Part Fifteen: Point of Divergence
Reader advisory, this chapter is graphic.
8/5/1991 Wisconsin
Henry and George were not about to drive all the way to Wisconsin. Flying out of the Lehigh Valley airport, after a short layover they landed in Green Bay. It was late when they arrived, and they didn’t talk much as they spent the night at a hotel. The next day they rented a car and headed west. George had forgotten how flat it was out there, with its pink soiled fields that stretched for miles. Later, looking at the road map, George noticed Henry turned on 76 North at the town of Shiocton, when he was expecting to still follow 54 west.
“Why are we going north?” George asked.
Henry’s eyes still kept on the road. “We’re going home,” he answered, “we’re going to see my sister.”
Not long after, they reached their old home of Amherst and found themselves at the gates of the Greenwood Cemetery. George followed as Henry slowly walked through the graveyard. Still remembering right where Sally was, Henry knelt down and touched his sister’s tombstone with his hand. George stayed a few feet behind, and after a few quiet minutes Henry rose back up. Together they looked down at Sally’s final resting place. Henry remembered how all those years when nobody believed her. Well, that wasn’t true, he believed her. Somehow, he knew she was telling the truth, and he always stood by her. Whatever really did happen, he wished it wouldn’t have. He wished she was there with him now. He wished she could have met Franki, and he wished she could see his children, now all grown up. “She would have liked you.” Henry said to his son.
“You think?” He heard George quietly ask behind him.
“Yeah,” Henry nodded, still looking at the stone. “She was, well, she always did her own thing, like she really didn’t know how to do any different.” He might not have realized it until just now, but that’s the way his son is. Finally, he looked away from the stone and said, “Well, let’s go find what this shit’s all about.”
Now heading south to Plainfield, Henry was surprised at what good time they were making. He didn’t remember the roads being this good when he was a kid. He also didn’t remember what few homes were out here having swimming pools. What was once called the great dead heart of Wisconsin appeared to have been resuscitated a bit. The run-down farms he remembered in his youth were now what looked like high yield potato fields, while once modest ranch homes were now equiped with satelite dishes so farmers could watch the same pointless TV shows that big city folks viewed.
Another thing Henry didn’t remember was a time when his son was so quiet. George just kept staring out the window, looking out over the miles of outstretched plains. Eventually, his son did say something. “I wouldn’t have been able to grow up here.”
“It’s where I grew up.” Henry said matter of fact like, still looking at the empty road ahead.
“Why did you leave?”
“Hmm, once Sally was gone,” Henry reflected, “well, people were teasing Helen in school about it, and your mom always wanted to get out of Wisconsin.” He laughed and looked at George to say, “I guess you can see why.” Looking back at the open sky he said, “Bethlehem Steel was always hiring, so off we went.”
George looked back at Henry and added “I think mom wanted out of everything.”
Remembering how she ran around on him as soon as they settled into their new home in Pennsylvania, Henry replied, “Yeah I think you’re right George, I think you’re right.”
Later that afternoon they pulled into the tiny town of Plainfield that seemed to be the center of this mystery. Henry previously informed Roger, a local resident, how Bloch contacted his son George about the matter at hand, and Henry had told the man he would call him once he got to town. After checking into the hotel room he got Roger on the phone. “Get me a paper and pen.” he instructed George, who handed him the stationary. “Alright, empty lot on Archer and Second, about 6 miles out of town. You can see me in about an hour? OK great, thank you.”
About an hour later Henry and George pulled into an empty lot on the outskirts of Plainfield. Before making this trip, George asked why they didn’t just call these people on the phone. Whatever the truth was, Henry wanted to find out face to face.
A blue pickup truck waited for them on the side of the road. The sun was beginning to set when Henry and George arrived. Henry was expecting to meet two people at this site, but it was a sole old man that got out of the pickup. He had a long grey beard and denim overalls, probably a farmer, as Henry’s father had been. Henry pondered how, had George grown up here, they both would have ended up looking like this guy. George probably wouldn’t have liked that. As the man approached, Henry couldn’t help but think he looked familiar, but he couldn’t imagine where he could have seen him before. The man gave him a glance of recognition as well, before pointing at the two of them saying, “Henry and George Kohler?”
