Never Look Back and Unauthorized Withdrawal

By F. EUGENE BARBER

She had enough. He had come home drunk again last night. He didn't hit her but he yelled and ranted and raved. He had been this way since he lost his job of over 20 years. Nobody could talk to him--she least of all. Six months of abuse was enough.

"I'm leaving and I'm never looking back. I'm going as far west as I can go."

She looked in the rearview mirror and for a second it looked just like the road in front of her.
She shook her head and kept driving. "I'm going to be alright."

If you notice the cover--the rearview mirror has the same highway scene as through the windshield.
_______________________________________________'
UNAUTHORIZED WITHDRAWAL
He couldn't forget his grandfather's total loss during the Great Depression--the bank did it.

He staked out the bank for two weeks. He made his move. He slipped in just as the guard opened the door at 10:00 am. No customers. Only one clerk had his window open--he grabbed the money and limped out--the heavy blue velcro tied cast showing. Once outside he ran. He got away clean to southern California in one of the eastern canyons where they raised cattle.

He was in love. His new girlfriend had found out and said, "You have got to give it back."

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463416041

F. EUGENE BARBER

F. Eugene Barber grew up in the Midwest and worked on farms and ranches until at age seventeen, and just out of high school, he enlisted into the Air Force. He served during the Korean War, was at Pusan Air Field for a short time, and was transferred to the B-29 Bomber as an engine mechanic and then to the atom bomb carrying B-36 Bomber as a Crew Chief, and then Flight Line Chief, attached to the 5th Field Maintenance Squadron, 5th Reconnaissance Wing—Heavy, 14th Air Division, 15th Air Force, Strategic Air Command (SAC), Travis AFB, California. Using the GI Bill after discharge, former Staff Sergeant Barber earned an AS in Engineering, a BA, and an MBA. He has worked in the defense, aerospace, and intelligence communities all of his working life, and for the last twenty years or so he has consulted on FAA related aircraft, DoD projects, satellite covert INTEL projects, and other agency projects. He fi nished a three year assignment at the Birk Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, CA on the Airborne Laser Project; 208 another year with a large defense fi rm near Minneapolis working on a computer controlled remotely fi red Navy gun program; a year-long task at a remote site ninety miles out in the Nevada desert where he was assigned to the special projects offi ce for UAV DoD ops; and he just fi nished another six month consulting task in Washington on a new composite jet aircraft. Mr. Barber has worked all over the world; North, South, and Central America, Europe, the UK, Finland, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Russian Siberia, Republic of South Africa, French Polynesia, mainland China, Republic of Korea, Japan, and Australia. He and his wife, Yvonne lived for a time in Yorkshire, UK where he was a status of forces contractor/consultant on a clandestine joint ops base—they have resided in Nevada for twenty-two years. www.readerskorner.com

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NEVER LOOK BACK

F. EUGENE BARBER

AuthorHouse™

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©2011 F. Eugene Barber. 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 7/28/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-1605-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-1604-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011910117

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Genesis 19: 17

And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that God said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee….

Contents

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NEVER LOOK BACK

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

UNAUTHORIZED WITHDRAWAL

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

EPILOGUE

DEDICATION

This novel is dedicated to the memory of my uncle Murrel Edwin Owen, my mother’s brother—Edwin was his grandfather’s name. Murrel grew up in the farm country of southern Iowa. Every land-locked boy in those days dreamed of going to sea. He finished high school and enlisted into the US Navy during WW II, following his older brother Gene who had enlisted earlier. Their younger brother, Foster followed not long afterwards.

During WWII Uncle Murrel was a bombardier with the original Black Cat Squadron. He rose to the rank of Chief Petty Officer-AQC and after more than twenty-one years in the regular Navy, he moved to the Naval Reserves where he spent the last years of his thirty-year career.

My uncle came home to Clio, Iowa on shore-leave in early 1944 and brought me a well-used sailor cap-I was so proud I could pop! I finished wearing it out; it was just a white rag after a couple of summers. Later he brought me a ‘watch’ cap—it was already well used—I wore it for a few winters until it was a frayed piece of black wool.

The little village of Clio was always my Uncle’s hometown and when he and I talked, he often mentioned growing up there and told stories of his boyhood on the small farm just north of town about a mile. Clio had a population of two-hundred at the time. I lived nearby on a farm near the small town of Lineville. Lineville was larger—it had a population of four-hundred.

