Will Kavanagh

The third decade of my life, the 1970s, was more than a little exciting. I’d been telling interested people pieces of it for over thirty years to their amazement, astonishment and possible disbelief. I was telling a friend named Don Fedor an extended version of it in the Spring of 2012, and he was rapt with amazement. He convinced me I had to write a book about it, so those exciting years became the autobiographical skeleton of ‘Freelancing with Freud,’ which I adjusted as necessary to protect the guilty and to create an exciting ending. Oh, and Don became my Editor for that watershed event.

Yes, and the story depicted in ‘Freelancing with Freud’ was drawn from painstaking review of military justice documentation I had retained. My Air Force attorney, played by the character Captain Trip Jones in the book, now retired and in private practice, collaborated with me to make sure I got it right.

I know it sounds crazy risky now - hindsight’s always 20/20 right - but my defense counsel very soberly and seriously gave me eighty percent odds of being acquitted based on the government’s case against me. Civilians who never served in the Armed Forces cannot appreciate the importance of being honorably discharged from the service. Going to general courts-martial and letting a jury decide my destiny was the only avenue open to my obtaining an honorable discharge from the Air Force. By the way, my DD 214, the form used for official separation from the military, shows that I was honorably discharged, and it’s been a beacon of pride during every employment application I ever submitted subsequent to that very dramatic event.

I was experiencing terror braced by paranoia wrapped in pure dread as that Colonel read my verdict. I was standing between my two attorneys, and they really did catch me when I slumped over, completely spent from three months of focusing on fighting the Uniform Code of Military Justice and meticulously mapping out a winning strategy.

Truth is the Air Force should have never charged me nor stubbornly pushed the case to trial. A good friend of mine was tried for the same charges in the same courtroom a month later, was betrayed by a former lover and was found guilty. The scenes he later described from the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, more closely resembled the terrifying scenes in the movie ‘Midnight Express.’ At Leavenworth it wasn’t the guards that wrought terror, but his fellow inmates. So, but by the Grace of God go I.

I want you to believe this with all your heart; Dominique rescued me from myself and showed me how to be a man. I hope that answers your question directly enough.

Yes and no. Yes Dominique’s interface with Will in ‘Freelancing with Freud’ was what many call the ‘front end’ of a relationship, which is typically a high passion affair. No, the integration of matters sexual has nothing to do with Dominique, but rather was a significant part of our lives, so how could I tell the story without including sex? The story of ‘Freelancing with Freud’ wasn’t about sex, it was about Will’s maturation and evolved into what I’m told is one of the most compelling courtroom legal thrillers many have read. I certainly found it to be compelling; Lord only knows what my blood pressure was spiking through at the moment of truth.

I might have understated it, as many Americans shed their inhibitions 12,000 miles from home, becoming active participants in the ‘Sexual Revolution.’ I arrived there a newly-divorced First Lieutenant, questioning if women really liked me. The only record of it now is millions of photographs, thousands of Philippino-American offspring and ‘Freelancing with Freud.’

Sorry to disappoint you, but the socio-cultural expectations extant within that rather devout Catholic part of the Philippines was accurately described in the book. I really did participate in the ‘deflowering’ of a beautiful nineteen-year old Philippino female who wanted freedom from societal expectations. Of course she didn’t bother to tell me this ahead of time, so it turned out far different than what Au experienced in Baguio, seduced by Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street.’ I thought the whole conspiracy, lose one’s virginity to make you less attractive as a house wife, was too bizarre and compelling not to portray it in ‘It’s Raining In Marrakech.’

Perhaps you forgot that Will killed a man in cold blood towards the end of ‘It’s Raining In Marrakech?’ Actually, I’m familiar with the subject matter because I read a lot of metaphysical books in the early ‘90s when my job—which I was very good at—was going away, but we were the price of winning the Cold War. Questioning my raison d’être led me to the truth as told by Edgar Cayce and I was able to make it less personal. So I have a general knowledge of matters metaphysical, which shall become severely apparent downstream within the Kavanagh Enterprise.

No, Gastineau is a fictitious town otherwise near Morgan City, Louisiana. Will was born a coonass Cajun boy because I’ve never met a Cajun I didn’t like, so what better place to be from than Cajun country? I also had a close friend who was Cajun, inculcated me into the fraternity and taught me how to set a rue.

I’m not sure any author could truthfully say he’s selling enough books, but I think it’s beneficial to examine my expectations to understand. I’m one of millions of self published authors, lost in the woods looking for ‘Self-Publishing for Dummies’ which doesn’t exist. So it’s a bit like losing one’s virginity—unlike Au who had tutors—in that the path is unknown and the terms bandied about are confusing to the point of frustration. My path to writing was reading; four hundred novels later I knew what they were supposed to look like at least. I was competent in MS Office applications, so the actual production of text was simple. Since most of ‘Freelancing with Freud’ was in memory, I wrote the book in fifty-eight days. That was the simple part. Then it’s got to be digitally integrated into formats retailers like Amazon accept, so you blunder about until you find the guru. Now you’ve got an eBook and possibly a paperback published and proudly displayed on Amazon and maybe Barnes & Noble. So are millions of other books, so who’s going to direct reader traffic to your book? The sad answer is no one who isn’t independently wealthy and can advertise and create the magic ‘exposure.’ Now E.L. James sold eleven million eBooks of ‘50 Shades of Grey’ in Australia before any publisher even picked her up. I’m a man, so I can’t understand how that book became the symbol of empowerment to 80 million women, but E.L. James certainly sold enough books. I’m still searching for that elusive ‘exposure,’ but I did join up with Palmetto Publishing Group just in time to publish ‘When There’s No Tomorrow.’ I’m hoping their experience exercising social media will make the difference. As the Zen Master said, ‘We’ll see.’