Note: This post is almost 4000 words, It is either a chapter in a novel, a free standing short story, or a synopsis for a screenplay. I hereby claim its authorship and veracity.
Some time during the early morning hours in the Summer of 1954, Barbara Noeker kidnapped her sons, George and John, age 6 and 4, disappearing over the Idaho border driving straight to her parents home in Bend, Oregon. They arrived around noon.
She was able to quietly sneak her sons out of the house, after waking them from child dreams, and into the only family car, a green 1948 Dodge. Her husband, Edward, slept soundly having just returned from an exhaustive business trip, while his children who he loved deeply were taken from his life forever. There was to be only one final meeting between father and sons, occurring some four years later. More of this in time.
Barbara's plans had been made, all was arranged. A friend from her Boise neighborhood had agreed to confront Edward early that same morning when he awakened, and tell him his wife of eight years was gone forever, and to not follow. Despite repeated telephone calls to the home in Bend, he was told to stay away and to expect divorce papers. In 1954, there was not much a man could do in this predicament. He was not allowed to speak to his sons. And Barbara had taken the car.
All this without a word from Barbara to her sons about why this had happened. The boys had to be scolded quite a few times before finally falling silent. Mum's the word.
When the youngest, John, was five, he asked his grandfather, Dean, “Is my daddy dead?” A brief shake of Granddad's head and a stoic countenance reminded John he was not supposed to ask about his father.
Dean was kind, though, and would serve as a backbone of sorts for young John, as the next eight years were to bring horror and pain beyond immediate comprehension. For his brother George, as well. The same horror and pain, burnt into memory, manifested in the form of a step-father who was quick to legally adopt these boys, because 1950's culture frowned on a boy not having a proper name. And a real man made sure his sons had the same last name.
“I'm gonna 'dopt you boys,” came the words from the ogre. His name was Vern. Vernon Woodworth, a chunky thick, horrible man with slick back black, wavy hair, cigarettes rolled up in his undershirt. His odd, bulb-like nose an unpleasant counterpoint to his vacant watery blue eyes.
Vern was a man man who spanked the cats if they jumped on a bed. A man who would suddenly scream from his chair, “Get out in the garage!” A man whose real talent lay in how hard he could hit the bare backsides of his 'sons' with an eighteen inch long piece of black two inch diameter irrigation hose.
The first strike hurt so bad, neither of the boys could ever muster a scream for several seconds, then just about the time the second strike was delivered, the screams began. And the sound of the rubber hose against the buttocks and lower backs of the boys had a strange, stinging smack sound, like a butcher slapping a slab of beef, pounding it down for the cut. All in all, each session would yield seven or eight full force strikes. One time, John put his right hand behind him, trying to protect himself as he lay sprawled over the pile of wood in the garage.
“Get that hand outta there!” screamed Vern, then struck with all his might, breaking the first joint of John's middle finger. The next day, during third grade recess, John pretended he had hurt his hand playing teatherball, and the school nurse put a splint on the finger. When Barbara saw the injury, she feigned concerned as Vern grunted and walked out to the back patio for a smoke. He smoked Chesterfield's, and had a special way of smacking each cigarette down seven or eight times on his Zippo lighter before smoking them. He learned that in the Navy. He got tattoos in the Navy, too. One of a black panther streaking down his left arm, with the bottom half of the cat visible, the rest covered by his undershirt. The panther's tail had become a bit infected over the years, and was red in color for about a half inch on the tip.
His other tattoo, on the right forearm, was simply 'USN' with a faded flag.
As the boys never saw Vern without a shirt, they never saw the top half of the cat. They saw the right forearm a lot, however.
Forever a horrible moral postulate, the scope and dimension of Vern's humanity was defined by several revealing events.
The two Siamese cats, John's beloved travel companions, were not allowed to sleep in the house. They were carried to the garage to their bed at 9 PM, placed in cardboard box through a small round hole with a thin blanket inside for warmth. The central Oregon winter temperatures drop to zero, sometimes below. The garage, though attached to the house, had no heat, but was well insulated allowing for an an ambient thirty eight to forty degrees.
It was never discussed why the well behaved family pets were not allowed to sleep inside the house, but was the source of one of the only arguments Vern and Barbara had in front of the boys. Barbara objected, worried the cats might be too cold. Vern ended the argument by proclaiming that the cats 'ball up together and it's like eighty degrees.....and I don't want them wandering the house at night....they might get up on somethin'....'
