Chapter Text
1977
Charlie is ten. Woodrow is seven. He is sitting in the backseat of the car with Charlie, yelling loudly as his brother holds him in a headlock until his father turns around and busts both of them, even though Charlie had started the whole fiasco.
Charlie, even though he could be a total meanie sometimes, was, in Woodrow’s mind, the coolest older brother ever. Charlie always let him play when they broke out their favorites, the tired old Star Trek action figures that Charlie had had since he was five and had seen many epic adventures. Woodrow never got to play as Spock or Captain Kirk, but he didn’t mind. He was quite happy to play as Scotty or even Lt. Uhura whenever Charlie’s older friends came over to play. They would haul out their fake ray guns made out of toilet paper tubes and tape and run off into the back side of the newly constructed firehouse to go and play. Both of them knew about the tunnels in the bunker under the firehouse, but they were never allowed down there, and Charlie, being the ever-responsible older brother who always did as their father Andy instructed, made sure they never strayed near. They usually went over and began hassling the two girls in the Smith house next door, sometimes taking their Barbies hostage. Their father always made them give the Barbies back, but not after they played a game of Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura save Captain Kirk’s Boyfriend Spock from the Evil Barbie-ion Army.
Their mother was forever trying to get them to play with the two Smith girls (“They’re your age, you should be friends!”), but Darby was older than Woodrow and was too old for Kid Stuff. And Nicole, even though she and Woodrow were in the same class and were the same age, was absolutely Gross and Had Cooties, so there was no way he was going to anywhere near that. Woodrow was happy to play with Charlie instead.
It was when the film actually started, after the massive long scroll of text had gone by, that Woodrow stopped tussling with his brother and from then on, he wasn’t even aware of being in the car or anyone around him. The movie-it was like the old reruns of Star Trek, but more polished, more real. There was a sense of size and scope to it that he had never seen before, and it utterly captivated him. Watching Luke and his friends fight desperately to get away from Darth Vader lit a fire in his young mind, and he could think and talk of nothing else.
Fortunately, for both him and his long-suffering parents, Charlie liked the movie two, and their games moved from simply Star Trek rip-offs to Star Wars too. That Christmas brought a round of Star Wars toys, and they were seamlessly integrated in with the Star Trek figures for grand, galaxy spanning adventures.
The neighbor girls had gotten some new Barbies that Christmas, and Ken’s dead-eyed look and fake smile made him the perfect villain.
***
1979
Charlie has just turned fourteen. Woodrow is nine. Instead of getting more Star Wars toys or something similar (which Woodrow had been hoping for), he got a CB radio instead. Charlie gushed over it, saying, “Isn’t it cool Woody? It’s just like the one they have in Dad’s police car! It can pick up communications from all over the place!” Woodrow nodded along with his brother, excited. Maybe they could finally talk to aliens!
Turns out the only thing they could listen in on was the truckers that hauled parts up to the Island’s laboratory, and their dad when he went on boring police calls. Woodrow hides his disappointment from Charlie as best he can and goes on playing with the action figures. More often than not, he plays alone now, and the only thing that can get Charlie’s attention is going next door to bug Darby and Nicole because apparently now boys Have Cooties instead of girls at this age and girls must Absolutely Not Be Touched By Boys under any circumstance or they may contract them. He does manage to get Charlie to help him build a tree house, and it’s almost like old times for a little bit. Charlie is excited, and they build it by themselves (with a little help from their dad). But Charlie doesn’t want to use it as a Starship Millennium Enterprise Super-Falcon. He kicks Woodrow out, hogs it, and hangs out with his boring friends in it. All they talk about are lame police shows and how they want to be like Baker and Ponch from C.H.I.P.s when they grow up, and how awesome and hot the girls off of Charlie’s Angels are and how much they kick butt.
And Charlie isn’t around much anymore either. He’s started going to the middle school now, so he gets out later. He’s also playing soccer and football after school, so he gets home after dark most nights, tired and hungry and in no mood to play.
Woodrow is on his own more and more.
***
1980
Charlie is fifteen. Woodrow is ten. They’ve just announced the new Star Wars movie is coming out this year in May, and Woodrow is excited. He tries talking about it to his brother, but his brother doesn’t seem interested. He’s more interested in sports and hanging out with his friends. He is also is “dating” a girl, Amanda. Woodrow isn’t sure what dating is, it mostly seems like hanging out with a girl and having fun. He assumes it just means hanging out with friends who are girls.
