The three men triangulated in a show down. For a moment the only sounds were of a spoon clinking against a cup across the room and the radio still playing The Tennessee Waltz.
The shorter man pulled a badge.
“Indianapolis Police Department. There’s nothing to see here. Go on back to your kitchen.”
“I don’t give a good goddamn who you are. I see what was going on in my diner. We don’t treat kids like that in Lafayette.”
“You’re interfering with official police business. Stand down, Cookie.” The cop’s tone had a certain daring to it.
George was not to be deterred. “How about you sit your asses down and I’ll make one phone call. We’ll see what the local sheriff says about who’s interfering with what here.”
George wheeled to walk to the phone.
“All right, Mister. You win. No need to delay us. We’ll just eat and go. We’ve got business at the depot. No problems. Kid here set a trap for my partner. Wedged a pencil in the car seat back at the gas station so when Lou got in, he sat right on it. Stabbed himself in the ass two miles back.”
There was no need to suppress a laugh. That would come later, after they were gone. For now, George was still angry, his Marine instincts and assertiveness out in front.
He gave the boy a final look before returning to the kitchen. The kid looked back with imploring eyes and nodded his head almost imperceptibly, with approval.
“Alright. No more problems, now,” George commanded. “I’ll get your dinner out in a minute. Rosie, get ‘em their coffee.”
The big sedan pulled back onto the highway and picked up speed. In the backseat, the boy opened a guitar case and made sure his most important possession was still there.
It was. He knew it already, but street kids can never take anything for granted. He checked the paper bag beside him that contained one change of clothes, a tooth brush, and plastic comb. They also were untouched.
He found himself wondering what life would be like at Boys Town and whether he could find a way to begin life again.
Two hours later, the kid and one cop, the one without blood on his pants, departed Lafayette on the Wabash Express, next stop St. Louis where they would make a close connection to the Omaha Limited. They would arrive in Omaha early Friday.
Chapter 4
Douglas County Health Center – July, 2012
His weak voice rose from the hospital bed. “Will you read that article again? The one about the body they found?”
The grandmotherly nurse glanced at her watch and nodded.
“They didn’t find a body, Mr. Bowden, just a bunch of old bones. I’ll read it, but I’ll have to skip the sports section. New patient in 812 is keeping me hoppin’. Maybe one of the afternoon nurses can catch you up on the baseball scores.”
“Thank you, Louise.”
She settled onto a bedside chair and thumbed through the morning Tribune to the article. She read slower this time to let him consider every word.
BODY DISCOVERED IN WEST OMAHA
The remains of an unidentified person were discovered on Monday by construction workers at the site of the new Straub GMC dealership on West Dodge Road.
Police spokesman Chuck Burgess said police were called to the scene about 10:00 AM after a grader uncovered human bones. “The remains were badly deteriorated, basically bones and a few personal items,” Burgess said. “This is not a recent burial. We are investigating the death as a potential homicide.”
No further information was released as police continue to investigate.
When she was finished, she tucked the paper under her arm and stood to leave.
“Why are you so interested in that article?” she asked curiously.
He paused before answering. It was long enough to signal the nurse he was about to lie.
“I’m related to the Straub family. You know, big GM dealership.” He was unconvincing.
“Uh-huh. Me too,” she answered, looking over the top of her bifocals.
“Louise, I want to keep that article. Will you put it in the drawer for me?”
“Sure, Mr. Bowden.”
She folded the newspaper and laid it in his bedside drawer with the alcohol swabs, cloth tape and paper towels.
“I’ll be back in an hour with your lunch,” she said, opening the door. Then she gave him a smile.
“Don’t bother. I’m not hungry,” he said.
“Maybe we can share family stories about our Straub kinfolks.”
He forced a smile and raised a hand several inches in a halfhearted wave.
“Goodbye, Mr. Bowden.”
He closed his eyes, partly from the pain, but mostly to remember.