Yet, another cat did not fare so well. A stray appeared at the sliding door during a winter snowstorm of 1960. The porch light revealed a loudly meowing young kitty----an orange one---John begged to let the snow laden animal inside---or at least into the garage. Vern ordered John to sit down and not open the door.
“It's one of the Hensley's cats....it can find its way home....and we can't let it in the garage because our cats will kill it.” The Hensley's lived half a mile away. Nothing was ever mentioned about a missing orange cat in the following months.
And many years later, John remembered that Vern had spanked both the Siamese cats because they were caught sleeping in one of the bedrooms, making an unacceptable indentation on the bed pillow.
He held them tightly, avoiding vicious claws, striking them across the flanks four or five times before tossing them into the garage.
Barbara did not like that either, but said little as the benefits of Vern evidently outweighed the detriments. He was a good provider and her boys had a father. She was well liked by co-workers, and began to receive promotions. Barbara had arrived. And little else mattered.
But no one knew for sure, since in eight years, only three visitors came to the Woodworth house. At the time, this did not seem extraordinary to John.
All in all, Barbara felt she had to sacrifice a lot in order to have the job and family she wanted. She felt she deserved her new car. And she suffered Vern, her intellectual inferior, and treated him coldly. No hugging or kissing between them, and few sounds coming from their bedroom.
Looking back a bit....
Two years had passed since Barbara had absconded with her children. George was eight and John was six, just starting first grade.
She had prevailed, and was successful in securing employment with the local gas company as a secretary. Meanwhile, all her applications were filled out, awaiting a plucky “state' job, a special goal of hers as she energetically sought the approval of her father while maintaining a cool distance from her mother Dorothy.
Dorothy's friends called her 'Dot.' For a number of years, Dot would be the only one to ever hug the children, albeit infrequently. Then, after moving a half mile away and into a new house, there were no more hugs for the children.
All in all, Barbara's relationship had been ruined with her mother some years earlier, when home from college she 'discovered' her brother Dan, four years her junior, intimately involved with his friend of the same sex. Barbara immediately told Dean, who just as quickly banished his son from the house forever, breaking Dot's heart.
Many years later, and after Dean's death, Barbara would be living with Dorothy, and have to suffer through visits from brother Dan who lived only a few hours away. Barbara would call John long distance on the telephone, and through the muse of alcohol complain that it 'sickened her' to watch her brother and mother sitting together on the love seat, holding hands and talking quietly about 'God knows what!' At 35, John reacted with slight amusement, and gave those episodes little consideration having still not fully absorbed the peculiar nature of his family dynamic.
In this instance, the 'God knows what' was a mother's love for her son, with reciprocity, after not seeing one another for nearly forty years. Barbara was not built to recognize such nurturing.
But even then, at 35, John was not allowed to visit when 'Uncle Dan' was in town. Added together, there were at least twenty five times when the two of them could have gotten together, but it was not meant to be.
John, nor George, ever met their Uncle Dan.
Parenthetically, it turns out that John had lived and worked in the same city as his Uncle, even being as close as six blocks away. Uncle Dan was a lounge singer and piano player in a local Seattle establishment, while John worked as a business recruiter in the United Pacific building on Second Avenue for three years, a mere fifteen minute walk from the nightclub.
Mum's the word.
In 1956 Barbara went away for about a week. She said nothing to her boys, and both grandparents maintained silence, though acknowledging Barbara was coming back in a few days with a surprise.
The surprise came when George and John were playing in their grandparents' big front yard, which was ringed with 100 foot pine trees, affording a clear view of the Cascade mountain range. One could easily see the 'Three Sisters'---the three major mountain peaks from the yard and from inside the house, framed perfectly in the monstrous living room picture window.
The driveway to the house was long, and was visible all the way to the main road, highway 20. After turning into the driveway, it took three or four minutes to get to the house. Conversely, the walk from the house to the highway to catch the school bus took ten or fifteen minutes.
George noticed it first. It was a big, black Buick coming up the driveway. As there were only a splattering of neighbors---only four homes within a two mile radius---the boys knew all the cars which came up the hill to the house. They watched intently. There was an option for a car to continue on straight, and head another direction to Bear Creek Road, but if any car made that final turn, it was definitely coming to the house. The big, black Buick turned and headed up the hill.
John was jumping up and down in excitement as the car pulled up, the gravel crunching under its wide tires.
Barbara got out of the passenger door as both sons ran to greet her.
“Where did you go, Mom?” asked George, wiping a tear.