His parents humor his obsession with the new Star Wars movie and take him to see it, much to their dismay. He talks about it endlessly to them for weeks afterward. He also finds himself visiting Grandpa Zach more. Grandpa Zach is alone now that Grandma Isolde died and he is no longer fishing for a living. Charlie isn’t visiting Grandpa Zach as much, but Grandpa always has the best tales to tell. He was the one who directed Woodrow to the tales of the great adventurers like Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver, Swiss Family Robinson, and Moby Dick. And Grandpa always listens when he talks about Star Wars, and seems glad to hear it.
It’s easy to forget now that he is old and gray, but Grandpa was an adventurer once upon a time.
***
1981
Charlie is sixteen. Woodrow is eleven. Grandpa Zachary takes Charlie out in the old jalopy and teaches him how to drive on the back roads near the old abandoned mine. Charlie gets his license, and suddenly he isn’t around anymore. He’s always home for dinner unless he has phoned ahead and said he has other plans. But he’s usually off at football practice or on a date with Darby.
Woodrow’s father takes away the action figures and tells him that he is too old for them and needs to start growing up. Woodrow joins the Lad Pioneers and loves it. It’s just like all the adventures he has seen in the movies and read about in the books like Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson. They get to go on hikes and make campfires and tell spooky stories and do all sorts of cool survival stuff.
Even though Charlie and he aren’t as close, they still get together and talk about stuff, and Charlie is always willing to lend an ear or a shoulder if he needs one. Woodrow still goes to talk to Grandpa Zach a lot and listen to all his sea tale stories, which he then can tell around the campfire at Lad Pioneer campouts.
Life isn’t the same, but Woodrow adjusts.
***
1983
Charlie is eighteen. Woodrow is thirteen. Charlie is graduating from high school and stands in the group of people from the town high school in a huge ceremony. A lot of people make very important sounding but extremely boring speeches, and there is a lot of pompous but important sounding music. It reminds Woodrow of that last scene in the first Star Wars movie where Princess Leia gives Han and Luke their medals in the big important ceremony with all of the people. At the end, Charlie is beaming and has a piece of paper that says he has finished school.
Two months later, Charlie is gone, off to University on the mainland, and Woodrow is alone for the first time in his life. He’s always been able to talk to people, but never been able to make real friends. And for the first time in his life, no one his age shares his interests anymore. For some reason, they seem to have all grown up and left them all behind. He hangs out with the neighbor girl, Nicole Smith, because he has nothing better to do. She’s an outcast, like him, and her older sister no longer has the patience or time to play with her. He listens to her talk endlessly about her obsession with the Smurfs, and in turn, she listens to him prattle on about Star Wars and Star Trek. He wouldn’t call her a friend, but more of an acquaintance.
Now that Charlie is gone, he visits Grandpa Zach more than ever. Woodrow goes to see the third Star Wars movie that year, and he takes his Grandpa with him. Grandpa Zach seems to really enjoy it, and he tells Woodrow, “I can see why you like this Woody.”
Woodrow is glad that someone finally doesn’t tell him his obsessions are childish.
***
1985
Charlie is twenty. Woodrow is fifteen. Charlie isn’t around anymore, still at University on the mainland. He still phones and writes home regularly though. For Woodrow, it’s as though everyone his age has gone mad and the boys are realizing for the first time that Girls Actually Exist. Woodrow doesn’t understand it. He ignores them, and continues to go to Lad Pioneer meetings, but the campouts aren’t as fun anymore. A lot of the boys end up talking about girls or sports over the campfire now instead of stories like they used to. They don’t want to hear his Grandpa Zach’s tall tales anymore. Woodrow ends up camping out on his own or sometimes hanging out with Nicole.
He reads Charlie’s letters and slowly comes to realize that the world is bigger than just Griffon Rock, Maine. There’s a whole world of adventure out there, in a massive galaxy, in an endless universe.
Griffon Rock has never felt so small.
***
1986
Charlie is twenty-one. Woodrow is sixteen. And Grandpa Zach is dead. He had suffered a massive heart attack. They stand in the rain at the funeral (rain? How cliché, Woodrow remembers thinking), as Woodrow mourns the only person in the world who still partially understood him.
