First Page of Novel. Exciting.

This is the first page of a novel that I've all but given up on. I liked the intro and the first forty pages, but couldn't seem to pull it all the way through. I may touch on it again in the future.

Flies Haunt the Eyes of Summer

Prologue

An old man with mismatched eyes stands at the back door of the Washington State Correctional facility. The sun catches his blue eye and buries his brown one. He is frowning and seems unable to keep still. The backs of his hands are pressed to his hips. Behind him, his fingers twitch. He shifts from one foot to the other. His eyes dart from the door, to the empty street behind him, to the sidewalk in either direction.

The setting sun paints shadows in his white hair. A closer look reveals startling black eyebrows and a gaunt face—the face of a man who is very sick, who has lost a great deal of weight in a short time, or who is carrying a great, personal burden. Like most old people, he may have been handsome once. The wear and tear of life, love and loss is evident in every crag and wrinkle. If anything, he has lived. Whether or not it has been a happy life isn’t clear. One thing is for sure—whoever this man is waiting for is of great importance to him.

People passing in the streets can’t take their eyes off him. Most wonder where they’ve seen his face before. It’s a famous face—right down to the slight hook on the end of his nose. Even children stare. The man has not tried to be inconspicuous. He wears bright red cowboy boots over jeans. His blue shirt matches his eye. Across his hips he wears a black belt, complete with a silver belt buckle in the shape of Texas.

“C’mon, Sam,” he says. His voice reveals an unsurprising accent.

He runs a vein-laced hand across the white stubble on his cheeks. The sun is getting lower and lower in the sky. The streets have begun to clear out. Men with tattoos stir near a dumpster across the street. The man gives them a level-headed look and turns back to the back door.

Streetlights flick on. The door opens.

The man straightens and is still. Two voices float down the staircase toward him and he lifts his chin, as if sniffing the air.

A cane comes first from the door. It is followed by a pair of worn sneakers and a bespectacled man with a beard. He is in his late thirties or early forties. Most of his face is covered by the beard and the glasses, but his eyes—light, amber-brown eyes, shine through. He stops halfway down the steps when he sees the older man.

“Sam Caslin,” the older man says. He lifts his chin. “Howdy.” Sam reaches his free hand to his glasses and then walks down the stairs. He walks past the older man. His cane clicks on the pavement.

The older man strolls alongside Sam.

“What are you doing here, Shaw?” Sam says. “Jesus Christ. I thought you’d be dead by now.”

With a sudden cry, Sam falls to his knees, clutching his thigh. The cane falls from his hand and clatters to the ground several feet away. Shaw goes to pick it up. He offers Sam his hand, but Sam has crawled to the nearby bus stop and pulled himself up. Shaw twirls the cane in his long fingers and hands it to Sam. Sam grips it between his knees.

Shaw sits down next to Sam.

“They let you out early, huh? Seven years early, by my count.”

“Yeah.” Sam shrugs. His eyebrows furrow as he stares across the street at the dumpsters. “I told them I would stay longer. I told them I wanted to stay longer. They wouldn’t listen.”

“Bastards.” Shaw pauses and chews one of his yellow fingernails. “We’ve had this conversation before, Sam. Do you remember?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I still mean what I said.”