“That’s correct sir.” Henry said.
“Roger.” the man stuck his hand out. “Pleasure to meet you.” He then shook hands with both of them. Looking around at the near empty land, Henry could see a house off in the distance. “So, is this where you live?”
“Down the road a bit.” Roger then pointed to the ground to explain, “This was Eddie Gein’s property.”
Henry asked, “Who’s Eddie Gein?”
The night was slowly creeping in while the trio walked down the road by the empty field. It was here that the man began his tale. “It would have been around this spot where I found the car.” The father and son followed behind as they heard Roger say, “I was driving home that night when I saw it,” turning back to look at Henry he said, “what would have been your sister’s car, pulled over on the side of the road. Figured it was outta gas or something. Got out to take a look, that’s when I heard the gunshots. Wasn’t hunting season yet.” Pointing to a pile of rubble he said, “I knew this property was right down the road. I figured someone was pulling a prank on poor Ed.”
“A prank?” Henry asked.
“People took advantage of Ed.” Roger explained. “He was a simple fellow, people borrowed money from him and didn’t pay him back, borrowed shit from him and kept it. One time somebody put a smoke bomb under the hood of his truck.” He shook his head, taking no pleasure in recounting this story. “Boy he was mad at that one. He was so mad he could have, could’ve….”
“Could have killed somebody?” George finished the sentence.
“Yeah.” Roger shook his head before speaking again. “Anyway, I head on down the road, next thing I know this girl is jumping up and down waving her arms around right in front of me. Almost ran her over honestly, but I just barely managed to spin the truck around without getting into a damn wreck. She hopped in the cab and screamed ‘Go go go!” Roger motioned with his arm. “I heard another gunshot and hit the gas. Couldn’t see anybody else out here, but I could have sworn I heard some squealing sound, like a hog got loose or something. You know,” he stopped and shook his head, “I never thought much of that sound until just now. Too much going on at the time for me to think of it, but Ed hadn’t had livestock for years.”
“So, the girl you picked up,” Henry asked, “this was my sister?”
“That would be her,” Roger answered, “she was hysterical. Got her back to my place, the wife made her some tea and tried to get her to calm down. She was babbling all this stuff about bodies and what not.” He looked at Henry to say, “I’m sorry to say this sir, but I thought she was whacked out on dope.”
“It’s OK.” Henry assured him.
“Anyway,” Roger continued, “hearing those gunshots I was worried someone was harassing Eddie. So, I called the Sheriff and told him to meet me here.”
Now walking off the road onto the former Gein property, Roger pointed to the ground and noted that Eddie had a woodshed right around this spot. “I pulled my truck up and looked around. It was all dark, but that was to be expected, Ed didn’t have no electricity. I called out to him a few times but there was no answer. I couldn’t make heads or tails out of most of what your sister was saying, but she insisted there was a body in the woodshed. I was half afraid somebody killed Ed and put his body in there! So, I went in.” Roger was growing visibly upset as he told this part of the story. He lit a cigarette, took a puff, then looked at George and Henry and asked, “Do you hunt?”
George nodded no but his father said, “Sure I do.”
“So, you’ve gutted a deer?”
Henry nodded and George asked, “So, there was a deer inside?”
“No, it was a person!” Roger nearly shouted as both George and Henry gasped. “She was hanging upside down off a crossbar that was shoved right through her ankles. Her arms were tied taught with rope to the crossbar, and she hung there naked as the day she was born.” Fred sniffled as he took a drag of his cigarette. “Gutted like a damn animal, big gashing hole in her, her…”
“Jesus.” Henry said, now fully understanding how his sister suffered for what she must have seen. He also knew this man had to live through his life haunted by this memory.
“I ran out the shed and puked right then and there, probably right where he’s standing.” Roger pointed to George, who calmly took a step back. “Arthur, the sheriff that is, arrived soon after.” Roger managed a smirk while he took time to wipe his eyes. “Bastard was laughing at me for puking, but his laughing scared the shit out of me. He comes up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulder asking if I was OK.” Now laughing himself he recalled, “I almost shot him. Wasn’t laughing then, but he must have noticed the shed door open, so he went in and took a look. Next thing I know he comes running out and now he’s puking right next to me.”