The memories hit him hard, pounding in like waves against a sea wall. They always did when he thought of Charlie, but especially so now. He knew he would have to tell Maggie. His lips tightened.
Chapter 5
The Wabash Railroad Overnight Express – April 1949
In the aisle seat the dozing cop, Carl Rhodes, suddenly jumped awake and spun around to look at the kid.
“You’re up to something, you little prick. I can feel it. You’re too quiet over there.”
From the next seat, an innocent tone answered. “I’m just thinking, sir.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t want no sharp pencil stabbed up my ass, see?”
From the next seat, the tone was not so childlike now. “Do I make you nervous, Carl? I’ll bet you’re thinking I paid your partner back for knocking me down at the police station, don’t you? But how could I have possibly snatched a sharp pencil off the sergeant’s desk? Impossible. Right, Carl?”
“Just don’t try anything funny or you’ll find yourself handcuffed to the seat.”
For the next hour the cop and prisoner rode without speaking, both immersed in private thoughts to the clickety-clack of the speeding train.
The boy stared out the dark window as farmlands and swollen rivers swept past. He was unimpressed. He had endured the rawest of elements at age twelve when he finally escaped from the Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute. From there he had traveled alone cross-country to Indianapolis.
He grimaced, thinking of the trip. Hoboes, freight trains, soaking downpours, dense woods with wild animals, sleeping under bridges: none of it had been fun. No, the great outdoors held nothing for him.
That trip to Indianapolis was almost worse than staying at Gibault. Thank God for the hoboes. They might have been broke, or drunk, or crazy, but at least they helped me. At first, Indy wasn’t any better, sleeping in alleys and eating out of trash cans… at least until I wised up.
He had hated the dangerous streets, the boarding houses, the whorehouses with their sneaking, disillusioned patrons, the gambling dens, and bars with their fulltime customer-residents reeking of vomit and booze. He remembered the thin, burned out men sprawled on the sidewalks: no money, nowhere to go, no families that would have them.
I’m leaving that world behind now. Not many kids could have made it alone like I did.
He was proud that since age twelve he had lived alone in Indianapolis and rented his own apartment—a room, actually, but a place financed by cutting grass, or sweeping sidewalks, or dozens of other odd jobs. Mainly though, it was the burglaries that gave him the best of everything he needed. He had become adept at providing for himself with no guidance other than his guile.
It had been tough. And when life on his own overwhelmed him—like the time a street gang beat him and took his money, or on the cold nights when he had not had enough blankets to keep warm. At those times he had bitten his lip and mustered the strength to keep from crying, for he was totally alone, and it would have done no good.
But overall, he knew he had grown streetwise and fully capable of taking care of himself.
Maybe life would become normal for him at Boys Town with good friends and real education in a clean environment. Maybe this time there would be good people to take care of him.
The boy found those
things attractive and hoped Boys Town would be a good place for him.
Carl brought him back to the train. “Hey, kid. You’ve got that wild, glazed look in your eye again. You about to snap or something?”
“Look, Carl,” the young voice shot back. “I’m enjoying the ride. You know, just relaxing and counting the minutes until I never see the Indianapolis police again. I’m not close to snapping, but if you’re so scared, just drop off the train at the next stop and let me go to Boys Town by myself. I want to be there.”
“Fuck you, twerp. I’m not scared of an undersized little punk like you. You’d probably disappear to God-knows-where and start up God-knows-what. And stop calling me Carl.”
Carl turned toward the front of the car.
“Are you going to handcuff me now, Carl?”
“Just shut up.”
The boy returned to his thoughts. He recalled the early problems, starting at age nine—the simple burglary of a bicycle he had bungled and ended up in a state run detention center. There he had started learning and growing in the outlaw world.
For a moment he grew melancholy. A rare tear formed in his eye, but it was not for himself. It was for his mother.
I still love you, Mama, wherever you are. I know you meant well. I know you love me too, in your own way.
The train trip from Indianapolis to Omaha covered 612 miles and required almost sixteen hours including the train change in St. Louis.
