Point Bligh - Genesis

By Clifford Bishop ACS

A girl who was born in a light house discovers that she can do strange and powerful things. She grows to become a thriving businesswoman, philanthropist, and inventor who knows nothing of friendship, family, or love. She learns that she is part of a spiritual family; a society that has learned that though this physical world may be a useful place to live, physicality is still an illusion. They have learned that the only truth is love. The question is: What do you love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365466564

Book preview

Point Bligh - Genesis

Point Bligh - Genesis

Clifford Bishop ACS

Copyright ©2006 Clifford J. Bishop

ISBN: 978-1-300-69917-0

Even though some existing geographical locations, names of persons and businesses may be the same or similar to those used within, all persons and events are fictional.  

Please respect the property and privacy rights of all persons, businesses and other entities.

Nothing that happens in this book is possible.

Acknowledgements:

Rich Keane

Blue Angel Alumni Historian

Crew Chief #3 / #7 68-71

United States Navy

OABAAB Once A Blue Always A Blue

Military Aircraft and Flight Consultant

Charles Lane

Sergeant, Las Angeles County Sheriff Department, Retired

Sergeant, United States Marine Corps, Retired

Military and Law Enforcement Consultant

Capitan Todd Miller

Universal Citizen, Pilot

Aviation and Flight Consultant

Mary Bishop

Pitch-Fork Holder

Prologue

Wind-blasted seawater and oily sand shoots through the lonely outpost on a moonless, starless night.  Massive waves, lumbering liquid mountains obliterating the dark and foreboding Point Bligh Lighthouse.  The behemoth was rising from its watery grave again and again with phosphorescent seawater streaming off the jagged structure; luminescent silver blood pouring into pitch black eternity.

Bonnie Plotkin fought wind driven salt spray and flying oily sand to look at her girlhood home from atop a craggy perch at the top of a desolate cliff alongside a seldom traveled, decaying road. Streaking lightning burns images of the nude, looted and dismembered, skeletal building into her soul. CRAAAAACCKK BOOOOOOOMM!!!  Lightning exploding the lighthouse into concrete and metal bits rips Bonnie from the fog of remembrance. 

Ducking behind a slab of granite, Bonnie is stunned by pulses of electricity barging through the soggy ground.  The fourteen-foot diameter, by five-foot tall circular, rusty, wind-worn, widow’s walk crashes into the soft earth upon the cliff.  Ten feet behind Bonnie sits the very precipice her mother, Dotty Plotkin, dove from; ending her miserable existence.

As horrible as it was, this was Bonnie’s girlhood home.  Watching it get blown out of existence was both liberating and heart wrenching.   Oblivious of icy rain, Bonnie stepped to the widow’s walk.  She caressed it like a long lost friend although it is almost too hot to touch.   A two-foot wide section of the woven steel lace railing was folded back upon itself and rusted in place. Through chipped paint and rust, Bonnie read her mantra, My Way. She had etched it into the surface almost twenty-five years earlier.  Touching the searing steel ripped her back, cascading through the infinity of space and time.

Chapter One

Born in a galvanized iron tub outside the lighthouse keeper’s quarters, never taken to a doctor, barely fed by her parents; Bonnie Jan Plotkin raised herself, educated herself, trusted only herself.  Never enrolled in school, Bonnie learned to speak by listening to her parents and the twelve-volt battery powered ship-to-shore radio that was the only electronic device on the premises. 

It took Bonnie years to learn that every sentence did not end with Over and that conversations did not begin with names, call letters and homeports.  To this day, much of her speech is terse and to the point, reflecting radio transmissions she grew up listening to.  After learning to speak, Bonnie taught herself to read the few books in the lighthouse including the sight reduction tables’ patterns of trigonometry. 

Jan and Dotty were seemingly bound by their obsession with serving strangers. This wretched couple, constantly fighting, was only brought together through tragedy.  When you were in need of help, Jan and Dotty Plotkin were there; they were the people you wanted at your side.

