Friday, May 13, 2005
To the dead I've known before
By The Erudite Redneck
The other day, I had to scootch my truck around a wreck in The Village, a municipality of 4,000 or so smack in the middle of Oklahoma City.
It wasn’t much of a wreck, as wrecks go. But there in the middle of the street was a motorcycle on its side.
Off the street, but not very far, appeared to be some rolled-up carpet or blankets or something, which I found out later was the operator of the motorcycle. Bystanders wrapped him up in whatever they had.
I read later, in the paper, that he was dead.
Not dead as in killed instantly, either, but dead as in alive when the traffic stopped around him, alive when the first responders first responded and, I guess, alive as they wheeled him into the emergency room. But he died.
It got me to thinking about other dead I’ve observed as an observer, professional or otherwise.
Not kin. Not at funerals. But just the freshly dead who I have either witnessed with my own two eyes, reporter’s notebook and pen at the ready, or that I’ve been so close to I might’ve just as well laid my eyes on them.
To the first dead of my college journalism career: I was the line editor for a reporter covering a murder trial. Middle-class teen girl killed her parents. Gruesome, for a small Okie college town.
To the first dead subject of my own personal, clinical, sanitized newspaper prose: A soldier who died when the truck he was driving overturned in a dry creek bed on Fort Chaffee, which I reported, after examining the scene, as an intern at the paper in Fort Smith, Ark.
To the two men whose big 1970s-era cars hit head on, especially the driver whose bare heel stuck through his torn sock and the torn back of his shoe from his feet having hit the firewall at a combined speed of about 150 mph.
To the two women who died in a house fire. But more to two survivors, who learned definitely that their loved ones were gone, from me, but not from reading it in the paper, but from my anguished and awkward whispering into a telephone in a neighbor’s house, where I borrowed the phone, on deadline, and they awaited official word. This was before cell phones, obviously. I had a walkie-talkie but the scene was too far outside of town for it to work. An emotional burden I still carry; I still hear the mewling that grew into to wailing .
To the elderly woman bound, gagged, raped and murdered in her house outside a tiny town, 15 miles from a small town, 60 miles from a midsize city in Texas, but out in the middle of nowhere no matter how you define it. They never caught her killer.
To the young mama and infant slashed to death in a small Oklahoma town on New Year’s Eve. I got that story because I was the first reporter found at home sober and alert early that New Year’s Day (only because my girlfriend at the time was clean and sober, in the AA sense.) Damned if I didn’t report the hell out of that horrible story. Damned if I didn’t win an award for the coverage Damn.
To the high school cheerleader raped and murdered -- tied up, drunk, shot in the back, left under a bridge on a county road -- outside another small Oklahoma town. Another one I didn’t write about myself, but served as the line editor, where you can get as intimate with the players in a story, over time, as a reporter can.
To the police officer shot and killed in the projects of midsize Texas city. First time I ever was at a crime scene that was not under control -- not the last. First time I ever found myself running to the sound of gunfire and wondering “what the hell am I doing here?” -- only time for that. Source for the only time I ever had notes, and myself, subpoenaed, by the public defender appointed for the perp. “Sorry, y’all, I don’t keep notes, just for that very reason. Oh, you want copies of my stories? They are in the public library.” I was headed from Texas to Tennessee on a Friday and stopped by the PD’s office to tell them that, to inform them that I had nothing to bring to the hearing but myself, and that all I know I had put in the story, and to tell them if they could get the sheriff’s department in whatever county Memphis is in to come get, fine, but otherwise I was hitting the road. They decided they really didn’t need me to do their work for them, after all.
To the rodeo cowboy killed by drug-addled marauding youth on a lonesome stretch of highway … to the man in the ‘70s-era Monte Carlo that I saw crash into a grove in the median of Interstate 40, fall out of the open door and stumble a few feet before collapsing (the whole highway shut down, both ways, and lots of people ran to help; I continued on, and heard on TV later than he’d died) … to the Air Force captain killed in his fine home by person or persons unknown … to the man killed little by little by little by arsenic poisoning, for an insurance settlement … to the young mother found strangled to death in a ditch a few yards from her truck, idling, with her toddler still strapped in … to the young girl run over by a drunken young man who roared down the country road and didn’t see that half the small town’s teens had gathered to drink beer and whiskey around a makeshift campfire … to … all of them and others.
But, also, to the three dead I would have gotten to know intimately this week and next had I been picked to serve on the jury of the man charged with killing them. Alas, I was not picked. More on that anon.
END
The other day, I had to scootch my truck around a wreck in The Village, a municipality of 4,000 or so smack in the middle of Oklahoma City.
It wasn’t much of a wreck, as wrecks go. But there in the middle of the street was a motorcycle on its side.
Off the street, but not very far, appeared to be some rolled-up carpet or blankets or something, which I found out later was the operator of the motorcycle. Bystanders wrapped him up in whatever they had.
I read later, in the paper, that he was dead.
Not dead as in killed instantly, either, but dead as in alive when the traffic stopped around him, alive when the first responders first responded and, I guess, alive as they wheeled him into the emergency room. But he died.
It got me to thinking about other dead I’ve observed as an observer, professional or otherwise.
Not kin. Not at funerals. But just the freshly dead who I have either witnessed with my own two eyes, reporter’s notebook and pen at the ready, or that I’ve been so close to I might’ve just as well laid my eyes on them.
