgitating its own clutter. The 27 00:01:56,239 --> 00:01:59,040 pace of her rambling quickened as she dropped to her 28 00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:01,920 knees and began to dig into the closet as if 29 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:07,319 just remembering something essential, her arms thin and weak but 30 00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:10,840 working in a sudden fever as she pushed away dirty 31 00:02:10,919 --> 00:02:14,599 towels and newspapers and shoe boxes. As she burrowed into 32 00:02:14,599 --> 00:02:18,319 the closet. At the bottom of the pile, she found 33 00:02:18,319 --> 00:02:21,639 a thin red coffee can, and she opened the top 34 00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:25,800 and felt inside and touched the roll of cash. She 35 00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:28,960 kept digging, and she pulled out three more coffee cans 36 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:31,960 from beneath the rubble, and each one held a roll 37 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:36,199 of cash of various size, a savings hidden away and 38 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:39,560 then forgotten, and then remembered again in the swirling winds 39 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:43,000 of her mind. She dropped the rolls of money into 40 00:02:43,039 --> 00:02:46,680 a grocery sack. With the random gathering, ran her fingers 41 00:02:46,719 --> 00:02:51,319 across her pallid face, her eyes like deepest windows into 42 00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:55,439 the sprawling world. She seemed to gather herself and let 43 00:02:55,479 --> 00:02:58,240 out a great exhale, as if arriving at a moment 44 00:02:58,280 --> 00:03:03,360 of resignation. She stood and straightened her house coat, and 45 00:03:03,439 --> 00:03:06,560 stepped out of her slippers and brushed off her ashy feet, 46 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:09,159 and then she stepped back into them, and she took 47 00:03:09,199 --> 00:03:12,319 the grocery sack under her arm, and she made for 48 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:16,240 the front door. She opened it, and the night wind 49 00:03:16,319 --> 00:03:19,360 greeted her, and she gazed out into the darkness, a 50 00:03:19,439 --> 00:03:24,560 traveler ready for some journey, a star blown sky above 51 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:27,280 the winding road that led from the house, and the 52 00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:31,039 road badly patched and bumpy as she stumbled twice, but 53 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:35,560 caught herself both times, cursing the uneven ground in a 54 00:03:35,639 --> 00:03:39,680 quick insult, before returning again to the harried conversations of 55 00:03:39,719 --> 00:03:43,280 her lost world. She wandered from the road and into 56 00:03:43,319 --> 00:03:46,000 the field, where she pushed through the knee high grass. 57 00:03:46,319 --> 00:03:50,000 Were searching eyes busied with the hunt stop stared in 58 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:53,199 the direction of her shuffling, and the wind pushed at 59 00:03:53,199 --> 00:03:56,639 her wild hair and slushed through the wild grass, and 60 00:03:56,719 --> 00:03:58,879 on the other side of the field, she entered into 61 00:03:58,919 --> 00:04:02,120 the woods, where the moon glow gave shadows through the trees, 62 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:05,479 and where she held out her hands and touched the 63 00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:08,919 trunks as she moved through the forest, the dark guardians 64 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:12,520 willing to give her pass, and the wind shook leaves 65 00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:15,120 from the limbs and they fell around her in swirls 66 00:04:15,159 --> 00:04:18,519 of decay. As she stepped across the leaf strewn earth, 67 00:04:18,839 --> 00:04:24,040 the small crunches of aged and careful steps. She was 68 00:04:24,079 --> 00:04:27,199 not afraid until she was deep into the woods, and 69 00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:31,079 she stopped and looked around, and whatever confused purpose had 70 00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:33,759 been there to guide her slipped off into the dark 71 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:38,000 and left her alone. There was wind, and there were 72 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:40,600 the calls of the night, and between the black tree 73 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:45,600 limbs there were stars and moon the heaven's infinite. She 74 00:04:45,759 --> 00:04:48,519 leaned her back against a tree and hugged herself as 75 00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:52,920 if suddenly cold, and