Two months later his father comes to him and tells him he’s got him a job at the local grocery store. Woodrow hates it, but he goes anyway. His father tells him it’s time to grow up. He offers to teach Woodrow to drive, but Woodrow declines. He already knows how; Grandpa Zach had taught him in the old jalopy before it finally wheezed its last. He finally goes in and gets his license, and miserably commutes to the grocery store on the afternoons and weekends.
Most young boys Woodrow’s age have a stash of Playboys, but he has a stash of fanzines and science magazines. At nights, he curls up under the covers with a flashlight with the fanzines that he has managed to sneak into the house. Ms. Neederlander may be a witch of a woman, but she loves her Captain Kirk/Spock fanzines, and has no issues with signing up for a few more and giving them to Woody later. He keeps them well hidden, as he knows his father wouldn’t approve of such pursuits.
Woodrow wants to see the world, and beyond.
***
1987
Charlie is twenty-two. Woodrow is seventeen. His father, knowing his propensity for adventure, then introduces him to a distant cousin, a firefighter named Mark. Firefighters lead exciting lives, his father says. You’ll love it. Woodrow just nods and agrees with his father-he can’t do much else as his future, like Charlie’s, is mapped out in front of him before his eyes. He has no say in it, but unlike Charlie, it isn’t the future he wants.
He still hangs out with Nicole, but she’s been acting strange lately. One day, they are at her house when she randomly asks him if he will go to the prom with her. He agrees, not really having a good reason not to. He still doesn’t understand half of what is going on with people in high school, or the interactions that they are having. It’s like being outside a window looking in-he’s missing something in the interactions but he isn’t sure what it is. He figures prom will be fun, as there will be dancing and free food.
There are no words to describe what a disaster the night was. Nicole had kissed him on the dance floor, right in front of everyone. Confused, he had shoved her back and asked her what in the hell she was doing in a very loud and upset voice. In return, she claims she is his girlfriend, something he denies, muddled. The night ends with her running out crying with her few girlfriends in front of the entire school and him going home alone. He manages to sneak back into the house without facing his parents, but it doesn’t stay that way for long.
Griffon Rock is a very small town, and everyone knows each other. That also means that everyone knows everyone else’s business and tongues wag. So, by the next afternoon, the entire town knows about the disastrous prom and so do his parents. His mother looks upset and his dad sits him down for a talk. He starts with how a gentleman should treat a lady and then goes on with how no Burns should ever treat a lady badly, especially not one he likes.
“But I don’t like her,” Woodrow says.
His father looks dubious until Woodrow tells him that Nicole asked him to the prom, and he just thought he was going as her friend.
“Son, it’s obvious that she’s liked you for a long time. I want you to go over there and apologize for your behavior last night, and the fact that you blew her off like that.”
Woodrow doesn’t even think for a second before saying, “No.”
Incredulity and then anger crosses Andy’s face. “Son, you will apologize to that young lady for your behavior and you will make up with her.”
“No,” says Woodrow again. “I will not apologize for what happened last night because it wasn’t my fault, and I will not date her. I have no interest in girls. At all.”
His father looks upset, and confused, two emotions that rarely ever cross his face with its weathered laugh lines. He leaves Woodrow alone, and Woodrow goes back to school with nasty looks from most of the girls and worse teasing from the guys.
Two weeks later, his father takes him aside, and asks him quietly, “Woody, do you….do you like guys instead of girls?”
Woodrow looks at him, confused, and says, “No. I don’t. I don’t like anyone. Well, not that, it’s just that I’m not attracted to anyone.”
His father, instead of being reassured, looks even more worried than before.
Woodrow now knows the problem. Why he’s never felt right in school or anywhere with others his age. He’s not attracted to anyone at all, and while it’s nice to finally understand what’s wrong with him, it doesn’t make him feel any less like an alien on his own planet. He knows the what, not the why or how, or the fix.
His father and mother, quite predictably, freak out, and take him to several specialists on the mainland to try and determine what is wrong with him. The specialists, of course, find nothing and are quick to reassure them that it is just a phase and Woody is a late bloomer. He hears it from the both the specialists and his family. While put differently, it’s just the same words over and over, a tired phrase that has become a sort of mantra like a skipping record. You’ll find someone when you’re older, you’ll know the right person when you meet them, you’ll feel the desire when you finally meet the right girl.
Woodrow is broken, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. The scary part is, he isn’t sure he wants to.