“Jesus, I’m so sorry.” Henry said, astonished.
“Who was in the shed?” George asked.
“You know,” Roger remembered, “I don’t think I even noticed her head was taken off, but later he told me her head was laying in that shed. Said it was someone we knew, someone who had just died. Arthur and I were both at her funeral just the week before.”
“Wait, so her grave was robbed?” George said in disgust.
Roger nodded before continuing. “The Sheriff stormed to the porch. Even then I don’t think I realized what Ed had done. I think in that moment, I was still thinking somebody else did it. But the Sheriff was pounding on the door, he was hot. ‘Eddie! Eddie!” Roger mimicked knocking on an invisible door. “Get your ass out here now!’ He didn’t wait for an answer and just kicked his damn door in. I followed behind. I was still worried about Ed. I remember yelling ‘Ed it’s Roger, are you okay?”
Pointing to an area in the now empty field, Roger continued, “It would have been right around here where we went in. The first thing we noticed was the smell. It was awful. There was no electricity in the house but we both had our flashlights. Apparently, Ed lit his house with kerosene lamps, so a few of those were around. Eddie’s mom died years before, he was really close to her. I think once she died, he just fell apart. We could see coffee cans stuffed with chewing gum, cracked yellow dentures laying around. There was a washtub filled with sand, piles of these old mystery magazines. It was a mess, and we didn’t even see the worst of it yet.”
“So was Ed in the house then?” Henry wondered aloud.
Roger nodded slowly. “We heard that sound, that squealing sound, almost like an animal crying. We went in the next room, which looked like a bedroom, that’s where the sound was coming from. There it was, sitting on the bed, it was rocking back and forth, cradling a rifle in its hands.”
“Was it Ed?” George asked.
By now it was dark, the only light they had was from the moon, and the burning red glow of the cigarette. “I don’t know what made me say it.” Roger thought back to that horrible moment. “I didn’t think it could be Ed, I just didn’t think it could be. It had long grey hair like a woman, and its skin was old and wrinkled. I don’t know what made me say it, but I looked at this thing and said his name, ‘Ed?”
“Oh my god.” Henry shuddered at the realization.
“It wasn’t Eddie’s face, but it was his eyes, Ed had this fleshy growth under his left eye, and I could see it. Those familiar eyes looked at me, but they had a hate in them I’d never known. It let out this horrible shriek and charged at me. Now Eddie was a small man, but he was farmer strong, knocked me down and got right on top of me. His hands flailed at me. I reached up and pushed the face away, that face, it felt so strange, really oily and unnatural.” Pushing his hands in an upwards motion Roger said “his head stayed still but his whole face pushed to the side like his skin was sliding on his skull. Then I saw his whole body get ripped off of me. Sheriff grabbed him by the collar and threw him hard into the wall. Then Arthur smashed the thing’s skull with the butt of his rifle. Now it just lay there, perfectly still on the ground. By then I knew what it was, but I didn’t want to admit it. Only when I got back to my feet, and the Sheriff pulled the mask off, did I face the fact that underneath was Ed Gein.”
George asked, “Wait, what was this mask he was wearing?”
Roger took another long puff of his cigarette before revealing, “It was the face of the woman we found in the shed.”
“Jesus Christ, are you fucking serious?” George exclaimed.
“So, what happened to Ed then?” Henry asked. “He didn’t go to jail?”
“Jail, huh, it was too late for that.”
“Don’t tell me,” Henry said, “don’t tell me you…”
Thinking back to his former friend lying face down in a pool of blood, remembering this accidental death, this awful homicide, Roger explained, “Sheriff checked his pulse, he was gone. He then asked me if I was alright. I sat down on the bed to catch my breath. When I put my hand on the bedpost,” holding up his hand palm down he said, “I noticed it felt weird, then my hand jerked back, like it knew before I did. Jesus.” He took another puff of his cigarette.
“What was it?” Henry asked.
He then stated the horrible truth. “There were human skulls on his bed posts.”
