Cliff(hanger) Notes: Old man B

Bartholomew McGillcuddy was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on New Year’s Day in 1933. His father worked for the local newspaper, and his mom raised Bartholomew and his three sisters. At the age of 18, Bartholomew joined the U.S. Army to help with the conflict in Korea. After his training and deployment, Bartholomew was chosen for a new unit that was being assembled by the O.S.S. For the last year of the conflict, he went behind enemy lines several times, and was a part of missions of sabotage, infiltration, and demolition. His unit was behind enemy lines and almost captured hours before the signing of the Armistice. During his time fighting in Korea, he had taken to simply answering to “B”, a name he prefers to this day. After the war and his return to the states, his superiors thought he had a future as a career military man, and recommended him for officer’s school. His attitude started to get worse the longer he was back in the states, and no one who had served with him could offer an answer as to why. By 1955, the Army had enough of him and gave him a dishonorable discharge. He thought about moving back to Poughkeepsie, but instead hitched a ride to Los Angeles in an attempt to get away from it all and start over. He worked as a bouncer and security guard off and on for the next several years, until his reputation for starting fights and heavy drinking got him blacklisted from every decent paying job. Frustrated and angry, B left town aboard a boxcar in 1962. He rode boxcars across the nation for most of the next decade. In 1973, he freight hopped his way back to Poughkeepsie, but his parents were now deceased, and his sisters wanted nothing to do with their “vagrant” brother. An angry B left on the next train, and spent the next five years in Canada, doing seasonal off-the-record work. In 1979, B rode a train down to Mexico, where he wound up in jail for assault and battery after a bar fight. He was left to rot in the jail for over a year. Leaving Mexico, B found his way to Texas, where he worked as a cowhand on a large ranch in Southwest Texas. Rather than take a train, B saved up some money and bought a used AMC Pacer and decided to leave Texas B wanted to head North, back to Canada. On his way to Canada, he stopped in Sioux Falls, where his Pacer broke down and needed repairs that wiped out much of his savings. B decided it was time to stop running from everything, and time to stop wandering aimlessly. He found an apartment and a job at a local Kmart, where he worked until that Kmart announced it was closing down for good. B had been working on getting his military pension, which finally kicked in just before the store closed for good. B then retired and settled into a routine, finally achieving some small peace in his old age. That is, until he found Bob and Phil hiding in his car.