Trafford Publishing: Choices Made: The Street Years

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Choices Made: The Street Years

by Christine McMahon

260 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-0091; ISBN 1-4120-5196-7; US$21.95, C$25.25, EUR18.05, £12.65

Introducing, Jamy MacGregor: Drug Enforcement Agent's son, talented artist, best friend, poor boy; a.k.a. Lord Chance: heroin addict, gang leader, teen father, BNDD Narc, rich boy; which future is his?

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About the Book About the Author Reviews and Excerpts Catalogue Information

About the Book
Shocked into a new life with his mother's death, Jamy begins a search for his biological father but succumbs to the dangers of the street after a vicious sexual attack.
Haunted by the act, he is too afraid of his father's possible rejection to pursue his search.
Becoming another lost kid, beaten, pimped, and drugged, Jamy grows more introverted by the barrage of abuse until, in defense of others like himself, he finds a dark future as a gang leader and protector. The Street Lord of the 42nd Neighborhood.
Prostitution, drugs, and protection money fund his generosity to others but the realizations of becoming a father at 16 urges him deeper into danger for want of money. Moments alone with his son make him dream of the normal life he once had.
To protect himself and his new friends from the rising power of the drug lords he now works for, he devises his Domino game. Based on his skill as an artist, his sketches and diaries become pieces of the game.
Dominoes placed, Jamy decides to start toppling the world of the drug lords when he agrees to become a 'mole' for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) in exchange for freedom from prosecution.
Though freedom is at hand, he returns to the street to save the undercover agent he befriended. Nearly losing his life, his foot is set upon a path toward a life that holds his biological father.

About the Author

Christine McMahon has always enjoyed a good story and the craft of writing but didn't pick up the challenge of a novel until shortly after her mother's prediction of a beautiful little boy entering her life.
It is said people nearing the end of their lives not only see those gone before them but also see the futures of those close to them. One evening, a month before Christine's mother died of cancer, her mother, Rose, asked her, "Who is that beautiful little boy standing next to you?"
Of course there was no one there but after her mother's death, she found herself with pen in hand beginning Jamy's story.
"Jamy evolved naturally. I've never had to worry about 'Who' he was because every part of his story was there instinctively. He has been a joy to write about even through his dark days as portrayed in my first novel, Choices Made: The Street Years. His great drive to survive and make a better life for himself and others moves his story forward as he lives his life and learns the hard lessons given him."
Christine and her husband, Joe, live in rural Wisconsin on a restored prairie. She is shown here with one of their champion Rhodesian Ridgebacks.
"Thank you for your interest in Choices Made: The Street Years and I hope you will continue to join Jamy in the second book of the series, Choices Made: Fathers and Sons."

Reviews and Excerpts

I want to know more about Jamy - when is your next book going to be published? -- Harry W.
I did major reading this weekend. Every time I got a few extra minutes, or even if I didn't have them, I stole them! I want more. -- Sandy V.
This is an excellent story that drew me in. I found myself reading faster and faster the farther I got into the book. I just had to know what was going to happen next to an engaging cast of characters. I can't wait for the next book in this series! I highly recommend this read! -- Reviewer: Eager Reader (Appleton, WI)
I must say from the very first page I was hooked into it. I couldn't put it down. The characters were real to me. I could hardly wait to find out what happened to them next. My imagination was spinning. The ending was suburb. This is a must read novel. -- Lois W.
Christine has spun a very intriguing yarn! The story takes place in the 60's, and the dialog, setting, and ambience captures the era perfectly. It has a rawness and grittiness that contrasts with the innocence of young Jamy, the main character. His innocence, however, doesn't last long, as he's catapulted into a seedy world of sex, drugs and violence. The characters' struggles had me quickly turning the pages to find out what happened next. It seems, though, the end of the book is only the beginning of this saga. Hopefully, Christine will be sharing the next chapters with us very soon!---PE (Madison, WI)
Choices Made: The Street Years is the debut novel of Christine McMahon and clearly establishes her as a gifted storyteller able to take her reader into a gritty world of drug addiction, poverty, and life on the street. It follows a young man who, after his mother's death, searches for his biological father and falls prey to a brutal sexual attack. Pimped and drugged, he eventually breaks out of one type of slavery into the thuggish role of gang leader and protector, the "Street Lord" of the 42nd neighborhood. As a new teen father, he begins to regret his choices and wants off the streets for the sake of his own son, and agrees to work as a "mole" for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in exchange for immunity from prosecution - yet when the undercover agent who gained his trust is in mortal peril, he returns to the streets in hope of engineering a rescue, triggering a chain of events that will cause him to meet his biological father at long last. Grippingly told, Choices Made: The Street Years is forcefully honest in its portrayal of the harsh forces that shape human life for good or ill.--Midwest Book Review
This was a excellent story. I almost felt like I was actually there living with the characters. Once I got halfway through I had to finish it. Can't wait to read the next book.-- Mike Vandenberg
A gritty and compelling novel, full of rich descriptions and characters you want to get to know. Choices Made is the perfect name for this story of a young man on the mean streets, and how the decisions he makes (and others make for him) affect his life and the lives of those around him. I'm looking forward to the next installment in this story. - Tory Haviland
Excerpts

THE BOY

CHAPTER 1

A pathetically gray sky held Christmas Eve in St. Louis captive. Snowflakes clung to fifteen year old Jamy Chance MacGregor like a blanket. They mixed with the tears streaming down his cheeks and dripped from his patrician nose. Pulling his thin coat closer around him did nothing to warm him. He watched as they lowered his mother's coffin into the sodden black earth.
Chatelaine Chaumbers
Born 1934, Paris, France
Died 1969, St. Louis, Missouri

