Guns

I am saddened by the events today in Oregon, and angered by the politicians rushing to respond who will disassociate the need for gun control and this incident by next week. I suppose gun supporters will tell us that if we all carry guns, this couldn't happen. We are a country then that needs to have instruments of death everywhere - schools, churches, community centers - and that would be a healthy thing. I think Americans watched too many westerns growing up, romanticizing gun wearing. The bottom line is that a lot of selfish people want to have the right to collect weapons and will make any sort of bizarre justification to do so. I wonder what happens when they come face to face with the victims of these crimes. I guess it does make sense that guns are so sacred here; we have been at war since we were created. I can think of no other country with this sort of violent heritage. Honestly, I really don't know what to think anymore.......

A Couple of Murderers I have Known

In my life, I have known murderers and people who have been murdered - in one case, I knew both, the young girl and her mother whom she killed (It's a Small Sometimes Ugly World, October 2010). As far as the former group, I knew two well, Tom and Patrick.

I met Tom late one night while playing pool near the campus of my university in 1978. It was a small, friendly bar populated equally by locals and college students. It had a lot of pool tables, I enjoyed going in there on weekends and spending time. Eventually, I got to know most of the people who regularly stopped by, and I felt pretty comfortable there. I was playing pool one summer evening, when a small, dark haired man (more like a boy) came up and put his quarter on my table, challenging the winner of the game. He wore dated clothes, with a Native American necklace that looked far too big for his neck. He had a pack of cigarettes in his t-shirt pocket, and he looked like he must have had a rough life in his few years. I noticed that when he came in, there was a visible reaction in the room. The noise changed, it went from a happy buzz to a series of low whispers. My challenger didn't seem to notice.

I won the game I was playing, and he dutifully racked the balls and I broke. We played a few games, splitting the outcomes. All the while, I noticed that the other patrons were watching intently, not for the acumen of our game, their eyes hardly left him. Gradually I knew his name, and he told me had returned to the area after a long period away. When he went up to the bar for a coke, no one talked to him. I found this very odd later when I discovered everyone in the room but me knew who he was, what he was.

Tom didn't talk much, and he seemed just happy to be there playing pool. After an hour or so, he excused himself and left. When the door closed behind him, sound returned to the room. People were laughing strangely and looking at me. I ignored them and continued to play pool. When I went into the bathroom, an acquaintance followed me in, perhaps nominated by the group. I found it odd when he started talking to me, as he was violating a well known rule of conversation in a men's room. He was brief though, anxious to tell me who I had just interacted with. Tom had been a well known trouble maker in his early teens, and he came from a family with a very bad reputation. On one horrible evening, the fifteen year old had taken a friend out into the woods and slit his throat over a few dollars and drug deal. He was sent to a juvenile facility for several years, and just recently been released. My informant shared the story with a tone like I had been lucky to have survived the evening.

I saw Tom several times after that, and we usually played pool and sat together between games. No one else ever talked to him. Over the course of the two weeks, I learned more about him, as he slowly started to reveal his past. One evening, he started the conversation with "you know what I did, don't you?" I told him I did and he asked me if I wanted to know what happened. I nodded, and he told me the story. There were no mitigating circumstances, no excuses. He told me flatly why he did it, and the details his life since. I sat there amazed, not so much for the sensational subject and detail, but because he told the story with absolutely no emotion. When he finished, he asked me if I had any questions. When I said no, he added "you know, I would do it again in a heartbeat." That sent shivers down my spine. He then switched the topic to pool and we never discussed it again.

I avoided the place for a long time, not wanting to see him again, and not wanting to avoid him if I did. It was a cold lesson in evil that I learned that summer, looking into those brown eyes. I heard he had been arrested on another charge and he had returned to prison. Tom had fired the first salvo against my liberality, I never again supposed that all men were fundamentally decent, and were products of their environment. Tom was a killer, always was, always would be.
Patrick was a different story. He was a student in the first class I taught at the college level, and we stayed in touch for several years. On the first night of class, I knew he had been in prison after I heard him speaking to the other students. Many former inmates I had know employed the same sort of distorted pragmatic logic. He spoke again in class, and he must have noticed my reaction, as he came up to me afterwards and asked me very bluntly, "you know where I have been, don't you?" I told him I supposed I did, and he asked me if he could talk to me. When I agreed, we sat down and he told me his story.