To the first dead of my college journalism career: I was the line editor for a reporter covering a murder trial. Middle-class teen girl killed her parents. Gruesome, for a small Okie college town.
To the first dead subject of my own personal, clinical, sanitized newspaper prose: A soldier who died when the truck he was driving overturned in a dry creek bed on Fort Chaffee, which I reported, after examining the scene, as an intern at the paper in Fort Smith, Ark.
To the two men whose big 1970s-era cars hit head on, especially the driver whose bare heel stuck through his torn sock and the torn back of his shoe from his feet having hit the firewall at a combined speed of about 150 mph.
To the two women who died in a house fire. But more to two survivors, who learned definitely that their loved ones were gone, from me, but not from reading it in the paper, but from my anguished and awkward whispering into a telephone in a neighbor’s house, where I borrowed the phone, on deadline, and they awaited official word. This was before cell phones, obviously. I had a walkie-talkie but the scene was too far outside of town for it to work. An emotional burden I still carry; I still hear the mewling that grew into to wailing .
To the elderly woman bound, gagged, raped and murdered in her house outside a tiny town, 15 miles from a small town, 60 miles from a midsize city in Texas, but out in the middle of nowhere no matter how you define it. They never caught her killer.
To the young mama and infant slashed to death in a small Oklahoma town on New Year’s Eve. I got that story because I was the first reporter found at home sober and alert early that New Year’s Day (only because my girlfriend at the time was clean and sober, in the AA sense.) Damned if I didn’t report the hell out of that horrible story. Damned if I didn’t win an award for the coverage Damn.
To the high school cheerleader raped and murdered -- tied up, drunk, shot in the back, left under a bridge on a county road -- outside another small Oklahoma town. Another one I didn’t write about myself, but served as the line editor, where you can get as intimate with the players in a story, over time, as a reporter can.
To the police officer shot and killed in the projects of midsize Texas city. First time I ever was at a crime scene that was not under control -- not the last. First time I ever found myself running to the sound of gunfire and wondering “what the hell am I doing here?” -- only time for that. Source for the only time I ever had notes, and myself, subpoenaed, by the public defender appointed for the perp. “Sorry, y’all, I don’t keep notes, just for that very reason. Oh, you want copies of my stories? They are in the public library.” I was headed from Texas to Tennessee on a Friday and stopped by the PD’s office to tell them that, to inform them that I had nothing to bring to the hearing but myself, and that all I know I had put in the story, and to tell them if they could get the sheriff’s department in whatever county Memphis is in to come get, fine, but otherwise I was hitting the road. They decided they really didn’t need me to do their work for them, after all.
To the rodeo cowboy killed by drug-addled marauding youth on a lonesome stretch of highway … to the man in the ‘70s-era Monte Carlo that I saw crash into a grove in the median of Interstate 40, fall out of the open door and stumble a few feet before collapsing (the whole highway shut down, both ways, and lots of people ran to help; I continued on, and heard on TV later than he’d died) … to the Air Force captain killed in his fine home by person or persons unknown … to the man killed little by little by little by arsenic poisoning, for an insurance settlement … to the young mother found strangled to death in a ditch a few yards from her truck, idling, with her toddler still strapped in … to the young girl run over by a drunken young man who roared down the country road and didn’t see that half the small town’s teens had gathered to drink beer and whiskey around a makeshift campfire … to … all of them and others.
But, also, to the three dead I would have gotten to know intimately this week and next had I been picked to serve on the jury of the man charged with killing them. Alas, I was not picked. More on that anon.
END
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When I was in High School I remember reading about the English navy and how they painted the decks of the fighting ships oxygenated-blood-red in order to reduce the shock of the gore and blood when sailors were blown into a partially identifiable mess. The Brittish army and Marines wore red coats for the very same reason.
Latter on I experienced the benifit of the Olive Drab color of U.S. Army uniforms. When they are covered in blood it turns brown immediately and is less shocking.
When I was on scene at the OKC blast site ten years ago, I was stunned by the bright red blood on the white shirts and dress of the victims. It slowed me down, when I needed to react at the highest speed.
The moral ER, is to make it in a killing zone, you have to paint your soul, the color of blood, or olive drab. You can't escape your dead, you can only blend them in.
Latter on I experienced the benifit of the Olive Drab color of U.S. Army uniforms. When they are covered in blood it turns brown immediately and is less shocking.
When I was on scene at the OKC blast site ten years ago, I was stunned by the bright red blood on the white shirts and dress of the victims. It slowed me down, when I needed to react at the highest speed.
The moral ER, is to make it in a killing zone, you have to paint your soul, the color of blood, or olive drab. You can't escape your dead, you can only blend them in.
# posted by 
: 12:11 PM
: 12:11 PM
The very first major car wreck I covered, as a cub, was in Fort Smith. Jaws of Life. Nobody died, which, I found out over time, could be worse. The screams! A maom and a couple of kids. I was 10 feet away, on a sidewalk downtown. They weren't in the habit yet of stringing wide perimeters. I deal with it with a mental trick. I wore glasses then, as I do now. I pretended that the frames through which I was looking actually were a TV screen, and that I wasn't really there, 10 feet away from all that pain and blood and fear. It got me through. I drank long and hard that night. That trick -- the glasses trick -- got me through other similar experiences, back when I chased cop cars and fire trucks and ambulances for a living.
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