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Credit: Mary Rachel Quinn<\/p>\nCredit: Mary Rachel Quinn<\/p>\n
Tampa\u2019s history is so rich, and there are so many different versions of all the stories, that sometimes reality and fantasy start to blur. Paul Wilborn\u2014author, artist, journalist, Executive Director at St. Pete\u2019s Palladium Theater and founding member of Ybor City\u2019s Artists and Writers Ball\u2014leans into the ambiguity in his second novel, \u201cThe Everlasting Life of Charlie Wall,\u201d released in April via St. Petersburg Press.<\/p>\n
Born and raised in Temple Terrace, Wilborn, a King High School grad and alum of University of the University of South Florida, didn\u2019t discover Ybor City until after he was hired at the since-shuttered Tampa Tribune. The district is where Wilborn, 74, lived his misspent youth\u2014and it\u2019s the backdrop of \u201cThe Everlasting Life of Charlie Wall \u201d where the mobster falls into depression. Trip, who works for Wall, works to rebuild his boss\u2019 self-esteem by convincing wall that some people still want him in the grave.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhat neither of them know is that an aging hit man has decided to finish the job he botched 30 years earlier,\u201d Wilborn says about the work. \u201cI call the book a \u2018factual fantasy.\u201d\u2019 The real Charlie Wall died in 1955, but in my book, he lives. The book tells the true story of Tampa, which was one of the most corrupt and vice-ridden cities in America for three-fourths of the 20th century.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read an excerpt from the first chapter of \u201cThe Everlasting Life of Charlie Wall \u201d below. Learn more at wilbornwrites.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n An arrow\u2014its tip shiny silver, its sleek red shaft trimmed at the base with a tuft of lime-colored feathers\u2014swooshed by Charlie\u2019s head, slamming with a \u201cthock\u201d into the frame above the front door. In the snapshot silence afterward, Trip Armstrong thought he could hear the arrow quivering, like someone had plucked a taut string in the guts of a grand piano.<\/p>\n \u201cHoly undershirts!\u201d Charlie gasped, as Trip turned the key and pushed the old man through the open door, slamming it behind them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhoa Betty!\u201d Charlie shouted. \u201cWhat in Hades was that?\u201d<\/p>\n Trip suppressed a grin. It tickled him when his boss made up his own curse words. They stood for a long beat in the dark, listening to the ticking of the grandfather clock before Trip flipped the light switch.\u00a0<\/p>\n Charlie\u2019s mouth twisted up into a tight smile. \u201cThey keep trying. They keep failing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Stepping to the closed door, he shouted to his would-be assassin: \u201cYou should know by now you can\u2019t whack Charlie Wall!\u201d<\/p>\n But, at least for a moment, they could scare him. When Charlie turned back, Trip noticed a growing stain around the zipper of his seersucker trousers. Charlie dismissed the stain with a wave of his hand.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cI told you I had to pee. Dalmation! Now I gotta clean this suit.\u201d Charlie pulled a pocket watch from his jacket, scanned it, then looked up at Trip, as if it were any other night. \u201cHow\u2019d it get so late?\u201d<\/p>\n Trip knew exactly how it got so late. Waving a limp twenty at Betty, the longtime bartender at The Turf, Charlie had insisted on a fourth Old Fashioned.<\/p>\n \u201cYou sure, Charlie?\u201d Betty\u2019s face was a mask of bones and wrinkles, her sparse curls yellowed by six decades of cigarette smoke.\u00a0 \u201cI think your level is good.\u201d<\/p>\n On most subjects, Charlie had a philosophy he lived by, except when he didn\u2019t feel like it. His philosophy of drinking was like that. He believed a wise man should know how to hold his liquor. About once a night, usually in The Turf, his favorite among the dark, old-school joints around downtown Tampa, the drunken philosopher would rise slowly from the barstool and straighten his shoulders, his lanky, Abe Lincoln frame draped in his standard uniform\u2014a seersucker suit that seemed to grow larger every day\u2014Or, maybe after 85 tumultuous years on the planet, Charlie was shrinking. His pale blue dress shirt hung loose around a wattled neck, his paisley bowtie dangled, his straw boater rested upside down on the bar. \u201cPeople drink the wrong way,\u201d Charlie would say to his barroom companions\u2014often total strangers\u2014his high lonesome voice a mix of southern aristocrat and cracker cowpoke.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cA wise man only drinks to here.\u201d He would draw a flat hand across the middle of his chest, where his shirt was rorschached with soup and gravy stains. He\u2019d wiggle his fingers.<\/p>\n \u201cA little higher. A little lower. It\u2019s okay. When a man gets in trouble is when he drinks to here.\u201d Charlie\u2019s index finger slid like a knife blade across his neck. \u201cIt\u2019s neck drinkers that give liquor a bad name.\u201d<\/p>\n Betty had heard it plenty of times. Usually after Charlie had let the booze rise to neck level. But she knew you didn\u2019t argue with Charlie Wall. People had died after disagreeing with Charlie. Sure, it was a long time ago, but they had died. In cars. On front porches. In trash-strewn alleys behind Ybor City dive bars. All rising to meet their maker courtesy of a double-barreled blast from a sawed-off wielded by one of Charlie\u2019s guys.<\/p>\n Betty set down a fresh Old Fashioned. Easing off the stool, Charlie took the drink down the bar where a couple of 30ish women were giggling at a private joke.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Charlie Wall,\u201d he announced.\u00a0 \u201cEver hear of me?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The women wore the business-blue pant suits and pastel blouses that said they worked just down the street at the courthouse. Likely court reporters, Trip thought. Their hair styles were identical, all scrambled-up curls, though one was dyed blond, the other chocolate brown.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou a lawyer?\u201d The brunette asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a crook.\u201d Charlie eased onto the stool next to them. \u201cUsed to be anyway. Long time ago. Call your Momma. I bet she\u2019s heard of me.\u201d<\/p>\n Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0BlueSky<\/a><\/p>\n Recent Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tThe former Republican leads Democrats in fundraising with $6 million.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\u201cWe should never allow antisemitism anywhere, and we have to stand up against it,\u201d Scott said.\u00a0\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\u201cWith each change of season, the interior of the house experiences a change.\u201d\u00a0\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n This article appears in June 11 \u2013 17, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n \t\t\t
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