Eight years before, he had been dating a pretty mulatto girl across town. He was young and wild, and their affair had been tumultuous. After an argument one evening, she told him it was over, and in his words, he lost his mind. He went out, got drunk and high, and returned to her house with a coke bottle of gasoline, a sock, and a lighter. He stood outside her house yelling, and when no one replied he hurled his Molotov cocktail up on the porch, igniting in a small explosion. No one had been home, and the fire did not reach the main structure. He stood there for a minute watching his handy work, then decided it would be prudent to leave. As we walked back up the street, he was accosted by an elderly Black man who angrily demand he return until the police came. Patrick hit him as hard as he could, and when he hit the ground, the old man was dead. Patrick fled, but was picked up several hours later and was convicted of arson and manslaughter.

He told me that story as he didn't want me to be uncomfortable wondering what he had done. I thanked him, and we didn't speak about it for a long time. Patrick passed the class but dropped out a year later. He got a job as a travelling salesman selling advertising in college catalogs. It was good work for him, as it allowed him to exploit his charm and frenetic energy. We kept in touch, usually when he called me late at night to discuss some political issue or philosophic point. He never lost his prison rhetoric, and his life followed suit. He did not return to prison, but he bounced around, wheeling and dealing, one step of what ever trouble was following him.

I got to know both these men, and it gave me a far more complex understanding of the human psyche and evil. One was an evil man, the other was a man who did evil things. In either case, I decided I would not envy the individual, program, or society that would endeavor to help or rehabilitate them, having no idea where I would start.

Train Kept A Rollin

From the time I finished the 8th grade to the day I entered the 10th grade, I attended four schools in three states. For once though, the fact that we kept moving might have saved my life. For if we would have stayed at our third stop, Pontiac, Michigan I don't think I would have survived.
We moved to Pontiac in January of 1973. It was one of the toughest places I have ever been, and I was 14 years old. We only ended up staying there for six months, and I was relieved to leave. We had rented a rundown apartment in a depressed area of town. The neighborhood was mixed, poverty being the only shared culture. Before arriving in Pontiac, I had lived in smaller, less diverse towns. I had no concept of what to expect from that big city, and no preparation for what I would see.
I met some of the local kids the weekend before the first day of school. I remember Rodney and Timmy vividly, as it was their story that shocked and horrified me. To this day, I haven't heard someone relay a personal experience like theirs. And I would not care to. Rodney was a street-wise kid who was the leader of the local group of kids. Timmy, who had lost both his legs, was an affable guy who did his best to keep up in his beaten up wheelchair. They adopted me and shielded me from some difficulties while introducing me to worse things. I sometimes wonder if either of them are still alive.
I will never forget my first day at school in Pontiac. It was a very large school just for 9th graders. There were kids of all sorts, a few who made immediate impressions on me. My first incident happened an hour or so after classes began. I opened a door to leave a class and it hit another student in the arm. He was about six foot two, 185 pounds. He looked like he was 22, and had a big afro. I apologized and he just stared at me. I wasn't sure what else to do, so I turned to leave. As I walked away, a nervous kid walked beside me saying "Do you know who that was? That was Spade, the toughest kid in the school. He is 19 and only stays in school to sell drugs to the other kids." I had dodged a bullet. Later in the day, I met a very charming student named Clarence James III (or as he introduced himself, CJ the DJ). He took me under his wing and we agreed to meet at the art room after school. When the last bell rang, I made my way down to our meeting place. CJ was there smiling. He ushered me into the art room and locked the door after we entered. He then introduced me to the art teacher who promptly took out a bottle of wine from his desk and poured us each a glass. I wasn't sure where I was at that point, it was just far too strange to be real. I learned to avoid the bathrooms at the school, as they were filled with smoke, drug deals, and the occasional brawl. The girls all scared me, as they acted and appeared as if they were ten years older. The students were all very foreign to me. I do remember the one exception, a slight black kid who dressed neatly and carried a brief case. He didn't socialize, he just went to class, studied, and went home. I often wondered if his focus ever got him out of that place.