Simple words etched into the small brass plaque fastened to the plain wooden coffin. Not much of a legacy for the woman who stood up to society by giving him life. She had been segregated from the 'good Christian' families by keeping him and he had been segregated from 'good people's' children by being illegitimate. A heavy burden to bear for all his years, it proved more difficult now that no friends stood by his side.
His dark chili spice colored hair hung in damp ringlets about his shoulders from the snow, falling faster now. Shoes, a size too small, pinched his cold numbed feet as he slid in the muck formed by the mud and snow. He reached for the silver guardian angel pendant his mother gave him with the consoling words, "Ils protégeront et te garder." ("They will protect and keep you.") The pendant barely touched the emptiness he felt while clumps of mud thudded against the cover of the coffin. The hollow sound dredged a moat around the walls already surrounding his heart.
His strong square jaw worked as he clenched and unclenched his teeth. "Why couldn't God let her be with me one more day? Why not one more Christmas together? Why did she have to die? She never did anything wrong." He said the words quietly as his anger collapsed into hurt. The tears flowed again.

THE SEARCHER

CHAPTER 4

Paul Linders, just returned from overseas duty in Vietnam with the narcotics special team, set out early Christmas morning with gifts for Chatelaine and Jamy. He hadn't called, wanting to catch them unaware. His own excitement sent him driving too fast and ignoring traffic lights as he envisioned their surprise at him standing before them. Then, in a few days, Chatelaine would be his wife, and Jamy would take his name. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Linders and their son, Jamy. They would be his, finally. No more waiting. Eight long years he had waited but no more. Not one day more.
Knocking lightly at first, no one answered. His knock intensified. He tried the door, it opened easily. Chatelaine must have finally gotten the landlord to fix this. How many times I said I would do it but no, it was the principle of the thing. I guess she finally won. Stepping inside, the quiet caught him. At so early an hour, he felt sure they would be home. Glancing around, he saw bureau drawers open in Jamy's room. No evidence of people. No breakfast. No dishes stacked. No gifts under the little tree covered with tinsel. He heard a sound behind him. Turning he saw an older lady he remembered vaguely.
"Are you looking for the kid?" she asked, coming into the room.
Paul looked down from his six foot six inch frame to the wrinkled figure before him. He stepped closer. Her squinty eyes opened wide.
"You! You've been gone a long time, but I remember you."
"Where are Chatelaine and Jamy?"
"She died without confessing to a priest. A sinner damned to hell."
He reeled as though hit with a fist in the belly. "Died?"
"Died with her sin. God sent her a cancer to make her repent, but she never did."
Chatelaine dying of cancer. No! No, God wouldn't hurt my sweet Chatelaine. He stared a moment then wanted nothing more than to strangle the woman and squelch her words but she hadn't mentioned Jamy. "Her son. Jamy. Where is he?" Paul forcefully said the words falling back on his training as an agent to get information.
"He was there yesterday. A social worker went to the funeral with him. They came here to get his clothes. He's a bad boy. Always saying 'fuck you' and 'bitch' when I told him his mother was a sinner. He's gone. Out the window."

THE ADDICT/KILLER

CHAPTER 14

Jamy cooked up his heroin in a bottle cap, tied off his left arm and mainlined. The pain of the wounds disappeared in the warm cocoon the drug created. His frustration ebbed. Maman walked in the colorful world of the dream. Griff appeared menacingly at her side. A slim blade moved toward his mother's throat. She raised her chin offering her slender milk-white throat to his knife. Blood red filled the dream but it was not his mother's blood. It was Griff's. Jamy stood over his lifeless victim, his guardian angle pendent driven deep into Griff's heart. "I have saved you, Maman," Jamy proclaimed. No thanks or accolades emanated from his mother, only a single tear slid down her face to mix with Griff's blood.
* * *

Late the next morning when he woke, Jamy looked for his morning jump start of heroin to quiet the nerves in his body screaming themselves awake. He wanted them to sleep again, to leave him numb to his emotions and guilt, to keep the voice of a now dead but constantly scolding mother at bay. "Where's my stuff, Nick?"
"No, you can't do that much."
"Give me my stuff." Jamy grabbed Nick's shirt. His nervous agitation flew into anger as he shook Nick back and forth.
Nick pointed to the bed. "Inside the mattress."
Jamy mixed the powder in a bottle cap, and lit a match to warm the solution, dropping a piece of cotton in it, he dipped the needle into the cotton then slowly filled the syringe.
Nick pleaded, "Don't do it. It's too much, man."
Jamy, immersed in the horror Griff's death etched in his brain and beginning to hear his mother's voice again, snapped. "Shut up. I need this. It let's me find peace." He inserted the needle pushing hard past the scar tissue and released the liquid into his vein.

THE NARC

CHAPTER 49

Jamy, stone-faced stared at the figures on the black and white television. Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans busily toiled over their latest shoe box creation. Jamy held one of Linde's many shoe boxes, the glue and JamyNick's fat crayons in his hands.
The bright paper covering the wax tore when the crayons broke as Jamy's long tapered fingers crushed them.
If JamyNick had been there, they would have made the new fangled shoe box wagon together. Now Jamy didn't have the heart to do any more than stare at the laughing characters.
Syl hadn't contacted him since they met in the museum and tonight Granges' men would meet the French contacts at Leclede's Landing. The idea of anyone finding out he talked to a Fed sent his 'fight or flight' intuition in high gear.

Catalogue Information