“What?” George was astonished.
“Yeah. And while this was scaring the shit out of me the Sheriff examined the body. It wasn’t just the face Ed was wearing.”
Henry asked, “What do you mean?”
“He was wearing a whole torso of human skin. It was a woman’s skin; the breasts were intact.” George and Henry listened in shock. “We didn’t even notice till later, but he was also wearing leggings made of human skin.”
“And you were his friend, and you never knew!” Henry began to grow angry.
“Nobody knew!” Roger insisted. “Nobody was at his house for years; didn’t let people hunt on his property. The guy didn’t even hunt deer because he couldn’t stand the site of blood!”
Then George asked, “How many bodies do you think were in there?”
“We think ten.”
“Why ten?” George asked.
“Because between the two rooms, there were eight other skin masks hanging from the walls.” Roger wiped the tears from his eyes as he recalled, “We could actually recognize some of the faces. Bastard even put lipstick on some of them. On the walls nine obituaries from the newspaper were pinned up. We think he dug graves of women that reminded him of his mother.”
“Why would he do that?” Henry asked.
“I’m not a shrink.” Roger answered. “I don’t know, maybe he thought he could bring her back.”
“Wait, you said there were nine obituaries,” George observed, “but you think there were ten bodies?”
“In the kitchen, the Sheriff found a brown paper bag.” Roger explained. “I don’t know what made him reach in it, just instinct I guess, but he reached his hand in and grabbed a clump of hair. When he pulled his hand out, he realized he’d found another skin mask, and we both recognized the face.”
“Who was it?” George wondered.
“It was a woman named Mary, she ran a tavern up the road in Pine Grove and disappeared a few years before this. At the time, the rumors had it she was mixed up with the mob, all we knew was she disappeared one day. A cartridge was found on the floor of her tavern along with a pool of blood. We always figured someone from her days in Chicago caught up with her, but there she was. The Sheriff put her face down in a bowl, before realizing that bowl was made of a human skull.”
George’s father broke down weeping, almost falling into his son’s arms. “My god my god!” he wailed, fully comprehending both the horror his poor sister suffered, and the madness she escaped.
George was tearing up himself. “OK, we’ve heard enough” he said, holding his hand up toward Roger.
“No, no,” Henry looked back up. “No, tell us everything, we came all this way to hear this.” Wiping his eyes, he insisted, “Go on. I wanna know everything you saw.”
Having already begun his grotesque tale, and knowing his audience fully accepted its insanity, Roger recounted the rest of the facts as if he were merely reading from an encyclopedia. “In the kitchen there were four chairs that were covered in human skin.” he recounted. “We also found human skin lampshades, bracelets, human skin covering a wastebasket, and on the sheath of a hunting knife. There was a belt made of nipples, and on the shade pull to the curtains was a pair of human lips.”
George fell to his knees, no longer able to contain the bile in his stomach, he leaned over and vomited on the ground, just as Roger and the Sheriff had all those years ago. His father wrapped his son in his arms and helped him back to his feet. After Henry wiped his son’s mouth with his own handkerchief, George looked up and said, “Go on.”
“We found a box with nine vulvas’ inside,” Roger stated, still in a monotone voice, “one was dabbed with silver paint and trimmed with red ribbon, the one on top seemed the freshest. Art noticed they were covered in small crystals, then we realized they were sprinkled with salt. In another box were four noses, and in a cardboard Quaker Oates container were scraps of human innards.”
Having recounted the last of the gruesome details Roger apologized to Henry.” I’m really sorry sir, but I have no doubt that whatever your sister told you was probably true.”
George wondered. “What about the rest of the house?”
“The other rooms were boarded up,” Roger recalled, “so naturally we thought ‘Jesus Christ what are we gonna find next?’ I didn’t want to know, but we had to find out. I closed my eyes as Arthur kicked down a locked door to a room downstairs.”
“What did you find? George asked in dreaded anticipation.