Jan and Dotty rowed through fierce wind and menacing wave to save sailors shipwrecked on rocks and sand bars off Point Bligh in dories that are now gone.  Those whom were saved by the Plotkins said that it was as if a magic circle surrounded the dories preventing anyone from being lost or injured by rock, wind or wave.  The dories’ tarnished hardware and rotting timbers are now gone, long past littering this desolate, rocky, shoreline.

This outpost jets into the frigid Pacific Ocean off of the Oregon Coast snaring every bit of bad weather possible and remains isolated to this day.  Point Bligh was the northwestern most point on Cape Blanco, the name, Point Bligh faded into history when politicians decided it had negative connotations.   Now part of Cape Blanco Oregon State Park, Bonnie visits her former home when she needs to remember where she came from.

Anyone was welcome at the Plotkin table. Winos, beach bums and vagrants were all welcomed without question or comment. Their own daughter received little of the kindness and consideration so openly and freely given to others by her parents.  Bonnie herself was sometimes freely given to those who showed an interest in her. 

Due to a life without affection from her parents, Bonnie enjoyed the attention and affection of strangers and accepted their gifts in return.  These Gifts were usually meager cash and sometimes clothes or trinkets.  If her parents knew of Bonnie having anything of value, they would take it.  She learned early in life to keep what she had to herself. 

Bonnie did not understand what was happening to her nor did she know that there was anything wrong with what people were doing to and with her due to her isolated existence.  Bonnie was lucky that her ‘assailants’ were mostly gentle and affectionate.  She came to know these inappropriate activities as ‘Good Times’ because she was told that is what she was.  It was from talking with these people that she learned that there was a world beyond Point Bligh.

Jan and Dotty Plotkin, Bonnie’s parents, did not hate Bonnie; she was an inconvenience. A pebble in my boot, a pretty pebble made the shinier by my trudging. Jan Plotkin used to say.  I heard a father describe his brat that way in a movie long ago and the description fits! Jan and Dotty even referred to Bonnie as, The Pebble.  The Pebble was not talked to or with; it was just ordered, barely fed, and only allowed to sit at the dinner table when company was present. The Pebble was mandated to silence except when answering a direct question.

One hundred twenty, eight inch tall, ten inch long, twenty-four inch wide, lacy steel steps spiraled up and around the inside parameter of the conical tower.  These steps both separated and connected the top of the lighthouse keepers’ quarters to the heavy wooden trap door on the bottom of the light enclosure.  Mean, old and lazy, both Jan and Dotty only made the trip up the stairs when they had no other choice.

Bonnie gave up trying to please Jan and Dotty early in life.  Many times, she stood on the widow’s walk contemplating diving into the rocks below; the very dive her mother took years later. The widow’s walk - a woven-steel-lace walkway encircled the top of the lighthouse; the light enclosure itself was her place of solitude.  Cleaning the glass and polishing the Fresnel lens was her job; Bonnie’s reason for being.   Work took her mind off the icy block of self-loathing that was her core.

Bonnie spent as much time as possible atop the lighthouse where her parents rarely went.  The light enclosure was a warm place due to the steady flame of the lamp.  The sound of the small windmill charging the battery for the radio, the escapement turning the one thousand nine hundred eighty five pound lens on the roller bearing equipped chariot wheels that rolled on the circular brass track, the wind shrieking and the sea crashing, ninety-five feet below, was quiet compared to the screaming of her parents.  Lens, wheels, brass ring, escapement mechanism, and other remnants now stand clean and polished in the Portland Oregon Maritime Museum about a hundred miles away.

Most people in the area had heard rumors of an isolated, strange family who lived in the Point Bligh Lighthouse.  Boys and men had heard of the pretty girl who lived in the lighthouse who would do just about anything for a trinket or a few dollars.  Jan Plotkin’s rugged bearded presence and stench was so foreboding that few tried to see if the rumors were true.  In fact, Jan did not care what Bonnie did, or whom she did it with, as long as she took care of the light.