Midwestern towns were ideal places to grow up—middle-American values of patriotism, honesty, shaking hands made a contract, Church, helping out someone who needed a helping-hand, and treating your friends, neighbors, and relatives with respect; all Middle-America traits.

Uncle Murrel and I used to try and meet in southern California when we could—the Korean War was on, so we could plan ahead but were never 100% sure we would be there. I was stationed at Travis AFB, CA and when his ship was in port, usually at Long Beach, CA, we would meet at his sister’s, home in South Gate—my aunt Louise.

I would call Aunt Louise and ask if Uncle Murrel’s ship was going to be in Long Beach—she always knew. When I found out for sure, I would hitchhike down from Travis AFB on a Friday night. We would sit around at her home and tell war stories most of the day and then check out the cities of South Gate, Bell, or Bell Gardens that Saturday night.

My Uncle Murrel and Aunt Vivian were married in Yuma, Arizona. They had met at the Navy Electronics School in Pensacola, Florida. Viv had seen his very high test scores and just had to meet him.They had two children—Edward and Lorraine—both live in Arizona.

It was great fun for an uncle, an aunt, and a young nephew who were really close! My uncle and I would go back to our duty stations early Sunday morning—I had over 400 miles to hitchhike to Travis AFB—it took me a bit longer.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A big thank you goes to Tom Mason for his editing and format suggestions. Tom is the owner of WordStyle Inc., a Las Vegas, Nevada technical writing and editing firm. His wife, Mickie Mason did the cover art—thank you Mickie! Fine job!

And thank you Sgt. Joel Newton for your able assistance in my bomb-making description on page 34. And thank you Lorraine for helping me with the words for your dad’s dedication.

In addition, another big thank you goes to our daughter, Janet who read the first draft and made candid comments! She also suggested the cover. Our granddaughter, Candace contributed to this story as well. And my wife, Yvonne read and commented and made several significant contributions.

F. Eugene Barber 2011

BACKGROUND OF NEVER LOOK BACK

For the last couple of decades the newspapers seem to be full of articles about abused wives, abused children, and young girls who have babies out of wedlock. Sometimes abortion news takes up an entire section near the back of the paper—picketing by pro-lifers and lawsuits by the ACLU. Abortion has become a form of contraceptive—a sad state.

By abuse I do not mean just physical abuse, but verbal as well—threats! I am not sure if the cause is that our American society is getting more violent or because of the influx of peoples from other lands where a female is treated as chattel. I have seen several think programs on TV that allude to the mindset of males from other lands and they pointed out the utter disregard for the rights of women. And it seems that this kind of thought process is rubbing off on the American male descendants of our early colonists and our western pioneers. President Jefferson said that .. ..when we become packed in like Europeans, we will begin to act in the same way. I think we already are. Jefferson should have added ‘Asia’ to his saying.

The first part of this story was started and came to fruition after I had read about a young woman in the Midwest who ran from her abusive husband and hid with her young son and daughter for over two years. He was not only verbally abusive, but physically abusive as well. Her husband finally found them in a small town just outside of St. Louis and slashed her with a butcher knife. The police and the medics arrived just in time to save her life. She has permanent nerve damage in her left forearm. The ex-husband was sentenced to 8 years in prison and could be out in 5 with good behavior (as of this writing it will be 2015 before he is again turned loose on society).

The former wife and the two children are somewhere out West with new names—probably in California. The ex-husband’s family has made threats and there is a restraining order; we all know how much good that does. She is working and going to night-school to become a paralegal. Her two children are now in Junior High School. In this novel, I decided to make the heroine and the two children a dozen or so years older.

Part of this story came about after reading about adoptions and how some of them turned out just fine and some did not and some just happened to be problem children.

I added a section after reading a court proceeding probating an unsigned will. In his early life, my character Al, the adopted son, had been in jail for a few years and people had lost track of his whereabouts. After release he moved to California, changed his life, and became quite wealthy. He was killed in a car crash. There were no apparent heirs and the deceased had never finalized his will. He had signed and dated it and his housekeeper had signed and dated it and then he had put it in his wall safe. His half-sister appeared at the hearing and also several cousins that were unknown to the half-sister or to her adopted brother. At the hearing they claimed part of the estate. It took months to straighten it all out.