Omaha was looming when the boy made up his mind to give this new life an honest try, give it everything he had. At least he wouldn’t go hungry or freeze at Boys Town.
Chapter 6
Boys Town, April 1949
Boys Town sat removed from Omaha amidst farms and rolling hills, still naive to street lights, televisions, multi-lane freeways and franchised restaurants. There wasn’t a Rexal drug store within ten miles or a neighborhood grocery within seven. The only business anywhere near was the Waterloo Bar just beyond the Liphold farm at 120th Street.
But despite its isolation, orphans and wayward boys were there, hundreds of them, in a home where they were fed, educated, encouraged, and cared for.
Once the land was known as Overlook Farm, and it was owned by farmers who worked the earth and raised corn, tomatoes, and beans. In the pens and pastures near the barns, they kept sheep and cattle and chickens for market.
When the farmers’ time was finished, the land passed to new owners of a different ilk.
In 1921, Father Edward Flanagan brought his thin, hungry boys from Omaha ten miles west to Overlook Farm to make a new home. It was a perfect location, far from the ministers and citizens who wanted the delinquent rabble removed from their sight.
In the early days, Flanagan’s orphanage was not a town at all, but a collection of farm buildings.
For Flanagan and his boys, the needs had been simple and unambiguous. At Overlook Farm they raised food and drove the stomach-wrenching hunger away so that at night in their cots, the sounds of geese overhead changed from panicked cries to sounds of encouragement. They built schools and dining rooms and dormitories to make the land theirs. Overlook Farm became Father Flanagan’s Home For Boys, and in a few more years it became Boys Town with its own rules, culture and boy mayor.
The new town drew orphans and troubled boys from across America – children who were, for many reason, doomed in their present course. Father Flanagan welcomed them without regard to race or creed. The Irish, Jewish, the black, the Indian, all of them grew and studied and worked together. Though the boys found the Flanagan’s Christian formula stern, it was not cold like the state orphanages and reform schools.
Father Flanagan’s dream was to take these street urchins and turn them into respectable citizens. At Boys Town they would learn the skills of mechanics, butchers, farmers or any of a dozen other worthwhile occupations. Flanagan knew that some day they would run little leagues, serve as deacons, and raise their own families as hard-working men.
Results at Boys Town were as diverse as the population. Depending on a student’s experiences, the manifestation of Father Flanagan’s vision seemed a miracle, a curse, a waste of time, or a path to life. To most, fellow students became a surrogate family because of the relationships and common backgrounds.
When former residents speak of Boys Town, they do not refer to the old stone buildings or the corn fields tended by boys who have no other choice, or to the priests and staff who work tirelessly to redirect the errant and unfortunate. No, when they speak of Boys Town, they mean the town of boys who struggle from day to day to wrest a future life through self-discipline and hard work.
The boys Flanagan gathered were like any disjointed, diverse group. They shared their dreams and fears and victories. They blustered with false bravado, hid their frailties and complained about the food, the discipline and the bad breaks that had befallen them.
In 1949, despite his unexpected death the year before, Father Flanagan’s dream of turning his boys home into a boys village, and then into a town was still taking shape. Though he was gone, Father Flanagan’s long shadow remained, influencing every project, every program, every boy, through the stewardship of his surprise replacement, Monsignor Nicholas Wegner.
The familiar metal sign that had straddled the road into Boys Town from Highway 6 was gone. It had announced the facility as, “FATHER FLANAGAN’S BOYS HOME.” In 1949, the entrance was marked by a new, stone monument, a pylon standing fifty feet tall. There was no gate, no guard, and no fence.
The Monsignor’s associate priest, Sean Gallagher, stepped from his temporary office in the newly constructed high school and walked toward the almost-complete vocational center to meet with the construction superintendent.
I should be able to inspect the ceramics ovens and the barber chairs, and still have time to see the foundations at cottages 19 and 20. I’ll be back at the school in plenty of time to greet the new boy.