The weight is low! Growled Jan Plotkin, casting his icy blue stare at his wife.  Dotty, where is your daughter?

I have not seen her.  The Pebble has been hiding lately; she must need a strap, Jan.  Her milk chocolate eyes that perfectly matched her hair earlier in life met his stare. Dotty was now crowned with a silver mane that had sparse streaks of her former milk-chocolate brown.

I am here!  A defiant voice called out from eighty feet above through the raised trap door at the top of the lighthouse structure.  She did not bother using to use the speaking tube that connected the light enclosure with the keeper’s quarters and the top area of the keepers’ quarters where Jan and Dotty spent most of their time.  With the covers off of the tube, people can hear most of what is said in the other two locations.  Bonnie usually kept the plug in the top tube to avoid hearing her parents’ voices.

Descending twelve steps down the twisting stairway to a small platform she lifted a hinged rail and folded it back upon itself. Bonnie held the escapement rope firmly and stepped off the platform.  Quickly she dropped eighty feet to the top of the keepers’ quarters as the weight ascended to the top.  As soon as Bonnie hit the floor she ran up the steps as quick as a rat leaving a sinking ship to get away from her parents.

The now lifted weight transferred energy to the light escapement that turned the lens once in eighty five seconds.  The pentangle lens caused the light to flash once every seventeen seconds.  Every lighthouse on the coast is designated by the color of the light and the time between flashes. Odd number light signals assist mariners because if the sailor misses a flash due to being in a trough between swells, the even number of seconds between flashes would tell them to take another sighting.

Bonnie has been performing this task every forty-eight hours since she weighed more than the thirty-pound weight.  Lifting the weight, servicing the wick and pumping lamp oil to the upper reservoir from the lower tank and watching for errant vessels approaching the rocky shore and tending to the foghorn are the main tasks of a lighthouse keeper.  To facilitate pumping oil, a very small diameter tube was used so they only need to lift as small amount of liquid at any given time. 

The original clockwork escarpment mechanism that turned the lens needed to be reset every eight hours.  After climbing the entire tower to perform this task for two months, Jan bored two holes in the floor and extended the weights so that it would only have to be reset every other day.  The weight of the longer rope necessitated increasing the weight from ten pounds to thirty-pounds.

One of Jan Plotkin’s more ingenious additions to the lighthouse was its fresh water supply.  About a hundred feet inland from the cliff was a freshwater spring.  For the first five years Jan had carried water from the spring down to the lighthouse quarters in small drums. 

Copper pipe from the boiler in a shipwreck gave him an idea.  Jan put a wooden barrel on railings beside the road to form a cistern and settling tank for the water.   He salvaged the pipe and ran it downhill from the spring to the cistern.  He then ran the pipe from the cistern down the cliff to a valve in the lighthouse. His family had running water at their lonely outpost.  Even with this, water was too valuable for washing anything but their six dishes five cups and one cook pan.  The toilet was nothing more than a hole in a seat in a nook on the south side of the building.  Waste dropped thirty feet into the crashing waves below.

Chapter Two

Bonnie usually wore clothing and shoes she found while beach combing or items that had been given to her.  For several years, growing like rust on the railing, she wondered what it would be like to have her own connection beyond the lighthouse and this rugged scrap of coastline.  As rough as life was to Bonnie Jan Plotkin, she always seemed to find what she needed, when she needed it. 

Her eleventh birthday arrived without mention from her parents.  Bonnie went for a walk to get away from the lighthouse that was her home and her prison.  Walking up the coast without paying much attention to where she was going, Bonnie found herself at the mouth of the Sixes River just around a bend in the coastline, just over a mile north of Point Bligh.  She had heard of the river but had not traveled this far before.  She relaxed on a large flat rock and enjoyed the scant warmth that it had collected from the sun.

Twenty one year old Assistant Postmaster for Sixes, Oregon, Jiuquan Jackson, was on a day hike in area and was panning for gold.  Jiuquan had prospected this river with his adopted father, Reverend Charles Jackson, many times over the years.  They never found a lot of gold, but they almost always found some color.  On pastor’s salary, the Jacksons’ needed everything they could get to help fund themselves and the church.  The best part of these outings was father and son had a chance to spend time together.