John stopped short of his mother, as he saw a strange man. Vern had gotten out of the car, and was leaning against the bumper, smacking a cigarette down on his lighter.
Barbara tousled George's hair, then made the boys stand side-by-side a few feet away. She motioned for Vern to come closer.
“Boys,” she said seriously, “this is Vern Woodworth. We just got married a few days ago, and he's going to be your new father.”
“They call me Woody,” intoned Vern through a thick haze of cigarette smoke, “pretty soon you can call me Dad 'cause I'm gonna dopt you.”
George and John looked at each other, and in an instant were gone. They raced across the yard, leaped over the pole fence, ran as fast as they could across the big, front pasture, disappearing into the forest about a quarter mile to the east. Barbara's voice and what sounded like a whistle disappeared quickly as the brothers raced deep into the forest.
Especially for John, the forest became pivotal in his survival, where he built 'forest caves' and bent saplings over to trap any intruders.
For two years they all lived together. Barbara and Vern at one end of the massive house; Dean, Dorothy, George and John at the other end, where most of the bedrooms were. Naturally, everyone acted like a family---dinners from Dot, television viewing, and weekly trips to Congress grocery market with Granddad. John always got a dime to buy candy.
In 1956, there were very few television programs , but cowboys and Indians were plentiful, along with something called the Red Dunning show, and Mr. Moon. And, of course, 'The Edge of Night.'
In 1958, the new house was ready and the recently formed Woodworth family moved in, only a half mile from Dean and Dorothy and still within sight. Just not hearing range. In later years, it struck John as horribly ironic that Hell might exist in a vacuum.
The sudden visit from Edward lasted only for one day---hours, really. It merely seemed like a whole day to
the boys, time and memory being at once transformative, yet frighteningly transgressive.
Only a few months had passed in the new house when the boys were informed that their father was coming for a visit. George and John were unaware at the time, but the visit had a dual purpose. The re-uniting of a father and his sons after four years, and his appearance before the lawyer, a Mr. Gray, for the purposes of filing adoption papers which required Edward's signature. George and John Noeker were to become George and John Woodworth, just like that.
The visit itself was surreal and spectacular. Lunch and sodas at Drake Park, a movie at the Tower Theater, where Edward thumped a kid's head in the next row down for being too loud. The boys thought that funny, stifling their laughter. And then, the promise.
'Yes, yes, yes, I'm coming back for you guys' echoed through their heads---'just as soon as I can.'
Edward, who favored John--even called him 'Jake,'-- promised he would send a magnifying glass through the mail first, then he would come for them.
After three months of daily trips to the highway to check the mailbox, John finally gave up. No magnifying glass, no rescue, no more Dad. They never heard from Edward again.
Many years later when John was 42, he found his father. The news came in the form of some assistance from a friend who worked for the Social Security Administration. It turns out that Edward Noeker had passed away in 1965, only seven years after seeing his boys for the last time. Still believing his father might be alive, this sudden revelation would weigh heavily on John's already troubled psyche.
After Edward spoke to the boys about his plans to come for them, he dropped them off at the house and remained in the car to bid his boys farewell. It was clear Vern was watching from the window, with the curtain pulled back just enough to reveal his angry, wretched face.
The boys received a particular brutal whipping that evening, on the excuse that they had not done all their chores before going with Edward for the day. The 'chores' were of such magnitude that they would never be done, so Vern always had a handy reason to become enraged. “I'm gonna beat that Noeker right out of both of you!” he snarled. And beat he did. It took five years to get it right.
The worm turned in 1962, when George, now a gangling and fearless teenager, began to fight back in the garage with Vern. With his hands full, Vern scarcely bothered with John anymore, so at twelve years old, the beatings pretty much stopped for him while the weekly battle between Vern and George intensified.
Earlier, things had almost gotten out of hand.
In 1960, George discovered Vern's .270 Winchester deer rifle hidden in the upper chambers of the garage, complete with bullets. He looked at his brother and said, “let's shoot him.”
Both boys were aware of Vern's usual arrival time---4 PM. He managed Bend Redi-Mix, a concrete plant, and maintained a very regular schedule. George and John had taken up a position where Vern could not see them, even as he was on the long driveway. George calmly slid a cartridge into the chamber of the Winchester and locked it down as if he had done it many times. He lowered the weapon and aimed directly at Vern's oncoming pick-up truck, and at the last second, dropped the barrel down muttering 'Dammit' as John sat numb in the bushes. They left the gun, returning later to sneak it back into the garage without Vern's notice.