Gallagher was not just a run-of-the-mill priest, but a counselor, an accountant (as many Boys Town priests are), an educator, a disciplinarian, a former athlete, and an all-around good guy. In his time in Rome, he had proven to be a dedicated student and clergyman.
Gallagher glanced upward into the Omaha sky and saw a flock of Canadian geese flying overhead. He watched them moving steadily northward in a perfect “V” formation. He thought of the seminary where his instructor had drawn lessons from God’s perfect works as examples for the Church to follow.
Perfect 71 degree angle for air flight efficiency. Followers honking encouragement to the leader. Frequent leader change to afford rest. Unquestioned support for the mission. Protection for injured flock members. A beautiful work of God to behold.
Passing near the chapel, he saw the Comet Cleaners truck stopping at the church office. He slowed just enough to watch the deliveryman jump from the truck with two black robes hung in plastic. More importantly, he spotted his white stole hanging with the delivery. It was his favorite stole—long, beautiful silk and blessed by the pope, or so the tag proclaimed in the Vatican City vestment shop.
Even Monsignor Wegner admired the stole and thought it special. Thoughts of the Church brought him to recall the Monsignor’s parting instructions.
“I’ll be gone with the choir for their six-week tour. Touch base with the archbishop at least every other day. He will want to hear about our construction progress.”
Then, almost as an afterthought, the Monsignor had added, “I’ve approved a new student to transfer from Indianapolis. Sister Agatha has his file and will add his arrival date to your schedule. Don’t forget to finalize the grand opening plans for the field house. I expect you’ll have no problems you can’t handle.”
Chapter 7
Jake Reaches Out – August, 2012
In Omaha, Happy Acres Ranch is located in a triangle formed roughly by the coal-fired electric plant, the regional airport, and a maze of warehouses north of downtown. An old-fashioned trailer park, its name contains three lies, a bargain as lies go, for Happy Acres
Ranch has little happiness, token acreage, and is not a ranch at all.
Most dwellings in the tightly packed compound are no-frills trailer homes from the 1950’s and 1960’s. They were assembled long before manufacturers coined terms to replace the polarizing connotations of “trailer house” and its derivative “trailer trash.” The residents adopted the new terms and called their ragtag homes “modular housing” and “mobile homes.” But the motley collection of outdated trailers made the neighborhood an oddity, studied more than once by anthropology and sociology students from local colleges.
On a cloudy morning, two devout Jehovah’s Witnesses brought their public ministry to Happy Acres Ranch to deliver salvation. Eleven times that morning, God’s envoys knocked on doors that did not open. But now, approaching the twelfth trailer, their spirits lifted seeing an unsuspecting and unsheltered sinner in the open. The women picked up their pace knowing they had found a lost soul who could not escape their pitch.
The younger of the two, Gloria, a 25-year-old brunette with hair to her waist, reached the wire gate first. She stopped cold and stood motionless, her rapture turning to concern.
“Oh my, Stephanie, is he dead?”
The older woman pulled up beside her.
“Sure looks dead to me, but I can’t tell for sure,” she answered in a reverent voice.
Both women held their positions and surveyed the dilapidated trailer house before them. Stephanie’s nose wrinkled, looking at a new Jacuzzi and redwood deck that stretched the entire length of the mildew-covered trailer. In the hot tub, a silver-haired man, probably in his seventies, sat motionless with his lean upper torso exposed, his head laid back on the edge of the deck, mouth agape. The eagle tattoo on his chest and dazzling silver hair gave the appearance of a fifties rebel. Had his eyes been open, the man would have had a view of the budding tree branches overhead. He looked dead.
“Do you think we should call someone? Maybe an ambulance?” young Gloria suggested. She fidgeted from one foot to the other with just enough energy to feel the long dress swish again at her ankles.
Before He Became a Monster: A Story Charles Manson's Time at Father Flannigan's Boystown Page 3