Rodney, Timmy, and I hung out on weekends with some of the other local kids. I soon learned that they all enjoyed drugs, and I really didn't want to go down that road, but I didn't want to alienate my protectors. I turned to alcohol instead. It was a crazy six months. We lived on the edge of the city, and there were woods and remote areas nearby. We spent many an hour hiding out there, doing whatever we liked. By that point, my stepfather would buy me beer whenever I wanted, so I maintained my popularity with six packs.
I had also met a pair of twin brothers name Brett and Bart Hartsoe (named after Brett and Bart Maverick). They were good kids, and I had more in common with them. One weekend, we planned on me staying overnight with them. Their parents said no, but the brothers snuck me in through their basement window. In the morning, their little sister came down into their room and spotted me. She must have been about three. To this day, I remember her exact words as she ran back up to tattle on us:
"Mommy, mommy, there is more than one head in Bart's bed." Great line, had to fit it into the story somehow........
Each morning, Rodney and I and a few others would walk to school, a distance of about two miles. When the weather warmed up, we exploited a new form of transportation, hopping a train that ran past our neighborhood and eventually the school. It was exhilarating to say the least, I had only seen it done in the movies. The train ran near the woods behind our houses, in between two large ponds we loved to fish in. It was so neat to run up to the train, grab anything you could hold on to, and haul yourself up. It was about a five minute ride, rather than the half an hour by foot. I really felt grown up doing that (looking back, I suppose I would have made a good hobo). I rode the train for almost a month before I eventually stopped abruptly.
We were over at Timmy's house one night, doing what we always did. Timmy and Rodney were taking drugs, and I shared a bottle of whiskey with Timmy's brother. Timmy had a high tolerance for harder drugs, a result of his double amputation I suppose. Strangely, I had never asked how Timmy had lost his legs, it just didn't seem necessary. That night though, it came up in the conversation, and Rodney told me the tale. Something that is still horrific to me, and if they hadn't pulled out the news clipping, I am not sure I would have believed them.
A year earlier, Rodney and Timmy were on their way to school. They were late, so they decided to hop one of the freight trains that passed the school. It was a winter morning, very cold, wet and slippery. Rodney boarded first, and reached back to give Timmy a hand up. Just as Timmy grabbed his wrist, he stumbled and somehow slipped under the train. Rodney heard the scream and jumped off the train. Timmy had fallen legs first, and the train had amputated both legs well above his knees. The next part of the story is the most incredulous, but once again supported by the newspaper article. Rodney knew he had to go for help, but that Timmy might die of blood loss. They were beside one of the ponds, and Rodney quickly fashioned a plan. He found a large stick and thrust it into the ground just inside the shore. He then dragged Timmy over to the pond, slid what was left of his bottom half into the half-frozen water and made him hold onto the stick. He took off his belt and wrapped it around Timmy's hands and the stick. He then made the eight minute trip back to his house to call an ambulance. Timmy survived, and Rodney was a hero of sorts.
That night, sitting on the couch listening to that story, was a turning point for me. I couldn't believe Rodney was still hopping trains, or that he was introducing new converts to that form of commuting. I then took a hard look at the rest of their life, and realized that no, it wasn't normal for 14 year olds to be doing drugs, and that I really didn't want to be in the environment. Luckily, my step-father got in trouble somehow, and we had to move. If we hadn't, I am sure I would not be here now writing this. I don't miss any of those friends, but I do think of that lone Black kid with the briefcase, praying desperately that he made it out, that he survived that treacherous place.
*Postscipt: Although I was only in Pontiac for six months or so, I did gain a notoriety of sorts. I came to school one day to find out that most all of the 900+ student body were looking for me. A local executive, Harvey Leach, had been found murdered (grusomely) in the woods behind our neighborhood. Somehow, it got out that I had found his body. It was rumored to be a mob hit, making it that much more sensational. It all died down after a week, particularly since I took no credit for it, but it was a strange week. Leach headed up a local discount furniture store known for its catchy commerical jingle. If you like, you can view it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljb0-08HW1g