George had reached a bit of a tipping point due to a jarring event.
The boys had made outside pets of several golden mantle squirrels, built them a cage, and watched in awe the arrival of babies. Vern had caused John to cry uncontrollably when his refusal to allow the pets to stay in the garage, warm against the bitter cold of the Central Oregon winter, resulted in an early morning discovery of six frozen squirrels.
All this bounced around in George's head. Another early discovery, as he experienced how rage can insinuate murder.
Time wore on. Life went on as usual, aside from a particularly vicious beating when Vern discovered his gun had been moved and a bullet left in the chamber.
Barbara's usual reaction to the regular whippings had been to retire to her bedroom or bathroom, and smoke a cigarette until things calmed down. On each occasion, the boys were marched down the hallway and pushed into their bedroom with the admonition, “if I hear one peep, you're gonna get another whippin!' They were marched right past Barbara's bathroom, still screaming.
George and John shared a bedroom despite a 'guest' room in the long, spacious house. From 1958 until 1966, when the Woodworth family moved into town, the guest room was never used and the boys were forbidden entrance. They were also forbidden to go into their own room unless it was bedtime. No laying on the beds, no clothes on the floor. All socks and underwear folded neatly and stacked perfectly in the chest of drawers.
No music, no loud talking, and the beds must be 'made' with hospital corners, without wrinkles in the finished product. There was no chair or desk in the room, so all homework was done at the kitchen table after all the dishes were washed and put away. Any television watching could be done after homework, and at Vern's choosing. He would circle the various shows to be watched---Have Gun Will Travel, The Honeymooners, Lawrence Welk.
Next to the kitchen was a dining room complete with stunning oak hutch and fine china, and a table for six. However, all meals in the Woodworth house were eaten in the kitchen, each member seated lunch-counter like staring straight ahead at a white, undecorated wall. From the left, Vern, Barbara, George, then John.
Occasionally during the summertime, Vern would barbeque and they would eat outside at the nice redwood table. A chaise lounge sat empty nearby.
The dining room remained pristine. Unused.
Likely the biggest issue of disintegration in the Woodworth family was when George ran away from home. At 17, he had devised an escape plan which first included John and a school chum---but turned out that young George escaped on his own. John was 15 at the time.
The plan had been to leave on a motorcycle with a sidecar, which was the friend's contribution, but never materialized. George changed the plan on June 24th, 1965, when he simply walked away with ten dollars in his pocket and the clothes on his back. He told John he would call a telephone booth in town at 3 PM the next day to report his location.
No time for words, just a final look of sweet misery.
The call never came, even after 3 days of 3 PM's at the phone booth. George was gone forever, never to be seen again. Forty five years later, John still remembers watching his brother disappear from view around Pilot Butte and into town. Little did the boys know then that their father had died only two days before George's departure, somewhere near Anaheim, California.
When Barbara and Vern returned home from work, John faced them and announced that George had left, vowing to never return. Vern lit a cigarette, and Barbara called a friend who worked with the Oregon State Police. It was decided that nothing needed to be done as George would soon be 18 and of legal age.
Barbara was semi-shocked, yet relieved as the inevitable battles between Vern and George were wearing thin on her. She had lost control. Vern never said a word, yet was pleased by the news. George had become a real problem for him.
Dean and Dorothy had moved away a year earlier, and as there were no family friends, everything went on pretty much as usual in Bend. Nothing was ever reported by the local paper, the Bend Bulletin, and no further communication allowed about George in the Woodworth family.
Mum's the word.
When George had been gone for over a year, and John was in high school, he heard directly from a friend of George's who said she had seen him in San Francisco a few months earlier. According to her, he had orange hair and was working in the tool and dye industry. This was the 'Summer of Love,' 1967.
As prescribed, John made no mention to anyone about this news.
According to the friend, George's wanted to escape to Canada, avoiding conscription into military service and a certain trip to Vietnam. Evidently, there were a few young men who were planning to leave together, and though tenuous, a plan which eased John's continuing worry for the safety of his only brother.
John's duality began the day his brother left home. Circumstances now allowed him to come and go as he pleased, especially after getting his driver's license. He was the perfect son. No problems at school, received high grades, and easily did the chore load, though consuming ten to fifteen hours a week.
No problem with Vern, either. His war with George was over. Silence overcame the household, and deep sighs could be heard as echoes.
No
On its face, the nightmare was over, and young John headed off to college, Portland State University in 1968, with absolutely no foundation or knowledge from which to draw to adapt to the civilized world.
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