PREVIEW
FOR
LITERARY
AGENTS
Bread
of
Shame
By W.K. “Jake” Wehrell
LADIES, DON’T LET THIS MACHO PHOTO FOOL YOU. SOMETHING UNEXPECTED AWAITS YOU
Bread of Shame is a true account of one man’s journey—a globally, action-packed journey fraught with questionable decisions, scarcely credible escapades, life-threatening situations, and illicit ardor.
But no matter what the merit of his current pursuit, Roger Yahnke is haunted by the tragic belief that somewhere, another deserved, more exciting life awaits him.
And worse (much worse), he is plagued by a rare male curse: Even with the most voluptuous female partner he remains unarmed. Roger clings to the belief that somewhere out there is that one woman with the “right chemistry” to unlock his manhood.
His desperate search to find her dictates his every decision, causing him to repeatedly choose ill-advised undertakings that bring about dire predicaments.
Throughout his journey you will be rooting for him, waiting and hoping with fingers crossed.
After scarcely credible escapades in Europe’s historied cities (and having been a key player in four third-world civil wars) Roger returns to the USA. However, with no stateside connections he must accept the least desired and dangerous jobs—piloting small puddle-jumper aircraft across the Atlantic. After one such crossing he has his soul shaken when solely through a plot by her entourage, he terrifyingly finds himself in a Dakar, Senegal hotel room with an elite and intriguing young French widow. Seeing him shaking in his boots, the reader will at first be wishfully hopeful and then later stunned by unfolding events.
You will unavoidably find yourself a reluctant arbiter—unable not to levy judgment on Roger’s decades-long pattern of questionable behavior, perhaps morally bound to condemn him, despite his heartfelt efforts to justify his actions and bond with you.
Standby for a last chapter of staggering irony!
The author has had his photo in weekly news magazines, appeared in three TV documentaries, been portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in a 1990 movie, and had residences everywhere from a bougainvillea-draped cottage on the French Riviera to a bamboo cage in Laos. But that’s not important.
Even before the sobering temper of its shocking finality, this (mostly) precise and true account will cause the reader to more than once be gratifyingly uplifted, only to soon have their hopes dashed. (And fortunately-when it counts most…. Vice versa)!
Roger begins with a collection of innocent and endearing teenage admissions, which give no hint as to the outlandish and duplicitous escapades he will later seek out. You will find yourself wincing or smiling knowingly at his adolescent doubts and conclusions. You will see the hard (yea lifelong) permanency of what were thought to be mere short-term choices, and marvel at the role random occurrences can play in the course our lives will take.
It is obvious Roger trusts you, is willing to confide in you and share with you his innermost hopes and fears. Through most fortunate happenstance after high school graduation he is enrolled in a small Iowa college.
In his junior year, to avoid being drafted as a rifleman he volunteers as a naval aviation cadet, and although sure he is marginally qualified and undeserving, earns his wings of gold and is commissioned a lieutenant in the Marine Corps! 
Then at 22 – again as a result of inaction on his part, knowing little of himself and nothing about his future life’s partner, Roger allows himself to become a married man. In so doing he realizes he has a significant shortcoming that will call for increasingly overly-zealous and all-too-risky future undertakings.
In sharing with you his youthful aspirations, efforts, and disciplined upbringing, Roger’s hope is to gain some credibility and maybe even a bit of affection, before later disappointing you with a surprising string of selfish, inconsiderate, and illicit activities.
At the height of the Cold War, we find Roger Yahnke a young Marine captain aboard a US Supercarrier in the Mediterranean. He has his own aircraft, his own nuclear bomb, and his own target—an Eastern Bloc city that he will vaporize should the Russians launch one missile westward. Standby for compelling airborne and shipboard events. But that’s nothing compared to what happens when he’s ashore! His desperate search for that one woman who will unlock his manhood never wanes. In each new port-of-call, though completely lacking in the flair or confidence it should take, he becomes involved in scenarios he never dreamt existed, meeting new and grander gentry, including memorable Continental femme fatales.