***
1988
Charlie is twenty-three. Woodrow is eighteen. Charlie is getting married to Darby Ava Smith, Nicole’s older sister. He has graduated early from college with honors and is moving back to Griffon Rock to apprentice as a deputy to his father, with the intent to take over when Andy retires. Woodrow attends their wedding and eats cake, and then disappears back to the bunker under the firehouse to escape Nicole. She still holds a flame for him despite their disastrous prom night, and his parents and hers have done all they can to nurture it, despite his protests.
Woodrow wants to leave. He is quickly coming to hate the confining feeling of the island, and the notoriety that his name brings. Everyone knows he is the son of Andrew Burns, the sheriff, and Charlie Burns, the football star. He longs to be somewhere that name is meaningless, and no longer comes with any expectations attached. Somewhere where he could stand on his own accomplishments and not those of others.
He gets a surprise when he finds that his grandfather left him the old jalopy in his will, with the caveat he gets it when he turned eighteen. He knows that Charlie had wanted it, but Charlie was never as close to Grandpa Zach as he had been. The old car is in terrible shape and doesn’t run, but Woodrow doesn’t care. He can fix it; he and Grandpa Zach had spent many long hours working on it but had fallen off as Grandpa Zach had gotten older and more frail and unable to move well. Woodrow continues to work his terrible grocery store job and works on the jalopy on the weekends in his spare time in secret. He squirrels away every bit of money he can and either saves it in a coffee can hidden in his stash of fanzines or spends it on parts for the car. He knows it’s his only ticket off the island.
Woodrow remains silent, nodding along with Mom and Dad and all his extended relatives when they come to visit. He tries dating a couple of times, but the pool of datable girls on the island is pitifully small, and Woodrow clings to the faint hope that maybe once he finally leaves the island, he can find his one and only somewhere else. He just has to get off the island first though.
It’s almost Christmas, and he’s even closer to being done with the jalopy. It runs but it won’t get him far, and Woodrow wants to put as much space between him and Griffon Rock as possible. His father pulls him aside and tells him he needs to start thinking of his future and what he wants to do with his life. His older brother starts coming into his room and giving him motivational talks on what he needs to do like some sort of life coach, chiding him because Woodrow doesn’t have a plan. Woodrow stays silent and nods along with everything-he has a plan, but he’ll be damned if he ever tells them because he knows he will never be able to leave if they knew the truth.
His parents are well meaning for sure, but they have created an unintentional prison founded on love and good intentions.
***
1989
Charlie is twenty-four. Woodrow is still eighteen. He sits through his own graduation, receives his diploma, and heads home to spend some time with his folks before heading to a party being thrown for the graduating seniors downtown. The jalopy is finished and Woodrow’s been driving it around town for a month or so. In the trunk is a suitcase that he fished out of Ms. Neederlander’s attic when he had helped her clean it out two months before. It’s a horrible old carpet-covered thing, with a tacky floral pattern that she had told him to throw away, so he didn’t feel guilty about throwing it in the trunk and not the trash can. The suitcase is full of the clothes he is taking and anything else he deemed absolutely necessary. Everything else is staying.
Tonight is Woodrow’s one chance to leave the island with no strings attached, and he fully intends to take it. There is an entire world out there, and he’s absolutely sure that he won’t ever find what he’s looking for here. If he’s going to make contact with aliens, he has to go to them because they sure as hell would never come to Griffon Rock.
His plan goes off easily and without a hitch, almost laughably so. He takes the jalopy to the party and waits for the inevitable breaking out of the alcohol that happens later that night. Not being much of drinker himself, Woodrow excuses himself and slips out to his car. Push down the clutch, knock the car out of first gear and into neutral, and roll straight down the hill towards the docks. The captain of the ferry, the last one of the day, looks bit askance at him, but Woodrow tells him he is going to meet up with some friends to celebrate on the mainland for graduation. The man shrugs, takes Woodrow’s ticket, and Woodrow and his car are on the ferry and mainland bound, easy as that.
Woodrow stands on the front of the ferry and looks back towards home. Already he can feel the bitter twist of knowing he won’t taste his mother’s cooking, hear his father’s warm voice, or banter with Charlie for a long time yet. He can feel a certain fear of leaving behind the familiar, and the terror of facing the unknown. And yet, he feels a thrill. There’s no telling what’s out there, the things and places he will see or the people he will meet, and Woodrow can’t wait. Maybe out there, he won’t be so broken or weird or an outcast, the disappointment in the family. Maybe out there is someone, or something, like him.
Woodrow turns his back to the familiar and looks forward with excitement to the future.