she began to cry. She cried 76 00:04:52,959 --> 00:04:56,199 and began walking again, in no direction, moving through the 77 00:04:56,240 --> 00:04:59,600 woods in a confused and careful gait, and beginning to 78 00:04:59,639 --> 00:05:02,480 call out the names of people who passed through her mind, 79 00:05:03,519 --> 00:05:06,959 names that both meant something and meant nothing. Her father 80 00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:10,399 and a woman she once sat next to on an airplane, 81 00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:14,240 and a pigtail friend from childhood, and the old man 82 00:05:14,319 --> 00:05:17,160 who taught her to ride a horse, and the boy 83 00:05:17,199 --> 00:05:21,439 who sacked her groceries. Once upon a time, the wind 84 00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:25,079 gained strength, and the limbs swayed and bent, and her 85 00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:27,800 hair whipped on her head, and she clutched the sack 86 00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:30,959 with both hands and called out to anyone who might 87 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:34,439 be listening. And she lost a slipper and moved with 88 00:05:34,519 --> 00:05:38,639 one bare foot and panicked eyes and a deepening fear 89 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:41,240 that something in the dark was going to devour her. 90 00:05:42,839 --> 00:05:45,839 She was lost in head and heart and soul. And 91 00:05:45,959 --> 00:05:48,519 she stopped and stared up at the moon, and she 92 00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:51,560 began to question it, as if it had the answers 93 00:05:51,639 --> 00:05:56,279 to the universe. Who are you? And where am I? 94 00:05:57,240 --> 00:06:01,240 What are we? And the questions continue and carried her 95 00:06:01,519 --> 00:06:06,040 as she meandered through the dark, walking into branches that 96 00:06:06,120 --> 00:06:09,040 scratched her face, and bits of leaf and limb getting 97 00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:12,199 stuck in her hair, and she lost her other slipper. 98 00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:15,720 She was no longer crying and no longer questioning the moon, 99 00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:20,600 but now transformed into something ancient and mindless and driven 100 00:06:20,720 --> 00:06:24,279 by some ordained task, as if she was no longer 101 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:28,519 of grat flesh and bone, but instead a shapeless spirit 102 00:06:28,720 --> 00:06:33,120 of the wood that drifted timelessly. She moved through the 103 00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:36,879 night in a random pattern of wind, and then through 104 00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:41,079 the trees she saw the firelight. She fixed her eyes 105 00:06:41,120 --> 00:06:44,600 on the flames, and she pushed away low hanging limbs 106 00:06:44,639 --> 00:06:48,079 and crunched across the leaves, and her mouth moved as 107 00:06:48,079 --> 00:06:51,439 if speaking, but she was soundless. As she came into 108 00:06:51,480 --> 00:06:56,560 the clearing, two crouching silhouettes next to the fire, two 109 00:06:56,639 --> 00:06:59,319 figures rising when they looked up at the old woman 110 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:02,879 who emerged from the wood, Twigs in her hair and 111 00:07:02,959 --> 00:07:06,759 a torn housecoat and bare feet and stick like legs, 112 00:07:06,839 --> 00:07:10,920 and the distant gaze She regarded the dark figures, and 113 00:07:10,959 --> 00:07:14,160 then she looked again into the starstruck night, at the 114 00:07:14,199 --> 00:07:18,399 marble white moon. She let her arms fall to her sides, 115 00:07:18,399 --> 00:07:21,600 and a great release, and she spoke in some language 116 00:07:21,639 --> 00:07:25,879 they did not understand. She then fell silent, and the 117 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:28,839 sack dropped from her hand and spilled onto the ground. 118 00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:33,240 A spindle of cash rolled forward and settled in the firelight, 119 00:07:33,720 --> 00:07:36,480 and there was no judgment among them, but for the 120 00:07:36,519 --> 00:07:43,920 emptiness in which they all stood. Chapter two. They left 121 00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:46,720 the dying fire and walked out of the clearing, the 122 00:07:46,759 --> 00:07:50,680 tawny light on their backs and darkness before them. Their 123 00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:53,959 car parked on the roadside, a big four door thing 124 00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:58,759 long as a boat, two hubcaps missing, the antenna snapped off. 125 00:07:59,639 --> 00:08:02,639 Each man lit a cigarette before climbing in and closing 126 00:08:02,639 --> 00:08:05,680 the doors, and then they sat there, smoking and staring 127 00:08:05,720 --> 00:08:10,680 through the bulk smeared windshield. Something small and bright eyed 128 00:08:10,759 --> 00:08:13,959 crossed the road, and it stopped and looked at the car, 129 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:18,319 and then continued on its journey and disappeared into the brush. 