From the bronzed and oiled hedonism of the Cote d’Azur beaches, to bargaining with the KGB in an abandoned house in Bulgaria; from a jail cell in Istanbul where he spends the night with an international film star and a renown middle eastern princess, to a sunny veranda on the island of Rhodes where he lunches with an exiled king, you will witness Roger’s baptism to another world.
In spite of at last meeting wonderful June of the Stafford Ballet, and feeling something new and honorable in his heart, his body continues to fail him.
The cruise ends, but not soon enough. Roger has gotten the scent and is forever altered. Although sweet June sadly proves not to have been that one empowered woman, even worlds apart it is a lasting comfort to him just knowing she is still out there somewhere.
Upon his return, to achieve separate domiciles without the shame of divorce, Roger leaves the Corps to join the CIA; where he will alone live in Saigon while his wife resides 200 miles away in the safe-haven city of Bangkok.
In Vietnam he is witness to the defilement of humanity, seeing firsthand the results of a ruthless military policy, and the never understood perception of the entire rural population. (The latter being why the war was unwinnable from the onset.)
There he delivers weapons and evacuates wounded, which pales in comparison to his next assignment: ‘Up close and personal’ in the unreported raging war in neighboring Laos!
Be in the copilot’s seat as Roger makes midnight landings on dikes just outside Hanoi, claw your way out of mangled aircraft, be with him as NVA soldiers march him to Hanoi, and go with him to Spain for vision-saving surgery (where at the Barcelona clinic he is awed to share a private cannelloni dinner with John Lennon and Yoko)! War over and back in the states, divorced but dedicated to being the best provider for his family, he finds himself pitifully out of touch with all that surrounds him. After a series of mundane employments, he retreats to more familiar activities. You will accompany him on ten-hour Atlantic crossings and all-night flights across the Sahara in small, single-engine propellor aircraft.
After one such crossing Roger experiences a UFO encounter over the Caspian Sea. On another, hold your breath. Mortified and through no design on his part, he finds himself in a Dakar hotel room with the most fearsome and unapproachable of the female species!
Could this be it? After all this time? Could this be that one woman to finally unlock his manhood, embolden and empower him with a glorious vision of happiness and fulfillment he never dared to imagine? And even if so, after now having been exposed to the sophistication of the French citizenry and hearing of the majesty of their countryside, he is full of doubt that he could ever obtain a sufficiently respected position to merit a life with a woman like her; especially in table-flat, hot and geriatric Florida. He would need an esteemed position for which he lacks the barest qualifications.
But wait, there could be a God. Roger is hugely lucky in attaining a management position with a Fortune 500 company at a prestigious airport, and operating the queen of the corporate jet fleet — a sleek new Gulfstream IV!
Ruefully, after years of distinguishing himself as an exemplary employee, a jealous colleague arranges a bogus termination: “Outplaced for Management Convenience.” This is usually a euphemism for some unmentionable dastardly act, and is sufficient to deny him any chance for another respected position. Mortally discouraged and at wit’s end, we again find ourselves screaming instructions at him as in desperation he retreats to more familiar but shady territory: engaging in a string of dangerous, disjointed, and sometimes
illicit activities such as working for (and against) the DEA, being hired to break an old friend out of a Colombian jail, flying for Oliver North dropping guns to the Nicaraguan Contras, delivering planes to Angolan guerillas, and as a Saudi Air Force pilot in the Middle East during Desert Storm.
Standby for a startling conclusion! In these final pages you will be at Roger’s side, sharing with him the consequences of his dire, life-determining quest; seeing and feeling with him, the highest hopes, the gravest disappointments, and finally—to your amazement and initial gratification, and to make a lengthy tale memorable, a second one-in-a-million event! Something that with unexpected irony will shockingly provide all that one might expect… or all that one might never have expected.
A true account of the staggering irony of one man’s life…
Would love to hear from you at afterwitbooks@gmail.com Thanks, Jake