LIVING IN QUIET RAGE
By Michael English Bierwiler
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
Copyright 2008, Michael English Bierwiler,
P.O. Box 781, Bedford TX 76095-0781.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
First published by Authorhouse 6/26/2008
ISBN: 978-1-4343-8204-7
Library of Congress Control Number 2008905027
LIVING IN QUIET RAGE
CHAPTER ONE
William Harrison Junior was only two when his Dad went away for the last time. Bill Senior had more important affairs to contend with than the raising of his six children. Besides, he had already invested sixteen years in his family if one didn’t count prolonged military absences. Usually the first son inherits the namesake, but in this case Bill Senior finally convinced Anna to complete his set by bestowing his beloved name upon the final child. Then he left the state of Washington for good to start his life anew with a girl half Anna’s age who didn’t suffer the encumbrance of children.
As the baby of the family, Bill Junior seemed to want for nothing compared to the trials of the older siblings under Bill Senior’s domestic management. Abject poverty insistently knocked on Anna’s door for the first two years after Bill Senior left, but she could survive because she had already survived sixteen years of hardship and could not give up then.
Her eldest sons, Jack and Steve, drifted off to the military at seventeen and eighteen respectively within a couple years of Bill Senior’s departure. They had no cause to respect their father or to follow his lead, but they had known no other role model. For half of the boys’ lives their father was a set of framed pictures in the living room and for the other half it was a stern and unforgiving man who seized control over the household for months at a time until he abruptly disappeared in his uniform to some exotic assignment. The oversized photo of the smiling young man in his dress uniform and the matching photo of the same young man with their mother was the more desirable father compared to the actual flesh and blood man they feared.
Over the years Jack and Steve communicated with their mother by sending birthday cards and Christmas cards when they remembered, or a belated telephone call when they forgot. They were their father’s sons. Sometimes they never got around to make the call if there was no current wife or girlfriend to prompt them. Jack died in his late twenties in a service-related accident, but Bill Junior never quite understood what had happened and eventually no one wanted to dredge up painful memories for Anna’s sake.
She kept their pictures on the wall with an open-ended lack of resolution of their parent-child relationships. Anna reserved a space in her heart for the day Steve might come around to rejoin the family he left behind at eighteen. Maybe too much water passed under the bridge to overcome years of silence. At least the occasional card let her know that Steve was still alive somewhere in his own world.
The next two daughters, Patty and Rose, alternated between pre-husband hunting mode and fixation on practice as surrogate mothers to the pre-schoolers, Rachel and Bill Junior. Either way, the girls were essential to Anna in raising her youngest children while she carved out a living for her remaining issue. She was only thirty-five when her husband left, but the wear and tear of living with him had given her the appearance of a much older woman.
Anna was a faithful Presbyterian by birth and she continued to walk in this path for her entire life. Faith was the only shield she needed to ward off the insanity, pain, rejection and depression she suffered at the hands of Bill Senior. Faith served her well. After he left, Anna laid her financial problems at the foot of the altar, and stood back to watch God work. She answered classified advertisements, followed up on leads from friends, and pounded on doors of every human resources department within the city limits of Spokane.
Anna knew in her heart that somehow there would be a roof over the heads of her children every night and food on the table every day. She had a peace about it. God did not let her down, but He tested her. There were no jobs for inexperienced divorced mothers, so Anna resolutely pursued dead-end work behind fast food counters.
Two years after Bill Senior absented himself and just as the last of her resolve was ebbing, Anna’s neighbor gave her a lead on a job in John Scott’s real estate office on Quebec Street. John was looking for a receptionist with some experience who could type and file real estate paperwork. Anna had not worked outside the home during her marriage to Bill Senior, but tried to offset her lack of experience and mediocre skills from high school typing class with enthusiasm for work and a generous command of alphabetizing. John could not resist an opportunity to be chivalrous; besides, the job did not require an intensive background of business skills, and he felt more at ease with Anna than with a young woman who would toss the job aside as soon as something or someone better came along.
Six months later it dawned on John Scott that his life had taken a 180 degree turn since Anna hired on to his company. John took his receptionist to lunch at least a couple times a week, listened the adventures of her four remaining wild-eyed children, and lent a hand when her car broke down or an appliance failed. He realized that he very much wanted to be part of her life and household, and finally laid out his plan to her at the traditional office luncheon on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. She approached his offer as if it was a business decision.
With John Scott she could give her children security and a brighter future. She could quit working full-time and concentrate on raising Bill Junior and her three young daughters who increasingly needed her attention although they vehemently denied that fact. With John as their stepfather she could afford to offer them a better home, a reliable father figure, and even college, but she was terrified at the prospect of John becoming another Bill Senior.
Anna hardly knew John Scott except as an employer. She had not considered herself in the market for another stressful marital alliance although she was often lonely and frightened of what would become of her after her children, the center of her life, grew up and moved away. At that time Jack was still alive, but the two oldest boys could well have been strangers for all the human contact they provided her.