130 00:08:18,839 --> 00:08:21,480 Falling leaves swirled in the wind and fell in the 131 00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:26,360 moonlight like flakes of rust. One man sniffed and the 132 00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:29,639 other coughed as the car filled with smoke, and the 133 00:08:29,720 --> 00:08:33,279 driver rolled down the window and he smoked and scratched 134 00:08:33,279 --> 00:08:36,519 at his beard before flicking out the cigarette a little 135 00:08:36,519 --> 00:08:40,600 red spray as the butt bounced on the road. The 136 00:08:40,639 --> 00:08:44,039 man in the passenger seat smoked more methodically and was 137 00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:46,559 still at it when the car cranked and the headlight 138 00:08:46,679 --> 00:08:50,399 split the dark. The big car moved in a great 139 00:08:50,519 --> 00:08:53,679 lurch and began its descent from the hillside, filling the 140 00:08:53,799 --> 00:08:57,720 night with a low rumble. They drove through the darkness, 141 00:08:58,039 --> 00:09:02,279 past rolling pastures lying by leaning fence posts held erect 142 00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:06,600 by strands of barbed wire, pass gatherings of hard woods, 143 00:09:06,639 --> 00:09:09,799 and over skinny bridges with rotted rails, where the moon 144 00:09:09,879 --> 00:09:14,399 reflected in the wabbled creek water. The big car crews 145 00:09:14,480 --> 00:09:17,840 through the bends in the road where deer stood, backed 146 00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:22,120 away and still and waiting. It rolled through the desolate 147 00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:25,399 four way stops where there was nothing and no one, 148 00:09:25,879 --> 00:09:29,240 and they drove on with their red tipped cigarettes across 149 00:09:29,279 --> 00:09:32,480 the fallen landscape of the autumn, where the fields had 150 00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:35,559 turned the color of sand, and the stars stabbed the 151 00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:41,639 sky and darts of silver. Neither man spoke. They emerged 152 00:09:41,639 --> 00:09:44,559 from the unmarked country roads and turned onto a two 153 00:09:44,679 --> 00:09:48,559 lane highway. Mailboxes stood on the roadside at the end 154 00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:52,720 of the gravel driveways, and sleeping houses sat quiet and peaceful. 155 00:09:52,879 --> 00:09:56,879 Back in the gloom. Dogs slept on porches and raised 156 00:09:56,879 --> 00:09:59,879 their heads to regard the loud thing moving through the night, 157 00:10:00,360 --> 00:10:02,919 and then returned to slumber. As the growl of the 158 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:07,360 engine disappeared, the lights of the world appeared in the 159 00:10:07,399 --> 00:10:11,799 fluorescence of gas stations and in flashing red signals and 160 00:10:11,919 --> 00:10:15,840 yellow street lamps, and then disappeared in the rear view 161 00:10:15,960 --> 00:10:19,200 mirror as the car followed the highway right through the 162 00:10:19,240 --> 00:10:23,799 meager town and entered a new dark thirteen more miles 163 00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:27,120 of silence between them and pine trees and the rise 164 00:10:27,159 --> 00:10:30,519 and dip of the hills, And then, as if leaving 165 00:10:30,600 --> 00:10:35,440 one country and crossing into another, the landscape bottomed out. 166 00:10:36,399 --> 00:10:39,879 The car now traveled a flat terrain in a rhythmic glide, 167 00:10:40,039 --> 00:10:45,279 as if rolling across the serenity of lake water. Spanish 168 00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:48,759 moss hung from tree limbs in gray and gathered clumps, 169 00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:52,039 and the long and drooping limbs of the willows swayed 170 00:10:52,039 --> 00:10:55,919 in the wind, and the swamp slurped up against the roadside, 171 00:10:56,200 --> 00:10:58,960 as if only waiting for the command from some weather 172 00:10:59,039 --> 00:11:01,840 god to swallow what was left of the raised earth. 