Part of the story of the adopted young man was copied from the mistaken identity story of a young man who was locked up for almost twenty years. He just ‘sort of looked like’ the real robber to an older lady witness. It turned out the lady who identified him had rather poor eyesight. She could see just fine in sunlight but not in the dusk. As an author, I took a little license and changed the characters a bit—I made my character, Al much younger for example.

F. Eugene Barber 2011

NEVER LOOK BACK

CHAPTER ONE

Merriam looked through the open kitchen window and watched her husband’s pale blue Ford Ranger pickup as it turned the corner down the block—Charles Schiller was immediately out of sight. There were too many tall trees growing along the street at the corner to see if he had kept going or not—sometimes he made a U-turn and whipped back just to check on her.

After his last round of verbal abuse; she was almost afraid of him. Would Charles ever strike her—she thought not, but she wasn’t sure? She guessed that he had only become loud foul-mouthed, belligerent, since he lost his job, but was not going to be physically violent!

She heard a putt-putt motor noise in the side-yard. She walked outside and waved at her neighbor. He was watching a man, wearing blue work coveralls, as he mowed the wide side yard between the two properties.

She made a motion by sliding the flat of her hand across her neck.

He said something to the rider. The machine’s noisy engine stopped.

Hey! Your guy cut down some of my peonies last time. Be careful when you mow; he mowed too close and he hit one of my man-made border rocks! It’s got a big crack in it.

So sorry! Merriam! I’ll make sure he doesn’t do that anymore and I’ll buy a new fake rock for you.

He waved to Merriam and pointed towards the driver. The mower’s engine was idling. Her neighbor mouthed something to the worker, waved again; he had evidently told him to start mowing again.

She smiled. I could be a boss. I don’t mind giving orders. Besides, they’ll think I am going to be in this house forever. She briefly thought of her plan.

She watched as Howard lifted the hollow fake rock and lugged it to the big trash barrel behind his garage.

She said to herself as she walked away, I’m a really good planner too.

She remembered all the vacations they had gone on as a family. There had never been a hitch in any of them—she had planned them all. The Appalachian vacation four years ago had been the most complex.

She thought of what she was about to do. She waited ten minutes, risked it, and rushed to the back bedroom. If

Charles was coming back, he usually did it in about five or six minutes. She looked through the window to the south side of the bedroom facing the street. Charles and the Ford Ranger were nowhere in sight.

It was an odd smelling room—carpet dye. The carpet had been installed just before their daughter, Sharon had left for a prestigious girls’ finishing school last September.

She thought to herself, The school Sharon is going to is like going to the 12th and 13th grades. The second year was mostly college prep classes, along with a lengthy SAT prep-class. The head of the school told me that most students passed with flying colors when they applied for college. I hope so; it is a lot of money.

Even with money problems Charles was able to keep their daughter in the fancy school and their son in Boston College. Sharon would be eighteen in five more months. Merriam thought perhaps she could go on to college too. She had asked Charles, he had just looked at her sternly and did not answer.

She thought a useless thought, You would think the dye smell would be gone by now.

She looked around the room; the blinds had been closed for months. She got down on her knees and pulled the almost new laptop from underneath the bed. She had bought it almost three months ago on sale at Best Buy. The week before she bought it, she had seen a sign in front of an older home on the north side of town. It had said in bold letters:

BRAD NORDEL-COMPUTER GEEK

She had stopped her car across the street, looked at both the sign and the house, but had driven away after a few minutes. Two days later she had finally gotten up her nerve; she had parked across the street again, but that time she had walked across and knocked on the front door.

A young man, a bit overweight, had answered the door and said, Yes ma’am. How may I help you? I’m Brad.

He then pointed towards the sign and then invited her inside. He had a sales pad in his hand, What’s your name please?

She had liked his pleasant smile immediately. She had said, I’d rather not tell you my name, is that OK? She thought of giving him her maiden name, Lancaster. She decided not to do so.

Sure. We’ll call you Miss X. He had looked at her—grinned a broad grin and had written something on the pad!

Thank you. Do you teach computer classes?

Well, I haven’t up to now, but I could do so I guess. I mostly fix or upgrade computers. I have a pretty nice shop in the basement and a lot of spare parts. I can repair computers back to about eight or nine years ago. What would you like to learn about computers?

