The Summer Job - 68. Now it Can be Told

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Pops and Billy pulled into a beach-front resort hotel in Wilmington after a long, frustrating drive hampered by intermittent rain showers, road construction and traffic. Pops drove the Harley to the office and checked in. He had made reservations, confirmed with a credit card, so the process was quick and painless.

In a matter of a few minutes, they were in a suite overlooking the inviting blue-green surf of the Atlantic. Pops was exhausted, but Billy was curious to explore. He put on some shorts, took a card key and went exploring. He found a bunch of little kids playing in the pool and older teens wandering the beach, but the long day soon caught up with him too.

Doug, A.K.A. Billy, had never seen anything like the place. It was so immaculate it shined in the low afternoon sun, looking more like a temple than a mere hotel. Doug decided that he liked being Billy. Billy went to nicer places.

He returned to the room and heard Pops snoring in one of the bedrooms. Billy, picked the other room, curled up in the super comfortable bed and was soon snoring too.

Stacy Scott entered the conference room on the third floor and found eleven young men ranging in age from the late teens to early twenties.

Murray Coleman introduced her, “Gentlemen, this is Stacy Scott. She is one of our staff writers and a darned good one. You have a story, and she’s the one you’ll be telling it to.”

One of the young men spoke up and said, “Good afternoon, Miss Scott. I’m Pete Swanson. I’m the first of this bunch to meet Chuck Farmer, so I’ll start.”

Stacy Scott pulled out her legal pad and steeled herself to take notes. She imagined she was about to hear a horror story of sexual abuse. After all, what else could it be?

Pete began, “I come from a little town about thirty miles South of here. My birth parents were a real mess. They were both messed up on drugs and, parenting was not their strong suit. Sometimes they were gone for days at a time. I wasn’t eating very regular. Some other boys in the trailer park were going to a truck stop just through the woods from my place, and I figured out what they were hustling to make money.”

“I met Chuck Farmer in the fall of 2007. At first, I thought he was just another John. When he didn’t go for that, I thought he was a cop. He asked a bunch of questions about stuff that was going on around the truck stop, gave me forty dollars, his phone number, and warned me that a serial killer was hunting boys up and down I-75.”

“We met up several times that fall. He was a nice guy, and he was taking better care of me than my folks. When it got cold that fall, he gave me a coat. I really wanted him to be my Dad.”

“Shortly after the beginning of the new year, my old man got busted again. He was already out on bond, so; he wasn’t getting out that time. My Mom didn’t come home for a week and the electricity got turned off. I was hungry and scared. I didn’t know what to do, so I called Chuck.”

“He came, got me, took me to eat and asked if I wanted something better. I told him; anything was better than what I had. He took me to CPS, had an emergency foster parent certificate, took me home and showed me what a father was supposed to be. He was a single man, they only let him keep me long enough to get me house broken. I met my permanent foster family that spring, and that’s how I became a Swanson.”

“Everything that happened since then has been ordinary life. Considering where I came from, it has been an extraordinary life; I went to school, then junior college and became an electrician. I work with my foster brother and some guys around this table doing construction work. I’ve got a good life now, and it’s because Chuck Farmer came and got me in a January snowstorm eleven years ago.”

Indicating the crowd with his hand, Pete said, “He got me started at Alateen, where I met kids who had been through some of the same stuff. That’s where I met these guys.”

Stacy Scott looked at the Pete Swanson with astonishment. This was not what she expected to hear at all.

Another young man introduced himself, “I guess I’m next. I am Larry Pate. The only difference in my story and Pete’s is I did not have a dad. I met Chuck Farmer and got to know him as someone I could count on. My crisis was when I came home and found my Mom overdosed on Oxycontin. I called Chuck and he came.”

“The cops came with an ambulance, and they took me to CPS. They knew Chuck and gave him temporary custody. I lived with Chuck for a few months until I got adopted by the Pate’s. I studied HVAC systems at the junior college and work with Pete.”

The story was very much the same with Lance Yarlburo, Frank Williams, Mike Ellis, Kelly Watts and Travis Long.

The next young man said, “I’m Chase Anderson. One July night in 2013, I went to the truck stop to get a hot dog. On the way home someone grabbed me, put a rag over my face and I passed out. When I came to, the Freeway Killer had me naked and bound in his torture chamber. I would have been dead if Chuck Farmer hadn’t surprised that creep and kicked his ass. Chuck tied that creep up, got me out of there and took me home. I asked him what he was going to do with the man. He told me the Freeway Killer had grabbed his very last kid.”

Chase reached into his pocket, pulled a newspaper article dated July 6, 2013, and handed it to Stacy Scott. She read the headline: Local Man Found Dead in Grisly Torture Murder.

As she was reading it, Chase said, “That Jeffry Wayne Allen creep killed sixteen kids in this area. Chuck looked for him for six years after he killed one of the kids on his middle school basketball team. While the Cops and the FBI were sitting on their hands waiting for a break, Chuck was out hunting the hunter. Allen was only killing trailer trash like us. He was the only one that cared enough to go looking for that monster. God only knows how many lives Chuck saved by taking that freak out.”

“I wasn’t like the rest of these guys. I had a decent family but, Chuck hooked me up with a therapist. I still have nightmares. When I graduated from high school, he helped me get into the University of Virginia.”