173 00:11:03,559 --> 00:11:06,159 The frame that held the child's drawing of the angel 174 00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:09,840 sat between them on the bench seat. The man in 175 00:11:09,919 --> 00:11:13,279 the passenger seat picked it up. He flicked a cigarette 176 00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:16,120 lighter and looked at it in the solitary light of 177 00:11:16,159 --> 00:11:19,200 the flame, and he ran his thumb across an angel 178 00:11:19,279 --> 00:11:21,960 wing then he set the frame back on the seat 179 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:25,639 and gazed out into the night. The driver looked over 180 00:11:25,679 --> 00:11:28,000 at him and wanted to ask why they had bothered 181 00:11:28,039 --> 00:11:31,240 to bring it along, but he only gave a silent 182 00:11:31,279 --> 00:11:34,200 look of disgust and his eyes returned to the road. 183 00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:39,519 Then there it was, the all night truck stop, sat 184 00:11:39,559 --> 00:11:43,159 in isolation, as if it had long ago been misplaced 185 00:11:43,200 --> 00:11:47,720 and forgotten. The car bumped across the potholed parking lot 186 00:11:47,960 --> 00:11:50,879 and stopped in front of the glass doors of the diner. 187 00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:55,559 A handful of cats hunted around the dumpster. Two eighteen 188 00:11:55,600 --> 00:12:00,360 wheelers parked off behind the gas pumps. Darkness closed around, 189 00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:03,639 as if the place had been created as a sojourn 190 00:12:03,759 --> 00:12:08,080 for some final plummet. The neon sign read open in 191 00:12:08,120 --> 00:12:11,080 the front window, and the bugs danced around it in 192 00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:15,960 the cotton candy glow. From behind bent and twisted blinds. 193 00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:18,279 The lights of the diner cut into the night in 194 00:12:18,399 --> 00:12:22,279 awkward slants. The two men sat there and stared until 195 00:12:22,279 --> 00:12:25,200 the man in the passenger seat coughed and shifted in 196 00:12:25,279 --> 00:12:28,960 his seat. Well, ain't you going to say something? The 197 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:32,559 driver grabbed a cigarette pack from the dashboard. About what 198 00:12:34,039 --> 00:12:36,440 The driver then looked at himself in the rear view 199 00:12:36,559 --> 00:12:39,919 mirror and rubbed at his bloodshot eyes before climbing out 200 00:12:39,919 --> 00:12:43,639 of the car. The passenger watched as the bearded man 201 00:12:43,679 --> 00:12:47,879 pulled open the door to the dinner and disappeared inside. 202 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:53,519 About what he muttered, and then got out and followed. Okay, 203 00:12:53,519 --> 00:12:57,399 that was a couple of chapters from a recently released 204 00:12:57,519 --> 00:13:02,399 novel by Michael Ferris Smith. The title of the novel 205 00:13:02,759 --> 00:13:07,240 is Lay Your Armor Down. I ordered a hard copy 206 00:13:07,279 --> 00:13:11,360 of this book. Smith has become one of my favorite authors. 207 00:13:12,320 --> 00:13:14,360 The stories are great and the way he writes them 208 00:13:14,399 --> 00:13:17,360 as just spectacular as you could as you just heard. 209 00:13:18,399 --> 00:13:22,360 He has several novels available on Amazon. I'll link his 210 00:13:22,519 --> 00:13:27,120 author page and a link to this particular novel in 211 00:13:27,159 --> 00:13:29,320 the description below. You can click on it and go 212 00:13:29,399 --> 00:13:32,759 straight to it and buy the Kendall copy a hard copy. 213 00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:35,320 I don't know if it's out in paperback yet, but 214 00:13:35,399 --> 00:13:40,360 this book has met with great reviews, great sales. I 215 00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:43,200 read it and covered from cover to cover. I pre 216 00:13:43,399 --> 00:13:46,080 ordered it and it came to me like the first 217 00:13:46,159 --> 00:13:48,320 day that it was released. It showed up in my 218 00:13:48,399 --> 00:13:52,440 mailbox and I read it in like two nights. It's 219 00:13:52,519 --> 00:13:56,279 just so good. Like all of his work, it's really good, 220 00:13:56,679 --> 00:13:59,120 so wanted to share that with y'all. Check him out. 221 00:13:59,159 --> 00:14:03,440 Michael Ferris myth fantastic author. If you haven't heard me 222 00:14:03,559 --> 00:14:06,639 talk about him before. He's got two of his novels 223 00:14:06,639 --> 00:14:10,600 have been made into major motion pictures. He's a good 224 00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:14,960 screenplay writer, and he's a very talented musician as well. 225 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:17,759 He's got a band in Oxford and they do a 226 00:14:17,759 --> 00:14:21,320 few gigs here and there, so he's a real creative person. 227 00:14:21,919 --> 00:14:24,600 And hope you guys enjoyed chapter one and two of 228 00:14:24,600 --> 00:14:27,399 that novel. There's a lot more to it. It's a 229 00:14:27,639 --> 00:14:31,120 I don't know, thirty chapter book, but it's a great story, 230 00:14:31,159 --> 00:14:33,440 so you guys pick it up. Thanks for listening to 231 00:14:33,480 --> 00:14:37,840 the podcast, and we'll see you guys on the next one.