When Last We Danced by Carl Etheridge

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

Carlton Amory had known the bliss of success and the agony of defeat. He had stared death in the face many times and later in life he knew that there had to be a Supreme Being that had cast a blanket of protection over him. He would bow his head and thank the One who graced him with life and new beginnings. At sixty-five he was trim and athletic, the skin over his body taut and smooth. It was the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes and the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth that sang the melody of a rich and celebrated life. The brief sabbatical in the college at the federal penitentiary in Petersburg, Virginia had given him time to reflect on his life and to spend his spare time, which he had more than he had ever known, at the gym lifting weights. He would view animalistic behavior found in limited space where territorial rights were protected at the expense of a life. He would feel the warm stickiness of blood splashed on him in the middle of the night as inmates tangled on the concrete floor. The metallic smell of blood still lingered in his nostrils and sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would awake in the midst of a sweat soaked bed.