For many kids, home is scary place

I shall call it the Catcher in the Rye Brigade in honor of the classic novel. The main character in that novel, Holden Caulfield, imagines himself in a rye field catching the children who are about to fall from the field over a huge cliff.

The first duty of my fantasy Catcher Brigade will be to drive en masse to Kittitas, a small Washington town of 1,135 residents nine miles east of Ellensburg. There we shall tell everyone we are not leaving until we discover what really happened to 11-year-old Cody Haynes. If you missed Spokesman-Review investigative reporter Bill Morlin’s story Friday, here’s a recap:

Cody disappeared without a trace from his family’s two-story apartment sometime before 6 p.m. Sept. 12. In the early morning hours before Cody’s disappearance was reported to police, Cody’s father, Richard “Rick” Haynes, made a 250-mile car trip throughout Eastern Washington “looking for car parts,” he later told police.

Haynes’ four daughters, who lived with him and his live-in girlfriend, Marla Jaye Harding, were removed from the home Sept. 21 after a police investigation uncovered evidence of “inappropriate discipline.” Haynes and Harding aren’t talking much to police or to the press. They have both retained an attorney. Kittitas Police Chief Steve Dunnagan is investing Cody’s disappearance without outside law enforcement help.

Those of us in the Catcher Brigade are fueled by rage. We cannot believe that in these enlightened times, when children have more rights than ever, an 11-year-old boy can disappear under mysterious circumstances and still be missing almost three months later.

The police chief told Morlin that on the evening of Sept. 11, Cody was ordered to sit in the kitchen until almost midnight after allegedly refusing to put away leftovers and do the dishes. When we Catcher Brigaders picture the boy there, sitting in punishment, we are reminded how little power children still have in their homes.

When you are a child, the adults are the rulers. You do as they say. You think what they request of you is “normal” even when it isn’t. In these Oprah-and-Dr.-Phil times, when family dysfunctions are so out in the open, you’d think our homes and communities would be a lot safer for children. But still adults manage to scar innocent children forever.

If adults don’t get help for their addictions or their anger or their mental illnesses, the rules and routines in their homes reflect their damaged psyches. Children raised in those homes don’t know any other way. They think all parents act happy and loving in the evening (while high on booze or drugs) only to turn hangover-angry in the morning and take it out on the kids. Children don’t know that not all parents spend days in bed, too depressed to meet basic needs. Children don’t know that it’s very wrong if Mommy’s boyfriend touches you where your bathing suit touches your skin.

We Catcher Brigaders would like to infiltrate the homes where the adults have abdicated their responsibilities. We’d like to whisk those children away before they tumble off the edge of society’s rye field. Too many tumble off every day.

In Kittitas, we would urge the police chief to call in outside help to investigate Cody’s disappearance. His department shouldn’t take this on alone. We Catcher Brigaders have many questions for Cody’s father and the live-in girlfriend, but their lawyer probably wouldn’t let us ask them.

We Catcher Brigaders would commend community members for the candlelight vigil they organized, for the door-to-door searches they conducted, for printing fliers with information about Cody. We would congratulate them for acting in the manner prescribed in the New Testament parable where the shepherd puts everything on hold to search for one missing lamb. And then rejoices when the lamb is finally found.

Somewhere there is an answer to what really happened to Cody, the lost lamb of Kittitas. To join my Catcher in the Rye Brigade, all that is required is a promise not to rest in peace until Cody does.