A Long Good Walk

On a bright and breezy May morning, a nine year old boy named Charlie overhears his mother's hushed and desperate conversation, realizes its implications and sets out on a mission to do the unthinkable-- to shoot his grandmother's abusive and alcholic husband. His driving force is the knowlege that his mother might sacrifice herself to do the same act and end up in prison for the rest of her life or worse. Along the way his quietness, inquisitive nature and his resilence prove to be his only weapons against situations and people who would stop him. And yet he wrestles internally with a larger force, knowing that God would surely condemn him to hell for his terrible act. His lone companion on this secret mission is a hungry, stray dog he befriends along the way. Whatever the outcome he knows this-- he is the only one who can save his mother's life. Not his father, not his sister, only Charlie--a quiet third grader setting off to do the nearly impossible in a grown up world. And it happens in small town Barberton, Ohio in a single day, Thursday May 7th 1953. A day he can never forget. The day of a long good walk.