The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking Read Online Free Page B
Author: Brendan I. Koerner
Tags: United States, nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, True Crime, 20th Century, Terrorism
shock factor. “I know they have some different ideas, but I’ve come to agree with them.” Krummel was every bit as flooredas she had hoped.
In the late summer of 1971, Kerkow received a phone call from Beth Newhouse, her close friend from the Marshfield chorus. A rebel in her own right, Newhouse had married a surfer ten years her senior shortly after graduating from high school. But that relationship had quickly disintegrated due to her husband’s alcoholism, and Newhousehad fled to San Diego to convalesce with an older sister. Instantly smitten by the city’s perfect weather and raucous party scene, she decided to stay and reap the benefits of being a young divorcée in the era of free love. She first moved into an apartment near Ocean Beach, a hippie enclave full of head shops and health food stores, where rock bands often played impromptu shows on the sand. When the rent there became unaffordable, Newhouse found a cheaper place in El Cajon, on the city’s eastern edge, and took on a roommate.
When that roommate left without warning, Newhouse became desperate to find a replacement before the next month’s rent was due. She offered the bedroom to Kerkow, who seized the chance to escape her dead-end life in Coos Bay. She dropped out of SWOCC, packed up her Volkswagen Beetle, and struck outfor southern California.
San Diego was a revelation for Kerkow, a wonderland of sunny days and easy sex. She dated a galaxy of men who seemed fantastically exotic to a cloistered Coos Bay girl: Mexican bikers, greasy rockers, the bronzed and preppy scions ofLa Jolla’s yachting elite. As she sampled San Diego’s menu of bachelors, she discovered that she was especially drawn to black men; she confessed to Newhouse that, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, she found such men “unusually attractive.” Though Kerkow loved to press her mother’s buttons, she never dared tell her about this romantic predilection during their occasional phone chats; she worried thatPatricia would be appalled.
Kerkow also concealed the seedy means by which she earned her keep in San Diego: she worked at the International Massage Parlor on 4th Avenue, in therun-down Hillcrest neighborhood. Though she had fancied herself too worldly for Coos Bay, she was hopelessly naïve by San Diego standards; when she started at the parlor, she genuinely believed the job would entail nothing more than kneading kinks out of muscles. Kerkow was horrified when the first naked client flipped onto his back and insinuated that he would like a sexual favor; when other similarly smutty requests soon followed, it dawned on her why the manager hadn’t cared about her total lack of experience. Againsther better judgment, she satisfied her customers’ urges in exchange for tips, letting her mind wander to more pleasant thoughts as sherubbed and tugged.
Kerkow told her mother that she worked as a receptionistat a doctor’s office.
Right after Christmas 1971, a sleazy gangster who owned adult businesses throughout San Diego convinced Kerkow to come work for him. He offered her a job at a downtown strip club, where customers were barred fromtouching the topless dancers. But she opted to remain a masseuse, moving to one of the man’s upscale parlors insuburban Spring Valley. She and Newhouse also ran a sideline business in marijuana, peddling ounces purchased from a small-time hoodlum they knewonly as Fast Eddie.
Kerkow was adrift in this sordid world when Roger Holder came knocking in January 1972. He, too, had gone astray since their fleeting encounter at Empire Lakes some thirteen years earlier. But his troubles ran much deeper than Cathy’s, inflamed by experiences far more brutal than she could imagine.
T HE R OGER H OLDER who returned to Alameda with his family in the fall of 1959 was not the same boy who had left for Oregon that August. The expulsion from Coos Bay had scarred him; once a devout Christian like his father, Holder now questioned what sort of God would
In the late summer of 1971, Kerkow received a phone call from Beth Newhouse, her close friend from the Marshfield chorus. A rebel in her own right, Newhouse had married a surfer ten years her senior shortly after graduating from high school. But that relationship had quickly disintegrated due to her husband’s alcoholism, and Newhousehad fled to San Diego to convalesce with an older sister. Instantly smitten by the city’s perfect weather and raucous party scene, she decided to stay and reap the benefits of being a young divorcée in the era of free love. She first moved into an apartment near Ocean Beach, a hippie enclave full of head shops and health food stores, where rock bands often played impromptu shows on the sand. When the rent there became unaffordable, Newhouse found a cheaper place in El Cajon, on the city’s eastern edge, and took on a roommate.
When that roommate left without warning, Newhouse became desperate to find a replacement before the next month’s rent was due. She offered the bedroom to Kerkow, who seized the chance to escape her dead-end life in Coos Bay. She dropped out of SWOCC, packed up her Volkswagen Beetle, and struck outfor southern California.
San Diego was a revelation for Kerkow, a wonderland of sunny days and easy sex. She dated a galaxy of men who seemed fantastically exotic to a cloistered Coos Bay girl: Mexican bikers, greasy rockers, the bronzed and preppy scions ofLa Jolla’s yachting elite. As she sampled San Diego’s menu of bachelors, she discovered that she was especially drawn to black men; she confessed to Newhouse that, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, she found such men “unusually attractive.” Though Kerkow loved to press her mother’s buttons, she never dared tell her about this romantic predilection during their occasional phone chats; she worried thatPatricia would be appalled.
Kerkow also concealed the seedy means by which she earned her keep in San Diego: she worked at the International Massage Parlor on 4th Avenue, in therun-down Hillcrest neighborhood. Though she had fancied herself too worldly for Coos Bay, she was hopelessly naïve by San Diego standards; when she started at the parlor, she genuinely believed the job would entail nothing more than kneading kinks out of muscles. Kerkow was horrified when the first naked client flipped onto his back and insinuated that he would like a sexual favor; when other similarly smutty requests soon followed, it dawned on her why the manager hadn’t cared about her total lack of experience. Againsther better judgment, she satisfied her customers’ urges in exchange for tips, letting her mind wander to more pleasant thoughts as sherubbed and tugged.
Kerkow told her mother that she worked as a receptionistat a doctor’s office.
Right after Christmas 1971, a sleazy gangster who owned adult businesses throughout San Diego convinced Kerkow to come work for him. He offered her a job at a downtown strip club, where customers were barred fromtouching the topless dancers. But she opted to remain a masseuse, moving to one of the man’s upscale parlors insuburban Spring Valley. She and Newhouse also ran a sideline business in marijuana, peddling ounces purchased from a small-time hoodlum they knewonly as Fast Eddie.
Kerkow was adrift in this sordid world when Roger Holder came knocking in January 1972. He, too, had gone astray since their fleeting encounter at Empire Lakes some thirteen years earlier. But his troubles ran much deeper than Cathy’s, inflamed by experiences far more brutal than she could imagine.
T HE R OGER H OLDER who returned to Alameda with his family in the fall of 1959 was not the same boy who had left for Oregon that August. The expulsion from Coos Bay had scarred him; once a devout Christian like his father, Holder now questioned what sort of God would
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