The Confederacy is slowly dying, however, a fact that both President Marcus Hopkins and his Southern counterpart, Jesse Austin, know all too well. Determined to bring the proud Southerners back into the Union peacefully, Hopkins agrees to an unprecedented peace summit with President Austin in Richmond, the rustic seat of the Confederacy.

But many Southerners remain violently opposed to reconciliation. Hoping to ignite a Holy War to finally resolve the interrupted "Second War of American Independence," Jebediah Lee and a skulking band of fundamentalist terrorists kidnap Hopkins and his ceremonial honor guard, under the command of Sgt. Abraham Pope.

With Soviet troops poised to invade Texas from Mexico and slavering European nations aligned on opposing sides of an American tinderbox ready to ignite like dried kindling, the world teeters on the brink of conflagration. It’s up to Sgt. Pope and his brave band of reluctant grunts to not only preserve peace in America, but avoid World War II.

Drawing on such modern day real world parallels as Korea, the Middle East and an apartheid-era South Africa, this action-filled saga weaves a gripping and plausible alternate history.

​Adapted from his own screenplay of the same name, Merle Bertrand's 50,000-word novel, Birdseye Station, tweaks the Battle of Gettysburg -- a favorite source of historical "what-if?" speculation – to launch its alternate history.

It's been 150 years since Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia defeated the Union forces at Gettysburg; a crushing victory that led the European powers to recognize the Confederacy and pressured the war-weary North to agree to a bitter Armistice. A tenuous cease fire has existed ever since and a tense Demilitarized Zone bristling with jittery troops today scars a land divided between two Americas technically still at war.

​Writing & Screenwriting

Birdseye Station - The Novel

An Independent Motion Picture Production Company

Pushkin's Crew - (Screenplay)

It's summertime 1979 in Mouse Creek, IL (pop. 600). Teenage pals Jacob Strimling, Kyle Harris and Matt Menard spend their days walking beans, a lucrative summertime cottage industry for rural teenagers.

After a long hot day pulling, chopping and slicing offending weeds out of Ivan Pushkin's bean field under the blistering Midwestern sun, the guys' summer evenings are almost as tranquil as the gentle breezes that tickle the velvety green carpet of soybeans.

Launching model rockets, watching Matt's winless Mouse Creek Comets Pony League team, flirting with their bean-walking pals Cindy Roswell and Debbie Duncan at local wedding dances and making Super 8 movies fills up their weekends. It's a simple, almost idyllic existence that can't - and doesn't - last forever.

When Kyle's older brother Turk catches Kyle in the hideous costume of the "Green Monster," the central figure in a local ghost story as well as the main character in the guys' new movie, Mouse Creek is soon awash in Green Monster rumors and sightings. And when a mysterious, vaguely sinister Green Monster impersonator begins to terrorize the small town, Kyle soon finds himself the suspect in a number of increasingly ugly Green Monster incidents.

The questions mount as the summer draws to a close. Will the Comets finally win a game? Will the guys ever successfully raid Turk and his
buddies' backyard camp? Will there be any kissing on the lips? And finally, just who is the mysterious and ephemeral Green Monster? These questions and more will be answered before "Pushkin's Crew” finishes walking their bean field.

Pushkin's Crew is a humorous, gently nostalgic, and endearing look at a warmhearted slice of Americana that's disappearing as fast as the family farm.

Car Productions

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