Jiuquan Jackson carried an extra change of clothes as well as more food than he expected to eat and a light weight plastic thermal blanket due to his ‘Be Prepared’ training as a Boy Scout.  For his Eagle Scout Project four years earlier, he and his troop had built a playground for a homeless shelter in Port Orford, several miles south of Sixes.  The one point of his Boy Scout training that he routinely violated was hiking alone.

Jiuquan had arrived at the mouth of the river when he came upon Bonnie relaxing in the chilly sun on a large rock at the bend in the coastline.  Bonnie was filthy, had on ill-fitting mismatched shoes and no proper jacket for this cool morning. Hi, are you lost? Jiuquan asked. 

I am not lost.  I live in the lighthouse with my mom and dad.  Over there. Bonnie pointed down the coast. Who are you?

Jiuquan, I work in Sixes, the town up the river. Jiuquan pointed up-river with his left thumb.  Are you okay?  What is your name?

I’m Bonnie. I am okay.  Today is my birthday. I am eleven.

Even with his trail dust, Jiuquan was the cleanest person she had ever seen except for the

Coast Guard technicians who came to service the lighthouse twice a year.

Happy birthday, Bonnie!  Are your friends coming over for your party?

She looked blankly mystified.  Your mom and dad got you presents, right? Bonnie slowly shook her head slowly because she had no idea what he was talking about.  Jiuquan went on, Let me see what is in my pack.  Jiuquan opened the small backpack, digging through its contents he took out his extra shoes and socks.  These are big for you but they are yours if you want them.

Oh! They look new. Are you sure? This was the first time anyone had given her something without asking for anything.

Jiuquan said, Sure I’m sure.  You can have this too, happy birthday.   He handed her a hooded sweatshirt then took an AM transistor radio and four extra nine volt batteries out of his pack.   He showed her how to use the radio and change the batteries.  He then showed her that charged nine-volt batteries made a tingling sensation when you put the contacts on the tip of your tongue.  He explained, When there is no tingling, the batteries are dead.  I have an extra sandwich if you like peanut butter and strawberry preserves.  Bonnie paused.  Really, it is okay, I have plenty.  Have a water bottle and a granola bar too. 

Bonnie accepted the gifts he offered and enjoyed them; she liked Jiuquan’s company very much.  They talked for a while then he asked, Do you need me to send anyone to help you?  My dad’s church has people who will visit and help if you need it.

My dad would not like that.  He hates church people.  I got to go now, thanks.   Bonnie kissed Jiuquan inappropriately for her age due to her experience with vagrants.  This surprised and frightened him.   This is my best birthday ever!  She said, kissed him again, and then picked up his gifts and disappeared around the rock encrusted sandstone bend. 

She did not want to go back to the lighthouse but she did not know how to be with someone who was just trying to be a friend.  Jiuquan tried to follow her but when he got to the bend Bonnie was well on her way to the lighthouse.  She ran across the top of the rocks like they were a flat grass field; just like she had been doing it every day of her life.

The radio became one of her most treasured possessions because it was her portal to the outside world.  Late at night atop the lighthouse tower, Bonnie was able to receive AM radio stations from as far away as Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago.  Nearby stations came in better but Bonnie liked to listen to distant stations because it helped her feel farther from Point Bligh.

She enjoyed listening to people and learning from them.  She imagined being the people she heard speaking.  She took phantom flights of fancy in her mind, more than once falling asleep with the radio on, draining her limited supply of batteries.  Once she hooked two batteries together but took them apart when they quickly heated up.

The radio programs and commercials taught her that there was much more to the world than she had experienced.  News about schools caught her imagination.  Bonnie fantasized about going to school, learning and growing; becoming more powerful than her parents. 