She didn’t know for sure whether her daughters would eventually be lured away by young men who would effectively sever ties between her and her daughters. Anna remembered that after her own marriage to Bill Senior, the military moves led to an unexpected and unwanted estrangement from her own mother, especially when Bill Senior refused to allow her mother to visit and reneged on promises to take family vacations to visit her parents in Wyoming. Bill Junior was laden with the weight of his name and heritage which might well become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Without looking back, Anna accepted John’s offer and sealed the deal in early December before the opportunity cooled. When it came to trusting John Scott, Anna convinced herself that God would not let her down.
“Mom, I don’t want to be Bill Junior anymore, I want to be John Junior,” the young master declared soon after John was anointed his stepfather. It was logical decision in his juvenile mind for Bill Junior to become John Junior. Anna was ill at ease with the request because it felt wrong on so many levels. She had seen the deleterious effects of the role model espoused by Bill Senior upon his two older sons. Although John was a good man, she could not trust him enough to allow Bill Junior’s feelings of transference to take root. She had misplaced her faith in a
husband before.
“No, you’re Bill. It says so on your birth certificate.” This seemed an efficient way to reason with a young man closing in on his fifth birthday.
“No, I’m John now. John Scott Harrison, Junior.” It made sense to him to rearrange names in whatever order seemed most pleasant to the ear.
“Honey, your name is Bill Junior. Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill. Your name is Bill, honey, now go play.” Anna had too many changes in her life lately to field another one by a four year old. He could drop the Junior. Bill Senior had not been around for two years. He had not called, sent a card, or dropped off a check. Anna did not even know where in the world he was.
“My name is John Scott Harrison, Junior,” he insisted much to Anna’s dismay.
“Tell you what. How about if you stay Bill. Just plain Bill, not Bill Junior, just plain Bill. Can we do that, please, sweetie?” That seemed enough of a compromise to her. She was closing in on ‘because I said so’. There would be no confusion with the now non-existent Bill Senior, and as an added benefit she would be rid of the ‘junior’ reminder every time she spoke her beloved child’s name.
“No.”
“Tell you what. You pick a nickname and we’ll call you that from now on. Such a deal?” Anna thought this was a generous offer on her part and an efficient way to end the discussion without creating an identity crisis for Bill and the rest of the family.
“I don’t want to be Nick.”
“Not Nick, honey. A nickname. It’s a name that your friends and family call you that describes something you do, or something special about you.”
“OK, my name is Doctor Dalmatian.” Bill Junior was crazy over a Saturday morning cartoon called Doctor Dalmatian in which a talking canine solved mysteries and saved the world in a convenient twenty-two minute block of time, not including cereal commercials. He had been an avid fan right down to his Doctor Dalmatian underwear and pajamas ever since he could point to what he wanted. In the back of her mind, Anna was always in fear of the inevitable snack food and breakfast cereal tie-ins coming down the pike.
“My child is not going to be called Doctor Dalmatian.”
“Doctor Dalmatian Scott Harrison.”
Anna was exasperated. She was determined that she would not allow her beloved child to be the proud owner of a cartoon canine moniker with inevitable snack food and breakfast cereal tie-ins. On the other hand she realized that she could sacrifice her pride to spare her sanity for a few hours and fight the battle when his almost five year old stubbornness focused on something else.
“Okay, Doctor Dalmatian, but just for today.” How long could this last? He was still only four years old. Tomorrow he could be ‘Batman’, ‘Tony the Tiger’, or, God forbid, ‘Wonderwoman’. The child’s cerebral processes knew no bounds, but Anna feared that her patience might.
Thanks to his three older sisters and much to Anna’s dismay, ‘Doctor Dalmatian’ enjoyed a short-lived popularity until it was eventually shortened to simply Doc. Anna could live with ‘Doc’ after careful consideration of the earlier alternatives.
Doc was closest to Rachel, the sister who was just a hair over a year older than he was. Rachel had been crushed by Bill Senior’s departure and was the only family member who really expected her father to return someday. Rachel had been reluctant to participate in kindergarten with children she did not know, and had not accomplished the basic building blocks needed for success in first grade, so Anna was advised to hold her daughter back a year to give her a stronger start on her education.
It was more painful for Anna than Rachel since Rachel remained distrustful of school and all that it entailed. Deep in her heart Anna was convinced that Rachel’s trust issues beat a trail directly back to the child’s insecurities and feelings of abandonment when Bill Senior hit the road. At least Meriwether Lewis Elementary was willing to put Rachel into the same kindergarten class as Doc the following year.
Kindergarten was a terrific adventure for Doc and Rachel. Rachel gained confidence by having her favorite sibling close at hand during the school day, and she was already familiar with the daily routines. Doc made friends easily with the other boys and girls and naturally assumed that Rachel would be included in his friendship pacts with his fellow kindergarteners. By early October Anna was breathing easier as both children were thriving at school during the first two months of the new school year.