Richard said, “I knew there was stuff we didn’t know, but Jesus Chase.”

Chase said sadly, “Now Pops is gone, it can finally be told.”

Billy Bridges woke to the sound of the room phone. Chuck answered it in the other room. After a short conversation, he knocked on Billy’s door.

Billy opened the door.

Pops looked a lot better than he had after their long ride and said, “That was the desk. Our rental car has just been delivered. Hop in the shower, and we’ll go get supper.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were pulling out of the resort parking lot in a four-door Kia. The sun was near setting and cast a warm orange glow over everything.

Pops asked, “What do you think of this place?”

Billy said, “I’ve never been anywhere like this before. I like being Billy better than being Doug. Billy gets to see nicer places.”

Pops asked, “What do you feel like for supper? Seafood is great here, but there’s a lot to choose from.”

“You’re batting a thousand so far. That barbecue in Goldsboro was great!”

Pops pulled into a Mexican restaurant and said, “How about shrimp tacos?”

Billy said, “Tacos are always a winner.”

They were a big winner. After eating, Pops checked the map on his phone and drove by a big boatyard, slowed down and said, “Billy, what do you think of that big one with the leprechaun on the fan tail?”

Lucky Charm was sixty feet long and looked fast sitting still with sharp lines. She was mostly white with red trim and a pugnacious looking green leprechaun painted on her stern.

Billy’s evaluation was, “That’s not a boat. That’s a little ship.”

Pops drove slowly by and said, “That’s our ride. We’ve got many options about where we can go and what we might do when we get there. One of our options is that I know a man who runs a resort a lot like the one we’re staying in. He offered me a job anytime I want it and, with Lucky Charm, we can run charters. It’s one of our options, and I think you will like it there. It gets many Australian tourists, and who doesn’t like Aussies?”

Billy replied, “It sounds like fun. How fast is she?”

“She tops out at seventy-five knots. That is a little over eighty-five miles per hour, but we will rarely take her that high. At that speed, she is a fuel hog. We’ll cruise at thirty knots and have bunkerage for thirty-five hundred miles.”

“What’s bunkerage?”, Billy asked.

“Fuel storage. This big beast has four engines. We will always have to make sure there is a port in range. So… are you ready for a cruise?”

Billy asked, “What are we going to do with the Harley?”

“It’s going with us.”

“I think I’ve got a lot to learn about boats”, Bill said as they passed the Wilmington Slips.

Pops said, “You do, but we’ve got time, and you know I’m a patient teacher.”

Richard began, “I began at Grayson Middle School the same year Chuck Farmer became Vice Principle there. My mother had remarried, and my stepfather was a real loser. He got her all messed up with drugs, and he started making me pay rent with sex. Since I wanted to avoid doing that, I spent most of my time in Grissom Park. There I met pedophiles that would pay me for doing what Russ was getting for free.”

“Chuck Farmer jogs in that park and caught me. I thought I was in big trouble but, he took me home, fed me and talked to me. I didn’t tell him what was going on at first, but he knew. When I did tell him, he told me that my behavior had told him all that he needed to know.”

“My stepfather got busted for sex crimes and dealing soon afterwards. My Mom got busted too for prescription fraud, and Chuck did what he had done for the other guys: he shepherded me through the system to my foster parents. This time it was different.”

“The new governor appointed a new director for Health and Human Services, and he appointed a new director of CPS for this country named Emily Sturgis. Chuck Farmer and Emily Sturgis clashed head on over my case. The Judge ruled favoring the foster care Chuck had set up but, Sturgis considered it her turf and resented Farmer’s ‘interference’ in a process she wanted to completely control.”

“Sturgis had a new agenda. The higher ups in State and Federal government new policy was to make use of Faith-Based Initiatives where possible and practical. This has been a complete mess ever since. Whenever it is her office’s call, Sturgis office sends everyone to a private company that runs and adolescent treatment facility and a youth jail.”

Stacy Scott asked, “So, is this a private prison?”

Richard said, “It might as well be. From what I understand, it started out as a faith-based rehab, and it was bought up by a big company that runs private prisons. They retained the church-oriented program to take advantage of all the federal money earmarked for Faith-Based Programs. The last two guys here have spent some time there. I’ll let you judge for yourself whether you think these programs are any help at all.”

A young man with lots of tattoos said, “I’m Joey Tannehill. I got busted for having three joints when I was sixteen. Sturgis sent me to a place called Camp Prodigal for six months. It is run by nice, bible believing Christians but, they don’t know what they are doing. You get a steady diet of bible verses and study but, all you must do is repeat what they want to hear and behave. They call it a success and once your time is up, they let you go. It’s all religious dogma, and it doesn’t address any of the underlying problems of addiction. All it actually did was require me to repeat my sophomore year.”

The last boy said, “I’m Andrew Miller. I got the same treatment. When he said dogma, he was not kidding. I take medication for manic-depressive disorder. Camp Prodigal does not allow any medication. They were told, but they either were too ignorant or brainwashed to believe me. I had to be hospitalized two weeks into my stay there because I was in a full-blown manic episode. My guardian sued over that and got a settlement check for a quarter million just to go away.”

Once Andrew Miller was done, Stacy Scott began asking many pointed questions. Richard could tell she had the scent of a serious story and was off and running.