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eBook Category: Mainstream/Spiritual/Religion
eBook Description: A Kerouac Christ, four young adults set out to find meaning on a weekend road trip. One of them realizes that meaning doesn't come that fast and stays on the road for seven years to discover the root of his generation's apathy and his own definition of meaning.

eBook Publisher: Quiet Storm Publishing, Published: Hardcover, 2002
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2005

1 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.2 MB], eReader (PDB) [201 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [190 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [170 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [168 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [218 KB], hiebook (KML) [506 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [243 KB], iSilo (PDB) [155 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [197 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [234 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [251 KB]
Words: 61275
Reading time: 175-245 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
ISBN: 0-97142960x

"If one were to take one scoop of Ken Nordine, two cups of Allen Ginsberg, three heaping tablespoons of Jack Kerouac and a dash of Kevin Smith (the movie director) then fold in some Generation X and a big slice of Americana, you just might end up with Clint Gaige."--Seven Graylands, Journalist

"A Kerouac Christ is one of the most compulsively readable books I've read in a long time. I actually woke up early, couldn't sleep, so I picked up the book and started reading, that was at about eight this morning. I just finished, and I wanted to tell everyone that I think Clint has really written something that people need to read.All in all, this is now one of my favorites, a book that I would list among the likes of The Catcher In The Rye. (Clint's) ideas are incendiary, and his words fresh. This is the kind of book you won't be able to stop thinking about."--Jonathan Sanders, Journalist

Friday morning I stared at a blank computer screen and fought hard to defeat my eternal enemy. I couldn't seem to beat the damn computer at solitaire. No matter how many times I tried, nothing I ever did seemed to work. The phone broke my concentration as it rang.

"Yeah." I was still devoting all attention to the computer.

"How's the novel coming?" Marc, my best friend, snickered from the other end of the line.

"Fine." I lied. I graduated from college ready to be a best selling, a-list author. I never balked in my confidence or drive throughout school. Suddenly, when it was time to actually write ... nothing was coming. It was as if I lost my stories, my life.

"Whatever." Marc knew better, he knew that the words had dried up. "Listen, I'm gonna do somethin' about that. You coming to the bar tonight?"

"Nothing better to do." I mumbled.

"That's sad." He was right. "All right, see you there."

"What did you mean?"

"About what?"

"When you said, fine."

"I'm gonna give you a story." I could hear the smile on his face as he hung up the phone. I cradled the receiver and glanced at the clock.

"Shit!" I was running a bit late.

I moved as quickly as I could. I rushed into the building and stepped into my office five minutes late. Unfortunately, it was at the exact moment the Radio Station's General Manager entered the hallway.

"Mr. Bradshaw, glad you could make it this morning." His sarcastic smile pissed me off.

"Yes sir."

"I've noticed your performance slipping a little bit." He was referencing the public opinion polls. I had already seen them. They didn't mean shit. In my business the only report that mattered was the Detroit Metro Arbitron book. In that book, we were still number one.

"We're doing fine." I smiled trying not to vent on my boss.

"Fine isn't always good enough." He cocked his head to the side and kept walking down the hallway.

"Prick." I mumbled under my breath and entered my little office cubicle. I followed the motions and sat down behind my desk and rolled myself into place behind my keyboard and began to type.

The keyboard felt awkward under my fingers. The clicking of keys could be heard as it reverberated throughout my office. I reviewed the daily logs. I was the Assistant Program Director for a major market radio station, an impressive resume' builder for someone my age. Twenty-three years old and full of enough bullshit to sell myself on me. I was fool enough to think I had paid my dues. I had a lot to learn about a little bit of everything. All I was aware from day to day was junk in, junk out ... and the day would pass. I kept asking myself the same questions, what the hell were we doing here? I could only find one conclusion to my boring question. I had no other choice for survival. The chance to live as someone else never comes up ... unless we can find it within ourselves, that is, if we're even looking.

"Here's the next batch." The logs were tossed on my desk by a co-worker. She walked away as quickly as she arrived.

"Thanks." I answered the empty space and thought that my time of servitude was almost over for the week. I sat quietly and stared at the wall asking myself the questions of meaning in a day. I never had any answers, I just knew that we were all alone and this was all wrong for me. I wasn't sure what was mine anymore. All I appeared to own was a tragic acceptance of who and where I was.

I had no way of knowing that within two hours my life would forever change, I would no longer be the same person. Years would pass and the fight for my soul would continue but the war would be won this weekend. It was a simple twist of fate hidden in a tragic war I would never understand. I don't think metaphysical wars are ever fought for understanding, at least that's the lie we understand.

My mind wanted to accept the task of a writer, but my body continued the functions of an analyst, finding fault in analyzed findings. I quickly glanced at the clock. It was only three-thirty. The time never appeared to change. The last hour at work dragged as my body attempted to finish my work. A lifetime later the clock leisurely changed the digital digits to quitting time.

I turned off the light quickly and cleaned the desk efficiently. I beat the mad rush for the door. Late afternoon may be the death of a day, but it is the birth of a weekend. I briskly walked to my car and pulled out of the parking lot with the speed allowed by the annoying pedestrians. It was a time for life, or whatever I had.

The local bar was my destination. Destination, the place I moved towards, missing the journey. Damn, John Lennon was wrong. Death is what happens while you're busy making other plans. I would be catching up with two friends, Marc and Larry. We always met there on Friday nights. Marc, Larry and I would sit and talk about the week. We were not all friends, but that was hardly the point. Marc and I had known each other of years; Larry had introduced himself a few years back. This weekend would prove different. This weekend, I would also be meeting a lovely woman, Allison. I could only imagine how Marc would talk her into coming.

Marc was probably leisurely leaning against a chair looking like a GQ poster boy, dressed in his misleading suit and tie. Marc's a misplaced soul, somewhere between heaven and hell, happy in either. He values each minute of life like no other. He breaks all stereotypes, and reinforces all others. My mind raced. The writer inside my mind would write out the conversation as imagined it.

"So, come on." Marc would refuse to accept no for an answer.

"I don't know." Allison smiled and thought, Marc was a nice enough guy, but she didn't know him well enough to go for drinks. She would hesitate, while playing with her red hair.

"Come on. Its safe, I'll be good. You can meet my friend Chris, and I think Larry's going to be there." Marc would try again, and again, and again.

"Who's Larry?" Allison would gently shake her head. She found Marc's energy fascinating, but would find it hard to keep up with him.

"See, you don't even know Larry. You have to come." Marc spoke with a machine-gun delivery that many couldn't understand. "One beer." He would persist.

Allison would pause, thinking about the worse case scenario. She was amused by Marc, and was interested to meet this Chris he kept speaking of. She would reluctantly nod. "Okay."

"How hard was that?" Marc probably grabbed his jacket and bolted out the door. He wouldn't stop to pause for Allison. His feeling was either she would catch up or she wouldn't.

Allison would grab her purse and nearly kill herself when her jacket grasped the back of her chair. "Wait up!"

"Hurry up!" Marc could hardly be heard from the other side of the building. He always moved at high speed.

"What am I getting myself into?" Allison questioned herself but followed. And, so they would arrive shortly. Allison would find her point of view forever changed. Marc's energy would move her to do what she feared. Funny, how your fear can actually become an ally given time.