The three sisters and Doc had plans for Halloween. The plans were to get as much candy as possible and eat it as quickly as they could before Anna examined the take at the end of the evening. Since there were four of them traveling together, they convinced Anna to let them canvass the neighborhood by themselves from six to eight-thirty. Rose and Patty, the two oldest, had watches that Anna synchronized with her own.
“I expect you back at eight-thirty sharp – not a minute later. You can’t use the excuse of ‘my watch stopped’ by setting the time back because I have checked them both against mine. It’s a neat trick, but we already used up that excuse when I was your age. Rose and Patty, each of you be sure to hold Doc and Rachel’s hands when you cross the street.”
The children nodded their heads in agreement, because that’s what children do when they aren’t listening.
“Now, I am guessing that you will be sampling the goodies as you cover the neighborhood, so if you absolutely must try something, make sure it is from one of your friends’ mothers who know you. Double-dog promise?”
Again the children nodded their heads in agreement, because, as previously established, that’s what children do when they aren’t listening.
What a great night it was. An inch of snow had fallen during the day while children daydreamed out the windows of their classrooms. They slipped through slush in a frenzy to get home and scarf down dinner. By six o’clock most of their friends were hard at work, plying their annual trade at each sequential home. Disappointment was rare since the thud of candy in the paper bags and plastic containers was rewarding in and of itself. When the mother of a friend recognized them as a playmate of her child, a special treat or double quantity made its way into the Halloween bag.
The familiar residential streets were crowded and festive from the standard white-sheeted ghost to the elaborately costumed urchin. Rose and Patty met up with a pair of friends from school, so the enlarged raiding party numbered six, although greatly hampered by the drag of smaller strides.
Patty came up with the idea first.
“Let’s send Doc and Rachel up the next block and back down the other side while the rest of us cover two blocks up and back. Then we can all meet back on this corner.”
Rose didn’t like the idea, but Doc and Rachel were confident that they could execute the plan without supervision. Twenty minutes later they all met back on the corner with the four older girls dragging a double booty.
Doc actually enjoyed the autonomy of being Rachel’s escort up and down the block. Rose could see the wisdom of the plan and decided that she would toss a little something extra into the pair of kindergarteners’ bags to assuage her conscience. The plan was repeated several times.
The last trip up the block and back included several sets of triplexes that meant an increased haul for very little extra mileage for the savvy Halloweener. Rose and Patty were still finishing up the take from a half-dozen extra blocks when Doc and Rachel caught up to the rendezvous. Rose kissed them both with a quick peck on the forehead in passing as she and the girls charged into the next block.
Toward the back of the dark, green-shingled triplex was the main door of apartment B. The porch light was on, but a tub of cheap candy was sitting on the front step. No one bothered to knock as the loot was already handy. The kids in front of Doc and Rachel simply grabbed as large a handful as possible while looking both ways and scampered off into the night. The moms and dads at the doors of apartments A and C could not possibly see the five-finger discounts of these innocent children at the back of the triplex. Rachel took a piece and Doc grabbed a ha
ndful.
“Only take one, Doc,” whined Rachel.
“It’s okay because everybody is taking a bunch.”
“Mom would say to take only one.”
“Mom’s not here, Rachel.”
“When we go to school Mom says she’s in my heart all day until she sees me again.”
“What I mean is Mom’s not looking, Rachel,” Doc corrected and punctuated the comment with a second handful.
Doc heard rustling from the back of the yard near the fence. A tall man in jeans with a ragged plaid shirt emerged from the shadows into the faint light from the porch. He was cradling a small, furry animal under his jacket. Only the tiny snout and pointed ears were showing.
“Look what I found! This is my puppy, Goldie. I lost her this morning and I’ve been looking for her all day,” the man expressed in a loud whisper. “I found her hiding in that hedge back there by the fence. Doc and Rachel were thrilled that the puppy had been found after being lost all day.
“Do you want to pet her?” the man offered as he walked up along the fence and brought the dog out of his jacket for Doc’s inspection. Doc jumped at the chance and gently stroked the little head and ears while the puppy nipped at Doc’s hand with sharp puppy teeth.
Doc had dreamed of owning a real puppy since he was old enough to talk, so Anna always steered him clear of opportunities to interact with canines of any size to cut the number of parent-child confrontations. This was heaven for a six-year old boy. Doc had even forgotten the pursuit of Halloween candy in the excitement of handling the little dog. Rachel ran her fingers down the soft fluffy backbone.
“Would you like to hold her, honey?” the man suggested to Rachel as he held the dog with one hand under its stomach. The poor dog looked like a ship grounded on a sandbar with its stomach compressed and its poor little paws waving in the night air. How could Rachel resist? The man knelt down on both knees in the wet, snowy grass and made the transfer of the precious creature to Rachel’s waiting arms.
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