One night Bonnie fell asleep listening to the Coast-To-Coast show on KFI 640AM Talk Radio from Los Angeles, California.  She awoke in the morning and found that the last of her nine-volt batteries were dead.  She tried each one again and again then realized that her connection to the outside world was cut off.  She remembered the town that was up the river that Jiuquan had told her about and she then thought of the money she had saved.  Bonnie reasoned that if she followed the river, she would get to the town of Sixes and that she may be able to buy more batteries.

The next morning before sunrise, Bonnie made sure the upper lamp oil reservoir was filled, enough to last two days if needed. Bonnie slipped out, while her parents slept atop the keepers’ quarters. She brought all the money she had saved and the radio with her.  While she was walking north along the coastline at the high tide line, Bonnie found a waterlogged yellow jacket that had washed in from the sea. 

In an inside zipped pocket she found a wet wad of cash containing four one dollar bills, two fives, a ten and a twenty.  All of the other jacket pockets were empty except for some gravelly sand. Bonnie knew this was money but had no comprehension of its value. She squeezed out all the moisture she could then neatly folded this cash along with the rest of the money she had and put it in her pants pocket.  Then she pulled the jacket high above the high tide line on the rocks and spread it out so that the meager afternoon sun might dry it before she got back.

Arriving at the river, Bonnie’s feet inside her oversized shoes started sinking into the thick brackish mud so she retreated to higher, dryer ground.  Turning right, she followed the river’s southern bank inland.  For the first time in her life she was away from the ocean.  The constant trickling sound of the small river replaced the rhythmic crashing of the ocean.

From the river’s mouth to the town of Sixes was about three miles but following the winding path of the river added a little over another mile.  Just around a river bend, Bonnie found a large pond behind a dam of logs and debris.  The inviting clear water beckoned Bonnie to jump in.  Bonnie took off her pants, shirt, shoes and socks and left her radio with them.

Walking the end of a log sticking into the pond, she watched minnows, perch, and frogs swim for a while.  Just after she jumped off a log into the cold water she discovered that she did not know how to swim.  Remembering the motions of the frogs, she repeated their motion, fought her way to the surface and gasped.   After a short while, Bonnie was able to make her way around the pond quite well.  Very soon she found that she liked swimming. 

After an hour in the water, she remembered the batteries and was getting hungry.  At the edge of the pond Bonnie’s feet were sinking into the mud so she returned to the log to climb out.  Putting on her clothes and the shoes and socks Jiuquan had given her, Bonnie resumed her eastward journey.  An hour after midday, Bonnie approached a home that was built above the south bank of the river with a quarter acre yard separating it from the water.  A woman with Green eyes and graying auburn hair was hanging laundry while a girl of Bonnie’s age was playing near her.  Bonnie noticed that the girl’s Green eyes and auburn hair matched hers.

Mom look, a drowned rat! Janice Stacey McDonnell said pointing at Bonnie.

Jannie, that is not nice! Janice’s mother, Debra Jean McDonnell, said while looking at Bonnie and seeing the truth in Janice’s words.  Hello there, who are you?  Are your parents here?  Debra Jean asked although she already knew the awful truth.

I am Bonnie Plotkin.  I live in the lighthouse with my mom and dad.  Looking at the girl Bonnie said, You look like me.  This was true as all three of them had matching sparkly green eyes and auburn hair.

Debra Jean felt like she had been hit with a Mac truck and was looking at a ghost.  You are soaking wet.  Here, use this. Debra Jean took a slightly damp towel out of the laundry basket and tossed it to Bonnie.  Are you hungry?  Bonnie nodded.  Janice, take Bonnie inside and make her a sandwich, I will be in when I get done.  The girls went inside and Debra Jean sat on the grass and cried for fifteen minutes. 

Once Debra Jean was done crying, she resolutely returned to hanging laundry.  Still sniffling, she was thinking of the weekend her sister Dotty and her husband Jan Plotkin had visited almost twelve years ago.  Damn it, why did I do that?  Why did he do that? Debra Jean muttered to herself. 

