Something is messed up

The following post has been bubbling around in my mind for a few weeks. I have debated back and forth about even writing it down.

I was at a local thrift shop run by the Christian Associates and I bought some used books. I think I picked up four books for a dollar. They aren’t what you would call current reading material.

One of these books is “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote. I’ve never read it before. In fact, I have never read any of Capote’s books before. One of the reasons I chose “In Cold Blood” is that several people, through the years, have recommended it. There have even been a couple of people who told me that they didn’t like Capote’s writing, in general, but spoke highly of this one book.

As I read the book, it almost seemed to me that it didn’t flow well. I even commented to a friend that it had an “odd rhythm, stilted”. It even seemed a little strange that all of these people had told me I should read it. Not that it was greatly flawed, just wasn’t turning out to be the real page turner that I thought it would be.

So, one night I picked up the book. Now, I was, maybe, a little less than half way through it. I had already read the blow-by-blow account of the murders though. Anyway, I looked at the back cover where they have the little blurbs from newspapers and such. Here are a couple of them.

“Remarkable, tensely exciting, moving, superbly written ‘true account’”
- New York Times

“Capote has thrust the act of violence before the reader as if it were happening before his very eyes”
- Time

It dawned on me then, that the reason I wasn’t just captivated by this book had nothing to do with the writing. The writing is fine. The fact is, I didn’t find the story, the act of violence, all that remarkable.

Thinking back, the people that recommended this book were all adults when the event happened in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. The event, the murder of four members of the prominent Clutter family, in their home, was shocking. The story was still fresh in their minds and still shocking when the book came out a few years later in 1966.

Capote tells the details of the murders of the Clutter family and the stories of the two killers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith in a matter of fact, blunt manner. That’s what was so “tensely exciting” at the time, the facts of the case. That’s all, the details of what happened. Two men, whose only apparent motive was simple robbery, entered a house, outside of a small western Kansas town, under cover of darkness, tied up four members of a family and killed them all with a shotgun.

It was big news.

At that time, it was huge news.

Now it would not be.

If it happened right now today, it would not even be the second biggest multiple murder story in the last week.

One thing Capote writes about in “In Cold Blood” was the fact that several copycat murders happened directly after the Clutter slaying and that those were not covered or discussed with the same intensity. Also, at times, he portrays the reactions of the townspeople as being almost subdued. When the authorities brought the confessed killers to the small town jail, a large crowd had gathered during the day. There was fear that violence would erupt. But, no mob mentality developed, the crowd dispersed peacefully. Capote describes a town that seems to be in a collective state of shock. My words, not his.

I finished reading the book and started thinking about all of this before the shootings in Omaha and Colorado, by the way.

It bothered me because the story should be shocking; should be terrifying. Instead, I just felt a numbness. I can turn on the news, read a paper on a given day, almost any day it seems and find an equally horrid tale. Or worse. These are so common, the fatigue is so overwhelming, that all I can do is be numb to them; and move on. Try to move on like it didn’t happen. And, I know I’m not the only one.

Something is wrong here. Something is messed up.

If we speak about these things, we talk in hushed tones; “It’s terrible. Those poor people”. Or, it’s a rant; “They need to fry his ass, kill the bastard”. Then, try to move on like it didn’t happen. But, it did, again and again.

Something is wrong here. Something is messed up. And I don’t know the answer.

I am 43 years old and I’ve heard every theory. I’ve heard about gun control and gun free zones and “It wouldn’t have happened if there was one good citizen that had a legal gun on ‘em”. I know about psychopaths and sociopaths. I know the theories of someone being a product of their environment. I know the theory that some people are just “born evil”. I know about violence on T.V., in movies, music, video games. “We need faith”. “We need God.” “We need prayer in the schools.” The problem is organized religion. It’s the Democrats. It’s the Republicans. “Where were the parents?” Drugs, booze, O.C.D., Attention Deficit, depression, despair, displacement. I’ve heard all of that a thousand times.

Something is wrong here. Something is messed up. And I don’t know the answer. If I did, I would fix it. You don’t either. If you did, you would fix it.

All of the theories, all of the ideas, all of the ranting, all of the knowledge, all of the politics, all of the laws don’t add up to a hill of beans. ‘Cause it keeps happening. It keeps happening and we are numb. I am numb and I don’t know what to do.

Something is messed up.