“It was nothing. Apparently, he only used the kitchen and the adjacent bedroom on the first floor. All the other rooms in the house were abandoned. There were five whole rooms upstairs that went completely unused. His mother’s upstairs bedroom was like a shrine to her. He had her Bible sitting on the nightstand, and this painting of Christ looking up at an angel was still hanging on the wall. The room was perfectly preserved, he didn’t even go in there to dust. It was downright creepy how untouched those rooms were. So that was it,” Roger concluded, “that was everything we found.”
Looking at the empty space where the nightmarish structure once stood, Henry asked, “Then, what happened to the house?”
“Arthur was pretty adamant, if word ever got out about this, every freak show in a thousand miles would come take a look.” George nodded in perfect understanding as Roger explained. “Carnies would be showing off his car and would have turned the home into a spook house.” Randomly pointing to a few spots around the land he revealed, “We gathered up what remains we could and buried them in a few spots around the property. Not deep enough, as your buddy Robert found out last time, but we buried them. Gein’s house was lit by kerosene lamps, and luckily there was plenty of kerosene lying around. So, we left Ed’s body in there and burned the place to the ground.”
“And nobody ever found out? Henry said, aghast.
“Arthur made sure nothing turned up.” Roger then dropped his cigarette and stomped it out.
“How do you know he didn’t kill anyone else?” Henry asked angrily. “There could be someone else out there just like me with relation that ran across this maniac and maybe got killed and the family never knew!”
“You think I never wrestled with that?” Roger answered back. “Mary was the only suspected murder case in the area. I mean sometimes a hunter would go missing or something like that. I remember this teenage girl disappeared years before, but that was nowhere near here. The Sheriff insisted this be kept quiet, and I wasn’t gonna disobey him.” Raising his hands up he said, “I’m not saying what we did was right, but we did what we did, it’s done. I’m really sorry about what happened to your sister.”
Henry was still angered at what had just been revealed, but he kept quiet while George asked, “What did you tell Sally then?”
“She was still pretty upset when we went back,” Roger answered, “but I think it was some relief to her once she saw us again. I told my wife to go upstairs while we talked to her in the kitchen. We assured her the man was dead and told her about the fire.” Lighting another cigarette, he continued. “I’m sorry to say it, but the Sheriff got a little hard on her. Made her swear she’d never tell anyone what she saw and told her to never come to this town again. He threatened to plant dope on her and throw her in jail. I didn’t like that he did that, but she promised. We let her sleep in our spare room that night. The Sheriff slept on my couch, though I don’t know if he did much sleeping. The next day we got her some gas and took her home. I actually drove her car back, and she rode with the Sheriff.”
“I remember you now!” Henry recalled. “I remember the Sheriff bringing her home that day. I was wondering why someone else was driving my dad’s car.” Henry said, remembering his childhood innocence.
“Shit that was your dad’s car!?!” Roger exclaimed almost laughing.
“My sister and him got into an argument that night and she took off with it.”
“Well god damn!” Roger shook his head. “I guess you would have been just a little kid then huh?”
“Yeah.” Henry said sternly, still upset about the secret he’d just learned.
George interjected, “You said the sheriff is still here?” Both George and Henry anticipated talking to him as well. Roger looked down. “Well, he was. He just passed away actually. Funeral is tomorrow.” He thought for a minute, then said, “You should come by the cemetery. I’d, I’d like to show you something.”
“We’ll be out of here in the morning.” Henry quickly said. George put his hand on his father’s shoulder and interjected.
“We’ll see how we feel tomorrow.” George said.
Roger breathed a deep sigh and nodded his head. “Alright, you two take care now.” He then went back to his truck, and soon both vehicles drove away from the empty field.
It was eerily quiet in the rental car as it rode by the empty fields. Henry didn’t even turn the radio on. George stared blankly out the window; not daring to touch the dial. As they approached what few lights shined in the town ahead, he finally looked at his father and said, “We ought to go to the cemetery tomorrow.” His father remained silent. “Well don’t you want to know what he wanted to show us?” There was still no answer as George turned and looked back out the window just in time to watch the sign for their hotel pass by. Continuing down the road, George looked back at his father, who was eyeing a neon sign down the street. “Dad, where are we going?”
Parking the rental car near a tavern he looked to George and said, “Son, I think we both need a drink.”
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