Six Years for the Gun

This my friend, Jerry, who is serving a prison sentence for attempted murder. I knew him for a year and a half before he committed his crime, and he changed my life!


Jerry was not the first murderer I have taught, but he was the first student to murder someone after I taught him. I first met Jerry when he came to our literacy agency for help. I was the training and program development specialist, and I met many of the students working in our one-on-one tutoring program. Jerry's tutor was one of our Board of Trustees, Margaret. She was a fantastic woman who never stopped giving to our community. She brought Jerry to me because she felt he needed some help socially, and that the new student support group I was forming would be beneficial. I remember shaking his hand the first time, noticing his unkempt appearance and strong stench of tobacco. He was shy but pleasant, and he agreed to come to a meeting. I had no idea how far his education would go, how much he would teach me, and how suddenly he could be pulled back into the hell he was climbing out of.
Jerry did attend the student support meetings and gradually began to open up. We started the group not only to support the students, but to eventually develop them into public speakers - far more powerful advocates for the program than we could ever be. It took Jerry six months before he was ready to speak in public, an informational gathering for would be tutors. He did an excellent job, but he broke down and cried at the end of his two minute presentation. Jerry knew what all non-literates know in this culture: It is far more fashionable to have a drug addiction than a reading program. Tell someone you are recovering from most problems and you get sympathy, maybe a hug. Tell them you cannot read and they move away from you.
I started to spend more time with Jerry as he began to volunteer more and more at the literacy center. I was new to the area and he directed me to a lot of resources and events. One Saturday, after we did an early training session together, Jerry and I walked down to a local bar to get a drink. We both had cokes, and chatted for awhile. Afer about a half an hour, Jerry nodded towards two men at the bar and told me that they were gonna fight. Shortly after I began to respond (I didn't get that sense from them), one punched the other squarely on the jaw. Jerry had seen something I didn't. I had spent my fair share of hours in bars, but he could see more than I could, more body language.
Jerry and I would sometimes go to local auctions and flea markets he knew in the area. We had a good time, and he seemed at ease. We came from somewhat similar humble backgrounds, but his was far worse. His brother had been murdered years earlier, and I don't believe Jerry had ever had a fruitful full-time job. I knew he had had psychological problems, and that he was estranged from his wife and children. We didn't discuss his family much, as it upset him. I learned a great deal about Jerry, and a group of people like him. I thought I understood them well, but I did not. He provided a great deal of insight for me, positive and negative.
Jerry was making good progress with his tutor, and was doing well with in the support group. He was making more public speaking appearances, as was attending better to his hygiene. I really thought he was turning his life around. That is until one rainy Saturday Autumn morning.
I got a call from a colleague at work telling me to turn on the news. When I did, I saw a picture of Jerry, and heard the news report that he was being sought for the attempted murder of his wife. Jerry hid out for a few days before he turned himself in. He called me from jail with his one phone call. He told me that he spent the night in my parking lot thinking he would have me turn him in. He thought better of it,not wanting to involve me and eventually drove himself to the local jail. I called legal aid for him, and made arrangements to visit him a few days later.
I was shocked when I saw Jerry, he looked worse than when I first met him. He was tired and depressed. I asked him how he was, and he just looked at me in defeat. I couldn't help myself from asking what had happened, and he detailed the events very dispassionately. He told me he had tried to reconcile with his wife, and that she had taken him back. Something went wrong though, as usual, and she threw Jerry out. He returned with a large caliber pistol and confronted her in their driveway.
He told me that he hit her and she fell down. Jerry then informed me that if she had fallen on her front he would have killed her as he would have shot her in the back of the head. Instead she fell on her back and looked up at him. He told me he wanted her to suffer as she looked at him and he shot her five or six times in the chest. She was a big woman, and somehow she survived.
Jerry pleaded guilty to attmepted murder and was sentenced to 25 years to life, with six years to be served initially for the use of the gun. We corresponded for awhile when he got to prison, but eventually we lost touch. I miss him often. I saw Margaret a year later. She smiled sadly, but then said with a better grin, "let me know when he is released and I will tutor him again."