In the middle of the night Jan Plotkin had left his new wife and slipped into bed with his sister-in-law, it was her first and only time. Dotty had caught them as they were finishing.  The McDonnell sisters had not spoken to each other since.

Debra Jean and Dorothea Mae McDonnell - Debi and Dotty, were only a year apart and were the closest of sisters.  It was no surprise that they became pregnant at the same time and delivered within days of each other.  What was surprising was that they were both impregnated by Dorothea’s husband, Jan.  Debra Jean never told Janice who her father was.  The only thing she would say was, Dust in the wind.

By the time Debra Jean entered the house; the girls were chatting and playing like sisters.  Janice had given Bonnie a blouse, skirt, shoes and socks and undergarments, all of them fit perfectly.  Not those shoes, take these. Debra Jean stated while handing Bonnie a pair of Janice’s sneakers and taking the black patent leather dress shoes.  What brings you to town? Debra Jean asked, trying to be civil toward her unacknowledged niece.

I need new batteries for my radio.  Bonnie held up the radio.

Well let’s go get them for you and then I will take you back to the lighthouse.  Your mom and dad must be worried sick.

They will not miss me until day-after-tomorrow when the light goes out. Bonnie said resolutely.

Mom!  Bonnie can stay with us!  I always wanted a sister! Janice excitedly exclaimed.

No. was all Debra Jean said.

The three piled into a rusted Ford Pinto that was held together with weathered Duct Tape and rusty clothes hanger wire and then they rode into town. 

This is a car?  I have heard about them but this is great!  You guys must be rich. Bonnie exclaimed as they drove on the dirt road.

Rich? Hardly. was all that Debra Jean said.

Stopping at a drug store, Debra Jean bought Bonnie a twenty-four pack of nine volt batteries, two four-packs of panties and t-shirts, a cotton shirt, jeans, socks and a cheap pair of sneakers.  Debra Jean then handed the bag to Bonnie.  Bonnie tried to hand Debra some money. No. Debra Jean said again, sadly looking away.

In silence, she tried not to listen to the girls in the back seat who sounded so much like Debi and Dotty had at that age; Debra Jean drove to the cliff side spot above the lighthouse on the access road.  The very same spot many, many years later where Bonnie would watch the lighthouse get blown to pieces.  Debi and Dotty had stood and were so happy when Dotty and Jan got the job as keepers at the Point Bligh lighthouse the very afternoon before that wretched night.  Debra Jean silently cried as Bonnie and Janice hugged and promised to stay in touch.  Bonnie left the car carrying her new belongings and disappeared down the path after waving to her new friend.

Mom please, let Bonnie live with us.  It will be great!  I always wanted a sister

Janice, have I ever yelled at you or hit you? Debra Jean calmly locked eyes with her daughter.

No Mommy. Janice wept, frightened by her mom’s intensity.

If you EVER mention this again, Debra Jean held up her tight right fist with her face turning red, I will break your face, kill you, and then kill myself. Debra Jean said softly as her eyes almost bulged out of her face. 

Her mother had never shown anger toward her before in any way before this moment. Janice started shaking and turned toward the dusk outside of the car window. She just wanted answers; Janice wanted to know what was happening.  Janice had no inkling of the complex web that she was a part of.  This web was drawing members of an esoteric clan together once again as part of an ethereal cycle.

Debra Jean’s love for her daughter was only eclipsed by her hatred for her brother-in-law.   That night almost twelve years ago Debra Jean lost her sister, her best friend; she had lost herself.

Debra Jean drove back to her home trying to forget, just trying to forget.  The rest of the day Debra Jean was silent as the grave.  For the rest of their lives together, there was an icy barrier between Janice and her mother.

Jan and Dotty Plotkin had not missed their daughter.  Many times they would not see her for days at a time while she stayed in the tower to avoid them.  Bonnie carefully stored the clothes that Janice and Debra Jean gave her, saving them for special times.  The happiest two hours of her life were spent with Janice with whom she seemed to naturally connect. 

A few days later Bonnie picked up the yellow