Everything! I know absolutely nothing. My husband says a housewife doesn’t need to know about computers, but I want to learn. I want to learn quietly and don’t call me, I’ll call you.

No problem. We’ll start at the beginning and I accept cash. You get a discount with cash. If you are really interested when would you like to start? He laughed a nervous laugh—this would be a new adventure for him. He had added the discount statement from watching a show on TV—it seemed a good sales pitch.

Good! I would rather pay by cash.

Standing on the sidewalk, she had looked up at him that day and said, I have two hours free right now!

Come on inside and I’ll show you around. My mom’s at work and won’t be home until five so we won’t be bothering her as she cooks supper. I don’t cook much—I’m a nerd. He laughed lightly.

She came down the steps. He held the basement door open for her as he looked at his watch.

Two hours later, her head was spinning. I have to go now Brad. Besides I can’t take any more of this today. I didn’t realize it would be this hard—and confusing!

I understand, I started when I was eight years old, it is easier when a person is a young child—tomorrow again then?

I’ll be here at the same time Brad. OK? He nodded yes.

Hey! And pick up that laptop I suggested if you can. It’s good to get used to one machine when you are learning.

Yes! I will buy it. See you tomorrow. And Thanks!

She had handed him sixty dollars and had iterated, I’ll pick it up tomorrow and I’ll bring it along and you can show me how to set it up.

He had said, That’s too much money, while you were doing a couple of the on-screen exercises that I dreamed up and then your taking my quick tests, I was doing other work.

That’s OK. I’ll see you!

She had waved his hand off as he held out part of the money.

Merriam had gone faithfully almost every week-day for over two and a half months—most of those days she had spent longer than the two hours. She not only could wade through Microsoft WORD painfully, but she understood most of EXCEL.

She was able to do the common formulas because she had taken two classes of Algebra in high school and almost all of his examples had made sense. She had learned to make Power Point slides too.

She had thought at the time near the finish, Brad may be a geek, but he is the nicest young man I have known since our son, Ted went off to college.

Her son’s high school friends used to come around after school and go swimming in the large heated pool. They were good boys too! She thought to herself, We had to turn off the heater. The pool is not warm anymore.

Brad had found her a quick study. He had also taught her some of the inner-workings of a computer. She had even learned to mechanically install extra memory into one of Brad’s older PCs that he was cannibalizing parts from.

He told her that he was having as much fun as she was. She had agreed, it was kind of fun. He had put an anti-static strap on her wrist that was attached to a cable which was fastened to a special snap sticking up from the work table. He had explained to her that, Static could burn out one of the devices. You need to be earth grounded.

He went on talking about scuffling across a rug and touching somebody on the ear. Merriam remembered doing that to her cousin’s ear lobe once when they were little kids.

Last week Brad had congratulated her and said, OK, this last class is on me. This is the RESTORE function. You may need it, you never know.

He had spent two hours showing her several ways to fix a crashed computer. As he watched her this last day, he was becoming more suspicious. He had had an odd feeling about her for the last three or four weeks and figured she would need to know a lot more about computers and would not be able to call a geek like him. He wasn’t sure what it was; just a few things she had said or the way she had said them.

He was determined to teach her all that he could. He liked her—a really nice lady. I think she’s going to run away from something—not sure what or who but nobody will get anything out of me if I’m asked..

He had grimaced as he shook his head. She was nice, too bad she had problems. He wondered about her husband. She never talked about him. She wore a wedding ring. But then he had smiled. She’s going to be OK I’m sure. She seems to have her act together.

That had been four days ago.

CHAPTER TWO

Merriam got up from her knees and carefully wrapped a heavy towel around the laptop and poked it into a sturdy paper bag that had strong string handles. The cables were still rolled up. She twisted the black tie wires off and dropped the loose cables into the bag. They seemed to take up less room when they were loose. Or at least they formed around the inside better. She kicked the cable ties under the bed.

This room was rarely used and she had kept it closed most of the time. Both children were in school and they only came home during holidays and sometimes even then they didn’t and just stayed at school. She went to see her daughter once a month—it wasn’t that far away.

Charles never came into this lonely room anymore.

She had had to fly to Boston in order to see Ted, and had only been there twice in the eight months he had