It's a Small, Sometimes Ugly World

I began teaching college classes when I was 27. I had stumbled on the job, and had a very short time to prepare for the upcoming semester. I was teaching a Reading and Study Skills course at a large urban university in Ohio. It was an evening course with a very diverse group of students. There were chronically bored 18 year olds, very serious and intimidated adults, white students, black students, Hispanic students, athletes, veterans, and one newly paroled murderer. If I had been more aware, I would have been seriously over my head.
We worked through the semester, slowly getting used to each other. I worked hard to get to know them, and they appreciated it. Slowly, we made progress. I was most pleased at their increased confidence and efficacy. Three of the 15 did eventually graduate, and I stayed in contact with several others for years. It was my first college class, and they were my favorite.
One of the defining moments in the course came one evening when two policemen appeared at the door. I walked over and asked them how I could help them. Three seconds later, I made what could have been the biggest mistake of my life. When I got to the door and asked, one of them stepped towards me and said "we will help ourselves, we need to see one of your students." He had mentioned her name, and was moving into the room towards her direction. In hindsight, I did the unthinkable - I put my hand up and he walked into it. There was a gasp behind me. My students understood the gravity of my action. I saw something very violent in that policeman's eyes, but I held my ground. This was my classroom, my students. Thank God his partner was a sympathetic man. He stepped around his offended colleague and took me aside. I whispered low that I would prefer to bring the student out (a 55 year old black woman enrolled in her first college class). He smiled and said ok. They stepped back out (there were no other exits) and I walked over to the student and asked her to follow me out. I could tell she had no idea what was going on, but she was not surprised. I took her out into the hall and the policeman I had halted began to address her. He was polite, obviously over my faux pas. The second officer took me aside again and thanked me for my help but then cautioned me on my initial reaction. He didn't have to say much, I knew I had received a giant break.
I learned eventually that my student had purchased a "hot" typewriter unwittingly. She was exonerated, but I think the ordeal was too much for her. She did not return to school, and I lost track of her. I truly believed I would never hear from hear again. I was almost right.
Three years later, I had taken a weekend job at the local children's hospital. I was working as a Recreational Therapist on the psych ward. I worked two ten hour shifts each weekend. It was an amazing job. I learned so much from the experience and the professionals I worked with. I worked with a team in a milieu concept. My input was valued as was that of the nurses, doctors, nutritionists, social workers, etc. We would all meet each week and discuss the children. The lead psychiatrists were excellent practitioners, and they worked hard to help those kids, to get as much information and insight as possible. I saw some pretty incredible cases: a 13 year old girl who had hid her pregnancy and delivered her baby in the bathroom, then placedit outside on a window sill until it died, and eventually taking it to school and putting it her locker; the daughter of a Florida serial killer who had grown up in campgrounds and homeless shelters; and many other sad desperate cases.
During my training week, I was taught how to do intake interviews with these children. I observed a few interviews, then was assigned to lead the next interview that came up. That interview came three days later, and I barely made it through it. It wasn't the tragic nature of the crime involved, the sad and empty affect of the young girl I was talking to, or even my own sense of compassion for the situation. It was something that happened in the last thirty seconds of the interview that broke me down.
I still remember walking into the room and seeing a very young black girl staring down at her shoes. I had read her intake material, and knew why she was with us. She was 14 and obviously displaying an "atypical reaction" for a murderer. I asked her questions and she answered those relating to basic details coldly with no emotion. I asked her about her school, her friends, her hobbies, etc. I slowly moved towards the issues related to the crime and she shut down. She admitted to the crime, but could offer no reasons or explanations. She was not defiant, nor was she evasive. She just wasn't really there. I was wrapping things up when I asked my last question. I asked her if she regretted killing her mother. She looked up for the first time with tears in her eyes and said "what does that word mean?" I told her it meant to feel badly. She put her head back down and said nothing more. She had killed her mother with a shotgun in an argument over the girl's 19 year old boyfriend. As I was about to close the file, I saw the mother's name for the first time. The young girl did not share the last name of her deceased mother. If she had, I would not have led the interview. The woman she had killed was my former student, the woman I had defended the day the police showed up at our door.

True Crime

The Internet isn't always a place of wonder. I have enjoyed the rapid access to all things trivial, the real time information, and the great networking and net-reconnecting potential. I watch obscure movies and old tv shows online, read newspapers from around the world, and listen to vintage radio shows. I love the fact I can ameliorate some nagging need to remember or learn a character actor's name, the capital of Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou - actually I knew this, my favorite capital :), or whether or not Ernest Borgnine is still alive - he is! Despite this wonderful potential, I sometimes learn things I almost wish I hadn't. Such was the case when I was reminiscing about my high school days, and I remembered an old friend, Tim B., probably the most positive, upbeat guy I had ever met. After sorting through a dozen Tim B's on the Internet, I realized the one entry I did not want to read contained the only information available on his life via the Information Super Highway. Or more precisely, his death.
I knew thirty something years ago that Tim had a different heritage than I or most of us in our small town. He was dark-skinned and I knew he was adopted. His adoptive father was the Methodist pastor in town, and his siblings had been adopted as well. It wasn't an issue, and perhaps I am just now realizing his uniqueness. As I read the newspaper article, I learned he had rediscovered his Native American roots, moved to Washington State, and had taken a teaching job at Northwest Indian College. He was an athelete and a poet. By all accounts, he was very popular and was as gregarious and genuine as he had been in high school when I had known him.
At some point, Tim had fallen in love, and was living with his partner and their two young boys. Things had soured though, and he had even become frightened of his children's mother. He often slept in his office, and told his friends that he feared for his life. It would be revealed after his death, that she had attempted to poison him and even tired to rig his truck to explode. Ultimately, while two months pregnant, she strapped their two sons in the car, returned to the house and walked into his bedroom with her mother on the cell phone and a handgun. With maternal urging, she shot Tim in the head as he slept. When apprehended, she would claim domestic abuse as her defense.
Tim's partner and her mother are in prison. The abuse charges were absurd and eventually recanted. Piecing the story together through Internet sites, I was reminded of the plethora of television crime shows scattered throughout the 1200 channels I now peruse. The story was almost too bizarre to be true. Lost in all of that was Tim, and his amazing love of life. How ironic in this Internet age where there is too much out there on too many of us, there are those whose lives are distilled into one story, one tragic fact. I have lost many friends over the years (Robin, Greg, Simon, Larry, Virgil, Bill, Tim),and they are now evanescent ghosts, disappearing as fast as aging links expire. The Internet isn't always a place of wonder.